The Once and Future King :: Once and Future King Essays

The Once and Future King The Once and Future King by T.H. White has a theme which consists of being true to yourself and your beliefs. Many characters and events in this book reinforce this idea and portray it as the main lesson. Readers are affected by learning important life-lessons throughout each chapter and book. Readers learn in the beginning that Arthur strongly believes in keeping his word. Even in Book I, when Arthur was a child, he refused to leave Hob's hawk, Cully, in the forest. This was because he did not want to betray Hob's trust. There are several other times in the story in which Arthur shows the personal importance keeping his word to others, and this shows that he is staying true to his beliefs over time. It's very important to me that people keep their promises, because you will never be able to trust or rely on that person if they don't. Arthur, as king, also thinks that it is important to enforce justice. Arthur learns and takes into belief that "Might is Right" . Arthur uses this belief to form and run the Round Table. This is another thing of importance in my life because fairness is imperative for a good society. Today's courtrooms use methods of fairness that were modeled is Arthur's Round Table. Although, this idea of fairness and honesty can also make for difficult or uncomfortable situations; such as Arthur and the fact that Guenever and Lancelot were in love. Arthur eventually realizes he must do what is just, as his beliefs tell him, and punish Guenever. Lancelot also has many adventures in the novel that shows that he stays true to himself and his beliefs. He has many quests and struggles to achieve and maintain holiness. It is important to Lancelot that he be kind, loyal, and respectful. These traits are portrayed by his idolization of Arthur throughout the entire book. His religion also plays a major role in his life, giving him something to work towards. This idea of being a good person also applies to my life because it is ultimately what I strive to achieve.

Language Planning and Language Development Essay

Language is a typically human phenomenon. In moving from the ‘natural being’ of animal existence to the ‘cultural being’ of human existence, language plays the decisive role. Language gives a sense of identity to an individual as well as a social group and, in the process, creates multiple identities. The maintenance, merger, clash and change in identities based on and reflected in the language change has prompted linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists to study language in its multifarious dimensions. Since economic and societal planning have to, of necessity, take into account the context of planning, there is no wonder that worldwide attention has been drawn towards language planning. Language is an asset and a primary instrument of human communication. However, language can become a problem and a barrier to communication, sometimes symbolically so, under conditions of multiplicity of ethnic groups, languages, dialects, styles, registers and scripts. These conditions may lead to one or more of the following situations which necessitate language planning : (i) Mutually unintelligible language, dialects or scripts competing for supremacy of dominance (ii) Mutually intelligible languages, dialects or scripts, (a) threatening mutual identity, (b) with mutually unfavorable attitudes. (iii) Existence of diglossia, triglossia or multiglossia. (iv) Existence of languages with dominant/minority relationship with a national frontier. (v) Social variables correlating with language use and creating communication zones. (vi) Official action in recognising official languages, distributing patronages for development of languages which may even have the remote implication of displacing or disturbing in reality or symbolically, the existing domains of language use. (vii) Language used by the politicised elite to retain their elitist privileges by restricting language use in education, administration and mass media. There is an urgent need for serious attention to language planning in a country like India. The following examples are illustrative of situations which demand the attention of educationists and planners to the crucial importance of language in society. 1. Sometime back, the Physics Department of the Aligarh University administered a standardised creativity test to the high achievers of the University. To their great surprise they found the result absolutely erratic. After hurried consultations among the scientists involved, it was decided to translate the test into Hindi—Urdu, the mother tongue of the students taking the test. It is only then that the test yielded the expected standard result2. 2. A very significant programme, the preparation of a Bridge Course in Kannada, was undertaken by the Central Institute of Indian Languages some years back. From experience and observation the Institute came to a few conclusions: 1. Language teaching, particularly that of teaching the mother tongue in the Indian schools, is defective 2. What is taught in the name of language is literature. 3. The teaching of literature is restricted to the teaching of ancient and medieval literature and seldom touches the contemporary. 4. Even in literature, more emphasis is given to teaching about literature than really teaching literary sensibility and critical judgment. 5. No attention is paid to the teaching of different registers. 6. As a result, there is a gap between the language attainment at the end of the school stage and the language requirement at the beginning of the college stage, particularly when taught through the mother tongue medium. As a result of this, the students cannot cope with their college studies. Some 900 students selected from three Universities of Karnataka were given a pre-test. A hundred-hour Bridge Course developed by the Institute was offered to an experimental group of about 400 students and a post-test given to all the 900. It was established that the hypotheses suggested by the institute were valid and that, pending revision of the school curriculum, the Bridge Course was of immediate necessity, particularly in the context of switchover to the mother tongue medium at the University stage (Upadhyaya 1972 and Dave 1974). 3. In Nagaland, there are 22 mutually unintelligible Naga languages, of which 16 recognised by the State Government. The language of communication among the people is Pidgin Naga, which is used even in the floor of the Assembly, though not an officially recognised language. In the absence of an acceptable common language, the State Government has adopted English as the State Language (Sreedhar 1974). This has not only created a wide gulf among the elite and the masses of people, but also deprived the common man from effectively participating in the processes of governance of the State. 