Potential impacts of climate change on food security Essay

Potential impacts of climate change on food security - Essay Example This is in either temperature or a decrease, as well as in precipitation since climate change does not affect certain areas in the same way. Current Trends A look at the production of food following the changes in climate, thanks to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, reveals that food production is bound to increase based on a number of factors. This is especially so in the case of regions that grow ice, maize and wheat, as carbon dioxide increases yields of these crops, but that implies that other regions not growing these crops as set to be left out in the bumper harvest (Parry et al, 2004). As per research, the most adversely affected regions are those found in sub-Saharan Africa, with the largest variation in cereal production, in a negative level. As for most of Asia, and all of Australia, increases in food production will be increased. As a result, Africa is the only region to suffer from reduced food security, whilst areas close to the north pole suffer seco nd, and the rest of the world experiences improved food security. Carbon and climate change All across the globe, one of the most common causes of climate change is carbon emission that leads to increases in temperature, which begs the question what are the effects of this gas on the climate. This has been concluded that carbon dioxide is a chief contributor to global warming, which is part of why the climate is changing to be warmer in some areas, while others get cooler. As a result, the use of alternative sources of energy that do not entail then emission of carbon into the atmosphere should be encouraged and can be encouraged by use of statistical or empirical data obtained from environmental studies on climate change. One of the ways in which climate change can be mitigated by application of natural resources and sustainability option is through use of renewable resources that have minimal impact on the environment. Those that contain trace amounts of carbon can be used as they do not release any carbon into the atmosphere and temperatures remain stable. Implications of this are that food production remains the same throughout time, and in spite of economic and agricultural activities. Resource sustainability Although there are studies that are indicative of food sustainability through climate change, the larger percentage of the human population is bound to remain in poor nutrition due to food insecurity owing to poor distribution of food resources. The use of renewable resources such as wind power are bound to mitigate these climate changes in that African regions experiencing drastic changes in reduced food production, all thanks to carbon emissions, get to enjoy similar food distribution trends. In addition, climate change can be mitigated to ensure food security by using soil conservation measures, where soil is a renewable resource, and its conservation is a guarantee for agricultural productivity. Because of these conservation efforts maintaining m oisture in the soil adds up to conservation efforts that are a largely required to ensure that soil as a renewable resource is kept intact and highly productive. This then highlights the need for water conservation, as water is a renewable resource, and one that requires the extended use of conservation to balance many other aspects such as maintain

Oscar Wilde’s Essay Example for Free

Oscar Wilde’s Essay The following essay will examine British Literature in two fold: the first being that of Oscar Wilde’s contribution to British Literature and the second being feminism in British Literature in the 1800’s and on. It is hoped that focusing on two separate but entangled subjects will make the paper more accessible and therefore broader in scope and understanding of the reader to British Literature. Peacocks and Sunflowers:Oscar Wilde’s â€Å"Immoral Aestheticism† as an Escape from Reality into the Realm of Beauty Gilbert, the author’s alter ego in Oscar Wilde’s essay â€Å"The Critic as Artist† (originally published in 1888) declared that â€Å"[a]ll art is immoral† (274), and that phrase turned into a manifesto for the â€Å"immoral aestheticism† doctrine of the famous dandy who decorated rooms with peacock feathers and showed in public with a sunflower in the buttonhole. The writer was condemned by contemporaries as a breacher of Victorian ‘moral’ style of living but justified by successors. As Ellmann explains, â€Å"[s]in is more useful to society than martyrdom, since it is self-expressive not self-repressive† and thus contributes more significantly to the acute goal of â€Å"the liberation of the personality† (Ellmann 310). The man who used to be convicted of the offence of â€Å"gross indecency† is praised now as an icon of decadent and modernist style, a revolutionary in aesthetics and ethics, and a prophet of beauty which is above and outside any boundaries. The concept of art and beauty as abstract notions being unrelated to the narrowly dichotomous morals takes a key position in Wilde’s oeuvre. Today’s critics are never tired in their coining of appropriate definitions for the writer’s aesthetic programme. Gillespie, one of the most important researchers of Wilde’s legacy, viewed it as consisting of â€Å"paradoxical gestures† which â€Å"delineate an aesthetic that celebrates the impulse to integrate, amalgamate, and conjoin rather than separate, dissipate, or disperse† (37). Although the writer was aware of â€Å"the grave spiritual dangers involved in a life of immoral action and experiment† (Pearce 164), he underlined the right of an artist to be immoral for the sake of eternal beauty. In his aestheticism, Wilde was an admirer and disciple of essayist and art critic Walter Horatio Pater with the latter’s emphasis on the esthete as a novel kind of being (Murphy 1992; Wood 2002). He was also immersed into the late 19th century cultural milieu as being involved into a polylogue on the topics of art, artist, ethics, and beauty which resulted in the emergence of Decadence and Modernism (Bell 1997). Altogether with the English fin de siecle men of art such as A. C. Swinburne, Walter Pater, Lionel Johnson, Ernest Christopher Dowson, George Moore Symons, and D. G. Rossetti, Wilde researched the concept of aesthetics as being constructed by a person who was proud of â€Å"[his] non-participation †¦ in ethical controversy† (Woodcock 53) and thus freed from the restrictions imposed by society and common law. Oscar Wilde’s â€Å"immoral aestheticism† as an integral part of the decadent and early modernist styles is what the present proposal attempts to look at. It will research Wilde’s critical and fictional legacy in regard to ideas and concepts as pertinent to the new understanding of relationship between art and morals. This proposal attempts to re-examine Oscar Wilde as a theorist of the novel aesthetics, establishing a link between the writer and other theorists and critics to prove that the call for immoral aestheticism was a brilliant attempt to overcome the boredom of reality and enter the world of absolute beauty. Modern Women’s Voices: Sexual Subjectivity in the texts of Victorian and contemporary British women writers Feminism is still one of the most popular critical lenses to zoom into details of history of literature and social life (Brennan 2002; Jackson 1998; Kemp 1997; Scott 1996), and it is proven to be useful within the framework of the given proposal aimed at tracing the common and differentiating points of the two critical periods of British literature. I am especially interested in the late Victorian epoch with its rise of independent women’s suffragist voices and the latest period with its diversity of tones and melodies composed by women writers amidst the turmoil of free speech and re-thinking of common gender values such as career, family, child-rearing, and gender relationships. The novels chosen are