Kant The Universal Law Formation Of The Categorical Imperative Kantia

Kant: the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative Kantian philosophy outlines the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative as a method for determining morality of actions. This formula is a two part test. First, one creates a maxim and considers whether the maxim could be a universal law for all rational beings. Second, one determines whether rational beings would will it to be a universal law. Once it is clear that the maxim passes both prongs of the test, there are no exceptions. As a paramedic faced with a distraught widow who asks whether her late husband suffered in his accidental death, you must decide which maxim to create and based on the test which action to perform. The maxim "when answering a widow's inquiry as to the nature and duration of her late husbands death, one should always tell the truth regarding the nature of her late husband's death" (M1) passes both parts of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative. Consequently, ac cording to Kant, M1 is a moral action. The initial stage of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative requires that a maxim be universally applicable to all rational beings. M1 succeeds in passing the first stage. We can easily imagine a world in which paramedics always answer widows truthfully when queried. Therefore, this maxim is logical and everyone can abide by it without causing a logical impossibility. The next logical step is to apply the second stage of the test. The second requirement is that a rational being would will this maxim to become a universal law. In testing this part, you must decide whether in every case, a rational being would believe that the morally correct action is to tell the truth. First, it is clear that the widow expects to know the truth. A lie would only serve to spare her feelings if she believed it to be the truth. Therefore, even people who would consider lying to her, must concede that the correct and expected action is to tell th e truth. By asking she has already decided, good or bad, that she must know the truth. What if telling the truth brings the widow to the point where she commits suicide, however? Is telling her the truth then a moral action although its consequence is this terrible response? If telling the widow the truth drives her to commit suicide, it seems like no rational being would will the maxim to become a universal law. The suicide is, however, a consequence of your initial action. The suicide has no bearing, at least for the Categorical Imperative, on whether telling the truth is moral or not. Likewise it is impossible to judge whether upon hearing the news, the widow would commit suicide. Granted it is a possibility, but there are a multitude of alternative choices that she could make and it is impossible to predict each one. To decide whether rational being would will a maxim to become a law, the maxim itself must be examined rationally and not its consequences. Accordingly, the maxim passes the second test. Conversely, some people might argue that in telling the widow a lie, you spare her years of torment and suffering. These supporters of "white lies" feel the maxim should read, "When facing a distraught widow, you should lie in regards to the death of her late husband in order to spare her feelings." Applying the first part of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative, it appears that this maxim is a moral act. Certainly, a universal law that prevents the feelings of people who are already in pain from being hurt further seems like an excellent universal law. Unfortunately for this line of objection, the only reason a lie works is because the person being lied to believes it to be the truth. In a situation where every widow is lied to in order to spare her feelings, then they never get the truth. This leads to a logical contradiction because no one will believe a lie if they know it a lie and the maxim fails. Perhaps the die-hard liar can regro up and test a narrower maxim. If it is narrow

WOOLWORTHS SUPPLY AND DEMAND N essays

WOOLWORTHS SUPPLY AND DEMAND N essays 2.3 The Management Team and Project Refresh 2 3 WOOLWORTHS SUPPLY AND DEMAND NETWORK 2 3.3 Vehicle Routing and Scheduling (VRS) and Order Fulfillment 5 3.3.1 Transport Management System (TMS) 5 3.3.2 Woolworths - Town Hall Outlet 5 4.1.2 Warehousing/Distribution Centre 6 4.2 Vehicle Routing and Scheduling (VRS) 7 7 APPENDIX....................................................................................... 10 APPENDIX I ORGANISATION STRUCTURE.......................................... 10 APPENDIX II STORE STRUCTURE...................................................... 11 APPENDIX III FACILITIES LOCATION.................................................. 12 APPENDIX IV OPERATION PROCESS OF DISTRIBUTION CENTRE............ 13 The new model of competition - supply chain compete, not companies (Christopher, 1999, p.30) is now a fairly entrenched business strategy. This paradigm, together with the belief that logistics is a core capability, enabling the company to gain and maintain competitive advantage (e.g., Stalk et al. 1992), is a potent strategy for a company to be one step ahead of the competition, given todays competitive pressures brought about by technological convergence. Using this framework, we chose to study a local and best practice company that embodies this concept - Woolworths Limited. The main objective of this paper, therefore, is to examine how Woolworths has designed and has implemented its logistics system to maintain its cost and service leadership in the food retail industry in Australia for years. However, studying a market leader has also several nuisances. For instance, although there is an overload of publicly available materials, most of these are sanitized. So to compensate this weakness, we are very fortunate to gain an insider peek of the company via an interview given to us by Mr. ...