4. The widespread radio network in the country has shrunk distances. The growing television network has demonstrated the potential of revolutionising communication in a very short time. However, out of the 1652 mother tongues of the country, broadcasting is not done even in 150. Broadcasting in languages other than the 15 major languages is meant mostly either for entertainment, or for purposes catering to peripheral interests of the listeners. The television is much more restricted in the coverage. Under these circumstances, in spite of all the outer-trappings, the message broadcast over the mass media reaches a very restricted audience (Pattanayak 1974). A study of the language of newspapers and that of the film is bound to reinforce the above conclusion. 5. Illiteracy is a major problem of the country (Pattanayak 1974). Out of 800 million illiterates in the world, India is credited to have 400 million . if in eradicating illiteracy the intention is to move from a ‘culture of silence’ to a ‘culture of thinking’ participation and the emphasis is on the creation of an intelligent task force for economic and industrial development, then, urgent and bold steps need to be taken in this area. Literacy in a multilingual must be based on the expressed needs of a people3. Secondly, the language of literacy has to be determined keeping in view the various contexts of language use and strategies linking the languages of literacy with that of education and administration. It would thus be quite clear that whether it is in the field of language use in education, language use in administration or in mass media, there is a constant need to weigh alternatives and plan action. The examples cited above are as true of any multi lingual country as they are of India. Such examples not only establish the necessity for language planning, but also the need to analyse its process and product. Before talking about language planning, one must understand the motivation and mechanisms of planning. Planning is not merely a catalogue of resources and the organisation and mobilization of these resources to reach a certain defined goal. Since the technocrat is seldom the decision maker, it is important that the planner provides alternatives and options are given, the goal is stated and the strategies are spelled out the politician-decision maker can take a decision. The two aims of planning are growth promotion and environment amelioration. Here, environment is not used merely in the physical ecological sense, but is used in the sense of sociocultural context of the individuals in society. It is most unfortunate that the pre-occupation with economics as the only discipline of concern of planning blinded the planners to its equally important second aspect of planning. Those who are obsessed with growth and economic development take the social and cultural imperatives for granted. Like the textbook and laboratory controlled experiments, where all other conditions being equal a certain conclusion flows out of it, the economic planner takes the context of planning for granted and concentrates on the economic planning. He forgets that in actual life all the conditions seldom remain equal and that the context in which social problems are nurtured is as important as the problems themselves. Planning is not merely a balance sheet of inputs and outputs. That input-output statements of growth have to be checked against cost benefit to the society, need to be emphasised more, if planning is not to defeat its own purpose. Language planning does not merely entail drawing a list of mother tongues spoken in a defined territory, nor does it merely mean listing of their actual and desired domains of use. Whether in a unilingual or in a plurilingual society, language planning is essential to deal with such problems of dialect, language standard, all aspects of language development and the contexts of language use are areas of concern of a language planner. It would be much more meaningful and sensible to talk of relatively unitary and pluralilstic societies, as the great divide seems to be unitary and pluralilstic rather than developed and developing in the context of language planning. In pluralistic societies, choices, options and alternatives are imperatives of planning, as the basis of pluralism is transparent and easily manipulated. Speaking of language development, Khubchandani (1975:102) offers the following framework which accepts the distinction between developed and undeveloped languages: Dimension Developed Language Undeveloped Language Range of communication Wide,Sometimes multinational. Limited to region. Ecological status. Spoken by dominant majorities. Spoken by dominant minorities. Domian of use. All. Restricted as with vernaculars. Writing system Present. May not be present. Literary status With literary traditions. Colloquial, bazar languages. Social prestige Standard language, acceptable to the elite. Non-standard or sub-standard: slangs, hybrids This is too simplistic a model. Following this one can argue that the major (scheduled) languages of India are both developed and un-developed and they are neither developed nor un-developed. One can say that, barring their restricted domain of use, they fulfill all the criteria of developed language. At the same time, looking at the situation from national and international perspective, one can say that, being diglossic, they have all the features of undeveloped, whereas in Latin America, the major language is developed and the minority (such as Indian) languages are undeveloped. If one takes the case of English alone, this scheme will lead to untenable conclusions. Actually such a schematic presentation conceals and confuses issues rather than clarifies them. Ferguson’s criteria (Fishman 1968 : 28) of a developed language, inter-translatablity with languages in the industrial society, is ethnocentric. One may wish to give the benefit of doubt by saying that the industrial so ciety probably has developed the most varied registers of the language used. But, in the agricultural society, certain contemplative disciplines have flourished which may not have found place in the industrial society. In any case, there is no reason why value judgement about a society need be bodily transferred into the discussion of language use without establishing its relevance to such discussions. What, then, is language development? Can a language be developed by a language planning society ? One popular notion of a developed language is its antiquity. Languages which are older are generally considered more developed. Scholars of history of language and literature in all Indian languages usually devote considerable space and time to this aspect of the question. Another popular notion is linked with the availability of creative literature in a language. Thus, a quarrel whether Bengali or Tamil is more developed has resulted in a lot of