A Humean Theory of Distributive Justice Essay -- Hume Dworkin Entrepre

This paper suggests a strategy for constructing a contemporary Humean theory of distributive justice which would serve to ground what I call an entrepreneurial welfare state. It is argued that blending David Hume's insights about the origins and purposes of justice with Ronald Dworkin's insurance-based reasoning supporting his equality of resources model of distributive justice will yield a state which, as a matter of justice, encourages its members to engage in entrepreneurial activities and which protects them from the worst extremes of market economies. Introduction I claim that an attractive theory of distributive justice can be constructed by blending David Hume's ideas about the origins and purposes of justice with Ronald Dworkin's insurance-based justification for his equality of resources model of distributive justice. The resulting theory—less egalitarian than Dworkin's and more liberal than Hume's—recommends adopting an entrepreneurial welfare state.. Hume on the Human Situation Hume begins his account of the origins of justice by observing that animals tend to fit into two categories: either they are lion-like, having substantial needs and great resources with which to satisfy those needs, or they are sheep-like, having little in the way of abilities to satisfy their needs but also having correspondingly few needs. All animals have abilities and capacities sufficient to fulfill their needs. Both lions, with their prodigious appetites and means of satisfying those appetites, and sheep, with their modest appetites and modest means of satisfying those appetites, could survive on their own in the wild. But humans, Hume claims, are quite different. Like lions, we have substantial needs. But like sheep, we hav... ... and Practice of Equality, page 72, (italics added). 17. We can distinguish between two kinds of luck: option luck and brute luck." Option luck is a matter of how deliberate and calculated gambles turn out—whether someone gains or loses through accepting an isolated risk he or she should have anticipated and might have declined... Brute luck is a matter of how risks fall out that are not in that sense deliberate gambles." Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, page 73. 18. The ideas in this paper benefited from comments by audiences at the Atlantic Regional Philosophical Association meetings at Acadia University, the Canadian Philosophical Association meetings at Memorial University, and at the Philosophy Department at Dalhousie University. For extended discussion I thank Nathan Brett, Susan Dimock, Duncan MacIntosh, and Thea E. Smith.

THE MAN :: essays research papers

The Man They Called Danny -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To the millions who watched his story unfold, slain reporter Daniel Pearl was a symbol of loss and national grief. To those who knew him, he was much more. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Felicity Barringer Sidebar: Why Reporters Risk It Related Site: Wall Street Journal The Daniel Pearl Foundation THE FILE "JOURNALIST1" on my computer, created after the war in Afghanistan began, is a disjointed record of the fears and losses of the last several months. It begins with notes about journalists in Afghanistan and the dangers they face. It was open when the father of John Tipping II, a firefighter who died in the World Trade Center, called to talk about his son for a thumbnail portrait in the New York Times. So it continued with notes about a fireman. The same file was on my screen January 24 when a call came from Steven Goldstein, Dow Jones?s corporate spokesman. He told me that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal?s South Asia bureau chief, was missing. ?Journalist1?? soon filled with notes about Daniel Pearl?s work and his life and details that reflected the painful uncertainty about his fate. Finally, it recorded the even more painful certainty: Pearl?s death at the hands of Pakistani kidnappers. A videotape sent to the American Embassy a month after his capture showed a knife wound near his heart, evidence of his gruesome execution. The kidnappers then videotaped the mutilation of his body. The prolonged uncertainty, the geopolitical importance of a crime calculated to embarrass Pakistan?s president as he aligned himself with the United States and, finally, the kidnapping?s barbaric conclusion, guaranteed an audience of millions. Many of these became captivated by the man they called ?Danny.? His smile was beguiling, a lighthearted challenge to any person or institution that took itself too seriously. His eclectic embrace of people and ideas led him into journalism, into myriad friendships, into all kinds of music and into marriage with a French citizen whose blithe spirit mirrored his own. It is no surprise that he is better known than the other journalists in the ?Journalist1?? file, better known than John Tipping II and most of those killed on September 11. The country and the world mourned, hard, for the thousands who died that day, and for all that was lost with them. But people did not just mourn Daniel Pearl. They claimed him for their own. When word of Pearl?s death was broadcast on February 21, Vera Katz started scrambling around her home in Venice, Calif.

