Kantian ethics Essay Example for Free

Kantian ethics Essay Kant argued for the use of a normative ethical theory based around the idea that all men have a similar common goal; his theory was absolute (meaning one must follow a common set of rules no matter the scenario) and deontological (focused on actions themselves rather than the outcome of said actions). Kant advised the use of this theory despite it being a priori, meaning he had no observations or experience of the theory in practice. Kant believed that all men have duties which they ought to fulfil, not to gain a desired outcome or avoid a less desirable outcome, but simply because it is their duty. For example, if we can assume it is always wrong to kill people, it would be considered immoral to kill someone even if that action saved the lives of hundreds of people. Similarly, if you consider a foetus to be ‘alive’ then it would be immoral to terminate it no matter the affect it would have on the mother’s physical or mental health. Nearly everyone would find fault in the former, notably fewer for the latter, yet I would hope that the majority would still disagree. David Gauthier suggested that as morality is an agreed concept, designed so that people cannot run amok doing as they please with no consideration for others, an absolutist theory cannot function as rules are subject to interpretation. Let us briefly consider the foetus example once more, if the rule states that it is immoral to take a life, what should be considered a life? Does life start at conception or at birth, or maybe somewhere in between. For this reason, though an absolute theory should be applied to every situation, the rules do not necessarily mean the same thing for every single person. Kant said that in order to create a duty one had to pass it through three tests, the first of which being the law of nature. This law states that in order for something to become a duty it must be capable of being universalised, so everyone must be able to follow said duty ad infinitum. So, for example: ‘jump the queue’ could not become a duty as if everyone jumped the queue there would be no queue to jump. Though this seems sensible, it is possible that immoral acts could be universalised. For example ‘lie to people’ could be universalised even though it is a traditionally immoral act. Not only that but the rule could easily be manipulated by phrasing things differently, for instance ‘everyone called Hector Benjamin Stellyes can jump the queue’ could be universalised as it would most likely only apply to me. To counteract these faults Kant put in place a second law, the law of wills. This stated that for something to become a duty it must be desirable for the population. This rule however, also has faults. In order for a rule to satisfy an entire population (and if this theory was applied worldwide that would be nearly 7.5 billion at the time of writing) it would have to be extremely broad, leaving it open to being interpreted in drastically different ways. If the rule said that one simply had to please the majority, what happens to those who disagree? As all duties are absolute and universal, one would have to do something they disagreed with in order to be moral citizens. Kant attempts to rebuttal this with his argument that all humans still have free will, even though they should follow their duty they don’t have to; humans remain autonomous. However, some would suggest that though humans are nearly always capable of independent thought, it is human nature to be moral. A psychological study by Yale in 2013 on a number of babies that were as of yet unaffected by modern culture (they couldn’t read, speak etc.) making them almost purely instinctual showed that it is human nature to be ‘good’. If society tells you that there are a set list of moral acts, most people will conform to these acts to the best of their ability. So far, we have a set of rules and how this set of rules are constructed, so now I ask: why should anyone follow this philosophy? If we should not consider consequences when doing our duty, what reason do we have to do so? Kant believed there to be two separate reasons to perform any action: the hypothetical imperative and the categorical imperative.