unproductive debate. A corollary of this stand is the rejection of spoken languages as languages and give them a grudging recognition as dialects. Scholars have even gone to the extent of saying that Saora has only 700 words, and therefore it does not deserve the status of a language, thus putting the premium on the vocabulary. Presentation of a norm or standard where competing varieties of a language exist is a primary step in language development. This can be achieved by standardising spelling, writing grammars, dictionaries, textbooks, etc. Developing a script for non-literate languages forms a legitimate concern of language is another major concern of language development. This is best achieved by promoting new registral writing, creating technical terminology, and encouraging translation, etc. In a multilingual society, allocation of domains of use to each language and ensuring its increased or decreased use for specific domains forms part of the study of language development. Language planning agencies, endowed with sufficient technical expertise, and executive power, and certainly do a great deal to influence language development, and, through planning, help reduce conflict and tension. The problems in a linguistically plural society are complex, the options are competitive and the goal is difficult to perceive, because of the volotile nature of the context of language use. It must be understood that no language or culture group is absolutely unitary or monolithic in nature. For example, all persons speaking English do neither speak a uniform language nor do they share a single culture. Even all English speakers in England or America cannot be so classified. Communication facilities, ethnicity, religious grouping, uneven opportunities leading to uneven education and cultural development are some of the parameters which account for regional linguistic differences even where a single language is dominant. In the past, linguists assumed a uniform and invariant structure of language. At the present moment it is generally accepted that the speech matrix of a community is constituted of varieties of varieties of the language. These are generally treated under rubrics of style, register, dialect, sociolect, etc. While in a single dominant language society, the different varieties tend to have specialised functions, in a multilingual society, in addition to varieties of mother tongue, one or more other languages share the communicative domain. When there are people using different languages and different varieties of a language, it is natural that they develop certain attit udes towards each other. These attitudes indicate social ranking and relative status of groups and also intergroup cohesiveness or lack of it within a broad framework. Each person considers his language to be the paragon of beauty and sweetest sounding of all. The neighbour’s language usually comes in for a drubbing. The neighbour with whom one comes in constant communication, competes for socio-economic advantages, trades and establishes other societal relationship, naturally exerts a lot of linguistic influence. The nature of this influence depends on many factors, the important one being the political-economic power of the communities concerned. A Telugu speaker calls Tamil by the given name ‘Aravam’, meaning ‘sound not sweet to hear’. The neighbour’s language is described in many languages as the sound of pebbles in a tin drum or sounds coming from a mouth filled with pan. One’s own language is like peeled sweet banana, sweet as sugar and like nectar. When so expressed the unconscious feelings are expressed as conscious attitudes. The epithet of Devabhasha ‘language of the gods’ brought out the retort from the Maharashtra saint poet, ‘If Sanskrit is the language of gods, is Prakrit the language of thieves ?’ All such overt attitudinal statements are grist in the mill of the linguist and the language planner. The above attitudes are not strictly confined to interlingual relationships. Attitudes of dialect speakers of one language towards each other may result either in consolidation and standardization of the language, or separation and split of a language. The notion of dialect may or may not have a pejorative connotation for the for the standard language speaker, but, for the dialect speaker, it is related to local pride. Any effort at standardisation must take this factor of local pride into consideration. A study of dialects of Hindi in India alone will provide examples of both consolidation and separation. As attitudes towards others’ language have serious sociolinguistic implications, so has one’s attitude towards one’s own language. A derogatory attitude or a sense of deficiency towards one’s own language results in the looking for an external standard, acceptance of a culture language or even language loss. The Canadian French speakers looking towards Parisian French, the Caribbean Hindi speaker, the Ceylonese Tamil speaker and the Malayalee settlers in Hon Kong looking towards India, for standards is the result of a feeling of deficiency by the speakers of those languages outside their homeland. Non-literate minority languages adopting a dominant language for almost all purposes other than home use, as in the case of Kannada for Tulu, Kodagu and Marathi or Kannada for Konkani in India, are examples of culture languages. Examples of loss of language due to weakened loyalty can be found almost in all parts of the world. In India various tribal languages which are lost because of the modernising thhrust of various dominant languages may be taken as examples. Sometimes loyalty towards one’s own language is shaken due to induced circumstances. For example, the team roller publicity in favour of American white English and standard is responsible not only for the lack of confidence in the native black and brown speakers of English about the standard of their mother tongue in the USA itself, but also for the lack of faith of the non-English world in Asia and Africa in the non-white speakers, including native speakers of English of Latin American origin in the USA as class room models. As would be clear by now, although language planning in some form is needed in al societies, the need for it is greater in a muitllingual society where the problem of communication is complex, and confronts the speaker with multiple options. Linguists have conceived of primary, secondary and tertiary speech communities on the basis of communicatory situations linking the National languagewith the secondary and the international language with tertiary (Haugen 1972:166). But such a simplified model is inadequate to explain the situation in multilingual societies in general and Indian situation in particular. Take for example, a group of Dravidian and Munda language speakers using a common code, Desia, for communication, which is a dialect of Oriya, an Indo-Aryan language. Oriya as a