The Moral Philosophy Of Virtue Ethics

The Moral Philosophy Of Virtue Ethics Virtue Ethics is a moral philosophy commonly attributed to Plato and Aristotle. The meaning of the word virtue for both was that of excellence. Although there are differences in their individual schools of thought, their outlook on morality is more or less the same. Both these philosophers came upon their understanding of ethics and morality while attempting to answer some fundamental question. For Plato, the question was, what is the good life? And for Aristotle this was, what do men fundamentally desire? In their individual attempts to answer these questions we find their theories of ethics. Plato described four cardinal virtues in his works. They were: Wisdom, Courage, Temperance and Justice, referring respectively to the following faculties of the human soul: Reason, Spirits, Appetites and justice being the correct balance of the first three, which according to him was the subservience of spirits and appetites to the faculty of reason. These virtues when properly exercised would lead to the development of an organized, well-balanced and hence virtuous individual. This well-balanced individual would be a happy person. So, Plato hypothesizes that it is a happy person who is leading a good life (hence, a good life is a happy life). He is happy because he is morally virtuous, morally virtuous because he is guided by reason and reason is knowledge. We now understand the first part of Platos theory that to be happy one must be morally virtuous. This leads to the second part of his theory that reason or that ultimate knowledge which is needed for morality comes from the Idea of Good. It is this Idea of Good which exists in the realm of Ideas, of immutable, unchanging Form which is the source and the final goal of all morality. And this Idea of Good is accessible only to the philosophers. Aristotle differs from the Platonic view over the concept of Forms and that knowledge of morality is a priori. According to him, moral principles are to be discovered through the study of mans life and his experiences and not from some obscure, formless world of ideals. In his search for the answer to what men fundamentally desire, Aristotle more or less comes to the same conclusion as Plato, which is the attainment of Eudaimonia, a term used by Aristotle and translated commonly as Happiness. As with Plato, Aristotle also believes that leading a virtuous life will lead to happiness. A virtuous life is one which is governed by reason. Reason in man has two functions. First is the use of reason (or the rational part of the soul) to control the irrational (appetitive, for e.g. emotions and vegetative, for e.g. breathing) part of the soul. The second is to use reason for the sake of deep analysis to come up with knowledge which in turn yields laws and principles to govern everyday life. He further states that virtue in man corresponds to these two functions of reason respectively: moral virtues and intellectual virtues. These moral and intellectual virtues are the mean between two vices. That is these virtues exist as the middle ground between two extremes. Moral virtues are those which based on rationality are ingrained in a man as his nature and are practiced by him out of habit. Examples of the moral virtues are courage and prudence etc. On the other hand, the intellectual virtues are those of exercising the rational part of the soul purely for the sake of reasoning, an example of which is wisdom. The former (moral virtues) are within reach of the ordinary man while the intellectual virtues fall in the domain of a few divinely blessed only. Finally, according to Aristotle it is the state of character of a person which makes him morally virtuous. This state of character is one of the three components of a mans personality. The other two being: the passions (e.g. anger or fear) and the faculties (e.g. ability to feel anger). It is the state of character which propels a man to choose between two extremes. Hence moral virtue is the state of character of a man which leads him to choose the golden mean. Let us take an example, proper pride is the mean between empty vanity and undue humility. To sum up Aristotles philosophy of ethics is that it is the character of man within which lies the power to choose. Hence it is not the act but the choice made between different forms of that act that morality is evident. NOTES William Lille, An Introduction to Ethics, (London: Methuen Co Ltd, 1971), 272. Ethel M. Albert, Theodore C. Denise and Sheldon P. Peterfreund, Great Traditions in Ethics, (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1980), 11. Ibid., 38. Lille, An Introduction, 274, 277. Ethel M. Albert and others, Great, 11. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 38. Ibid., 46. Ibid., 48. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 50.