Heathen and Christian Elements in the Wanderer Essay -- Wanderer

Heathen and Christian Elements in the Wanderer      Ã‚  Ã‚   The modern word 'weird' bears only a superficial resemblance to its etymological descendent, wyrd.   What now stands for 'strange' and 'queer' only has an archaic connection to its classical meaning of 'Fate'.   During the process of evolution, however, the word went through many phases, especially during the formation of the English language by the Anglo-Saxons.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Wyrd appears fairly often in Old English poetry and prose, indicating a certain importance in Germanic society.   By following the changes the word undergoes, it is also possible to follow some of the changes that the culture undergoes as well.   A fine example of Old English poetry that employs wyrd on four separate occasions - with four separate meanings - is The Wanderer.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What began as a word firmly rooted in what can only be termed 'heathen' culture eventually began to take on much more religious overtones.   The word wyrd, though originally pagan in meaning, had found an entirely Christian colouring by the time of its use in The Wanderer.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Before beginning an analysis of a single word that appears four times in this poem, it is important to establish a few assumptions about the nature of the piece itself.   Many an article and essay have been written about The Wanderer, trying to define its theme, genre, even its narrator.   Yet the wonderfully ambiguous nature of the poem defies any single explanation, so it remains up to the critical reader to develop his own opinion.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   For the purpose of this paper, it is believed that The Wanderer is, in essence, a heathen/pagan poem, rooted firmly in the Germanic culture from whence it hails.   H... ...y Exile of the   Ã‚  Ã‚   Wanderer."   Neophilologus 73 (1989): 119-129.    Dunning, T.P., and A.J.Bliss, eds.   The Wanderer.   London: Methuen   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   & Co, 1969    Lochrie, Karma.   "Wyrd and the Limits of Human Understanding: a    Thematic Sequence in the Exeter Book."   JEPG 85 (1986): 323-331    Timmer, B.J.   "Wyrd in Anglo-Saxon Prose and Poetry."     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Neophilologus 26 (1941): 213-128.    Timmer, B.J.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   "Heathen and Christian Elements in Old English Poetry."   Neophilologus 29 (1944): 180-185.      Ã‚  Ã‚   1Due to the lack of punctuation in The Wanderer, it is nigh impossible to know who is narrating, or to whom he/she is referring to at any given time.   Ã‚  Ã‚   2The actual meaning of "sundor à ¦t rune" remains ambiguous.   Though "apart in meditation" seems the most likely, interpretations such as "reading runes" have been put forward.