The Story of a Modern Woman by Ella Hepworth Dixon (1894), Anna Lombard by Victoria Cross (the pseudonym of Annie Sophie Cory1901), Foreign Parts by Janice Galloway (1994) and Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding (2004). The earlier and later books are divided by almost a century but despite a temporal distance there are common motives and aspirations which approximate the Victorian ‘New Woman’ and a modern British female as depicted in fiction. The feminist movement of the late Victorian period was pre-conditioned by many factors which made the trend not accidental but seriously grounded in the wider social context being permeated by patriarchal ascendance and rigidness of social structure (Bernstein 1997; Lewis and Ardis 2003). The ‘New Women’ movement that acquired much power during the period from the late 1890s to roughly 1915 featured a range of opinions concerning the heightened role of a female in a modern society (Walls 2002; Mitchell 1999). As Ardis (1990) observed, Dixon went farther than her colleagues in asserting the preciousness and independency of a woman as a self-sustaining creature (see also Fehlbaum 2005), whereas Cross’s Anna Lombard represents another type of the late Victorian womanhood as sacrificing her desires and aspirations for the sake of the traditional familial institution. The most recent books by Galloway and Fielding cannot be straight-forwardly labeled as ‘feminist’ writing, although they utilise some stylistic elements of feminist narration (Greene 1991). Whereas Galloway vividly portrays contemporary women as being able to function outside the patriarchic framework but provides no answer to the question about the appropriateness of such life style, Fielding is often criticised for the attempts to find consensus with a men’s world and, therefore, to abandon the programme of modern Amazons (Marsh 2004). Anyhow, both contemporary British women of letters share specific ideas concerning authorship and the interplay between feminist and non-feminist traditions to the extent that they can be seen as spiritual sisters of their Victorian predecessors. Being equipped with solid theoretical instruments from gender studies and psychology (e. g. Lacanian psychoanalytic theory) to conceptualise the evolution of womanhood and gendered selves in Great Britain throughout a century, I hope to establish a link between late Victorian and recent women’s writings with a special emphasis on the literary features of the female novel. The freshness of the proposal is in the choice of research objects (all the four novels are not enough extensively discussed by academic critics) and the carrying of analysis within the theoretical framework concerning authorship that was proposed by a Russian scholar Michael Bakhtin.

Inherit the Wind: Religion vs. Science Essay -- Inherit

Inherit the Wind: Religion vs. Science Stanley Kramer's film, Inherit the Wind, examines a trial based on the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Often referred to as "The Trial of the Century" (Scopes Trial Web Page), the Scopes trial illuminated the controversy between the Christian theory of creation and the more scientific theory of evolution. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was arrested for illegally teaching evolutionism to his class. "The meaning of the trial emerged because it was seen as a conflict of social and intellectual values" (Scopes Trial Web Page). Kramer's film dramatizes this conflict between the Christian believers and the evolutionists in "Hillsboro, heavenly Hillsboro, the buckle on the Bible belt" (Inherit the Wind). Prosecutor Matthew Brady represents the values of fundamental Christianity while defense attorney Henry Drummond is the voice of reason and science. Although the two men have been good friends and partners in the past, the case in Hillsboro illuminates the difference in their values. Through the scene on the porch with Matthew Brady and Henry Drummond, director Stanley Kramer illustrates the incessant tug-of-war between religion and science. More specifically, camera angle and Drummond's metaphor of the "Golden Dancer" help deliver Kramer's belief in evolutionism. As the scene opens, Matthew Brady approaches Henry Drummond, who is rocking peacefully on the front porch of their hotel. The tone between the two men is light and friendly and the bland music playing in the background helps to portray the easiness of the scene. The opposing lawyers converse in a genteel manner, unlike their relationship in the courtroom. In response to B... ...lues. As the camera physically turns towards Drummond, Kramer leans towards evolutionism. Not only does this scene confirm Kramer's belief in the theory of evolution; it also expresses reason for Kramer's reservations regarding Christianity. With Drummond's metaphor of the "Golden Dancer, " Kramer enlightens the audience with some of the shortcomings of religion, such as susceptibility to corruption of the church. The porch scene in Inherit the Wind is not completely one sided though. It acknowledges the existence of both theories, resolving that the debate between creationism and evolutionism will continue forever. Works Cited Inherit the Wind. Dir. Stanley Kramer. With Spencer Tracy, Fredrick March, and Gene Kelly. MGM. 1960. Scopes trial web page. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm. Inherit the Wind: Religion vs. Science Essay -- Inherit Inherit the Wind: Religion vs. Science Stanley Kramer's film, Inherit the Wind, examines a trial based on the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Often referred to as "The Trial of the Century" (Scopes Trial Web Page), the Scopes trial illuminated the controversy between the Christian theory of creation and the more scientific theory of evolution. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was arrested for illegally teaching evolutionism to his class. "The meaning of the trial emerged because it was seen as a conflict of social and intellectual values" (Scopes Trial Web Page). Kramer's film dramatizes this conflict between the Christian believers and the evolutionists in "Hillsboro, heavenly Hillsboro, the buckle on the Bible belt" (Inherit the Wind). Prosecutor Matthew Brady represents the values of fundamental Christianity while defense attorney Henry Drummond is the voice of reason and science. Although the two men have been good friends and partners in the past, the case in Hillsboro illuminates the difference in their values. Through the scene on the porch with Matthew Brady and Henry Drummond, director Stanley Kramer illustrates the incessant tug-of-war between religion and science. More specifically, camera angle and Drummond's metaphor of the "Golden Dancer" help deliver Kramer's belief in evolutionism. As the scene opens, Matthew Brady approaches Henry Drummond, who is rocking peacefully on the front porch of their hotel. The tone between the two men is light and friendly and the bland music playing in the background helps to portray the easiness of the scene. The opposing lawyers converse in a genteel manner, unlike their relationship in the courtroom. In response to B... ...lues. As the camera physically turns towards Drummond, Kramer leans towards evolutionism. Not only does this scene confirm Kramer's belief in the theory of evolution; it also expresses reason for Kramer's reservations regarding Christianity. With Drummond's metaphor of the "Golden Dancer, " Kramer enlightens the audience with some of the shortcomings of religion, such as susceptibility to corruption of the church. The porch scene in Inherit the Wind is not completely one sided though. It acknowledges the existence of both theories, resolving that the debate between creationism and evolutionism will continue forever. Works Cited Inherit the Wind. Dir. Stanley Kramer. With Spencer Tracy, Fredrick March, and Gene Kelly. MGM. 1960. Scopes trial web page. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm.

