The Moral Decline Essay -- pornography, morality, economy, family, divo

Is our society in a state of moral decline? To answer this question we have to define the word â€Å"moral† first. In Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition of the word moral is â€Å"Concerning or relating to what is right and wrong in human behavior.† From this definition we can understand that a moral decline is a decline in knowing the different between right or wrong. In another word our moral is like a guide for every choice we make in our life. Therefore anything could affect our moral reasoning would affect our life. So is our society is a state of a moral decline? I think yes our society in a state of a moral decline because of the raise of pornography, the increasing divorce rate, and the economy. First of all, the rise of pornography is one of the reasons that our society is in a state of moral decline. According to the IFR, a new pornographic video is created in the United States every 39 minute. Pornography rapes people from their identity and deliver them as a body part. For example, looking to the women as a sex object. â€Å" A 2009 study at Princeton that used MRI scans to document how pornography encourages men to perceive women â€Å"more as objects than as humans.†(Desmond) This will cause a sexually aggressive behavior toward women because a sex object is they only thing that the man see the women as. On the other hand we don’t see any objecting to the male in the pornographic industry because they are not cheap enough. This double stander will address a male are superiors, which will affect our equal society. Pornography is sending massage to the women that your body is what you are. An example of that are the magazine covers of nude women in a perfect shape. When a 17 year old over weight girl looks at that picture, firs... ... K. Crowder and J. Teachman. 2004. â€Å"Do Residential Conditions Explain the Relationship Between Living Arrangements and Adolescent Behavior?† Journal of Marriage and Family 66:721-738. Manning J., Senate Testimony 2004, referencing: Dedmon, J."Is the Internet bad for your marriage? Online affairs, pornographic sites playing greater role in divorces." CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm Kelly, J. B. and Emery, R. E. (2003), Children's Adjustment Following Divorce: Risk and Resilience Perspectives. Family Relations, 52: 352–362. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00352.x E. Mark Cummings, a professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. With USA News June 15, 2012 http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/06/15/parents-fighting-may-have-long-lasting-effect-on-kids

Extremist Group Essay

Makenssey Brinkman Mr. Feudo English 1 Pre-AP – 6th 22 April 2010 The Dangers of The Extremes Extremist groups go above and beyond to get what they want. They go to extreme measures, even disregarding people’s safety and turning groups against each other to reach their goal. They are a great hazard to mankind. Despite the fact that people have the right of free speech and assembly, the banning of Extremist groups will better society because they promote hate and violence and turn people against each other. Topic Sentence 1) Extremist groups shower hate all over the groups of people who oppose them, and they become relentless in their attempt to do so. (Evidence 1) – â€Å"Anti-choicers harassed [George Tiller’s] patients, day in and day out. They bombed his clinic. They shot him once before. They filed lawsuit after lawsuit and even convinced local prosecutors to launch criminal investigations and trials. † (Analysis 1) – The Extremist pro-li fe group attacked the abortion doctor with hate.By harassing his patients and trying to convince prosecutors to go against him, they set a solid, horrid example for others that do not share the same views as Tiller. These hateful attacks ultimately led to Tiller’s murder by gun at The Reformation Lutheran Church. (Evidence 2) – â€Å"To recruit members and spread its beliefs, the American Front has collaborated with various neo-Nazi and skinhead groups to stage protests and rallies that demonize Jews, blacks, and other minorities. (Analysis 2) – Just to try and get members into the group, the Extremist group staged many protests and minorities put down many minor groups, They promoted hate into the people who listened to and watched them as they did so, and therefore spreading the hate all they could. (Example 3) – â€Å"Anti-Semites and racists have found video-sharing websites, such as YouTube and MySpace Video, an effective means to promote propagand a and hateful material that might not otherwise be seen by the public.Internet users who search video-sharing sites will often find anti-Semitic and racist videos when looking for information completely unrelated to the videos due to misleading tags and titles that extremists attach to the videos when uploading them to the sites. † (Analysis 3) – Extremist group are using the internet to spread hatred of other groups worldwide. By doing so, it makes it even easier for them to promote the hate and then hide the evidence if their website or video is caught. This must be stopped. Topic Sentence 2) Extremist groups use violence in reaching their goals and emphasizing the point they are trying to make. (Example 1) – â€Å"On June 10, 2009, a white supremist who believed it was â€Å"time to kill the Jews† took his gun to the Holocaust museum in Washington, D. C. , and stated shooting upon entering. † (Analysis 1) – In believing he was doing the ri ght thing, this Extremist tried to make his point by attacking the Holocaust victims museum. By attacking this museum, he made a big stand by basically showing with his violence that he supported what happened in the Holocaust. Example 2) – â€Å"[ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna)] has waged a relentless campaign of violence against the Spanish state, targeting politicians, policemen, judges, and soldiers. In 1980 alone, ETA was blamed for 118 deaths, and in 1995 it nearly succeeded in assassinating Jose Maria Aznar, then leader of the opposition, now Spain’s prime minister. † (Analysis 2) – The Extremist group ETA is taking their beliefs to an extreme extent. By killing and trying to assassinate a respected leader, they are using the violence to try and scare off and weaken their opposition. Example 3) – â€Å"Since 1977, there have been at least 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery and three kidnappings committe d against abortion providers in North America. † (Analysis 3) – These are solid facts that exemplify all of the violence that have taken place from just one Extremist group. The groups cause pain and suffering in North America, and they feel as though using violence is one of the only ways to get their point across. (Topic Sentence 3) – Along with all the hate and violence that these groups reate, Extremist groups try tearing people further apart with their actions and words. (Example 1) – â€Å"The Kach movement was most famous for its platform calling for the removal of the entire Israeli-Arab population from Israel and transferring them â€Å"elsewhere. †Ã¢â‚¬  (Analysis 1) – The Jewish Defense League is another Extremist group that prizes themselves over all people. By trying to kick the Israeli-Arab population out of their homeland so they can take over, they cause horrible tensions between the people. These tensions would almost most certainly lead to more hate and more violence. Example 2) – â€Å"One man from Brockton, Massachusetts – who told police he had learned on white supremacist websites that a genocide was under way against whites – is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama's inauguration. † (Analysis 2) – By using the internet as a source to get to people, the Extremist groups have given false information and got what they wanted from it. They scared the man into believing that he was in danger, so he decided to take action and go against the other races. (Example 3) –

