The ethical theories of natural law and situation ethics Essay Example for Free

The ethical theories of natural law and situation ethics Essay There are two main approaches to ethics which are held by Christians today. Over the years it has proved to be a very controversial and widely debated issue. Catholics and certain other strict denominations of the Christian church hold the view that natural law should be the means of making ethical decisions, whereas more liberal Christians consider situation ethics as a more suitable ethical system to go by. Natural law was advocated by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. It states that all ethical decisions should be made by looking at the absolute moral laws which have been laid down for us by God. For Christians these stem from The Ten Commandments. Believers in this are known as Ethical Deontologists. They maintain that an action is intrinsically good, bad, right or wrong. When faced with a moral dilemma, one should refer to the Law, irrespectively of what the outcome will be. It is suggested that the human purpose of life is to live and reproduce, to live harmoniously, to learn and to worship God. Problems can arise when the consequence of the decision causes more harm than good. An example of this can be found in Catholic moral theology abortion is immoral and can never be permitted. A loophole in this law means that a surgical procedure may be acceptable even if the result of it leads to the death of a foetus. In this case abortion isnt the primary intention, but is a by-product of the primary objective. This makes it permissible, but can lead to further problems if there are more biological complications. It is at points such as this that the basic natural law approach begins to fall apart. In this day and age it is becoming increasingly difficult to apply absolute moral laws to every situation that arises. On the basis of the principle, it could be argued that it is acceptable to kill thousands of Afghans so as to avoid the deaths of a few Americans. Evil effects can be easily justified by claiming that they are by-products of ones actions. This brings us to the question of whether God has laid down firm and unalterable rules or whether as human beings, we need to make our own moral decisions. As a result of the major flaws that appear in the theory of natural law, a Teleological approach to ethics was later introduced by the Anglican theologian, Joseph Fletcher, although the basic ideas of situation ethics have a much longer history. This relative theory of ethics is based on consequentiality the outcome of an action. The main principle of this theory is that for an action to be ethical, it simply has to be carried out in a loving manner. Nothing is intrinsically good except for love. Actions are good if they help human beings and they are bad if they hurt people there are no other criteria. What is right in one case may be wrong in another. The individual and the situation are the only important thing when making a decision, rather than applying a principle (for example thou shalt not kill). The following quotations help to summarise situation ethics, There is only one ultimate and invariable duty, and its formula is Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. How to do this is another question, but this is the whole of moral duty. (William Temple) The law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law; it is absolute because it concerns everything concretethe absolutism of love is its power to go into concrete situations. (Paul Tillich) Even though the teleological approach is a relative theory of ethics, it still involves an absolute law which is to do everything in love. However, the relativity of this theory allows room for exceptions to rules. Relativism doesnt imply that anything goes. For something to be relative, youve got to have something to be a benchmark, and situation ethics states that it should be relative to love. Fletcher said that it relativises the absolute, it does not absolutise the relative! Jesus and the apostles replaced the Torah, the strict Jewish Law with the principle of love. In the New Testament Jesus condemns the Pharisees for taking the Jewish Laws to such extremes because it loses the spirit in which the Law was written. This Christian love that Jesus taught and lived is known as agape. Agape does not depend on being loved in return. The command of love calls individuals to a high level of personal responsibility. Agape is not selective and doesnt have favourites it is a matter of attitude not feeling. It desires the good of others, not of the self. Above all, Christian love is practical (James 2:14-26). Jesus tells us that we should love our enemies our neighbour is anybody and everybody. As with just about every theory of morality, situation ethics is open to a considerable amount of criticism. The notion of basing actions on consequentiality is not always helpful because it can be difficult to determine the outcomes of certain situations, especially in the long-term. Humans also tend to look at situations subjectively so it becomes easy for selfishness to taint love. It can be difficult to assess a situation with objectivity. Even some actions dont necessarily become good just because they are done from a loving motive. The two theories that I have looked at are in stark contrast to one another. I think that it is difficult, if not impossible, to say that there is one approach that should be used at all times to justify every ethical decision that needs to be made. Each situation can throw up unexpected technicalities and difficulties that we have to contend with, but that doesnt mean to say that we shouldnt make decisions on the basis of our own moral beliefs. Bishop John Robinson once wrote, There is no one ethical system that can claim to be Christian and I completely agree with that. A supporter of the natural law approach asks what the law says and the situationist asks what is the best decision to help human beings, but why cant there be a middle ground? We should be able to use what was once the Law as a guideline when making ethical decisions rather than sticking rigidly to one approach just for the sake of theological argument. The Pope believes that the Law is Gods revealed will but it could be said that God revealed his will most fully through Jesus time on Earth. Not only did He preach on the importance of love, but He also showed us perfect examples of it throughout His life. It is the subtle difference between these doctrines that lies at the heart of many issues which are in hot debate at the moment. If the Church could ignore these theological ambiguities and become reunited, perhaps they could then learn to fulfill their purpose in Christ.