Teaching Ethics

School for scandal? Business schools turn their attention to ethics education This case examines the role of the business school in encouraging corruption in business, and looks at the potential impacts that business ethics training might have on students. It offers the opportunity to explore the significance of the individual and their education and experience for understanding ethical decision-making. It also provides a context for investigating the specific role, purpose, and impact of business ethics courses on business behaviour.When it turns out that the key figures in some of the most infamous cases of fraud and corruption in business are alumni from leading business schools, it is perhaps not surprising that the business schools themselves might come in for some criticism. After all, if people like Andrew Fastow, the convicted chief financial officer at Enron, or his boss Jeffrey Skilling, could have got MBAs from two of America’s premier business schools (Northwestern and Harvard, respectively) and , then it is inevitable that questions will be raised about what kinds of principles and practices business school students are being taught.In the last few years, a number of business gurus and commentators have publicly condemned business schools in general, and MBA programmes in particular, for their perpetuation of ‘misguided’ amoral theories and techniques, and the lack of attention to ethics in the curriculum.For example, Henry Mintzberg, the Canadian management expert has famously condemned the MBA model, suggesting that it ‘trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences’, whilst Sumantra Ghoshal, the late London Business School professor has argued that the ‘worst excesses of recent management practices have their roots in a set of ideas that have emerged from business-school academics over the last 30 years. Ghoshal’s ire is directed to typical theories taught at business schools s uch as agency theory and Porter’s ‘5 forces’ model, which he claims perpetuate an idea that everyone is self-interested, managers cannot be trusted, business is a zero-sum game, and shareholder value is the only legitimate aim of business. The perpetuation of such assumptions, he suggests, leaves business school students devoid of any sense of moral responsibility. These criticisms have received a lot of attention in academic debates, but have also been readily recounted in the media and the business community.For instance The Economist ran a 2005 article headlined ‘Business schools stand accused of being responsible for much that is wrong with corporate management today’ which brought the arguments from Ghoshal, Mintzberg, and others to a wider audience – albeit in a context where the magazine rather predictably mounted a strong defence. After all, as The Economist argued, there are plenty of examples of corporate crooks who have not had a bu siness school education, so there are clearly other aspects to consider too.Nevertheless, whatever else the debate has done, it has certainly helped refocus the attention of business schools on their curricula, and especially on the provision of courses on ethics and social responsibility. At one level, this debate is simply about whether more business schools should be encouraged to introduce such courses into the curriculum. Whilst some schools have long included ethics in their curricula, others have tended to focus more on areas such as strategy, innovation, marketing and finance, whilst others have even dropped ethics courses due to low enrolments or political manoeuvring by sceptical colleagues.As one Wall Street Journal article put it, ‘MBA students and professors bristle at ethics requirements. Some faculty members resent being forced to squeeze ethics lessons into an already jam-packed syllabus, while students grumble that ethics classes tend to be preachy and philoso phical. ’ In this context, the evidence on the scale of ethics teaching is revealing. A recent survey of US schools found that 34 per cent required an ethics course at undergraduate level whilst only 25 per cent did so on MBA degrees.In Europe, the figures are if anything a little lower for compulsory courses, but more than 50 per cent of business schools report having an optional module on ethics or responsibility at undergraduate level and more than 30 per cent at masters level. Essentially, though, most business students can still complete a degree having had hardly any exposure to these subjects in the classroom – a situation that some are now trying to change. One development comes from the US, where a long running campaign by business ethics professors has been trying to make courses on ethics and responsibility compulsory for business students.Over 200 professors offered support to the campaign, but the AACSB (the body responsible for accrediting business degree programmes) appears, so far, to be unconvinced. A recent redraft of their guidelines for accreditation did not bow to the campaigners’ demands, and business ethics remains outside of their list of accredited subjects. Diane Swanson and Bill Frederick, the campaign leaders responded by condemning the AACSB’s arguments for excluding ethics as ‘desperate and out of date against the backdrop of unprecedented corporate scandals, increased public distrust of business, and a virtual sea change in corporate governance. However, some leading schools have moved towards greater attention to ethics. Harvard Business School, for instance, introduced a compulsory course on ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ for all first year students in 2004 – a development that the school claimed represented ‘the most far-reaching course we’ve ever introduced on this subject’. In Europe, the situation is also changing, and in fact there appears to be significantly more support than in the US from European accrediting bodies.The Association of MBAs for example, has issued new criteria for the accreditation of MBA programmes that stipulate that the curriculum ‘should pay attention to ethical and social issues’, while the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) is also considering ways to integrate CSR into its EQUIS accreditation. New academic departments and centres have also sprung up in universities to lead ethics and responsibility teaching, such as the Business and Society Management department at Rotterdam School of Management and the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility in Nottingham University Business School.Whilst there is still a long way to go before schools successfully infuse ethics education across all of their courses, such developments certainly point to an increased emphasis over the past decade. Ethics and corporate responsibility feature far more prominently in the prospectuses of business schools than they did even a few years ago. Questions remain though about how ethics should best be integrated into the curriculum, and even whether exposure to the subject really has a positive effect on the decisions made by managers.While some maintain that a stand alone course on ethics is necessary to develop a suitable understanding of the subject and to consolidate its importance on the curriculum, others argue that this raises the prospects of generating an ‘ethics ghetto’ unconnected to mainstream business subjects such as finance and marketing. And the jury is still out on just how much of an effect any form of ethics training is likely to have on individuals. Various objections have been raised over the years, including the suggestion that students’ morality is already fixed and cannot be improved, and the accusations that ethics teaching is abstract, mbiguous, subjective, and little more than indoctrination from self-r ighteous ideologues. Of course, the extent to which some of these accusations are true will vary from course to course, and on the goals of any specific programme. In the main, evidence suggests that courses are rather better at