Marijuana Use Should be Legal Essay -- Legalization of Marijuana

Marijuana Use Should be Legal The issue of the legalization of Marijuana is a never-ending battle that the country will never fully win. Marijuana should be legalized because it is a large part of the drug war, which will never come to an end. Society is in the midst of a time of anguish and skepticism of what will become of the nation. With all of the problems happening around us, the government and officials should begin to realize that the time and effort spent on battling the drug, marijuana, could be better used in other areas. One of the first issues of the legalization of marijuana is its comparison to alcohol. Since 1937, marijuana has been prohibited as a legal drug in the United States: â€Å"If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to stop Americans from using it, then it has failed, just like the other prohibition failed to make America a (dry) country† (Wikman). There have been many studies performed to try to prove that the effects of marijuana are worse than those of alcohol. Unfortunately, many of the studies found that marijuana is not as bad as many believe it to be. If one were to compare alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana, it is found that the one with the least addictive power is marijuana (Schlosser, 1994, p.41). Alcohol has the potential to cause cirrhosis and tobacco is linked to lung cancer and heart disease yet, smoking marijuana is not directly related to any life- threatening diseases (Wikman). The country’s drug problem is also hurting the prison system. Prisons are already overcrowded and by incarcerating innocent people for minor drug violations, law enforcement is adding to prison population. The population of Americans living in prison has inc... ...marijuana would give our government more money and time to invest in other problems facing our society and nation. Works Cited â€Å"Feds Begin to Bend on Medical Marijuana.† The Science of Medical Marijuana Oct.2001. 4 Oct.2001 â€Å" Grinspoon, Lester. â€Å"Marijuana, The Forbidden Medicine.† 1997: Roesch Lib., University of Dayton., Dayton, OH. 1 Oct. 2001 www.netlibrary.com â€Å"Legalization of Marijuana Long Overdue.† Oct. 2001. 9 Oct. 2001 â€Å"New, Emerging Evidence of Marijuana’s Medical Efficacy.† The Science of Medical Marijuana Oct. 2001. 4 Oct. 2001 Wikman, Eric. â€Å"Prohibition and Marijuana: History Does Repeat.† Marijuana Policy Project 1995. 2 Oct. 2001