The Iranian Revolution of 1979

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 People poured into the streets of Tehran and other cities, chanting Marg bar Shah or Death to the Shah, and Death to America! Middle-class Iranians, leftist university students, and Islamist supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini united to demand the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. From October of 1977 to February of 1979, the people of Iran called for the end of the monarchy - but they didnt necessarily agree on what should replace it. Background to the Revolution Shah Reza Pahlevi, returning to Iran after a week-long exile due to the failled Mohamed Mossadegh coup detat.   Bettmann/Getty Images In 1953, the American CIA helped to overthrow a democratically elected prime minister in Iran and restore the Shah to his throne. The Shah was a modernizer in many ways, promoting the growth of a modern economy and a middle class, and championing womens rights. He outlawed the chador or hijab (the full-body veil), encouraged education of women up to and including at the university level, and advocated employment opportunities outside the home for women. However, the Shah also ruthlessly suppressed dissent, jailing and torturing his political opponents. Iran became a police state, monitored by the hated SAVAK secret police. In addition, the Shahs reforms, particularly those concerning the rights of women, angered Shia clerics such as Ayatollah Khomeini, who fled into exile in Iraq and later France beginning in 1964. The US was intent on keeping the Shah in place in Iran, however, as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Iran borders on the then-Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan  and was seen as a potential target for communist expansion. As a result, opponents of the Shah considered him an American puppet. The Revolution Begins Throughout the 1970s, as Iran reaped enormous profits from oil production, a gap widened between the wealthy (many of whom were relatives of the Shah) and the poor. A recession beginning in 1975 increased tensions between the classes in Iran. Secular protests in the form of marches, organizations, and political poetry readings sprouted all across the country. Then, late in October of 1977, the Ayatollah Khomeinis 47-year-old son Mostafa died suddenly of a heart attack. Rumors spread that he had been murdered by the SAVAK, and soon thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Irans major cities. This uptick in demonstrations came at a delicate time for the Shah. He was ill with cancer and seldom appeared in public. In a drastic miscalculation, in January of 1978, the Shah had his Information Minister publish an article in the leading newspaper that slandered Ayatollah Khomeini as a tool of British neo-colonial interests and a man without faith. The next day, theology students in the city of Qom exploded in angry protests; security forces put down the demonstrations but killed at least seventy students in just two days. Up to that moment, the secular and religious protesters had been evenly matched, but after the Qom massacre, the religious opposition became the leaders of the anti-Shah movement. Ahmad Kavousian/Getty Images   In February, young men in Tabriz marched to remember the students killed in Qom the previous month; the march turned into a riot, in which the rioters smashed banks and government buildings. Over the next several months, violent protests spread and were met with increasing violence from security forces. The religiously-motivated rioters attacked movie theaters, banks, police stations, and nightclubs. Some of the army troops sent in to quell the protests began to defect to the protesters side. The protesters adopted the name and image of Ayatollah Khomeini, still in exile, as the leader of their movement; for his part, Khomeini issued calls for the overthrow of the Shah. He spoke of democracy at that point, as well, but would soon change his tune. The Revolution Comes to a Head In August, the Rex Cinema in Abadan caught fire and burned, probably as a result of an attacked by Islamist students. Approximately 400 people were killed in the blaze. The opposition started a rumor that the SAVAK had started the fire, rather than the protesters, and anti-government feeling reached a fever pitch. Chaos increased in September with the Black Friday incident. On September 8, thousands of mostly peaceful protesters turned out in Jaleh Square, Tehran against the Shahs new declaration of martial law. The Shah responded with an all-out military attack on the protest, using tanks and helicopter gun-ships in addition to ground troops. Anywhere from 88 to 300 people died; opposition leaders claimed that the death toll was in the thousands. Large-scale strikes rocked the country, virtually shutting down both the public and private sectors that autumn, including the crucial oil industry. kaveh Lazemi/Getty Images On Nov. 5, the Shah ousted his moderate prime minister and installed a military government under General Gholam Reza Azhari. The Shah also gave a public address in which he stated that he heard the peoples revolutionary message. To conciliate the millions of protesters, he freed more than 1000 political prisoners and allowed the arrest of 132 former government officials, including the hated former chief of the SAVAK. Strike activity declined temporarily, either out of fear of the new military government or gratitude for the Shahs placatory gestures, but within weeks it resumed. On December 11, 1978, more than a million peaceful protesters turned out in Tehran and other major cities to observe the Ashura holiday and call for Khomeini to become Irans new leader. Panicking, the Shah quickly recruited a new, moderate prime minister from within opposition ranks, but he refused to do away with the SAVAK or release all political prisoners. The opposition was not mollified. The Shahs American allies began to believe that his days in power were numbered. Fall of the Shah On Jan. 16, 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi announced that he and his wife were going abroad for a brief vacation. As their plane took off, jubilant crowds filled the streets of Irans cities and began tearing down statues and pictures of the Shah and his family. Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who had been in office for just a few weeks, freed all political prisoners, ordered the army to stand down in the face of demonstrations and abolished the SAVAK. Bakhtiar also allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to return to Iran and called for free elections.   michel Setboun/Getty Images Khomeini flew into Tehran from Paris on Feb. 1, 1979 to a delirious welcome. Once he was safely inside the countrys borders, Khomeini called for the dissolution of the Bakhtiar government, vowing I shall kick their teeth in. He appointed a prime minister and cabinet of his own. On Febr. 9-10, fighting broke out between the Imperial Guard (the Immortals), who were still loyal to the Shah, and the pro-Khomeini faction of the Iranian Air Force. On Feb. 11, the pro-Shah forces collapsed, and the Islamic Revolution declared victory over the Pahlavi dynasty. Sources Roger Cohen, 1979: Irans Islamic Revolution, New York Times Upfront, accessed February 2013.Fred Halliday, Irans Revolution in Global History, OpenDemocracy.net, March 5, 2009.Iranian Civil Strife, GlobalSecurity.org, accessed February 2013.Keddie, Nikki R. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.