enhancing students’ recognition of ethical issues, stimulating their moral imagination, and developing their analytical skills rather than improving students’ moral development or changing their values.As one business ethics professor puts it, ‘I do not want to teach moral standards; I want to teach a method of moral reasoning through complex issues so that students can apply the moral standards they have. ’ This highlights another growing debate among business ethics professors about the very purpose of business ethics education – and even what a business ethics course should consist of. Whilst one camp retains belief in the established practice of teaching moral philosophy to develop better normative thinking among student s, other camps have started to emerge.Some business school professors see more need to focus on practical management concerns, such as managing the corporate reputation or preventing accounting fraud, whilst others point to the need to understand ethics within wider social, political, and economic structures. One recent business ethics textbook (by Jones et al. 2005) was even introduced by the authors with an admission that they were ‘not particularly fond of business ethics’ because ‘business ethics in its present form is at best window dressing and a worst a calculated lie’!Ultimately then, developments in the field of business ethics education suggests that business schools and accreditation bodies may be beginning to take the subject more seriously, especially in Europe where something of a momentum appears to be building. However, the future direction of business ethics remains in some doubt. Not only will its integration into the curriculum remain pro blematic for some time yet, but as the subject expands and develops, the approach to teaching business ethics will probably shift quite considerably into new conceptual territory.Whatever the outcome, business ethics will have to go a long way before it presents a completely convincing antidote to corporate wrongdoing, and misconduct in the workplace. Questions 1. What are the main factors encouraging business ethics education and what are the main barriers to its further development and expansion? 2. To what extent can business education cause or prevent ethical infractions in business? Give arguments for and against. 3. Given the importance of situational factors in shaping ethical decision-making, what are the limitations posed by business ethics courses that focus on individual students?How would you design a course to focus primarily on situational issues? 4. Consider the aims and approach of the business ethics course that you are currently studying. What are these, and how ef fective is the approach for achieving these aims? What would you like to see done differently? Sources Alsop, R. 2005. At MBA programs, teaching ethics poses its own dilemmas. Wall Street Journal, 12 April. wsj. com. Boston Globe. 2003. Harvard raises its hand on ethics. Boston Globe, 30 December. Ghoshal, S. 2003.Business schools share the blame for Enron. Financial Times, 18 July. Ghoshal, S. 2005. Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4 (1): 75–91. Jones, C. , Parker, M. , and ten Bos, R. 2005. For business ethics. London: Routledge. Lacy, P. 2005. From the margins to the mainstream: corporate responsibility and the challenge facing business and business schools. Business Leadership Review, 1 (2) (April): 3. Matten, D. and Moon, J. 2004.Corporate social responsibility in Europe. Journal of Business Ethics, 54: 323–37. McDonald, G. M. and Donleavy, G. D. 1995. Objections to the teaching of busi ness ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 14: 839–53. Mintzberg, H. 2004. Managers not MBAs: a hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Swanson, D. and Frederick, W. 2005. Campaign AACSB: status report, January. www. pitt. edu/~rorst6/sim/aacsb. The Economist. 2005. Business schools, bad for business. The Economist, 17 February. Teaching Ethics School for scandal? Business schools turn their attention to ethics education This case examines the role of the business school in encouraging corruption in business, and looks at the potential impacts that business ethics training might have on students. It offers the opportunity to explore the significance of the individual and their education and experience for understanding ethical decision-making. It also provides a context for investigating the specific role, purpose, and impact of business ethics courses on business behaviour.When it turns out that the key figures in some of the most infamous cases of fraud and corruption in business are alumni from leading business schools, it is perhaps not surprising that the business schools themselves might come in for some criticism. After all, if people like Andrew Fastow, the convicted chief financial officer at Enron, or his boss Jeffrey Skilling, could have got MBAs from two of America’s premier business schools (Northwestern and Harvard, respectively) and , then it is inevitable that questions will be raised about what kinds of principles and practices business school students are being taught.In the last few years, a number of business gurus and commentators have publicly condemned business schools in general, and MBA programmes in particular, for their perpetuation of ‘misguided’ amoral theories and techniques, and the lack of attention to ethics in the curriculum.For example, Henry Mintzberg, the Canadian management expert has famously condemned the MBA model, suggesting that it ‘trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences’, whilst Sumantra Ghoshal, the late London Business School professor has argued that the ‘worst excesses of recent management practices have their roots in a set of ideas that have emerged from business-school academics over the last 30 years. Ghoshal’s ire is directed to typical theories taught at business schools s uch as agency theory and Porter’s ‘5 forces’ model, which he claims perpetuate an idea that everyone is self-interested, managers cannot be trusted, business is a zero-sum game, and shareholder value is the only legitimate aim of business. The perpetuation of such assumptions, he suggests, leaves business school students devoid of any sense of moral responsibility. These criticisms have received a lot of attention in academic debates, but have also been readily recounted in the media and the business community.For instance The Economist ran a 2005 article headlined ‘Business schools stand accused of being responsible for much that is wrong with corporate management today’ which brought the arguments from Ghoshal, Mintzberg, and others to a wider audience – albeit in a context where the magazine rather predictably mounted a strong defence. After all, as The Economist argued, there are plenty of examples of corporate crooks who have not had a bu siness school education, so there are clearly other aspects to consider too.Nevertheless, whatever else the debate has done, it has certainly helped refocus the attention of business schools on their curricula, and especially on the provision of courses on ethics and social responsibility. At one level, this debate is simply about whether more business schools should be encouraged to introduce such courses into the curriculum. Whilst some schools have long included ethics in their curricula, others have tended to focus more on areas such as strategy, innovation, marketing and finance, whilst others have even dropped ethics courses due to low enrolments or political manoeuvring by sceptical colleagues.As one Wall Street Journal article put it, ‘MBA students and professors bristle at ethics requirements. Some faculty members resent being forced to squeeze ethics lessons into an already jam-packed syllabus, while students grumble that ethics classes tend to be preachy and philoso phical. ’ In this context, the evidence on the scale of ethics teaching is revealing. A recent survey of US schools found that 34 per cent required