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Morality and ethical decisions
Morality and moral decisions
Morality and moral decisions
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Most people do not know the limits of their actions, until they are faced with an injustice. Actions taken by one person may well be different from those of another. Human reactions are as unique as individuals themselves. Why do some people take matters of revenge or injustice into their own hands while others are content to let justice take its course? An individual’s morals, background, the reward at stake, and how personal the situation may be, all contribute to how far a person is willing to go to right a wrong. Where is the line drawn? Are there limits that a person would self-impose to right a wrong?
A person’s background and financial resources can have a huge impact on their actions. The average man is probably not as capable as a CIA agent simply because he doesn’t have the training or experience as an agent. He may not have had a career to prepare him for what is required to take matters into his own hands. In the movie Taken, “a retired CIA agent (Bryan Mills) had a daughter that was kidnapped by a crime-ring leading him to torture and/or kill anyone who had information on his daughter’s whereabouts” (Taken Pierre Morel). Mills had training and experience in extreme investigation tactics in order to get what he wanted. This allowed him to personally seek justice instead of relying on law enforcement. In Edward Dolnick’s book, the Rescue Artist, Scotland Yard’s Charley Hill was assigned to recover the painting, The Scream, that had been stolen from a Norwegian museum. From an early age, Hill spent his life preparing himself for a career in law enforcement. He fought in the Vietnam War and chose to become a paratrooper, wanting to get in the head of risk takers. The criminals he would one day hunt and capture were r...
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...ay act on impulse, wanting to eliminate anything or anyone that stands in the way of their goal. “The Rutgers’ basketball coach, Mike Rice was caught on video punching his players and throwing balls, at point blank range, at his players. He also called them inappropriate names if they made the slightest mistake during practice” (Mike Rice’s Ire pg. 1). Other times, as in the movie Taken, “Mills knew the difference between right and wrong but would let nothing stand in his way to protect a loved one” (Taken Pierre Morel).
Background, morals, reward, and how personal the wrong is all influence to what lengths a person will go to right a wrong. Whether a person would allow law enforcement to handle a situation or take matters into their own hands depends on the person. Many factors are at play when a person faces a life-changing situation created by a wrongful act.
Often, a person is seen as the embodiment of the value of their action, thus a person can be seen as “good” or “bad,” and the consequences of justice that affect them are based on the general value of their general actions. The value given to actions is based on a soc...
Sommers, Tamler. "The Two Faces Of Revenge: Moral Responsibility And The Culture Of Honor." Biology & Philosophy 24.1 (2009): 35-50. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
Evil exists naturally in the world, and there are many acts that are considered evil. As a result, evil is often a theme in literature. “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” by William Shakespeare, and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe each rely heavily on evil to portray a message. Out of all of the evil acts that exist, exacting revenge is the evilest act that a person can make, for a person’s rash decision to exact revenge will ruin their sense of morality. The characters of Hamlet and Laertes in “Hamlet” each commit terrible acts of revenge, as does Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado.”
A man is running late to work one day when he passes by a homeless person asking for help. This man and many others usually consider this particular man to be generous, but since he is late, he ignores the homeless person and continues on his way. One can assume that if he had the time, he would have helped. Does that matter, though, seeing as in that situation, he did not in fact help? Scenarios like this supports Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett’s idea that it is the situation that influences a person’s behavior, not he or she’s individual conscience. Although a person’s individual conscience could play a part in how one behaves in a given scenario, ultimately, the “situational variable” has more impact on the actions of the person than he or she’s morals.
For the meek, vengeance pleasures the soul; however, it is only temporal. Like an addictive drug, revenge soothes anger and tension by sedating the mind with ephemeral comfort. Despite the initial relief, pain ensues and conditions seem worse than before. Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the non-violence movement in India, stated once that “an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” There is no such thing as a sweet revenge.
...and “shame”. Being able to develop this values will build a character strong enough to control your temper in hard, circumstantial situations, and what’s even more important, itll guide you through the correct path between choosing whats best vs. what’s the right thing to do.
