He condemns anyone who finds ugliness where there is beauty as « corrupt ». He states that a book can be neither moral or immoral. Wilde warns against reading too much into any work of art by saying that « Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril ». The preface ends with a strange statement : « All art is quite useless ». The preface also establishes many of the novel’s themes.
The modern ethics argue it would be abnormal if nobody had evil urges. By saying that, Thomas then adds in how the first accountant is a bit strange because he didn’t even have the urge to do wrong. He ends his text saying that the
The quote “’we shall not report our find to the City Council. We shall not report it to any men.’” demonstrates ethics. This quote demonstrates ethics because Equality knows the right thing to do would be to report his find to the council, but because of his curiosity and interest in the tunnel he refuses to tell or let his friend tell the council of the tunnel. Ethics is one of the main points of Ayn Rand’s theory of objectivism and she proves how Equality demonstrates it through his disobeying of the city council. “I wished to know the meaning of things, am I the meaning” illustrates objectivism through epistemology.
Along with freedom of expression stands a disregard for the opinions of others and a high regard for personal ideals. Aristotle says, “He must also be open in his hate and in his love (for to conceal one's feelings, i.e. to care less for truth than for what people will think, is a coward's part), and must speak and act openly; for he is free of speech because he is contemptuous, and he is given to telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony to the vulgar.” Roark expresses himself most through his buildings and his love for Dominique Francon, daughter of esteemed architect Guy Francon. He is expelled from architecture school at Stanton University for refusing to comply with the requirements of a project that required a classical style building, as he
He solved this problem by saying that god is responsible for the evil in the world by defining evil as “privation”. By this he means when we use worlds like “evil” and “bad” we are saying that something does not meet our expectations of what it should be like ( by nature). Augustine wrote that evil is not a substance but is in fact an absence of kind feelings. Augustine also said that god can’t be blamed for creating evil himself that occurs in the world. As he said that in fact evil comes from angels and human beings who chose deliberately to deny and disobey what God had taught them, by turning away from him and what he had wished for mankind.
An advantage of the explanations is that they account for the obedience seen in Nazi Germany. They show that people didn’t obey because they were evil but rather they felt they had no choice (due to graduated commitment) or perhaps they removed any of the personal responsibility they felt onto their authority figure rather than having no empathy or guilt. However, the explanations are largely based on Milgram’s Shocking Obediance study which can be criticised for many reasons. The main one being the ethical issues involved. Participants were deceived and given false information as to what the purpose of the study was.
Censoring a novel because of its use of certain words without examining the context is absurd. Dr. Sarah Churchwell explains, “The fault lies in the teaching, not the book, you can’t say I’ll change Twain because it isn’t compatible with my teaching methods.” When a work contains content that could be considered hurtful it is important to teach the context behind the content, not avoid the work of literature
This thought leads to decisions later made in the text. The Green Knight essentially tricks Gawain by not giving Gawain the knowledge of his supernatural abilities before challenging him to agree to his terms, Gawain refuses to back out of the deal. He believes that a true man of knighthood keeps his word and this relates a lot to his faith of making his worldly experience worth living. He stands by his commitments, even when it means jeopardizing his own life. The poem repeats the mention of Gawain’s deep fears and anxieties, but Gawain’s desire to maintain his personal integrity at all costs enables him to conquer his fears in his quest for the Green Knight.
The myth is created by the following misconceptions about ethics: 1. The general conception that ethics is an ideal system, which is all very noble in theory but no good in practice. 2. Ethics is inapplicable to the real world or to one’s professional life. Because ethics is a system of short and simple rules like ‘Do not lie’, ‘Do not kill’ and ‘Do not steal’, this prompts that ethics is not suited to complexities of life.
’cannot be so partial, Goneril, / To the great love I bear you (I, iv, 309-310). Albany is unable to behold Gonerils evil intentions because of his deep devotion and love for her. Goneril is cruel and deceitful and merely flatters her father with lies, yet, Albany is visionless and does not observe her wretched personality. Albany is also unaware Goneril is cheating on him with Edmund, as well as, plotting to kill him. It is not until Albany receives a note from Edgar, outlining Goneril’s evil intentions, that he regains his sight.