an ethics course at undergraduate level whilst only 25 per cent did so on MBA degrees.In Europe, the figures are if anything a little lower for compulsory courses, but more than 50 per cent of business schools report having an optional module on ethics or responsibility at undergraduate level and more than 30 per cent at masters level. Essentially, though, most business students can still complete a degree having had hardly any exposure to these subjects in the classroom – a situation that some are now trying to change. One development comes from the US, where a long running campaign by business ethics professors has been trying to make courses on ethics and responsibility compulsory for business students.Over 200 professors offered support to the campaign, but the AACSB (the body responsible for accrediting business degree programmes) appears, so far, to be unconvinced. A recent redraft of their guidelines for accreditation did not bow to the campaigners’ demands, and business ethics remains outside of their list of accredited subjects. Diane Swanson and Bill Frederick, the campaign leaders responded by condemning the AACSB’s arguments for excluding ethics as ‘desperate and out of date against the backdrop of unprecedented corporate scandals, increased public distrust of business, and a virtual sea change in corporate governance. However, some leading schools have moved towards greater attention to ethics. Harvard Business School, for instance, introduced a compulsory course on ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ for all first year students in 2004 – a development that the school claimed represented ‘the most far-reaching course we’ve ever introduced on this subject’. In Europe, the situation is also changing, and in fact there appears to be significantly more support than in the US from European accrediting bodies.The Association of MBAs for example, has issued new criteria for the accreditation of MBA programmes that stipulate that the curriculum ‘should pay attention to ethical and social issues’, while the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) is also considering ways to integrate CSR into its EQUIS accreditation. New academic departments and centres have also sprung up in universities to lead ethics and responsibility teaching, such as the Business and Society Management department at Rotterdam School of Management and the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility in Nottingham University Business School.Whilst there is still a long way to go before schools successfully infuse ethics education across all of their courses, such developments certainly point to an increased emphasis over the past decade. Ethics and corporate responsibility feature far more prominently in the prospectuses of business schools than they did even a few years ago. Questions remain though about how ethics should best be integrated into the curriculum, and even whether exposure to the subject really has a positive effect on the decisions made by managers.While some maintain that a stand alone course on ethics is necessary to develop a suitable understanding of the subject and to consolidate its importance on the curriculum, others argue that this raises the prospects of generating an ‘ethics ghetto’ unconnected to mainstream business subjects such as finance and marketing. And the jury is still out on just how much of an effect any form of ethics training is likely to have on individuals. Various objections have been raised over the years, including the suggestion that students’ morality is already fixed and cannot be improved, and the accusations that ethics teaching is abstract, mbiguous, subjective, and little more than indoctrination from self-r ighteous ideologues. Of course, the extent to which some of these accusations are true will vary from course to course, and on the goals of any specific programme. In the main, evidence suggests that courses are rather better at enhancing students’ recognition of ethical issues, stimulating their moral imagination, and developing their analytical skills rather than improving students’ moral development or changing their values.As one business ethics professor puts it, ‘I do not want to teach moral standards; I want to teach a method of moral reasoning through complex issues so that students can apply the moral standards they have. ’ This highlights another growing debate among business ethics professors about the very purpose of business ethics education – and even what a business ethics course should consist of. Whilst one camp retains belief in the established practice of teaching moral philosophy to develop better normative thinking among student s, other camps have started to emerge.Some business school professors see more need to focus on practical management concerns, such as managing the corporate reputation or preventing accounting fraud, whilst others point to the need to understand ethics within wider social, political, and economic structures. One recent business ethics textbook (by Jones et al. 2005) was even introduced by the authors with an admission that they were ‘not particularly fond of business ethics’ because ‘business ethics in its present form is at best window dressing and a worst a calculated lie’!Ultimately then, developments in the field of business ethics education suggests that business schools and accreditation bodies may be beginning to take the subject more seriously, especially in Europe where something of a momentum appears to be building. However, the future direction of business ethics remains in some doubt. Not only will its integration into the curriculum remain pro blematic for some time yet, but as the subject expands and develops, the approach to teaching business ethics will probably shift quite considerably into new conceptual territory.Whatever the outcome, business ethics will have to go a long way before it presents a completely convincing antidote to corporate wrongdoing, and misconduct in the workplace. Questions 1. What are the main factors encouraging business ethics education and what are the main barriers to its further development and expansion? 2. To what extent can business education cause or prevent ethical infractions in business? Give arguments for and against. 3. Given the importance of situational factors in shaping ethical decision-making, what are the limitations posed by business ethics courses that focus on individual students?How would you design a course to focus primarily on situational issues? 4. Consider the aims and approach of the business ethics course that you are currently studying. What are these, and how ef fective is the approach for achieving these aims? What would you like to see done differently? Sources Alsop, R. 2005. At MBA programs, teaching ethics poses its own dilemmas. Wall Street Journal, 12 April. wsj. com. Boston Globe. 2003. Harvard raises its hand on ethics. Boston Globe, 30 December. Ghoshal, S. 2003.Business schools share the blame for Enron. Financial Times, 18 July. Ghoshal, S. 2005. Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4 (1): 75–91. Jones, C. , Parker, M. , and ten Bos, R. 2005. For business ethics. London: Routledge. Lacy, P. 2005. From the margins to the mainstream: corporate responsibility and the challenge facing business and business schools. Business Leadership Review, 1 (2) (April): 3. Matten, D. and Moon, J. 2004.Corporate social responsibility in Europe. Journal of Business Ethics, 54: 323–37. McDonald, G. M. and Donleavy, G. D. 1995. Objections to the teaching of busi ness ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 14: 839–53. Mintzberg, H. 2004. Managers not MBAs: a hard look at the soft practice of managing and management development. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Swanson, D. and Frederick, W. 2005. Campaign AACSB: status report, January. www. pitt. edu/~rorst6/sim/aacsb. The Economist. 2005. Business schools, bad for business. The Economist, 17 February.