Aurora Borealis Essay

The Aurora Borealis is a beautiful display of lights created by nature that appear in the night sky. â€Å"Aurora Borealis†, the Latin name of the aurora of the northern hemisphere, means the red dawn of the north. The name comes from the famous Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who, among other things, studied the lights around the year 1600. In Rome, were Galileo was living, the red color dominates, but the most common color is actually greenish-yellow, which I will cover later in the presentation. The Vikings in the year 700-1000 called it simply â€Å"northern lights,† and in early England they called it â€Å"The Merry Dancers† referring to the way the aurora moves. Originating in the atmosphere high above the surface of the earth, the northern lights can be seen during dark hours in the polar regions of the northern hemisphere. There are similar lights that appear in the southern hemisphere. The southern lights and northern lights are identical phenomenons. When you have a northern lights display, you will also have an equally large southern lights display. The only reason we don’t hear about southern lights much is that there aren’t much settlements in Antarctica. Southern lights occur around the geomagnetic South Pole. The scientific name for southern lights is Aurora Australis. The amazing occurrence of the aurora actually starts high above the earth’s atmosphere. The sun emits a continuous stream of ionized gas during its solar flares. This gas consists of electrons, protons and helium nuclei. The stream of gasses leaving the sun is known as the solar wind. As the solar wind approaches Earth, the particles are influenced by the Earth’s magnetic field and are guided toward oval zones around the magnetic poles. The solar wind particles then collide with air molecules in the upper atmosphere. The collisions impart energy to air molecules, primarily oxygen and nitrogen, and cause them to emit light, called the aurora. The display of lights occurs only above altitudes of 80 kilometers and occasionally above 500 kilometers. The average altitude is between 110 and  200 kilometers. Due to the nature of our magnetic field, the aurora can only been seen in certain parts of the sky. The northern lights exist in an oval shaped area called the aurora oval, and this oval rotates with its center in the geomagnetic north pole. The size of this oval varies on an hourly basis with the amount of incoming solar particles. The best observation sites of the aurora borealis are underneath the oval where there is the most geomagnetic activity. Geomagnetic energy is measured in Kp index, which is a scale from 0 to 9. A high Kp indicates a higher chance of auroral activity. One usually needs a Kp of around 3 to be capable to witness an aurora. The oval usually occurs over northern parts of the Nordic countries, including all of Greenland and Svalbard, northern parts of Alaska, Canada and Russia. Here one may observe northern lights 90% of the time, which is almost every clear dark night. Though auroras occur all day, the day-side aurora has much weaker light than the night-side auroras. Strong daylight also outshines the day-side aurora, so you will have to observe the aurora during night- usually in the hours around midnight. Further down south observation time decreases rapidly as one reaches the outskirts of the aurora oval. Though the oval usually stays high in the Northern Hemisphere it does have capabilities to reach parts of the southern United States. On November 6th, 2001, it reached down to Texas, and once every 200th year it goes all the way down to the equator. After years of recording the aurora, one has discovered that February, March and October enjoys a little bit more â€Å"aurora time† than other months, although this doesn’t mean spectacular displays won’t occur during other months. Auroras are more frequent late autumn and early spring. Brilliant auroras often occur at 27-day intervals as active areas on the Sun’s surface face Earth during its 27-day rotation cycle. Also, the sun has an eleven year sun spot cycle. Every eleventh year the number of spots peak and the number of solar particles thrown out into space increases dramatically. Aurora activity remains high one to two years after this event, which is called Solar Maximum. We had solar maximum around new year, 2001, and the next is expected to occur around 2011 or 2012. These lights come in a variation of colors. The Sun radiates all visible  colors, which is why sunlight appears white. The spectrum of visible light associated with the aurora is much narrower. The aurora is caused by particles of the solar wind colliding with atmospheric atoms and ions. The atmosphere consists mainly of nitrogen and oxygen, which when hit, emits characteristic colors. The colors that these gasses emit are green, red, bluish, and yellow. There are also seven differentiations in the shape that the auroras will take: Homogeneous arc, arc with ray structure, homogeneous band, band with ray structure, curtains, rays, and corona. These different shapes and colors form one of the earths greatest phenomenon’s that to this day continue to boggle the mind of scientists and everyday society. In the early 20th century, auroral research focused on light emission, altitude, distribution and color. Today, scientists strive to understand the processes that produce the various forms of the northern lights and attempt to explain their changes in time and space. Scientists are especially interested in the effects of solar activity on the Earth’s near-space. General interest in possible global climatic change has increased in recent decades. Because atmospheric conditions in the altitudes of the aurora appear to have a long-term effect on weather, auroral research has received heightened attention.

Impact of Technologies on Teenagers - 1700 Words

The Impact of Technologies on Teenagers An Assignment Submitted by Name of Student Name of Establishment Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Spring 2013 Nowadays, information technologies play a significant role in the modern world. Information technologies have a long history. Some technologies were created a few years ago, while some technologies are comparatively new. Technologies have penetrated all spheres of human activities: education, politics, trade, medicine, and this list can be prolonged. Television and phones are considered to be the primary technologies which appeared in the life of human beings. New technologies were produces in great amounts. Nonetheless, people used those technologies to simplify the process of†¦show more content†¦Television has produced a huge impact on teenagers and some teenagers have become addicted it. Previously, teenagers were fond of going for a walk with their friends, they were fond of going to the cinemas and theatres, and they were fond of spending a nice day out-of-doors. However, with the appearance of television, all the aforementioned activities became archaic. Teenagers are absorbed by television: food is left uneaten; homework is undone; household activities are left unnoticed, and this list can be prolonged. Teenagers become passive enjoyers of their life. Television contributes to the blockage of critical and analytical thinking. Teenagers accept the information which is presented on television for granted. More than that, television defines people’s way of life and standards of living. People follow the images and ideas which are presented on television unconsciously and implement them in practice later on. R. S. Parker emphasized that television makes all people similar. 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