The role of conscience in moral decision-making Essay Example

The role of conscience in moral decision-making Paper Conscience can be defined as something within each of us that tells us what is right and what is wrong. In Latin ’Con’ means with and ’science’ means knowledge. Therefore we should surely use our conscience when we are making decisions as we should be being told what is the right thing to do and what is wrong. This however doesn’t always seem to be the case. The problem with using your conscience is that it is not consistent. We can see this when claims have been made after someone made the wrong choice. For example at the time he was Prime minister Tony Blair took the choice to go to war with Iraq. It is widely regarded as being the wrong choice to have made and Tony Blair said in response that he was following his conscience. There are religious and secular (non-religious) views on the conscience. The religious views have been developed from biblical teaching and the divine command theory. However there is more than one interpretation about the conscience. Thomas Aquinas for example believed that people should follow their conscience totally as long as your principles are right because it is the voice of reason. On the other hand Butler argued the conscience comes form intuition. Thomas Aquinas thought that synderesis is the means of distinguishing between right and wrong. Synderesis was first used by Aristotle and is the ability of the mind to understand the first principles of moral reasoning. He noticed that people do chose the wrong choice and said that this was ‘conscientia’ which is the actual ethical judgement or decision a person makes. Aquinas said that it is important to apply your moral principles to each situation but you can still be wrong if you follow your conscience because your principles can be wrong so your conscience will be too. We will write a custom essay sample on The role of conscience in moral decision-making specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The role of conscience in moral decision-making specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The role of conscience in moral decision-making specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Conscience is reasoning used correctly to find out what God sees is good. Joseph Butler similarly to Aquinas believed that conscience could determine and judge the rightness or wrongness of different actions or thoughts. However Butler saw the conscience as being more authoritative that â€Å"magisterially exerts itself. † in such a way that it had the last say when it comes to moral decision making. Butler described a hierarchy of human nature in which the desire for food and other animal instincts are at the bottom and the conscience at the top. Self love and benevolence was above the drives and the ability to reflect was above that. Mistakes made by conscience were not seen as particularly bad to Butler as he believed that we would intuitively know what the right action to take is. However convincing yourself that a wrong action is right is more evil than the action which results from it. John Henry Newman also took Conscience from a view point and took an intuitionists approach to conscience. This meant that the mind is able to percieve abstract concepts of truths normally thought to beyond empirical evidence. He believed that we when we followed our conscience we were following some kind of divine law like a messenger from God. He believed that he could prove this when â€Å"we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies there is One to whom we are responsible. Newman also believed that the more relativist (atheist) a person is the less of a conscience they will have as they do not follow a God (an absolute unchanging moral authority). He therefore saw that our conscience will continuously change in different circumstances not making it a reliable source to make a decision on. Augustine too believed that we should take it seriously and listen to our conscience because we are hearing the word of God. Therefore Newman, Augustine and Butler take a much less rationalist view upon conscience compared to Aquinas but as all four believe that God is involved with our Conscience it is important to use it when making moral-decisions, especially if we believe in God. Due to there being Secular views on the conscience the debate over nurture or nature has risen. This is questioning whether we get our morals and our conscience before we are born or whether we develop morality as we get older. With this argument there is also the belief that we have both. For example a Secularist could hold that we are born with our natural instincts that encourage us to do good because it will encourage our survival. This would be a Darwinian approach. The same person could then argue that we also develop our morals during life that allow us to fit into society and the rules and regulations that surround it. A religious person could say the same except that we would have been given a conscience before we were born by God. Sigmund Freud was a psychiatrist that took a secular view on the conscience. He studied the human mind and its effects on the body. He also saw that human personality like Butler could be put into a hierarchy. Both Freud and Butler put drives such as sexual drives at the bottom of the triangle. However Freud then put the ‘Id’ in the space above this which represents the part of a human that is amoral (has no morality). The Id contains our wishes and instincts. Then at the top of the triangle was the ‘Ego’ which is the conscious part of a human that shows on the outside. A smaller space is taken up at the top by the ‘super-ego’ which is the set of moral controls that are given to us by outside influences. Freud explains that the super ego is often in conflict with the Id therefore our conscience, which is a construct of the mind, is shaped and influenced by our experiences. Jean Piaget a psychiatrist saw that a child’s moral development grows and the ability to reason morally depends on cognitive development. He suggested two stages which were later developed by Kohlberg. Heteronymous (other law) which a child is from the age of five to ten. The conscience is still immature and punishment is expected if a rule is broken. Autonomous (self law) is the next stage when a child reaches the age of 10 and over. At this age the child understands how rules operate in and help society, they are less dependent on moral authority Piaget down quite extensive research experiments on children by asking in which of two stories told to them the child was the naughtiest. His results showed that younger children evaluated the actions by the size of the outcome whereas the older children evaluated the stories through the intentions of the child. It is said that Piagets definition of morality is narrow. One of the reasons for this is that is becomes overly rational and disregards the function of morality in promoting human fulfilment. Kohlberg extended the stages to six and believed that the individual would have to follow them in sequence. The most important moral development occurs through social interactions. Fromm on the other hand had two approaches and didn’t think there was stages in moral development but saw that all humans are influenced by external authorities like parents, teachers and church leaders. He thought that a guilty conscience is a result of displeasing these authorities. The example of the Nazi government in Germany in the 1930’s was very successful about manipulating the conscience’s of its people to encourage them not to help the Jews. But that was his authoritarian approach and he had a humanistic approach. This was that our conscience is our real self and leads us to realise our full potential using our experiences not slavish obedience. It appears the conscience should take a large role in how we make moral decisions. However for both Secular and Religious views on the conscience we have seen that mistakes can be made. These mistakes are the products of wrong principles or bad nurturing as a child growing up or manipulations and bad influences. Therefore conscience should take a big role in making moral decisions but one should also consider the fact that they may be wrong and should compare the choice they want to make to another to see if one is greater.