Title IX Amendment Essay -- American Government, Sports

In 1972, after the feminist’s movement, a proposition act was created to help increase hiring rates and employment practices of federally financed institutions for women. The amendment proposition first caught attention in 1969 when a professor and future women’s activist Bernice Sandler used executive orders created by President Johnson years earlier to fight for her job at the University of Maryland. Sandler encouraged and filed her first complaint to the Department of Labor office that her rights were not being considered. The complaint went further and passed not only the University of Maryland but onto universities that have showed low admission rates of female employees. Sandler then joined NOW (National Organization for Women) and collaborated with Woman’s Equity Action League (WEAL). Together Sandler filed 250 complaints against colleges across the nation. After the file complaints Bernice Sandler joined with Representative Judith Green’s subcommittee for Higher Learning and appeared at a women’s rights congressional meeting. That is when Title IX was then first proposed by Green and Sandler at the meeting. With the help of Congresswomen Patsy T. Mink, Title IX was finally introduced and drafted. The amendment had a huge impact on female collegiate athletes, but was not mentioned in the meeting. According to Wikipedia Title IX reads: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..." The concern of present day Title IX amendment was revised in order to reflect gender equality, giving females the same opportunity as males to get ... ...tment of Education disapproves of cutting teams in order to comply with Title IX (Wikipedia). I believe that the point of the Title IX amendment was not to hurt male sports. It is the schools choice to cut back sports that do not bring revenue, but they have to do it with their budget and to comply with the rules of the amendment. I hope they can find a way to keep it equal with both genders using the same budget. I stay optimistic that it is only going to get better right when the economy begins to get better. Until then, Title IX is going keep cutting male sports for years to come unless they can find some outsource money like private schools do to keep all of their sports. Our education system has a lot of improvement to make. I also think that California is getting the worse part of it since were in a lot worse money crisis compared to the other states.

