Nagel, however, emphasized the value of life, even if the “bad elements” in life outweighed the good ones. While Socrates saw death as an opportunity for greater satisfaction after life, or at least a sleep that would be better than the bad things in life, Nagel viewed death as the end of opportunities to enjoy life. Socrates called death a “blessing,” claiming that it was either something good or nothing, and he explained that compared to bad things people experience in life, nothing is actually a good thing. On the one hand, he said, “If (death) is a complete lack of perception…then death would be a great advantage. If one had to pick out that night during which a man slept soundly and did not dream…(he) would find them easy to count compared to the other days and nights.” This idea of a “dreamless sleep,” as Socrates called it, is somewhat difficult to understand, but by comparing it to the bad days people have during the course of life, he made the case that an eternity spent in nothingness would feel more like a single night, instead of the daily grind and restless sleeps that come with living.
Assisted suicide should be legal because it is less expensive, it takes the pain away, and everyone should get a choice in what they do. Is a life in pain, really a life? Assisted suicide needs to be done, if a person is suffering; why not help ease it away? It is also an obligation to relieve our fellow human beings suffering and by doing so it will respect the dignity of others. Suffering can not always be ended by giving a patient several medications it is just no the way of life.
Diamond doesn't necessarily disagree with agriculture, but simply has an opinion that the human race was better off before its introduction. “It's a life [hunting and gathering] that philosophers have traditionally regarded as nasty, brutish and short” (Diamond 1987). The author uses the 'Naysayer' approach to critique his response and counters with an argument on human survival. “It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal and work
Schulman and Thoreau's ideas of self-government can still be applied today, because it teaches the valuable lesson that it is always greater to abide by one's own beliefs than to follow the majority. Emerson reinforces this idea in his book Self-Reliance when he states that "imitation is suicide" (Emerson, Self-Reliance 391). However, because Keating was breaking the rules, when he was essentially punished for Neil's death, his character also demonstrates the
While there are some objections to Singer’s position, the essay is critically acclaimed in the field of ethics. Singer brings to light the harsh reality of how little we really give, in comparison with what we are capable of giving to help those in need around the globe. His argument suggests that the “whole way we look at moral issues-our moral conceptual theme-needs to be altered”. Singer’s basic example involves the thought that starvation and other famine related deaths are forms of suffering. We have the capabilities to eliminate the suffering, however, we choose not to, which is morally wrong.
Our society’s ethical values have changed. Through the utilitarian view the argument could be made that these prisoners are being treated to good and not good enough. One problem with this method of decision-making is that many people might not agree with the premise that maximization of happiness should be the basis for morality. An example of this is an eye for an eye; if you kill someone in my family then I will have your life. “The economic and physical sanctions have given way of imprisonment less depreciation in the liberty of parole and probation.
A Good Death A “good death” is a term that is used increasingly to decribe the option for positive possibilities at the end of one’s life. The concept of a good death certainly contrast with the idea that death in any form is bad and the results of medicine’s failure to cure. ( A good death acknowledges the inevitability of death and provides values upon which to judge more positive experiences. An example of well accepted values for judging a good death are supplied in the book by Ira Byock, Dying Well ( 1997 ). Byock describes essential elements of a good death to include: a safe enviroment where basic human needs of shelter, food and nurture are well provided.
Technology, he asserts, has fostered a material culture of consummation, of insatiable appetites which simultaneously confirms and allows us to temporarily escape knowledge of our mortality. "We've agreed to be part of a collective perception...To become a crowd is to keep out death. To break of from the crowd is to risk death as an individual, to face dying alone" (12,73). Whether the dominant system is desirable or reprehensible, there seems to be an almost primal need for a structure of some sort. The very human impulse to order, "to break things down,...to separate and classify" as Babette puts it, is an integral part of establishing an identity (192).
Meaning that the authority that was elected by the society had to be beneficial to the society; as well as the right and wrong actions depended on the effect that these actions had on the unhappiness and happiness of an individual. The Enlightenment was also based on logic and humaneness was coming in to the picture. First of all, Baccaria’s saw torture as inadequate criminal justice procedures, since torture was adopted as a common technique to determine whether an individual was guilty or innocent through use of pain. This in Baccaria’s eyes is deemed as useless. Since the tortured party can be proven guilty or innocent based on their pain tolerance, if an individual who has committed a crime and is being tortured however their pain tolerance is very high and they are able to take the pain they may be judged as innocent, however if and individual is innocent or guilty has a low pain tolerance and is not able to cope with the pain and confesses then it no longer matters whether he committed the crime or not, thus making
Essentially he states that the root of the problem is a need to belong and the fraternities meet that need but they have a side effect of membership that is destructive drinking and other foul activities. The only way to disprove his argument is to eliminate fraternities and sororities and then see if the amount of binge drinking is reduced. Needless to say, Bruffee is fairly safe in his argument because fraternities and sororities are a way of life and culture that isn’t easily brushed away. It is definitely easy seeing his need to “desperately belong”. Like he says, most group learning does not take effect until the major classes of a study are taken.