language has dialects which shade of into Marathi, Hindi or Bengali. If one measures the country in any direction on a straight line with points at short intervals, it will be quite evident that there is break in communication only at the extreme points of the scale. Viewed from on angle, there is ‘partial understanding’ among contiguous speech communities in India; viewed from the other, there is Switzerland – like tertiary speech communities among whom interpreters are needed as there is no of creation and change of primary language loyalties, the process of a group transcending the primordial linguistic loyalty through and identities, sub-national or national, is concealed in these simplified models. Because of ethnic cohesiveness and consequent density in communication, at the intermediate contiguous points even languages belonging to two different families are found to share a common grammar. Gumperz (1971 ; 255) has pointed out that the bilinguals in the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka operate with a single grammar and move from one language to the other through a set of transformation rules. It is not always that a third language is used as a common code. In the cases of Konkani : Marathi : Tulu : Kannada, the former has adopted the latter as culture languages, thus allocating the culture language the domain of formal commuinication. All these call for a re-examination of notions like national language, George Puttenham’s comment (1589) â€Å"After a speech is fully fashioned to the common understanding, and accepted by consent of a whole country and nation, it is called a language† is a poor definition both of nation and of language. In a nation like India, where there are languages of all India importance, languages of regional importance and languages of local importance, all the 1652 mother tongues, listed by the Census are national languages. This includes the so-called foreign mother tongues which have become part of the national cultural heritage of the country. It must be understood in this connection that ‘nation’ is a political concept. A political entity becoming a nation faces the challenge of developing a sense of nationalism among all the people inhabiting it. If already a majority of people have imbibed the spirit of nationalism, the task is to persuade the minority to accept the national goals set by the majority. In a nation inhabited by people of diverse ethnicity and language without a dominant group, a national outlook has to emerge through consensus. This requires coherence between the local group needs and national needs, between micro-planning, and macro-planning, and between economic development and political development. In short, it requires coherence between economic development through planning and socio-political context for such developmental planning. The ‘sons of soil theory’ as propounded in different regions of India has to be viewed in this general perspective. In fact, this phenomenon is not peculiar to India. The demands of the French in Canada, the Tamil in Sri Lanka, the Bengalis in the erstwhile Pakistan, the Flemings in Belgium, the various ethnic groups in Philippines, UK, USA and even in the USSR for equal national importance and equal share in development can be subsumed under this rubric. Such theories arise out of micro-planning at its narrowest application and is anti-national in both approach and content. India as a nation can be viewed as constituting a single soil, Maharshtra or Tamil Nadu may be viewed as disparate entities and independent soils. Within Maharashtra. Vidarbha and Marathwada claim independent soil status, whereas Marathas, not to speak of the backward classes, are not even given equal treatment with Brahmins in the same soil. Under these circumstances ‘sons of soil’ is n ot only a pernicious doctrine, but any planning based only on such considerations without reference to macro-planning is bound to defeat the very purpose of planning. Those who plead for sons of soil theory, often due to lsck of perspective, draw strength and support from notion such as situation-bound language planning (Khubchandani 1975). In a nation state with pluri-lingual society, it is important to be aware of the local needs as well as the national needs. Exclusive concern either with the dominant or the minority without reference to the other is bound to hurt both and destroy the society. Neighbourhood is important and of immediate relevance to all; but extension of the neighbourhood or at least the awareness of its extended frontiers so as to reach out to the national frontiers is of equal importance from the point of view of the existence of a nation. If there is no coherence between a speech area and a language area, then it is bound to create conflict. Language planning and language development, to be effective, must have the twin focus on micro and micro level needs, aspirations and resources. The Western view is liner and binary whereas the Eastern is cyclical and spiral. However, the westernised eastern elites, who are in charge of planning, follow essentially the Western world view. That is why, all language problems are reduced to binary oppositions such as English:Hindi; Hindi:Urdu; Hindi:Indian languages, etc; and all integrative solutions elude them. ‘Unity in diversity’ is so worn out through constant use that it is often rejected as a cliche. And yet if language planning is to be achieved without coercion in a multilingual, multi-ethnic society, it has to be viewed in the grand design offered by Gandhi in his concept of the ‘oceanic circle’. In this structure, composed of innumerable speech communities, â€Å"life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose centre will be the individual†, always ready to defend and enrich his mother tongue, each speech community ready to defend and enrich the standard, the superposed or the culture language, each such group ready to defend, enrich and sacrifice for the regional dominant language and the latter ready to defend, enrich and sacrifice for the link language, national language or language and languages of national and international integration, â€Å"till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in arrogance, but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral unit†. NOTE 1. These multiple identities may be both multi-lingualism in the mother tongue and plurilingualism in the sense of different language use. See : wandruszka, Mario, Interlinguistics-Outlines of the New Linguistics. Education; Vol. 12. Institute for Scientific Co-operation, Tubingen, Landhausstr. 18, FRG, 76 ff. 2. Personal communication from Prof. Rais Ahmed, formerly Professor of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, and later Director, NCERT, New Delhi. 3. Ph.D. thesis of Daniel Moulton in the University of Texas based on his field work in Andhra Pradesh, India under supervision of the author.