Program Analysis

The points of view of the segments are that the Bola virus has become an epidemic in the world and everyone should be alert as to the symptoms to prevent them from getting sick. The man who traveled from Africa to the United States with the virus was said to be traveling for many different reasons. At first all stations seemed to be In sync with not knowing the truths as to the reasons for his travels. One of the first assumptions was that he traveled here to get medical attention to help him be cured of the virus.The programs mention this because there was a recent case of an American man who name from Africa after helping treat the African people with the virus and found out that he contracted it himself. After being quarantined in a hospital he was cured with an experimental drug. They felt he traveled here to get the same treatment. This raised a lot of question for people and the broadcast stations that reported on this subject. I believe the reports are objective for a couple o f reasons.As humans we are afraid of certain things and when those who usually have the ability to be persuasive for many reasons are scared they tend to want to be more objective that subjective o that they will be able to benefit for themselves as well as those who matter most to them, this in return allows others to be informed as well. This is demonstrated through the information provided is more based on fact rather than make up stories to benefit them as a station or a group.The reports from the stations can also be subjective In ways that they assumed the reason for the man's travels and made conclusions off of Information that has not been proved to be fact. This could have been used to gain ratings by coming up with an outrageous reason for his travels. The information that was included that shouldn't have been included is that the stations report that the people that have contracted the virus here in the United States now makes it an epidemic.In reality there is no epidemi c here In the United States because there Is no mass outbreak of the virus to a lot of people. This shouldn't have been Included because It gives people the false sense that there Is a problem with the virus here in America and people have begun to make their own assumptions as to the issue and make precautions that may not be necessary at this mime. I do not think there was any information that was not included, but it seems as if information takes time to get around on the issue.When it was found out that the two nurses had the virus one nurse was able to travel causing other people to possibly be exposed to the virus. With the Issue at hand there are various social who are from America felt the man who traveled from Africa should have been allowed to die. People are not saying this to be meant and inhumane but for reasons of preventing an epidemic here in the United States.For example if the man who name here was treated and survived the virus while thousands are dying in Africa, then that news will spread and people of Africa who have contracted the virus will try to make their way to America in an effort to find a cure. On the other hand people feel like the man should have survived because we were able to treat and cure all American people who contracted the virus, but one man from Africa we could not treat and feel like the man was allowed to die. This cause caused people to feel like the people in charge of the cure or effort to treat people are monsters.Also there are people who want to restrict travel from Africa to the United States not allowing to travel to America from the area's most affected by the virus. At first nothing was done but after a while of concerned people pressuring the President for answers and results there was a plan to scan people at airports for signs of the virus. The news reports reported on this new plan to help prevent cases from entering America, and allowed people to feel relief but it was short lived.Not long after the r eports of the plan to scan people at airports, it has been also reported that signs of the virus are to easily detected at first and people can easily pass the scans and end up showing signs of the virus after they left the airport. This cause the concerns to go back up in America and people are now scared again. Most recently the new process is to also immediately quarantined people who come to America from Africa to ensure that that do not have the virus before allowing them to return to public.This has caused another issue as reports of a woman refusing to be quarantined and planned to sue because she is being kept away from her family, Job, and home. People say that it's or the protection of the country while she feels like she is being imprisoned Just because she traveled to Africa and being treated like someone with a disease. This has caused people to develop their own feelings about the situation but most agree that she should be kept in so that if she possibly did contract the virus in Africa she would not spread it to others she came in contact with.With everything that has been reported and said on the different cases of Bola here in the United States I feel that the majority of the segments are taken with face value with little nationalization for entertainment. With the issue being real and people truly concerned about what can possibly happen is there is an outbreak here in the United States, I feel the majority of the reports are for real information purposes to allow the public to know what's going on in America and how it relates to the people of the country and id the virus is a true concern here.I also feel that there is some entertainment factor here has some shows have begun to make Jokes as to how people can contract the virus and it is completely a Joke. I also hear on the radio that radio personalities are using the situation to get the opinion of the public and allow their voice to be heard on the different situations surround the viru s and people coming from Africa to return home, go to college, and other reasons for coming to the Unites States.In conclusion with so many different stories to follow in news programs there are some that catch your attention for reasons beyond entertainment. I feel like the reporting on the Bola virus are one of the reports in which you want to be he situation is very serious and a huge concern there are still people here that can make a Joke about the situation.Some people may find it funny while some may not and take offense to the things that can be said and done on the television and radio. In the end it is up to us as an individual to decide whether we will pay attention to what's going on and what's being or ignore it. Some ignore it because they know it is not a real issue at this point and will continue to until it becomes a real issue here in America. Till them we will not see people walking around in gloves and masks.

The Slavery Of African Americans - 1844 Words

Most African Americans were forcibly migrated from their countries to the United States to be used for the labor in fields and even do home chores for their owners. Many African American men, women and even children were either stolen from their families or sold by their own people to traders who would bring them back to the United States and sold them to white plantation owners. An African American who was bought by white owner was called a slave. The word slaves means â€Å"a person who is a legal property to another person†. Slavery was practiced during the British colonization and was recognized by the 13th colonies during the declaration of independence. Millions of African Americans were bought in the United States to work in farms or do†¦show more content†¦Slaves were treated worse than an animal by their owners who would just consider them property and use them, and do anything to slaves as they desired. Almost all of slaves were brought alone or with some fa mily member to the United States and then sold to different owners. Most owners would force slaves to marry each other for their benefits so when they can have children. Which the owner can either sell them or make them work too. Many times a male or female slave would be married two or three times already and then were forced to marry again when they were sold to a new owner or their spouse is sold. Imagine been born a slave and then being sold away from your brothers, sisters and parents at a young age and what effects it has own the parents. The narrative of Sojourner truth was published in 1850 and it’s about a slave name Sojourner Truth originally named â€Å"Isabella† who was born in New York as a slave. Her parents James and Betsey were slaves of colonel Ardinburgh. She was the youngest of her all brothers and sister from which most of whom were sold to a different owner by the time she was born or too little to remember. Of all her brother and sister she only k new two who were shortly sold and were separated from their family. Isabella only spoke Dutch so when she was sold to an English speaking owner, she had many difficulties with this owner and his wife because she couldn’t understand anything they order her to do. Later on she was sold to a