T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland - Essay Example "What Tiresias sees," Eliot tells us, "is the substance of the poem." But it is the nature of Tiresias' vision that is our concern. There are three principal stories about Tiresias, all of them relevant. In Oedipus Rex, sitting "by Thebes below the wall" he knew why, and as a consequence of what violent death and what illicit amour, the pestilence had fallen on the unreal city, but declined to tell. In the Odyssey he "walked among the lowest of the dead" and evaded predicting Odysseus' death by water; the encounter was somehow necessary to Odysseus' homecoming, and Odysseus was somehow satisfied with it, and did get home, for a while. In the Metamorphoses he underwent a change of sex for watching the coupling of snakes: presumably the occasion on which he "foresuffered" what is tonight "enacted on this same divan or bed." He is often the prophet who knows but withholds his knowledge, just as Hieronymo, who is mentioned at the close of the poem, knew how the tree he had planted in his garden came to bear his dead son, but was compelled to withhold that knowledge until he could write a play which, like The Waste L and, employs several languages and a framework of allusions impenetrable to anyone but the "hypocrite lecteur." It is an inescapable shared guilt that makes us so intimate with the contents of this strange deathly poem; it is also, in an age that has eaten of the tree of the knowledge of psychology and anthropology ("After such knowledge, what forgiveness"), an inescapable morbid sympathy with everyone else, very destructive to the coherent personality, that (like Tiresias' years as a woman) enables us to join with him in "fore suffering all." These sciences afford us an illusion of understanding other people, on which we build sympathies that in an ideal era would have gone out with a less pathological generosity, and that are as likely as not projections of our self-pity and self-absorption, vices for which Freud and Frazer afford dangerous nourishment. Tiresias is he who has lost the sense of other people as inviolably other, and who is capable neither of pity nor terror but only of a fascination spuriously related to compassion, which is merely the twentieth century's special mutation of indifference. The "dissociation of sensibility" cataloged by Eliot's imagery traces the dissociation of individual senses from each other in the absence of any intellectual Aufhebung into a logos. There is a great irony, for example, in Eliot's assertion that "what Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem." Tiresias' blindness should, according to myth, grant him a vision of the truth. What he "sees" in Eliot's poem is a troping of the primal scene in the mechanical copulation of the typist and the young man carbuncular. The metric, the rhyme scheme, and the ending sight of the "automatic hand" that "puts a record on the gramophone" enforce a feeling of remorseless repetition of a scene "foresuffered" a thousand times in memory and desire. Tiresias endlessly sees the scene of the crime, the origin of his own "blinding" or castration in witnessing the difference between men and women. What Tiresias sees is "substance" itself, physical life (or signifiers) unredeemed by spirit (or a tran scendental signified). Eliot's note plays on the philosophic sense of "substance" as essence and tacitly reminds us of its declension into mere matter. In some legends, Tiresias loses his eyes in retaliation for looking upon the naked body of the bathing Athena, goddess of wisdom. In the version from Ovid that Eliot quotes as "of great anthropological interest," we have