As citizens of Earth, we are required to live by certain rules designated to maintain order through out society, but we know them as laws. With such a complex idea there has to be a companionship by which officials dictate who breaks these rules and how they are punished. Thus the justice system was born. The concept of justice is a byproduct of the system but is just as important. Individuals must know and understand judgment to know whether or not justice is being served. These ideas coincide so profoundly that you need both to make sound decisions. The novels Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky examine the individual’s responsibility to the justice system and how it affects the group as a whole. Through the fates of Lurie and Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky and Coetzee make self-policing the most important factor in societal justice.
A society that is ruled by liberty contains morals, morals that come with rights that must be respected in order to preserve integrity. In his article “A Right to do Wrong”, Ethics, vol. 92 (1981), pp. 21-39, Jeremy Waldron argues that if people in a society take moral rights seriously they must accept an individuals “right to do wrong” from a moral perspective. Having a choice to do wrong from a moral point of view creates diversity in a society which lead’s to development in the society as a whole. Waldron offers a paradox to explain his position on individuals having a moral right to act in ways that might be seen as wrong from a moral point of view. I will explain and outline Jeremy Waldron’s position on the idea of individuals having the moral right to do wrong, and I will also evaluate Jeremy Waldron’s position and demonstrate if there is really such a moral right using my views that will be enhanced by John Stewart Mill views.
With the field of philosophy, the concept of "desert" suggests the status of deserving a particular response based upon prior action. The term is often invoked within conversations dealing with blame and justice. However, philosophers disagree on whether desert justifies responsive behaviors such as punishment or revenge. This debate is particularly significantly within the context of a legal system that purports to punish criminals in a manner that is consistent with their crimes.
Norms of Revenge. 4. Blackwell Publisher, 1990. 862. eBook. . Bar-elli, G. and Heyd, D. (1986), Can revenge be just or otherwise justified?.
Last but not least, injustice does not provide the most good for the most number of people. Just acts spawn other just acts just like unjust acts spawn other unjust acts. If everyone behaved unjustly, mankind would return to a state of nature (everyone is for themselves) which would be very unprofitable for the unjust individual due to a decreased likelihood of survival. An action is clearly unprofitable for the unjust individual if it would eventually create a hostile environment for him. Hence, one should set an example for others by living a just life which would create a better environment for him as well as for others.
...lity that the victim may actually be partly to blame for the crime that was committed against them. Therefore it is often the environment that the criminal lives in, and the people that around them that influence them into committing a criminal act.
Criminals come from all walks of life. Some are wealthy business owners while others are poverty-stricken and homeless. Some are 60 years old while others are 16. What makes people decide to become a criminal? Why does one person who gets arrested and faces punishment learn from the mistake and does nothing illegal again while others become prison regulars? Criminological theory seeks to answer these questions in an effort to mold societal influence and implement programs to deter people from committing crimes. One such theory is the classical theory. Even though some believe that crime is based mainly on social influencers like in the differential association theory, the classical theory is more accurate because it suggests that each person makes the choice to commit a crime based on risk versus reward and because most intentional criminal acts pay some sort of benefit, rarely are they seen as not profitable.
Crimes results from the inability to achieve monetary success of others positively valued goals through legitimate channels (Agnew and Collen, 2003,p.208). The process one that is difficult to identify and define, but it is also one that allows easily for the insertion of concepts of justice to make us clear on what street justice actually is, conflict and adaptation theory. Conflict and adaptation theory extends our understandings of the relationship between strain and street relationship. Locke argues that state of nature enforce each individual possesses the right to enforce the law of nature, that is the right to pursue punishment of those who harm his or her own life, liberty, or property. Also Hobbes, on the other hand,portrays a less ordered vision of retribution in the natural state, suggestions that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in owe, they are in that condition which is called war. Both social strain and conflict theory relates to social control, which in turn relates directly to notion of justice both in dominant culture and street culture. It is very important to view street justice from social control and social solidarity
People can be motivated to take revenge on others for various reasons. While these reasons may be considered as very serious or rather trivial, they are all motives for revenge. Revenge occurs when a person has been offended or angered by an individual and in result they have the desire to pay them back. People’s opinions on revenge differ from each other, some may believe it is justified and some don’t. Mahatma Ghandi believed that revenge is not the answer and he stated that “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. This quote portrays the opinion that if everyone gets even then there will be no one else; if we all take an eye for an eye everyone would be blind. Revenge can be learnt through real life experiences as well as fiction and can be shown as justice or unacceptable. It becomes difficult to determine when revenge can be justified but is revenge always worth it?