How advertisement effects people’s lives Essay

As Americans we are exposed to advertisements everyday. People are pressured from every direction by advertisements which exploit their deepest fears, attractions, needs, and desires, shaping their behaviors, goals, and thoughts. They are led into believing false information and promises that are mostly never kept, all for the simple reason of selling the product and making profit. We see advertisements everywhere–in magazines and newspapers, on the radio, on TV, online, in the mail, even over the phone. These advertisements use the basic ideas of either providing an elite status with the possession of the product, or giving a sense of belonging to a group or community. Since the recent military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, another ever present idea has been made prominent and that is using patriotism to evoke people’s desires. Americans are persuaded into buying unnecessary items everyday; however, we need to realize that no matter what advertisements say we should purchase items for their usefulness, not to fill voids in our lives, so we can help eliminate the problem we face today of being a materialistic society. The patriotic theme affecting people’s hearts, minds and senses, is commonly used to manipulate them into buying things. Since everyone has love for their country, using it to sell products is a brilliant idea, but I believe this is a bad practice. It makes people believe they are not ideal Americans, nor are they similar to the people around them if they do not buy that product. The Palmolive advertisement, in Seeing and Writing 2, is a key example, it appeals to the wives of the men at war in World War II (417). On the top of this advertisement there are three medals which contain picture of three different men in their uniforms and the words â€Å"For Him† appear next to each picture. In the lower part of the advertisement there is a woman looking up at these medals and above her head are the words, â€Å"I pledge myself to guard every bit of Beauty that he cherishes in me†, and finally in the background there are several faces of women also looking towards the medals. This advertisement is basically communicating to the wives the idea of guarding their beauty, by using this soap, just like their husbands are guarding their country. The ironic fact is that soap cannot make someone beautiful, nor do people lose their beauty if they do not use the correct brand of soap. This advertisement is connecting a heroic and patriotic act  to one used for mere beauty, in order to sell the soap. The Palmolive advertisement was run in 1943, but a more current advertisement which uses similar attributes is Chevrolet and its slogan for its recent line of cars, â€Å"An American Revolution.† This slogan is always placed on a blue sky background and the writing is in bold white letters, except for the â€Å"E† in â€Å"Revolution†, this letter is written in red ink. So when you come across this slogan, not only does the slogan sound patriotic to you, it also appears to be patriotic because it incorporates the red, the white and the blue. This phrase says to its audience that every American is buying and driving a Chevy car and so should they. Another detail that could be interpreted out of this advertisement is that since the U.S. is currently at war and fighting a revolution against terrorism, a person living in the U.S. can participate in this patriotic revolution by purchasing a Chevrolet. This would be true only if Chevrolet was funding the war, instead of the US government. Along with this, another advertisement that exploits this concept was the Netzero advertisement run during the time before the elections. In this advertisement the spokesman was running for President under the alias of Candidate Zero. His main goal was to provide cheaper and faster internet to every family and household. In order to get people’s attention, this clever idea was used, and it certainly worked on people like me. Viewers could also connect the advertisement with the actual presidential race and that way the product of the advertisement was stuck in their conscious awareness. The whole patriotic theme is strange because the connection between patriotism and the product does not make the product function better, so why do we feel obligated to pay attention to the advertisement and even purchase that product. Along with patriotism another concept used widely is the elitism the product brings to people with its possession. As Jack Solomon wrote in his essay Masters of Desire, â€Å"We Americans dream of rising about the crowd, of attaining a social summit beyond the reach of ordinary citizens† (1). He is basically saying that Americans want to be better then the people around  them and this belief is what marketers feast on, creating status symbols like Rolex, Mercedes, BMW, etc. One advertisement that crosses my mind in terms of using elitism would be the new U2 iPod Special Edition advertisement. This promotes an iPod with a black cover and laser engraved signatures of the U2 band members; everything else is similar to a regular iPod; whereas, the price is $50 more. People are led into believing that the U2 iPod is better than the regular one only because it is endorsed by U2. Another ironic detail is that a normal iPod itself is a product of elitism, because even though it has similar functions to a Sony or any other MP3 player, it costs $100 more only because it comes with the signature white headphones. These headphones, unique only because an iPod come equipped with them, have made themselves and the iPod a status symbol. Most people only buy an iPod because they want the headphones to show the illusion of superiority and uniqueness. Solomon says, â€Å"The explanation is quite simple: when an object (or puppy!) either costs a lot of money or requires influential connections to possess, anyone who possesses it must also possess the necessary means of influence to acquire it† (3). This explains why the white headphones have made the iPod a status symbol, since its shows possession of an expensive item, even though rationally speaking the color of the headphones does not make the iPod function better, they only make it different. Solomon also talks about another part of the American Dream, in which belonging to a group is important. The Chevrolet slogan connects us to the entire American population; the iPod connects us to other owners of an iPod, and so on. We need a sense of connection and belonging, fulfilling our need for attention and affection. Abraham Maslow, a founder of humanistic psychology, created a triangle in which he placed a person’s needs in the order they needed to be fulfilled and the need for love and belonging was the third basic need. Disillusioned by the advertisements, people try to fulfill this need by buying the products. This proves that using this theme advertisers are able to affect the person on much deeper levels then recognizable, yet by no means does the product itself become more useful. It is understandable that advertisers need to appeal to people in order to  sell their product and that is why they use these tactics, but what is not understandable is while knowing the truth people believe the hoaxes and let advertisements dictate what they are going to buy. People need to realize that products should not be used to fulfill our weaknesses; they should be consumed based on our needs, because companies will keep manufacturing status symbols until we accept that products and items are only materialistic and we can never attain all the luxury items around us. We are scammed into buying false promises everyday, after we realize that we have a choice against it, we can choose not to let advertisements or minor details about the product like the endorsements, or the color of headphones, or the catchy slogan persuade us into buying a certain item.