Ethics Issue in China Case Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ethics Issue in China Case Report - Essay Example Hence, the main issue was the difficulty to arrive at a decision on whether the operations in China should continue or not. The ethical stance taken by Levi’s with regards to human rights (arbitrary arrests, poor prison conditions, personal privacy) was not possible to follow in China and hence, it created an ethical problem for the organization. The ethical principles that got violated the most are the principles related to Respect for Autonomy and Justice (Trevino and Nelson, 2011). The ethical principle of Respect for Autonomy is based on the tenet that people should have the freedom to reign over them and also take the decisions that they want to. However, in China, Levis Strauss and Co found this violated their ethical stance because the leadershipin China had refused to ratify the 10 basic guidelines which prohibit the use of forced used of labor according to the International Labor Organization. Similarly, the country has also enforced forced family planning, again prov ing to violate the principles related to Respect for Autonomy. The people did not have much choice when it came to these matters of basic human rights and hence, were forced to comply, thus creating an environment where they could not do want they actually wanted to. The ethical principle related to Justice has not also been upheld with regards to human rights in China. ... Levi Strauss and Co has been known as an organization that has taken a very strong stance against any form of ethical violation. Even though there were speculations regarding entering the Chinese market (China’s stand on many human rights issue was known even before the operations began), the plan to operate from China was implemented in the hope that continued presence of many U.S based organizations can have an impact on the stance adopted by China. However, over the years, Levi Strauss realized that the issues were quite big to be solved just with the help of corporate presence. Hence, the organization was faced with a big question of whether to continue its operations for the profitability or to withdraw its operations based on ethical grounds, something that the organization has always proudly endorsed. The China Policy Group as well as deliberations by the senior management failed to come up with a decision regarding China operations. In the end, the CEO took the bold de cision to bring about an end to the operations in China due to ‘pervasive violation of human rights’. A corporate organization does not merely operate with the sole goal to improve its profitability, but in addition, it also forms a set of ethics that would help it achieve its profitability with the help of certain value system. As Levi Strauss and Co had followed, endorsed and promoted these values for a long time, it is difficult for them to operate in an environment where these values do not have meaning. Hence, it becomes an ethical issue and the organization was forced to weigh out their options between ethical stances versus profitability, ultimately deciding to withdraw its operations. 2. Resolve the case using