Doctrine of Double Effect: Consequentialism Essay

The Doctrine of Double Effect states that it is a morally relevant difference between those bad consequences we aim and intend to bring about, and those that we do not intend but still foresee as a likely outcome of our actions. Under certain circumstances, it is morally acceptable to risk certain outcomes that would not be acceptable to intend. Though it is always wrong to kill innocents deliberately, this doctrine says, it is sometimes permissible to allow certain actions to occur understanding that some side effects will be negative. Considering that some side effects involve death, we need to consider the question of whether it is ever morally permissible to use people as a means to one’s end. Warren Quinn attempts to present a deontological way of viewing the Doctrine of Double Effect. The configuration of Doctrine of Double Effect prepared by Quinn makes distinctions on moral assessments. In proportion to consequentialist moral theory, the distinction the Doctrine of Dou ble Effect comprises between intended and merely foreseen consequences does not matter for moral evaluation with the exception of factors that are consequential for production of better outcomes. In Deontology edited by Stephen Darwill, Deontology is a element of ethical teachings centered on the idea that actions must be guided above all by adherence to clear principles. Thomas Nagel suggest that the core idea in deontological thinking is the Doctrine of Double Effect and the innermost idea is one ought not in one’s actions aim at evil and in this way to be guided by evil (177). Quinn suggests that there are two major problems dealing with the rationality and discrimination between cases when it comes to the Doctrine of Double Effect. In the following exert from Deontology, Quinn gives examples of contrasting cases from modern warfare: In the case of a strategic bomber (SB), a pilot bombs an enemy factory in order to destroy its productive capacity. But in doing this he foresees that he will kill innocent civilians who live nearby. Many of us see this kind of military action as much easier to justify than that in the Case of the Terror Bomber (TB), who deliberately kills innocent civilians in order to demoralize the enemy. Another pair of cases involves medicine: In both there is a shortage of resources for the investigation and proper treatment of a  new, life-threatening disease. In the first scenario doctors decide to cope by selectively treating only those who can be cured most easily, leaving the more stubborn cases untreated. Call this the direction of resources case (DR). In the contrasting and intuitively more problematic example, doctors decide on a crash experimental program in which they deliberately leave the stubborn cases untreated in order to learn more about the nature of the disease. †¦Guine a Pig Case (GP). Another pair of medical examples is found in most discussions of Doctrine of Double Effect. In the Craniotomy Case (CC) a woman will die unless the head of the fetus she is trying to deliver is crushed. But the fetus may be safely removed if the mother is allowed to die. In the Hysterectomy Case (HC), a pregnant mother is allowed to die. In the Hysterectomy Case (HC), a pregnant mother’s uterus is cancerous and must be removed if she is to be saved. This will, given the limits of available medical technology, kill the fetus. But if no operation is performed the mother will eventually die after giving birth to a healthy infant. (Darwell 195) In the above case I obviously see that there is a significant difference between the cases. The fetus is not yet a person, and the mother has a right to seek defense from anything that is hazardous to her health. Quinn makes the distinctions that the doctor in Craniotomy Case does not intend to actually kill the fetus; he probably would be happy if it survived. In this case it is little difference between the Hysterectomy Case and the Craniotomy Case. Quinn produces a projected way to revive the Doctrine of Double Effect. He recommend that the Doctrine of Double Effect should be reiterated in the following way: One to make possible a differentiation between agency in which injury comes to a quantity of victims, at least impart, from the agent’s deliberately connecting them in something in order to further his purpose specifically by way of their being so involved and harmful agency in which either nothing is in that way intended for the victims or what is intended does not contribute to their harm. The overhaul of the Doctrine of Double Effect will produce the result that in the Terror Bomber and  Craniotomy examples, the agency involved is the less customary kind, whereas in strategic bomber, Diversion of Resources , and cancerous uterus, the agency is involved is more acceptable kind. This works alongside with the original understanding of the Doctrine. The majority of military actions would be morally out of the question if the killing of civilians were absolutely forbidden. When factories, naval dockyards, and supply lines are bombed, civilian carnage is inevitable. In these cases, the philosophy of the Double Doctrine of Effect comes into to play. When it comes to this, there is a huge and undeniable gray area; for instance, could it be permissible to bomb a hospital in which Osama Bin Laden is lying ill. In the doctrines most precise form, it holds that if an action has two effects, one good quality and one unpleasant, then the action is morally permissible. The following