American Jewry Order nov 3

In the United States around 1992, American Jewry came into a process of reformation directing toward a consolidation of the Council of Jewish Federations, the United Jewish Appeal, and the United Israel Appeal into the new broad-based organization that could speak in the name of American Jewry in new ways ( Elazar, http://www. jcpa. org/dje/articles3/rwjintro. htm). Travel and communications advances facilitated the increasing solidity of the Jewish race across the world.With the progress noted, more and more of its people have connections throughout the Jewish world, or at least across long distances within in it. Gradually more individual Jews, their families and communities relied upon resources in other communities, in the form of religious guidance from Israel or whether it is just for encouragement from the American Jewish experience as measures of intensifying Jewish identity. Even with the overabundance of organizations and organizational activities, a majority of the Jewry s eem to be oblivious of them.For most Jews, familiarity of their area community involvements is all they know about structured Jewish life, if that. Nevertheless, an institutional structure has developed and a network of connection more or less involving most of the existing organizations and institutions has been progressing. The Jewish people now have a superior prospect to uphold unity than it has had since the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. Up to this day, American Jewry remains the primary pioneer in the advancement of world polity.They are committed to nation-building, the development of Israel, relief and rescue of Jewish communities in need, fighting anti-semitism, representing collective Jewish interests in world affairs, mobilization of leadership and activists to undertake these and other functions, governance functions in the world Jewish polity, assuring that there are appropriate bodies for the carrying on of the functions, raising funds to cover the costs of these functions, oversight of the organizations and institutions handling the functions, developing appropriate inter-organizational relations both among the authorities that comprise the world Jewish polity and the local, countrywide, regional, and worldwide arenas (Bubis). The National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) 2000-01, a $6 million study carried out by The United Jewish Communities, is said to provide the most all-inclusive, trustworthy picture of American Jewry to date. Records show that there are 5. 2 million American Jews. This is 5 percent less than the 5. 5 million counted in the 1990 population study. There 4. 3 million American Jews attend Passover seders and light Chanukah candles.This figure also takes account of those more Jewishly devoted — families who maintain kosher homes, regularly join synagogue meetings, enrolled Jewish schools and go to at least one Jewish society. The percentage of intermarriage is growing, but at a stable rate, with 47 percent of today's Jewish newlyweds marrying non-Jews. The mean Jewish age is 42, in contrast to 35 for Americans in general, and the birthrate was 1. 8, lower than the 1. 9 rate for American women generally. The picture of American Jewry highlighted by the study is multifaceted. On the one hand, the American Jewish population is aging and shrinking, as the birthrate is falling and intermarriage is rising, and most Jews do not take on communal or religious pursuits.On the other hand, a vast majority of American Jews attend a Passover seder and celebrate Chanukah and Jewish education is booming. Jews are more affluent than Americans generally. More 33 percent of Jewish households report an annual income of $75,000 or higher, compared to just 18 percent of U. S. households. The median Jewish household income is $54,000, compared to $42,000 for Americans generally. Speaking about affluence, the world’s richest Jew is Steve Ballmer, a Detroit-born son of a Jewish mother, 43 years old, wh ose worth is an estimated $25 billion. Steve Ballmer was selected president and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp.on January 13, 2000. In his position as president and CEO, Ballmer is oversees the entire management of Microsoft. It has been said that the outside terrorization, such as pogroms, coped with by Jews over the centuries act as unifying power. Jews needed each other in order to survive in a Jew-hating world. In line with this idea, the elimination of those external threats has become a factor to assimilation. The more accepting the non-Jewish world has become of Jews, the less Jews have felt they need other Jews and the Jewish community for support and the more Jews have become open to giving up their Jewish ways in an effort to blend with the world around them.Thus, the cost of Jewish living exceeded the value of Jewish living for many 20th century American Jews. While Jewish community efforts to lower costs and increase value have attempted to tip the scales in t he other direction, combating the integration of Jews in America, the â€Å"Land of Opportunty†, has been a harsh struggle to win. In an effort to assimilate and minimize threat, the American Jewry of late has developed a system of beliefs wherein it has become a community characterized with an exclusive and normalized behavior that is attributable to a specific people and that is expressed through certain images, symbols, rituals, myths, and other kinds of stories.There developed a sense of pluralism which is defined in their context: having the conviction that more than one religion can instruct truths. To put it strongly, religious pluralism maintains that no specific religion can assert total certainty to teach absolute truth. Within the Jewish population, there is a collective history, a shared expression of prayer and study, a shared Bible and a shared set of rabbinic literature, consequently often providing for Jews of considerably diverse worldviews to nevertheless id entify some level of common ideals and purposes. Reference: 1. Bubis,Gerald B. The Costs of Jewish Involvements and barriers. http. //Judaism. about. com. 2. Elazar, Daniel E. Jerusalem Center for Public AffairsI. http://www. jcpa. org/dje/articles2/futureamerjewry. htm.

Lung Cancer A Malignant Transformation And Growth

Lung Cancer Screening Lung cancer is a malignant transformation and growth of the cells of the lung and the airway tissues. It is usually divided into two main types: Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC, 15%) and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC, 85%) with the latter further subdivided into several subtypes such as Squamous, Large Cell, and Adenocarcinoma among other rare subtypes. Each subtype has its own unique growth and spread pattern with some being more aggressive than others. Lung cancer is staged according to the American Joint Committee by the TNM system, where T stands for the size, N for nodal involvement and M for the presence of distant metastases. The knowledge of the lung cancer main types, subtypes and stage, and the presence of specific molecular and genetic signatures, help the clinician determine the treatment approaches be it surgical, radiation, chemotherapy and the combination of, in addition to the appropriate type of chemotherapy. Lung cancer has been the most common cancer in the world for several decades. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimates for 2012 was 1.8 million new cases which constituted 12.9% of the total number of new cancers diagnosed worldwide. Fifty eight percent of which occurred in the less developed regions. Lung cancer remains the most common cancer in men worldwide (1.2 million, 16.7% of the total) with the highest estimated age-adjusted incidence rates in Central and Eastern Europe (53.5 per 100,000) andShow MoreRelatedLung Cancer : A Malignant Cellular Transformation And Growth Of The Lung And The Airway Tissues3080 Words   |  13 Pages Lung cancer is a malignant cellular transformation and growth of the lung and the airway tissues. 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