Created for Perfection but Destined to Fail

Having a dying child changes a family’s life. A mother will do anything she possibly can to aid this child. Likewise, the rest of the family will have to commit in order for their sibling’s well being. During and after a situation like this, life for the family will not be the same. In the movie, My Sister’s Keeper, directed by Nick Cassavetes, a happily married couple with two children live their life normally and joyfully until the day they learn that their two year old daughter, Kate, had leukemia and would not live past the age of five.In the movie Sofia Vassilieva plays the role of Kate, the dying girl, whose illness would not let her live past the five. Neither Kate’s parents or brother were a match with her and thus could not donate anything to aid her with her terminating disease. The parents decided to produce a one hundred percent in vitro child so he/she could give Kate what she needed: bone marrow, blood donations, and stem cells. Cameron Diaz, Sara Fitzgerald, the mother, together with Jason Patric, Brian Fitzgerald, the husband, agreed to have a baby â€Å"made in a dish to be spare parts for Kate.†(Breslin)And as soon as their baby was born, they would summit her into numerous surgeries so she could donate what ever Kate needed to live. To me this was a great attention grabber for the movie because it gave the plot originality. The in vitro child, Abigail Breslin, Anna Fitzgerald, was twelve and she introduced the movie speaking of how she was only made to aid her dying sister. She was the â€Å"perfect in vitro child who would be Kate’s genetic savior. †(Breslin) Ever since she was a newborn she was summited to numerous operations because of the different needs Kate had.Now that she is twelve, Anna files a lawsuit against her parents wanting to be medically emancipated, to have the rights to her own body. She claims she wants to live her life as a regular twelve year old girl without having restri ctions in her daily activities. Later in the movie however, the audience comes to find that Kate had actually pleaded Anna into filing the lawsuit. Kate does this because she had no desire of living anymore, she wants the suffering to end, and the fighting in her family to end.Kate wanted Anna to be free from the surgeries, she wanted to be at peace and she wanted to free her family from further suffering. Cassavetes directed and created an excellent â€Å"tear breaking† movie yet he failed to properly construct and revise Sara Fitzgerald’s role. Sara was portrayed as a loving mother, but to a point, her character was a selfish. Her main concern since the movie began was her daughter Kate’s well being and was â€Å"not going to let her die. † (Diaz) Sara became a mother primarily interested in making Kate live and thereby forgot her role as a mother not only to Kate but to Anna and her oldest son Jesse.Sara had the entire family dedicated to watching over Kate and her needs. This made Jesse feel ignored and would constantly flee home and Anna grew feeling unloved. When Sara received the papers of the lawsuit, she became infuriated and slapped Anna across the face. This action of hitting her child demonstrated how Sara simply disregards Anna’s opinion because listening to Anna’s desires meant letting Kate die and she was not going to allow that. Sara would rather have Anna feeling miserable with her life than to watch Kate die.She  gave up her entire life to watch over Kate’s health and she was not going to let anyone or anything ruin her twelve year battle. On the other hand, Brian’s role in the movie served mainly to defend his children. Although he struggled the same battle of keeping Kate alive with Sara, his character understood and stood beside what his children needed. He let Sara take over for twelve years but when the lawsuit came he understood Anna’s point and stood beside her. Personall y I loved when he took Kate to the beach because she wanted to see it before dying.He took her even if it meant having an argument with his wife which could lead to getting a divorce. Brian wanted to make sure that his daughter had what she wanted in her last few moments of life. Looking at Roger Ebert’s professional movie criticism and review of the movie My Sister’s Keeper, he stated that the movie is â€Å"an immediate audience-grabber. † He says that the movie is good because of the plot itself. A girl who is twelve was made so she could be spare parts for her dying sister.However, he does mention that the movie is subject to different interpretations to the viewers because some may agree on the lawsuit Anna placed on her parents and others may disagree. The audience’s opinion is controversial depending on their standing point. If a person favors life then he or she would disagree with Anna’s point because if she medically emancipates and decid es not to continue to donate to her sister, Kate would die. Others who favor choice, agree with the lawsuit because Anna has a life of her own and she must pursue and live it.Ebert feels Anna is right to have gone to the lawyer, Alec Baldwin, who proves 90% accuracy on his trials because she is being independent and an achiever of what she believes is correct. He also feels that Anna has been through enough ever since she was born. She has donated her sister blood, bone marrow, and stem cells and has had to undergo several surgeries and stays at the hospital because of these operations. Ebert discusses the issue that Anna should not give away her kidney to her sister because this would limit her physical activities.She will not be able to enjoy her childhood, her teenage years and many other activities she should be experiencing as a teen and even as she grows older. Ebert also discusses how Taylor, Kate’s dying boyfriend, gives My Sister’s Keeper its best element beca use he makes the movie â€Å"tender, tactful and very touching. †(Ebert) His opinion about the appearance of this boy in the movie was to distract the audience from the entire discussion and constant fighting of the Fitzgerald family over the lawsuit. Taylor allows the audience to see that Kate in spite of her terminating disease was able to live a life like any other teenager.With this romance, Cassavetes diverted the movie aside from the tragic family disputes and turned it into a romantic love story between Kate and Taylor, and what they got to live for a while. This romance gave the movie more realism, Ebert stated. Regarding Diaz’s role as the mother, Ebert believed that her character demonstrated her fierceness in wanting to solve and win a case in her private life. Since she was a successful lawyer and won most of her cases while in practice, she now sees Kate’s disease as a case she must win as well.Since Sara won cases most of the time, she now feels sh e must fight to keep Kate alive. This is her most intense case and she has won it for twelve years by having kept Kate alive past her expected death at five. Ebert agrees with the role of Sara Fitzgerald. Both my opinion and Ebert’s agree on many factors of the movie My Sister’s Keeper yet we disagree on one point. We both think that it was a great movie with an excellent plot and attention hook. The idea of having parents â€Å"make and create† a perfect match for their dying daughter was definitely a grabber.We believe that Anna has suffered her entire life and she now has the right to live her own life and enjoy being a kid. We feel she should not be worried of limiting her activities for the sake of helping her dying sister. For these reasons Ebert and I agree on the fact that Anna has the right to her â€Å"medical emancipation†, so she could have the right to her own body. Ebert and I also concord when we say that Anna’s family is near perfec t and that the only disfunction in it is Kate’s disease. The disease was not only killing her, but it was killing her family as well.