The Tain: Cuculain Hero?

Amber Borkowski Reading Literature Myths Cuchulainn: A Hero or a Killer? A mythic hero is a story figure that embarks on a journey in order to complete tasks that make them into legends of tales. Cuchulainn is a mythic hero in the Tain, a story of a war between the North and South of the land in Ireland. A hero is a term that can be a homonym with many other meanings. A person can consider a police officer, their mother, or many other examples as a hero. Even with the broad spectrum of the word, every example does surround the feeling of being protected by the person. I consider Cuchulainn to be a war-hero.Cuchulainn is a well-trained warrior that is able to perform stunts of throwing a javelin, stone, just fighting with his fists, and many more while leaving every opponent dead or too terrified to fight him. But does being able to defeat every opponent make a character a hero or just a person to be feared? Cuchulainn was raised and trained by the best of all the instructors to becom e a great warrior that would be remembered, and that is just what he did. When Cuchulainn was just a boy he left his mother and went off to join the boy troop where he would train and be protected by the troop.The war in the tale began at the point where Medb and Aillil, the queen and king of Connacht, had an argument over who had the most possessions. The two were equal until the point came where Aillil owned one great bull more than Medb. Medb was so enraged that she waged war to retrieve the equally great bull from Ulster. At this time, the Ulster army was in their pangs, unable to have the strength to fight. Cuchulainn protected the land from Medb and Aillil’s army, killing thousands of their soldiers.With Medb and Aillil’s army becoming weaker, Cuchulainn agreed to fight one great warrior a day. Every day the opponent would be defeated and this continued until the pangs lifted from Cuchulainn’s Ulsterman army. Eventually, Medb and Aillil were defeated and t here was peace in the land among the people. During the tale of the Tain, there was a section about Cuchulainn going into a warp spasm and killing men, children, and women the same. â€Å"The first warp-spasm seized Cuchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of.His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or reed in the stream. †(Kinsella, p. 150) At this point Cuchulainn is transformed into an un-human monster with essentially no emotion or thought other than destruction. â€Å"In this great Carnage on Murtheimne Plain Cuchulainn slew one hundred and thirty kings, as well as an uncountable horde of dogs and horses, women and boys and children and rabble of all kinds. †(Kinsella, p. 156) To me this behavior seems more like a murderer’s actions than a â€Å"heroes†.Almost like a villain in a superhero movie that needs to be stopped because of their unthin kable actions. Cuchulainn was definitely a hero for being able to protect Ulster while they were not able to fight. He was a hero to his people, but was extremely feared by the opponents. Cuchulainn would also be considered a hero because he does not necessarily want to kill all of the people he did. He was just obeying the orders that he was given and obeying his king. There came points in the story where Medb and Aillil had sent people close to Cuchulainn for him to battle.At these points in the story it is understood that Cuchulainn is not a senseless killer with any type of emotions, even though in those days the value of life was not very high. To fight these men or not was a terrible decision to have to make because Cuchulainn was aware of the amazing stunts he could perform against an opponent, leaving them dead. If a person is able to defeat every opponent that is placed in battle with them, does that make them a hero or just a person that is feared by all? To answer this qu estion it really comes down to what side of the situation the person giving the opinion is on.A relatable situation in history would be of Adolf Hitler. He was a dictator that was admired by the people who followed him. The loyalty of the people allowed him to kill thousands, but if he had the strengths of Cuchulainn, he could have done it alone. Similarly, he was feared by one group and considered a hero to the other side. There is not really an answer as to Cuchulainn being a hero or just a crazy mass murderer. The answer would have to lie in which side of the war you were on. Works Cited Kinsella, Thomas. (1969). The Tain. Great Clarendon Street, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

People Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

People Communication - Essay Example Failure of communication meeting the intended purpose raises suspicion and reactance. Communication takes place due to the assistance of a variety of tools and equipments. Researchers and scholars have plated a vital role in enhancement of communication by development and invention of effective communication tools and strategies. This paper discusses in depth technological change, social construction theories, political economic analysis, and the ideology of technology neutrality (Atkin 3). Change is a remarkable event in everyone’s life. Rapid change in technology has brought diverse effects to individual’s lives. Change comes in succession and is bond to happen in everyone’s life. How an individual approaches the changes in life becomes a question at hand. Changes that arise in an individual’s life may either be social, economically, or politically allied (Chandler). Change may either have optimistic or pessimistic impacts in an individual’s life. Change in technology has diversely altered the way people converse and relay message. Different ways have come up where an individual can have a discussion with another who is miles away. Change in technology entails innovation, invention, and diffusion of technological processes. Technological change aims for better and more effective technology (Cellary and Iyengar 187). In the social world, technology has invented methods of enhancing effective communication.... Researchers argue that new electronic communication media has enabled people interact and collaborate in a contemporary manner. For instance, every kind of technological change requires a little communication and training (Atkin 4). An individual is supposed to change with the changing technology and effectively adapt to it. Researchers depict that the biggest technological change in the society, encompasses communication. Communication is an extensive procedure that involves not only two people but also the society at whole. Language use is a key factor to effective communication. Therefore, it is necessary for individuals to strategize on the kind of language to use when conveying message (Birkinbine). Change in technology has greatly influenced the way people converse. Communication devices have changed immensely over centuries thus leading to the invention of mobile technology. The mobile technology has over time varied from a simple pre-paid hand phone to a small thin laptop. Mo bile technology refers to various types of cellular communication technology devices. These devices include palmtop computers, net-book computers, smart phones, global positioning devices, and wireless debit or credit cards. Mobile technology has portrayed a wide range of first modern infrastructure in the society. The use of mobile technology has boomed over years. In most cases, the level of technology in any kind of communication devices, determines whether to purchase or buy the device. Arguably, mobile technology has been a force that clears away barriers, promotes inclusiveness, and opens opportunities to all those who would otherwise not partake in the digital cost-cutting measures (Chandler). As communication technologies

Politics of development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Politics of development - Essay Example The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of population growth on development, and to show that overpopulation is closely linked to gender politics. Thomas Malthus, a British demographer and political economist, developed a theory of overpopulation warning humanity of the dangers of swelling numbers. In his work, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1999), Malthus argued about the negative effects of population growth. He claimed that the multiplication of humanity over time would lead to disease and famine by making natural resources scarcer, and provisions and remedies more costly. Malthus argued that because of the relative growth of different classes within society (primarily English society) and an increase in poverty, the moral order of society would be tested. Malthus used two overlapping axioms to explain his ideas. He argued that it was easier for populations to grow than for natural resources to support this growth; population, for Malthus, increased in a geometric progression, while resources increased in an arithmetic progression. However, he maintained, there is a strong tendency in society towards population growth. This tendency upsets the balance between the number of people and the amount of food available to feed them. This situation worsens poverty and increased the worries of the poor. As a result development is hindered. The Malthusian model explains, just by simple supply and demand logic, that when population increases, the labor market becomes more competitive. This drives wages down. As the proportion of food per person decreases, the price of food also increases. Therefore, overpopulation hurts both poverty alleviation and overall development of society. There were two solutions to this problem according to Malthus: positive checks and preventive checks. Positive checks were natural and historical speed breakers to population growth and came in the form of war, global pandemics, and famines. These checks had

Identify and Discuss an Example of Discriminatory Practice in a care Essay

Identify and Discuss an Example of Discriminatory Practice in a care home for elderly people - Essay Example So we embarked on a journey to look for one of such institution. Finally we bumped into one of the Care home which seemed to have very sophisticated facilities; just what we had wanted. We later learnt that this institution demands a client must a pensioner. As it turned out, my grandfather was not a pensioner. And the obvious happened; we were turned away. There was no room for negotiations. What was bad about this incident was that my grandfather was denied a room without adequate explanation of the policy or giving us as a chance to negotiate terms of payment. They could have let us explain how we were going to raise the amount. This institution only seems to protect its interests and the expense of particular protected characteristics. The idea was that the pension can act a security in the event a client is unable to settle the arrears. This policy encourages discrimination of in the facility. The management had simply stereotyped my family. They had claimed that incidences of relatives bringing the elderly clients to the institution and disappearing without pay have increased. Therefore, they discriminated my grandfather on that basis. The aforesaid incident, though hard to notice, is a form of discrimination in the care homes for the elderly. This act was indirect discrimination. Here, the policy of pension applies to all the clients that report for admission. Every elderly person, no matter the age and race, must prove he or she is a pensioner. In essence, all the elderly clients fall in the pool of comparison. Technically, it creates an impression of equality since the policy applies to all. However, it is blatant this policy has disadvantaged a certain group of clients. The policy does not consider the protected characteristics of those who are not in the pension list. Even though it is common knowledge that not all the elderly had been employed by the government, the institution has failed