Middle School Essay Example for Free

Middle School Essay As we start this new school year, I wish to welcome all of you to Roberto Clemente Middle School. In the previous year, we have introduced and developed new ways to teach students and maximize their capabilities in learning different subjects and disciplines. Even if there are problems encountered along the way, your efforts and inputs have been vital to create new methods and alternatives to address these issues. As we enter to school year 2009-2010, I encourage each one to continue supporting our projects and endeavors to further develop student growth and achievement. Through the years, Roberto Clemente Middle School has sought to improve our education and facilities by constantly training teachers and introducing new practices wherein they can learn and develop. At the same time, to meet the challenges of 21st century education, our faculty and administrators have aligned new systems of instruction and presented new ways to appreciate information with the use of new technological alternatives. To continue pursuing our vision for excellence, Roberto Clemente Middle School shall continue its pursuit of effective instruction as well as dwelling into new ideas that can improve practice. We believe that for your children to grow and develop holistically, it is crucial to raise appreciation and motivation. Due to this, our programs are focused on setting the balance between what students need and your expectations. We deem that this process can create new avenues for our students to become adaptive to the changing trends of the current time. This year, we seek to improve our state scores by addressing on subject areas that are lagging behind standards. For example, we have hired some new and experienced Math teachers. Their inclusion into the faculty can help encourage our teachers to learn and develop in the process. At the same time, our educators in English and Math have undergone seminar and training to introduce and develop new teaching strategies available today. This can help them address further your children’s needs and develop a better learning environment in the classroom. These together with the results shall be communicated to you accordingly in the meetings we shall be setting up for you. To ensure your active participation and involvement this year, Roberto Clemente Middle School has come up with different programs and schemes that enable everyone to take part in helping reach our vision and goals. One approach we seek to do is encouraging parents and guardians to take part in meetings. The time frame for this would be the second week of July which would run from 9am – 3:00pm. In here, I and teachers shall be available for consultation and open forum of significant and relevant issues that may be of interest for everyone. At the same time, part of the responsibility of teachers is to enhance communication is by formally writing letters showing the progress of your children in school. This can actively give you insights and ideas of his/her standing compared to other students. Likewise, it can encourage sharing of opinions and thoughts on issues significant for your child’s growth. With your inputs and opinions, we can derive new approaches and schemes that are suitable on both parties. These approaches can help you in monitoring the progress of your child and finding ways to participate in guiding and exploring opportunities for improvement. It is through these aims and goals that I seek to promote the necessary plans for this school year. Your participation and cooperation in these initiatives can help us recognize these visions and remain to be dynamic and accountable for every action we pursue. Again, welcome to Roberto Clemente Middle School and thank you for your trust in what our school can offer for your children.

Essay --

Theories of development have been motivated by the need to explain mass poverty. Interest in development issues is of rather recent origin, dating back not much earlier than the nineteen fifties and early sixties. As represented by their more influential proponents, the development schools of thought reflect roughly the following chronological order of appearan Modernisation Theory 1950s-1960s Modernisation emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s; it was constructed from a newly profound position that was taken by America in terms of its international hegemony based on the concern to eradicate social problems faced by poor countries. However in the late 1960s there was an involvement of the US in Vietnam due to modernisation programs that failed. This led to the emergence of a Marxist dependency school that aimed to challenge modernisation school. The battle between dependency and modernisation theory emerged and it later became subside. This left the development of the third world to be less emotional and ideological. However the main focus of modernisation is attributed from the...