â€Å"Beneath the exterior there were cracks and resentments† (Patric) that threatened the well being of the Fitzgerald family. The constant fighting between Brian and Sara, Jesse feeling ignored, and most importantly Anna having gone to a lawyer and having sued her parents portrays the family disfunction. The fact the Sara disregarded everyone’s opinion and did what she thought was correct without anyone else’s opinion, led the family to slowly break. We think that Brian’s role as the father, served mainly as a mediator.He was in the middle of every battle at home and he was constantly overruled by his wife. He had no voice in the movie until the end when he confronted Sara and took Kate to the beach with or without Sara’s approval. All through the movie Brian was more of a secondary character yet he proved hi mself after the scene of the beach. Brian defended what he thought was correct and stood by Anna’s side when she filed the lawsuit, he understood her point and could not believe he had let his daughter suffer so much for the past twelve years.Overall Ebert and I believe he had a fairly good role but his character stood out towards the end of the movie. In the role of Sara, Ebert and I disagree as to what we think Cassavetes wanted her to represent. To me Sara’s role and character in the movie, made her be disliked by the audience. She was set as a person who did not care about her husband, as a person who did not notice her son, and in a way she despised Anna for wanting to have the right to her body and stop being Kate’s savior. I felt she was a selfish mother who only cared about Kate’s life and no one else’s.Ebert believed that Diaz’s role was her merely wanting to save her daughter Kate at all possible cost. He felt Sara viewed this batt le as another win in her life, but this win was not in her professional life but in her private one. He thinks that this was a good touch in the movie to have portrayed the mother so involved and dedicated into saving her daughter’s life because it gave the movie a sense of reality and portraying how women would actually act in this situation. The movie My Sister’s Keeper, reflects the life of a model family and how a death sentence slowly split the family members apart.Roger Ebert in his critique for this movie highlighted major aspects which I myself thought of when watching the movie. The idea of having an in vitro child be subject to various operations to aid her dying sister, made the movie so intriguing and different from many others. The plot of this movie was unexpected and completely unpredictable. Overall the movie was great because it excelled in every aspect and most certainly because it was emotionally appealing to its viewers. I give the movie My Sisterâ €™s Keeper directed by Nick Cassavetes, thumbs up.

Miller Test Used for Defining Obscenity in U.S. Courts

Miller Test Used for Defining Obscenity in U.S. Courts The Miller test is the standard used by courts to define obscenity. It  comes from the 1973 Supreme Courts 5-4 ruling in Miller v. California,  in which Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for the majority, held that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment. What Is the First Amendment? The First Amendment is the one that guarantees Americans’ freedoms. We can worship in any faith we choose, whenever we choose. The government cannot restrict these practices. We have the right to petition the government and to assemble. But the First Amendment is most commonly known as our right to freedom of speech and expression. Americans can speak their minds without fear of reprisal. The First Amendment reads like this: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The 1973 Miller v. California Decision   Chief Justice Burger stated the Supreme Courts  definition of obscenity:  Ã‚   The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest ... (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. If a state obscenity law is thus limited, First Amendment values are adequately protected by ultimate independent appellate review of constitutional claims when necessary. To put it in laymans terms, the following questions must be answered:   Is it pornography?Does it actually show sex?Is it otherwise useless? So What Does This Mean?   Courts have traditionally held that the  sale and distribution of obscene material are not protected by the First Amendment. In other words, you can speak your mind freely, including the distribution of printed materials, unless youre promoting or talking about something obscene based on the above standards. The guy standing next to you, an Average Joe, would be offended by what youve said or distributed. A sexual act is depicted or described. And your words and/or materials serve no other purpose but to promote this obscenity.   The Right to Privacy   The First Amendment applies only to disseminating pornography or obscene materials. It doesnt protect you if you share the materials or shout from the rooftop for all to hear. You can, however, quietly possess those materials for your own use and enjoyment because you also have a constitutional right to privacy.  Although no amendment specifically states this, several amendments pay lip service to the issue of privacy. The Third Amendment protects your home against unreasonable entry, the Fifth Amendment protects you against self-incrimination and the Ninth Amendment generally supports your right to privacy because it upholds the Bill of Rights. Even if a right is not specifically stated in the first eight amendments, it’s protected if it’s alluded to in the Bill of Rights.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Essay Example

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Essay Example Rhetorical Analysis Essay Essay Rhetorical Analysis Essay Essay Texting and driving is one of the most debated topics in society. Whether it affects all people or whether or not youre Just good at multi tasking. Yet, all people would come to the agreement that it is one the most dangerous activities to participate in and ends millions of lives yearly. Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks published in New York Times by Matt Richtel and LOL? Texting While Driving Is No Laughing Matter: Proposing a Coordinated Response to Curb this Dangerous Activity by Alexis M. Farris are two articles that present variations of ethos, pathos, and logos nd make identical arguments claiming that texting and driving is not only dangerous but is shaping the way Americans live. Both articles illustrate several accounts on the dangers of texting and driving and how the activity could potentially be stopped proving both articles to be well accounted for. While Matt Richtel and Alexis. M. Farris both reach the conclusion that texting while driving has a negative impact on people, Farris article is far deeper and less biased then Richtels who relies more on personal inference rather than factual evidence. Matt Richtel begins his article Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone risks ith a personal account of a young man getting his first car and within the first couple of months of driving ending anothers life because of texting and driving. Richtel, conveys the dangers of