Governmental Parties essays

Governmental Parties essays The Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties fought for control over the government in the early 1800s. Although these two parties had great differences, they each had many supporters. Hamilton led the Federalist Party. The wealthy people made up the majority or his party's followers, and the businessmen in the cities made up the rest. They were called Hamiltonians. These people lived mostly in the eastern part of the union. On the other hand, Jefferson was the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party. Jeffersonians, or Jefferson's followers, were the common or middle class people. A larger number of these people lived in the west, in the newly settled lands. At this point in history, the Democratic-Republican Party was better suited to govern the states. The union needed a weak central government to allow the nation to grow. The government had to be governed by the people, and with a weak central government, they could have representation in it. Local affairs in the states could be handled easier if the states had a lot of power. The people were afraid of a tyranny or a dictatorship, and felt the central government should be weakened. A strict interpretation of the Constitution was needed in order to weaken the central government. Under the Federalists' rule, the government played partisan politics. The Federalists cared only about strengthening their party. One of the Presidents of this party was Adams. He passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in order to strengthen his party. The Sedition Act said that anyone who spoke against the government could be heavily fined and imprisoned. This directly contradicted the First Amendment of the Constitution. The alien Act dealt with immigrants. It said that immigrants would have to reside in the states for fourteen years to become citizens. Once Jefferson took office, he decided to go against some of his beliefs. Since it was in the best interest of the country. H...

People, Profit and Price Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

People, Profit and Price - Essay Example Q2: What do you mean by income elasticity? Identify the symbolic form of income elasticity. Income elasticity of demand refers to the reaction of demand to change in consumers' income. In other words, it is the extent of change in demand to a change in consumers' income. Income elasticity of demand is calculated by the ratio of percentage change in demand to income (Anon., 2005, p.22). According to Anon (2005, p.22) it is represented as: Income Elasticity of Demand = In symbolic form, eY=  Where eY =Income elasticity of demand; Y =income of consumer, Q=quantity demand, Y=proportionate change in income Q: 3 what is mean by production function? What is the use of production function in production analysis? The production function refers to a technological relationship between input and output (Anon., 2005, p.50).It indicates the output of a business, industry, or economy for the input. When it comes to the use of production function in production analysis, assume a firm that uses N amount of inputs, such as, machinery, labor, and materials, for producing a single output. Production function (q=f(x)) is used to summarize the technological possibilities of that firm. Here, q represents the output and x=(x1, x2†¦xn)' is an N?1 vector of inputs (Coelli, Prasada, Christopher and George, 2005, p.12). Q: 4 what are the characteristic features of free market economics? How are the central problems of resource allocation solved in such economic? Characteristics of free market economy include: consumers, producers, private owners, and government are primary actors, three actors (consumer, producer, property owners) are driven by self-interest while government is driven by social welfare, all factors of production are the property of private owners, owners have the right to buy and sell through market mechanism, competition exists when there is freedom to allocate resources. Decision making is decentralized since individual economic actors are free to allocate th eir resources. Resource allocation is defined by individual economic agents. Economic actors pursue their interest but resource allocation is in interest of society (Anderton, 2006, p.22). Q: 5 explain the term â€Å"economic costs†? How do these differ from accounting costs? Use examples to illustrate your answer The economic cost (EC) is greater than the accounting cost (AC) because EC includes both explicit accounting cost and implicit cost which is the value of owner's personal resources.EC incorporates implicit costs that could have been gained when same resources are invested somewhere else. If a couple decides to invest $100,000 on building for opening a restaurant. Implicit costs would be 3 percent or $3,000 or the money earned from some other investment. It is because of different rate of return in mutual funds (9 percent) and capital investment (6 percent) on $100,000(Musgrave and Elia, 2001). Task: 2 Explain the causes of market failure. Should market failure alway s invite government intervention? Discuss the different ways in which government intervene in the market. Give example in support of your answer? Introduction "Market failure is a blanket term used by economists to describe situations in which markets might not work and/or markets might