The Slave Boy Experiment in Platos Meno

One of the most famous passages in all of Platos works—indeed, in all of philosophy—occurs in the middle of the  Meno. Meno asks Socrates if he can prove the truth of his strange claim that all learning is recollection (a claim that Socrates connects to the idea of reincarnation). Socrates responds by calling over a slave boy and, after establishing that he has had no mathematical training, gives him a geometry problem. The Geometry Problem The boy is asked how to double the area of a square. His confident first answer is that you achieve this by doubling the length of the sides. Socrates shows him that this, in fact, creates a square four times larger than the original. The boy then suggests extending the sides by half their length. Socrates points out that this would turn a 2x2 square (area 4) into a 3x3 square (area 9). At this point, the boy gives up and declares himself at a loss. Socrates then guides him by means of simple step-by-step questions to the correct answer, which is to use the diagonal of the original square as the base for the new square. The Soul Immortal According to Socrates, the boys ability to reach the truth and recognize it as such proves that he already had this knowledge within him; the questions he was asked simply stirred it up, making it easier for him to recollect it. He argues, further, that since the boy didnt acquire such knowledge in this life, he must have acquired it at some earlier time; in fact, Socrates says, he must have always known it, which indicates that the soul is immortal. Moreover, what has been shown for geometry also holds for every other branch of knowledge: the soul, in some sense, already possesses the truth about all things. Some of Socrates inferences here are clearly a bit of a stretch. Why should we believe that an innate ability to reason mathematically implies that the soul is immortal? Or that we already possess within us empirical knowledge about such things as the theory of evolution, or the history of Greece? Socrates himself, in fact, acknowledges that he cant be certain about some of his conclusions. Nevertheless, he evidently believes that the demonstration with the slave boy proves something. But does it? And if so, what? One view is that the passage proves that we have innate ideas—a kind of knowledge we are quite literally born with. This doctrine is one of the most disputed in the history of philosophy. Descartes, who was clearly influenced by Plato, defended it. He argues, for instance, that God imprints an idea of Himself on each mind that he creates. Since every human being possesses this idea, faith in God is available to all. And because the idea of God is the idea of an infinitely perfect being, it makes possible other knowledge which depends on the notions of infinity and perfection, notions that we could never arrive at from experience. The doctrine of innate ideas is closely associated with the rationalist philosophies of thinkers like Descartes and Leibniz. It was fiercely attacked by John Locke, the first of the major British empiricists. Book One of Lockes  Essay on Human Understanding  is a famous polemic against the whole doctrine. According to Locke, the mind at birth is a tabula rasa, a blank slate. Everything we eventually know is learned from experience. Since the 17th century (when Descartes and Locke produced their works), the empiricist skepticism regarding innate ideas has generally had the upper hand. Nevertheless, a version of the doctrine was revived by the linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was struck by the remarkable achievement of every child in learning language. Within three years, most children have mastered their native language to such an extent that they can produce an unlimited number of original sentences. This ability goes far beyond what they can have learned simply by listening to what others say: the output exceeds the input. Chomsky argues that what makes this possible is an innate capacity for learning language, a capacity that involves intuitively recognizing what he calls the universal grammar—the deep structure—that all human languages share. A Priori Although the specific doctrine of innate knowledge presented in the  Meno  finds few takers today, the more general view that we know some things a priori—i.e. prior to experience—is still widely held. Mathematics, in particular, is thought to exemplify this sort of knowledge. We dont arrive at theorems in geometry or arithmetic by conducting empirical research; we establish truths of this sort simply by reasoning. Socrates may prove his theorem using a diagram drawn with a stick in the dirt but we understand immediately that the theorem is necessarily and universally true. It applies to all squares, regardless of how big they are, what they are made of, when they exist, or where they exist. Many readers complain that the boy does not really discover how to double the area of a square himself: Socrates guides him to the answer with leading questions. This is true. The boy would probably not have arrived at the answer by himself. But this objection misses the deeper point of the demonstration: the boy is not simply learning a formula that he then repeats without real understanding (the way most of us are doing when we say something like, e mc squared). When he agrees that a certain proposition is true or an inference is valid, he does so because he grasps the truth of the matter for himself. In principle, therefore, he could discover the theorem in question, and many others, just by thinking very hard. And so could we all!