questions must be asked: is the action good in itself or not evil; is the good effect the only one aimed for; the good follows as immediately from the action as the evil effect, and the reason for performing the action was as important as that for allowing the evil effect. Are the consequences good on balance? It is important that it is; the goodness of the goo d must outweigh the evil of the evil effect. Walzer goes as far to say that the actor should seek out ways to lessen the evil effect, accepting risk to his or her self. â€Å"There is obviously leeway for military judgment here: strategies and planners will for reasons of their own weigh the importance of their targets against the importance of their soldiers’ lives. But even if the target is very important, and the number of innocent people threatened relatively small, they must risk soldiers before they kill civilians† (Walzer 157). Still if the noncombatants are in harm’s way due to direct actions of the enemy, or due to the adult noncombatants own choice, the agent is duty-bound by jus in bello’s highlighting on distinction to alter his campaign from those otherwise recommended, if those tactics will foreseeable result in noncombatant casualties. Could one claim that the bombing campaign America set out over Kosovo did not meet the Double Doctrine Effect? Yes, the campaign failed to meet Walzerâ €™s extra requirement because pilots flew high to guard themselves and dropped bombs imprecisely, which resulted in greater civilian casualties. In Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer claims, â€Å"Double effect is a way of reconciling the absolute prohibition against attacking non-combatants with the legitimate conduct of military activity† (153). These non-combatants are placed in the category of innocence. Indeed, it is unjustified to kill the innocent, but these victims aren’t entirely innocent. It can be said that they are beneficiaries of oppression; they enjoy the contaminated fruits. In certain cases, it could be understandable but not justifiable. Those who are opposed to this notion would claim that the children among them, and even the adults, obtain every right to look forward to a long life like anyone else who is not actively participating in war. This is the whole notion of noncombatant immunity, which is not only crucial to war but of any decent politics. Anyone who renounces this policy for a moment is not simply making excuses for terrorism, but they are joining the lines of terror’s supporters . The act of terror incorporates the deliberate killing of noncombatants as a means to an end; therefore, it is not accepted by the Doctrine of Double Effect. â€Å"The question of direct and indirect effect is complicated by the question of coercion. When we judge the unintended killing of civilians, we need to know how those civilians came to be in a battle zone in the first place. This is, perhaps, only another way of asking who put them at risk and what positive effects were made to save them† (159). Do intentions really validate this doctrine? Could it be possible to leave out the intentions and simply judge the rightness or wrongness of an act by its consequences, the way a consequentialist would do? Consequentialist will only choose to perform actions with the best consequences, which ignores our prima facie duties to others. In this case, the answer would not be sufficient enough for the Doctrine of Double Effect because this doctrine encompasses deontological constraints. Quinn shows in the following account how the doctrine reflects a Kantian ideal of human community: This ideal is given one natural expression in the language of rights. People have a strong prima facie right not to be sacrificed in strategic roles over which they have no say. They have a right not to be pressed, in apparent violation of their prior rights, into the service of other people’s purpose.  Sometimes these additional rights may be justifiable infringed, especially when the prior right is not terribly important and the harm is limited, but in all cases they add their own burden to the opposing moral argument. (207) The Doctrine of Double Effect gives each individual value, which is not based on the majority of people. Gives individuals rights against being used as means to any end. In the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski, Between 120,000 and 250,000 civilians were killed. The decision to use this deadly weapon for Americans was allegedly not for revenge but to bring an end to this dreadful war. I would like to believe former president Harry Truman was under the impression that the evil performed would not surpass the greater good that would come out of the action. At that time it was believed that the Japanese were fighting an unjust and aggressive war. In the following exert in Just and Unjust Wars, Walzer has part of commits made by Truman after the decision to drop the Atom bomb in the following: â€Å"We have used [the bomb] against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war† (Walzer 264). The shortening of the agony of war was the justification of the use of the atomic bomb. President Truman claimed that the alternative, an invasion, would have cost countless American lives. In his justification, he shows evidence that he believes American lives are more important than the lives of others; I definitely do not believe this is the way the Doctrine of Double Effect was suppose to be executed. Now if he was specifically to state that one half of a million American lives