Tweeter Home Entertainment Group Research Paper - 1

Tweeter Home Entertainment Group - Research Paper Example Empowerment comes in different forms, including financial and non-financial incentives for employees, among others.   DeHoratius Nicole and Raman Ananth conducted this case study on Tweeter Home Entertainment Group in the year 2007. These authors mainly focused on the influence store managers have on the sales of this company, with regard to incentive programs provided by the company to these managers. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group was a company located in New England. This was a retail company with various stores. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group specialized in the sale of different electronic products. These included audio electronic products, video electronic products, as well as electronic accessories such as camcorders. Most customers of this company were the high-income earners in society, who were the well-educated and prioritized quality of products (DeHoratius & Raman, 2007). The store managers in this company played an integral role. These were mainly tasked with ensuring that the company sales increase and the shrinkage level reduces. The store managers, therefore, employed various tactics in ensuring that they achieved this. These included consumer education and product promotion, as well as monitoring of financial issues and deviant consumer behaviors such as shoplifting in the company in order to keep an eye on shrinkage. Generally, store managers in this company were charged with many tasks, which required dedication and motivation for effective performance (DeHoratius & Raman, 2007).  Nonetheless, Tweeter Home Entertainment Group realized the importance of employee motivation, and therefore, provided different incentives to the store managers for their efforts. Store managers in Tweeter were allowed a low penalty on shrinkage, and rewarded differently for the sales they made, depending on their total sales.  

Hot and Cold Essay Example for Free

Hot and Cold Essay Since time immemorial, Indians have been bombarded with snacks-to-go by street vendors; fastfood is neither a modern phenomenon, nor a western innovation. But as increasing numbers of international players enter the domestic market, there are bitter lessons to learn about what local consumers will and will not welcome. just-food.coms Debasish Ganguly reports from India on the evolving sector and the challenges facing new entrants into the fastfood market. Fastfood is not an alien concept to Indians; roadside shops have offered snacks-to-go since time immemorial and the country has a long tradition of indigenous fastfood served by a variety of street vendors. Whether the southern Dosas or the Phulkas in the north, the Vada, Samosas or Bhelpuri, this inexpensive cuisine is still going strong, and street selling is a low-cost method of food distribution. However, since the arrival of established fastfood chains such as McDonalds, marketing savvy and dollar power have given fastfood a very western orientation. The weekend stampedes outside any McDonalds restaurant are standing testimony to this fact. But the burger behemoths still have a long way to go. Local fastfood is not easily undermined by these interlopers, since methods of mass production have not been perfected and, in any case, they would have to compete with low cost artisan production. On the other hand, the reality is that established local fastfood chains, like Nirulas, Wimpys or Haldiram, are sensing competition by the growing popularity of McDonalds and other international chains. Though Nirulas does not admit to any drop in sales overtly, industry sources reveal that they have lost 18% of their original market share. So far, the fastfood chains have gained their popularity among the major metropolitan cities of India and some smaller cities, such as Pune or Baroda. Before the arrival of these fastfood chains, Nirulas was the market leaderin Delhi. In fact, Nirulas taught Delhi-dwellers what pizzas and burgers were all about. Nirulas was commanding a monopoly until western chains arrived in India.

lamb Essay -- essays research papers

The lamb is a symbol of innocence, ignorance, purity, and self justification. In William Blake’s poem The Lamb, children are biblically innocent and the speaker contrast himself to the higher divinity. In this interpretation of children the speaker may possibly be trying to use ignorance as an excuse for sin in his life. The lamb’s natural gifts are clearly envied by the speaker, the gifts being food, shelter, and happiness. William Blake may have used this scene of fertile valleys to allow the reader to also feel the envy towards the lamb’s peaceful existence. â€Å"The lamb by no fault of its own is prosecuted by speaker, later to be found incoherent with his own tortures and suffrages†(Paananem 40).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  William Blake used direct dictation through his poem, â€Å"The Lamb†, in distributing his theorem, which we, humans, seek to find peace within our selves only after reestablishing our identity with something pure. Humans are biblically damned to eternal unhappiness, the past was the beginning of future’s pain. The biblical reference to Adam and Eve is subtle but clear enough with the envy portrayed by the speaker towards the lamb. The eternal suffering will not cease until humans take acknowledgment of their own faults and own sins. The speaker is seeking answers to his questions, about how the lamb gained such natural innocence here. There are no clear answers to any of the speaker’s questions throughout the poem, causing the readers to stir within themse...