texting and driving through interviews with teenagers and adults. Richtels use of this technique in writing makes his article personal and rather informal and directed to a more general public audience by interviewing people who are guilty of texting and driving making the situation more relatable. People such as Tad Jones who is the floor leader in the Oklahoma house who stated Im on the phone from when I leave the Capitol to when I get home, and thats a two hour drive, a lot of people who travel are used to using the phone (Richtel, 2). Ricthels main focus is the issue with people not understanding or caring about the dangers of texting and driving. Richtel makes decent claims and produces data and surveys that should open the eyes toa general audience such as 81 percent of cellphone users acknowledged that they talk on phones while driving and 98 percent considered themselves safe drivers (Richtel, 3). Richtel uses real life situations and eople to persuade the audience into realizing the severity of texting and driving and utilizes the information he has in way that interests the audience to want to know more about the topic at hand. Alexis M. Farriss article LOL? Texting While Driving is No Laughing Matter: Proposing a Coordinated Response to Curb Dangerous Activity introduces the audience with information about the increasing number of wireless cellphone users a long with increasing number of text messages that are sent every year (Farris, 237). Farris main goal in her article is to make the audience aware of the statistics and esearch that proves texting and driving to be extremely dangerous and to propose a solution that could help end distracted driving. Farris introduces the audience with statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealing the 20 percent of all car crash fatalities in 2009 were someway involved in distracted driving targeted toward a more academic audience such as researchers and scholars. In Farris article she addresses the Government and legislatures stating that Congress should utilize its Commerce Clause and essentially force the States to legislate the area of texting while driving (Farris, 251). She also goes on to lay out and explain the Bills and Laws that have been sent to Congress multiple times that ban using a cell phone while driving yet Farris claims that Congress has not acted (Farris, 254). Farris logic in her claims are supported well and she illustrates many compelling facts that prove the dangers of texting while driving to be accurate. Matt Richtels and Alexis Farris articles discuss the same issue and ultimately have the same end in mind on what to do about texting and driving. However, the information and credibility presented in each article is different. Matt Richtel, a journalist for New York Times presents many facts about texting while driving a long with the multiple interviews with people sharing their personal opinions, experiences and views about the issue and although the interviews and facts he presents are interesting they do not prove to be credible. Richtel fails to provide any sources for any of his research and seems biased in some of his claims in his article and completely lacking ethos. For example, Richtel presented a set of data that illustrated the number of cellphone distractions that caused deaths every year and went on to ay that Americans have largely ignored the research and that there is a large disconnect between perception and reality that is worsening the problem claiming that drivers overestimate their own ability to safely multitask (Richtel, 1). Texting and driving is a difficult topic to be unbiased about but Richtels claims make it seem that he is basing his opinions off of research and not experience. Whereas, Alexis Farris article consists of constant research and data supported by multiple transportation administrations and content pulled from bills stating rules about texting and driving (Farris, 252). Alex Farris obtained her Jurius Doctor degree from the Washington School of Law making her fully equipped to research the legal matters regarding distracted driving. Although Farris does state that Congress should step up and pass a bill ending texting and driving and propose ideas in order for it to subside, she backs up her claims with research and also attempts to see both sides of the issue with banning texting and driving. For example, Alexis stated that maybe the reason this happens is because people are so used to checking their emails and sending text messages all the time. Farris claims Drivers feel that they can support egislation banning texting while driving and yet still text themselves because, when it comes to texting while driving, they minimize the dangers of their own actions (Farris, 246). Farris attempts to see the reasoning behind why people continue to text and drive without blindly making a statement and once her evidence is Justified, she states her claim again tying herself back into her main points while using the right amount of ethos throughout the article. Matt Richtels use of pathos throughout Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks is what makes the audience keep reading. By using personal interviews about individuals experiences the article seems much more applicable to the audience. Richtel interviewed a man who plead guilty to negligent homicide for the death of a woman he hit while he was distracted at the wheel of car. The man he interviewed told Richtel l hope they dont communicated to his audience through their emotions and made his article personal and relatable by using language that the audience could understand and connect with. In Alexis Farris article LOL? Texting while Driving is No Laughing Matter: Proposing a Coordinated Response to Curb Dangerous Activity provided no motional appeal whatsoever. Farris focused on the business side of texting while driving rather than diving into the audiences emotions. Since the audience is mainly targeted towards scholars and researchers the terms used are complex and a lot more technical than Richtels article. For example, Farris refers to the federal government and legislation multiple times throughout her article and discusses laws and policy of transportation in detail (Farris, 254). Although Alexis Farris pathos was not as present in her writings she targets the audience she intended to and does not et caught up in the emotions of the topic and base her article solely on emotional experience. Matt Richtels and Alexis Farris articles both illustrated key points in the controversial issue of texting while driving. While Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks had a strong sense of pathos through emotional connection it lacked research and evidence to back up Richtels arguments and claims, causing the article to seem one-dimensional. LOL? Texting while Driving is No Laughing Matter: Proposing a Coordinated Response exemplified ethos and logos and while it did not resent the strongest pathos, Farris was confident in her claims and arguments about texting while driving enabling the article to stand on its own. Farris, Alexis M. I. LOL? Texting While Driving Is No Laughing Matter: Proposing A Coordinated Response To Curb This Dangerous Activity. Washington University Journal Of Law Policy 36. (2011): 233-259. Index to Legal Periodicals Books Full Text (H. W. Wilson). Web. 14 Nov. 2013. Richtel, Matt. Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks. Www. nytimes. com. New York Times, 19 June 2009. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.