would have been taken if the war was not stopped, he then can claim the net savings from the terror amounted to around a quarter of a million lives. In the case of valuing American lives more and theirs less, it looks somewhat obvious that the Doctrine of Double Effect was not used properly. Under any circumstances, the use of such a lethal weapon against Americans on American soil could never be justified. Many moral philosophers are not pleased with the Doctrine of Double Effect; Jim Holt gives an account of some of their objections in the following: If you ask the terror bomber why he is killing civilians, he will say, â€Å"to win a just war might even say that he does not need the civilians actually to be dead, but only to be thought to be dead until it is over to demoralize the other side. If his victims could be miraculously brought back to life after the end of the struggle, he would not object. In this sense, he does not really intend their deaths†¦. If I can kill Saddam Hussein only by shooting him through innocent human shield, do I intend harm to the innocent shield or not? (Holt) Is the difference among directly intended effects and inevitable effects a contrived one? The point he is trying to make is that the incidental fatalities of a calculated bomb are just as dead as the intended victims of a terror bomber. This objection brings up another point made by Quinn in relation to the closeness of these situations. â€Å"†¦it surely matters how close the connection is between that which is, strictly speaking, intended and the resulting foreseen harm. If the connection is close enough, then the doctrine should treat the harm as if it were strictly intended. And the reply might go on, the connection is close enough in the cases I have used to illustrate the doctrine’s negative force (196). In reference to the meaning of closeness, an illustration of closeness was supplied through an example of a glass. Someone could violently heat a glass just for the purpose of hearing the noise made from the initial impact. In cases involving force against something as fragile as a glass, the shattering is to be expected immediately after the action. These two actions form a causal relationship, so the connection seems intangible opposed to conditional. It is morally acceptable to risk certain outcomes that would not be acceptable to intend. The Doctrine of Double Effect has prima facie reasoning in its make-up; therefore, it has a strong responsibility to do what is morally acceptable to our own standards. Proponents of Doctrine of Double Effect coincide more with deontological views opposed to consequentialist theories. Even though the Doctrine in some cases allows  harm among individuals, they recognize that in real life cases there are events that have sufficient reasoning behind them. Though it is always wrong to kill innocents deliberately, this doctrine says, it is sometimes permissible to attack a military target with the understanding that some civilians will die as a side effect. Even a dog knows when it is intentionally or accidentally kicked; therefore, We can not deny that intentions are of some importance. The question is whether or not the difference can be held up as morally acceptable. â€Å"For causal critics of the doctrine sometimes seem to suppose that its defenders must be ready to allow killings or harmings simply on the ground that the agency is indirect. But nothing could be further from the truth. The doctrine in no way lessons the constraining force of any independent moral right or duty† (203). The Doctrine of Double Effect is centered among the impression of acceptable actions. The quest of good is less appreciated where a significant harm is intended as a means than where it is merely foreseen. The deontologists grasp the idea that one or both of the distinctions between doing and allowing and intended and merely foresee effects scientifically affect what morality approves and condemns. Lying on this outlook, it is of importance morally not just what outcomes we bring about or fail to bring about, but the structure of our agency in this regard. The deontologist theories conflicts in the company of the act consequentialist, who holds that one morally ought always to do an act that leads to an outcome that is not worse than the outcome that would be reached by any other act. Quinn gave an excellent account of the deontological view of the Doctrine of Double Effect, but his theory has flaws. What if the American government for an upright decent reason terrorizes the city of Berlin, and they can do this effectively by dropping bombs over Toronto? Our government does not strictly intend to include the people of Toronto for the reason that their attachment does not advance our objective; if all of the residents were out of town and survived, and our purpose still would have been served. In his reconstruction of the Doctrine of Double Effect, Quinn excludes our acts as indirect agency; therefore, the slaughter of the inhabitants of Toronto is  parallel to a merely foreseen consequence. I don’t believe this exemption is one that he anticipated to make, but it is a loose end that needs further explanation. Works Cited Darwell, Stephen. (2003). Deontology. Malden, MA: Editorial material and organization. Holt, Jim. Terrorism and the Philosohers. Can The Ends ever justify the means?2 June 2004.http://slate.msn.com/?id+2064544. Walzer, Michael. (1977).Just and Unjust Wars. A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations. 3rd ed. Basic Books..