Mexico City Speech

Good morning sir and class today I'm going to talk to you about an ancient city that has grown to become the 10th largest cityà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ and the 2nd largest urban agglomeration in the worldà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ this city is Mexico City. Click Mexico City is the capital of Mexico and is the country's centre for politics, higher education, industry, culture and transportation. It's tremendous population and rapid growth has also brought about some of the worst urban problems in the world. Click. Mexico City pretty much lies in the centre of Mexico about halfway between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean Click. A place like Mexico City would have been quite an ideal place to build a city as it was built on an area that was once a lake, which means a lot of access to water and fertile soil for agriculture which fed its inhabitants and the terrain was fairly flat. Mexico City is in the middle of a valley surrounded by large mountains much like a bowl (make description of city as a bowl). The city is located at a very high altitude of 2240 metres, to give you an idea of how high that is Canberra is only about 500m above sea level. Mexico cities high altitude accounts for the cool, dry climate Click that the city experiences. As we can see from the chart the rainy season lasts from May to October. The history of Mexico City is as vast as the city itself. The area where Mexico city is located was first called tay-nock-tee-lahn, which was the capital of the Aztec empire in 1440, the Aztec empire was conquered in the 1500's by the Spanish and gained independence in 1821,when it was named Mexico city and has served as the country's capital ever since. Click from this historical map of Mexico city in 1628 we can see the surrounding lakes which have today been drained, evenly spaced agriculture surrounding the city which had good access to the lakes for water, there's a main road running from the farms to the city to get food in quickly. Mexico City always had a small population which grew slowly but it wasn't until the latter part of the nineteenth century that Mexico City modernized rapidly. Migration was more important than natural increase in fuelling the population growth in Mexico City. The urban agglomeration of Mexico City had gone from a population of Click 1.6 million in 1940, 5.4 million in 1960, 13.9 million in 1980, and about 15.6 million in 1995. The city's population has doubled about every 15 years since the early 20th century, when its population was less than one million. To a large extent, this extraordinary rate of growth is due to the centralising policies of the federal government, which favoured urban over rural development. The federal government concentrated industrial production, wealth and services in Mexico City. The city, therefore, had access to electricity, water and drainage facilities, and was the focus of major infrastructural investments such as roads and public transportation. In turn, this centralisation led to an intense concentration of population. People were drawn to the capital for employment opportunities and to improve their qual ity of life, as it provided services such as education, health, potable water, and sewerage that were not available in rural areas. Economy Mexico City dominates the whole country's economy. The Federal District of Mexico City produces a significant portion of the total gross domestic product of the country. The city is the centre of manufacturing, and contains about 45 percent of the nation's industrial production. Exports include textiles, chemicals,click pharmaceuticals, electronic items, steel, and transportation equipment, most of the cities trade is done with the U.S. The city is also important in Mexico's banking and finance industries and home to the reserve bank and the stock exchange click. The concentration of economic activity in the city attracted people from rural areas in search of employment. People moved to the city faster than new jobs were created. The city is the centre for Mexico's commercial activity and is a major tourist area. Agriculture, mining, and trade dominated Mexico City's economy for the most part of its history especially agriculture. Bu an industrial economy began to take root in the early 1900s and the population began to flourish. Cultural Being one of the oldest cities in the Americas, Mexico City contains thousands of years of cultural achievement. Mexico City dominates the country's cultural life with numbers of universities, museums, and cultural institutions that are not seen in other Mexican cities. One-third of Mexico's institutions of higher learning are located in the capital, the largest being the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Its rapid rise in enrollment, from 40,000 in 1960 to 135,000 in the mid-1990s, reflects both the increase in the city's population and the rising aspirations of Mexicans. The Historic Centre of the city lies in the heart of the downtown area surrounding the Zà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½calo click, which is the second largest plaza in the world, surpassed only by Red Square in Moscow. A rather overwhelming public space, the Zà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½calo is the scene of major public ceremonies and military displays. Talk while reffering to pic Overlooking the Zà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½calo to the north is the Cathedral Metropolitana. It is the largest cathedral in North America. The Palacio Nacional which once housed the president is located on the east side of the