Since the days of industry moguls like Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller, money and the achievement of the American Dream have appealed to the American people as indicators of success. The glint of gold, unfortunately, often blinds the greedy from the ill effects of good fortune. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby and his peers are affected by their wealth or lack of it in varying ways, but Fitzgerald emphasizes the negative effect money has on his characters. Money and the pursuit of it are corrupting factors in capitalistic American society, as the wealthy can afford to be apathetic and careless. The wealthy are made shallow by their fortune and flit about with no real purpose, and are comforted knowing that they have the means to entertain themselves.
One can draw parallels between these factors and the American society today and we should learn from the history of Rome so as not to follow the same path. The first factor that I find extremely important is the economic factor. One can draw many parallels between the Empire of Rome and our economic woes that we are feeling today. During Rome’s decline, the military was overstretched and underfunded. Emperors overtaxed the population and overregulated the market place and would often purposely debase their currency by reducing the precious metal content.
It was often blamed for the Panic of 1819 and was seen as advantageous to the wealthy and oppressive and harsh to the poor. When Jackson campaigned for reelection, he and his opponents focused heavily on the issue of the US Bank. Jackson was against it, and when he was reelected, he interpreted this as a mandate to abolish the bank. He thought of the interests of the states and the people in them when he carried out this move. With the end of the US Bank came some terrible consequences.
David Hume and Immanuel Kant on Morality When discussing the morality of ethics there are many different schools of thought by which we can attempt to justify why we think or do things the way we do; why we value the things we value; and what makes our actions right or wrong. In this essay I will address the flaws in the assumptions of Immanuel Kant’s theories on morality by reason, using David Hume’s beliefs on morality by feelings and material from the Subjectivist school of thought. The Kantian view on morality places extreme emphasis on reason rather than what we desire as humans. In other words, people act in accordance to what is their duty, not by how they feel or what they personally believe to be right. This is in direct violation with David Hume’s stance on morality.
The weakness of Virtue Ethics outweighs its strengths – Discuss. Virtue ethics is the ethics of us as persons and argues that morality is not about duties. There are a number of arguments for and against virtue ethics, and most for, argue for the formation and growth of us via phronesis or practical wisdom, which allows us to make the right decisions by using our conscience. Virtue ethics is mainly supported by Aristotle. It is based on different virtues that a person should have, so that they can then reach Euadamonia.
Occupy Wall Street Movement BUS 309 Occupy Wall Street Movement The Wall Street Movement (OWS) first originated in the fall of 2011 which is a movement that started out with a small group of people from varied backgrounds and economic status. Protestors believed the economic system is only designed to financially benefit the rich and powerful people of the world. OWS movement was stated, to be people that are unemployed, poor, and homeless but also they are joined by techies, entrepreneurs, labor activists, lawyers, academics, and clergy (Gerald, 2012, p. 8). People have been successful with getting the support of Union organizations and supporters have been successful with developing media attention and tens of thousands of followers and union organizations here in the United States and in many other countries. Protestors meeting site locations are parks in the metropolitan areas of Manhattan, N.Y. and in various other sites throughout the country.
The article I am doing is a Reason magazine opinion piece by Shikha Dalmia criticizing an essay wrote by Stanford University’s David Grusky in The Boston Review’s forum “What to do about income inequality”. In Grusky’s essay he explains why income inequality cannot be solved by focusing on redistributive taxation alone. Grusky believes the government should do more to address the socioeconomic stratifications by addressing inequality in the labor and capital markets. Drawing on conflict theory principles, Grusky notes that the rich and powerful have built self-serving institutions to economically repress the proletariat while creating the illusion of laissez-faire capitalism. To give context, Dalmia disagrees with the conflict theorist perspective proposed by Grusky regarding income inequality.
It seams to be that corporations tend to take the easy route by claiming for bankruptcies leaving many creditors with losses. Although we cannot blame such corporates, in today’s time this is known as one of the hardest time to search for jobs and stay alive as a business. Looking at it form the economic view bankruptcies are not the best thing to do, especially in today’s economic many of these corporates and small businesses help contribute to our economy. Many of these bankruptcies occur due to government decisions such as drastic minimum wage increases from $11.45 to $14.00 and $15.00 by
Is there any ethical difference between doing volunteer work for altruistic reasons and doing it purely to further your own employment prospects? Why? Introductory Statement In ethics, ‘Egoism’ is a perspective of self interest; and is seen as a decision-making process reflective to one’s own self-interests (Regis, 1980: 51). As a descriptive theory of human motivation, egoism prescribes that these motivations are both positive and negative in nature (Sober, 2000: 129). The perspective of subjectivism is the viewing of ethical situations as a reflection of what the beholder agrees to (Mackie, 1990: 17).
This can be interpreted as self interest is part of, or is, morality, which can lead to justifying actions which go against the consensus of society e.g. lying, stealing and killing. For this reason Kant believes it is better to live according to reason as opposed to desire. For example, if you wanted to buy something which was more expensive than you could afford your reason would tell you it wasn’t possible to have it, not desire as it cannot realise this. Kant sees this as similar to making moral decisions as the moral choice is not always the desired choice and therefore not in your self interest.