Environmental Analysis and Industry Analysis Essay

Rivalry will exist among Lady Ath-Elite but the intensity will not be great. There are several gyms in Huntsville, Alabama; the largest gyms are the University Fitness Center, Gold’s Gym, Riviera Fitness Centers, Bender’s Gym, Curves, Empire Fitness, and the new YMCA in Madison, Alabama (Yellowpages.com, 2012). Riviera Fitness Center will offer competition because one of its two branches, like Lady Ath-Elite is for women only. There are also the following gyms for women: Real Life Fitness for Women, and as previously-mentioned, Curves. However, those gyms are not quite as large as Riviera Fitness, which has four locations in the Huntsville area alone (Rivierafitnesscenters.com, 2011). Bender’s Gym will offer competition because one of its two local branches houses the Parisi Speed School, which is a training facility for aspiring athletes. Of course, some gyms, like Bender’s Gym and Gold’s Gym have the advantage of being open for twenty-four hours, which is a service that Lady Ath-Elite will not offer. However, the Parisi Speed School, which is a part of Bender’s Gym, is not open twenty-fours – only the actual gym (Bendersgym.com, 2012). Still, despite the luxuries offered by the aforementioned fitness centers, Lady Ath-Elite will be the only gym of its kind designated for women. There will be no other gym that will employ trainers who will guide and coach aspiring female athletes toward achieving their goals. The bargaining power of buyers will still be relatively high, since, like most other gyms, we will rely on membership to generate most of our revenue. Also, even though Lady Ath-Elite will be unique compared to most other gyms, consumers will likely want to be sure they are functioning within their budgets, even if it means sacrificing the one-on-one attention that the trainers of Lady Ath-Elite can offer. For example, Riviera Fitness Center offers a plan of $19 a month to employees of certain organizations, like public school employees. This might be feasible, since Riviera has a large membership and many branches (Rivierafitnesscenters.com, 2011). So we must strive to be competitive but also generate enough revenue to cover expenses and take care of debt. The bargaining power of suppliers is relatively low when compared with that of buyers. Lady Ath-Elite will need to purchase or lease equipment of good quality, built to last. The company will strive to offer the newest, most advanced and effective equipment in the market. However, there are still many suppliers to choose from, and the company will shop around for the best deal. Lady Ath-Elite is starting small, with just one location. There are gyms with several branches that may attempt to monopolize by acquiring all small gyms. Lady Ath-Elite may have low exit barriers if its membership doesn’t increase within a certain amount of time. The company will have work diligently to advertise and appeal to its target population – young, active, female athletes. References Rivierafitness.com. Riviera Fitness Centers, 2010-2011. Retrieved from http://www.rivierafitnesscenters.com/. Simpson, Nathan, 2012. Bendersgym.com. Retrieved from http://bendersgym.com/. Yellowpages.com. YP Intellectual Property, LLC, 2012. Retrieved from http://www. yellowpages.com/.

Write a two page summary about psychologist Erik Erikson Essay

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Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 93

Marketing - Essay Example The cupcakes are paired with an espresso that compliments the distinct flavors (Larson et al. 7). Customers who are widely located in the Seattle area receive good attendance in addition to after-sales-services. Cupcake Royale offers delivery to customers who are unable visit the location. In addition, the company provides rental of Cupcake Royale’s party cart. The cart can be brought to any place the customer is in the Seattle area. Trophy Cupcakes (TC) is the top competitor to Cupcake Royale. Trophy Cupcake has dominated the social media to capture more customers. It uses Facebook and Twitter to post events, polls and promotions such as cupcake happy hour. TC has collaborated with Molly Moons ice cream shop where they sell cupcakes at all Moon Locations (Larson et al. 9). The grocery store has also undermined the market of Cupcake Royale Company. Cupcake Royale, however, has maintained the competition by improving its products and increasing its market cover. In addition to 10 new flavors of ice cream to the existing cupcake has expanded Cupcake Royale to six branches (Jones 1). The new Rodeo donut is of exceptional quality. It is made from brioche dough, which includes eggs yolks, eggs, and butter instead of shortening like normal dough (Guanco 1). The brioche has flavor featuring vanilla beans, orange flower water, orange zest and honey instead of sugar. Cupcake Royale Company’s goal emphasizes quality over quantity. That has allowed its current market situation has grown. Guanco, Frank. Rodeo Donut Pop Up At Ballard’s Cupcake Royale. Komonews. March 26, 2015. Web. May 25, 2015 Jones, Sara. Cupcake Royale Owner and Pastry Chef Launch 3 New Ventures. Seattle. March 23, 2015. Web. May 25, 2015 Larson, Devin., Newby,

Introduction to Accounting & Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Introduction to Accounting & Finance - Essay Example is that all the partners can be held liable for the acts of other partners which is done in the name of the firm that they form and a person may be held responsible for acts that he has not committed. (Business guide n.d.) An advantage of this business structure is that there are very little formalities in the establishment of the business and all the partners can pool their expertise and resources for a common purpose and profit sharing. (All business n.d.) Once the capital has been input by the firm, it will take 2 weeks for the raw material to be supplied to the firm and 6 weeks from there to manufacture the raw material and transform it in to finished goods. (Bized n.d.) During the period, i.e. after 2 weeks from the payment of raw material and 6 weeks from the date on receipt of raw material, the goods will be converted in to finished goods. They may face some blockage with the liquidity and the working capital as they have given the customers a credit period of 2 months and the suppliers a credit period of 1 month which means that the customers will take longer to pay for the goods while the suppliers will have to be paid in lesser time, therefore the firm will always be short of cash and will depend on the customers as to when they return the money only then they can produce more goods. This may cause some idle periods in the production as they will have to wait for the payment to be made to them. They can obtain a greater credit period from the suppliers which is longer than the period that they are offering their customers of try and reduce the credit period of the customers through renegotiation which will allow them to generate the cash from its customers and purchase more raw material will enable the production process to go on without any halt and the working capital will be available without interruption in the production. It cannot be said to be a correct representation of the company’s cash position at the end of October. This is because