Zà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½calo. The zocolo was built at the beginning of the city Click point out historic map and zocolo. There's the Zocolo in the middle where people would have accumulated to trade goods. Whilst the number of parks in the city is quite sparse it does contain the countries largest park, Chapultepec click which is 2000 acres of woods, lakes, hiking trails, playgrounds, amusement parks, a zoo and excellent museums. Museums are a trademark of Mexico City and some famous ones include Mexico's Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of Anthropology. In total, the city actually has around 160 museums, over 100 art galleries, and some 30 concert halls. Sport is a significant part of Mexican culture and most of Mexico's major sporting events are staged in Mexico City. Click Mexico City is the place to go to see Mexico's most popular sport soccer, bullfighting, baseball, boxing and horse racing. The city has one of the largest stadiums in the world which seat 130,000 people and was the host of the 1968 Olympics. Mexico is the only city in Mexico where you are likely to see big name bands touring, theatre productions and opera. The city is home to many festivals including the principal religious festival which is the holy day of guadelpe the patron saint, the festival basically brings the hustle and bustle of this city to a short halt with many shops closing click. City Of Inequality Every day, hundreds of people flock to Mexico City in search of a better life – many getting no further than the growing shanty-towns that ring the outskirts click. These stand in harsh contrast to the stylish, modern offices click and apartment blocks located in prestigious parts of the city. The major condition dividing the city's population is wealth. Mexico City is a city of sharp social contrasts. It plays host to the poverty of many of its inhabitants, but also to the luxury and refinement of others. Wealthy residential sections are characterized by housing and suburban retail centres that rival the most luxurious in the world. These neighbourhoods are often in sharp disparity to the poorer sections click, where housing is substandard, access to basic services such as water, electricity, drainage, and paved streets is limited, and the standard of living is well below the poverty level. Almost half of housing in Mexico City consists of self help structures, which are communities built illegally on government owned land, much like favelas but the occupants improve he look of the house. These structures are open to wind rain and have no access to water, garbage disposal, electricity and minimal healthcare facilities. Healthcare rates are just too expensive for the poor to pay for. People moved to the city faster than new jobs were created. Many of these new residents were unskilled workers. They were unable to find employment in the city, contributing to problems of unemployment. With no legitimate way of earning money, the poor have had to take drastic measures. Unfortunately, this growing level of poverty and rapid growth has resulted in major urban problems, including crime, poor housing, some of the worst pollution in the world, poor sanitation and terrible traffic. The crime in Mexico city click is among the worst in the world. Over 3,000 kidnappings were reported in 2003, ranking as the second highest in the world. The rich have resorted to hiring bodyguards. The black market for example is a very large illegal operation contributing to the crime crisis giving many people options for obtaining illegal items, you buy anything on the black market from drugs to bombs and there's been instances where people like tourists have gone to a bar in Mexico city, got absolutely wasted, passed out and have woken up the next morning to find that they are missing one of their kidneys. Criminals have surgically removed the kidney and it's more than likely for sale on the black market. Traffic The traffic in Mexico city is the worst in the world click, each day 5 million vehicles can be seen clogging the small road networks of Mexico city, Therefore vehicles are the main contributor the cities largest environmental problem air pollution Click. From the graph we can see that transportation makes up about 3 quarters of total emissions. The air pollution in Mexico City is the worst in the word. The fact that the city is situated in a basin makes the air pollution even worst, because the air that has accumulated is kept in the area because it's like a bowl click this photo shows that pollution is held in by the surrounding mountains which stops winds from coming in and blowing the pollution away. The effects that pollution would have on the citizens of Mexico City is quite devastating click, here I've made a diagram showing the various effects that are brought about by such terrible pollution. Talk about diagram Air pollution may be the worst of Mexico cities pollution but other forms of pollution also affect Mexico city Water pollution in Mexico city is quite terrible Click in the rivers of Mexico city you a likely to find waste, drugs and even the odd dead body. The amount Click of light released by the millions of citizens of Mexico City creates terrible light pollution which leaves the city in a yellow haze. In conclusion Mexico may not be one of the most glamorous cities since it contains some of the worst urban problems in the world, but this secondary city is the most important in Mexico, its nearly Six times larger than any other Mexican City, Mexico city dominates the economic, cultural and political life of Mexico. This combined with Mexico cities vast history has thus given it a unique identity.