Immanuel Kant's critique of happiness as an ethical principle Term Paper

Immanuel Kant's critique of happiness as an ethical principle - Term Paper Example Immanuel Kant's critique of happiness as an ethical principle In his deontological theory, which is based on duty, he emphasized on the pre-eminence of reason that lead to the actions. He indicates that it is a person’s duty to act morally by obeying the moral law. He mentions, â€Å"Everyone must admit that if a law is to have a moral force, that is, to be a basis of an obligation, it must carry with it absolute necessity† (Kant, 1785, p.51) ii. Kant defines duty as practical and unconditional necessity of action which holds true for all rational beings. (Kant, 1785, p. 26) Kant describes happiness as a natural purpose of life. He quotes, â€Å"All rational beings that are dependent; and thus one purpose that they not only can have but that we can assume they all do have as a matter of natural necessity. This purpose is happiness† (Kant, 1785, p. 20). Kant, however, finds happiness as an ambiguous feeling. He says, â€Å"The concept of happiness is so indefinite that, although each person wishes to attain it, he can never give a definite and self-consistent account of what it is that he wishes and wills under the heading of wanting happiness† (Kant, 1785, p. 21). A person’s perception of happiness is dependent on his experiences in life. A person might feel that wealth will give him happiness; someone else may want knowledge while those who feel that life itself gives pleasure may wish to have long life. However, they may not know with wealth comes anxiety in them and envy and maneuverings of others; which make the person unhappy. Knowledge may show a person the dreadfulness of evils which he was ignorant of and hence scare him. Long life accompanied with continuous illness is a burden more than a boon. Hence they may not feel as happy as the imagined on their achievement. Additionally, if a person pursues happiness, he can only get bits and pieces of advice which may be frugality, diet, restraints etc. and not detailed guiding principles as we have in case of moral laws. To explain the path of actual happiness, Kant (1785) mentions, â€Å"the completed idea of happiness requires the thought of an absolute whole—the thought of a maximum of well-being in my present and in every future condition† (p. 21). Kant (1785) adds, â€Å"There couldn’t be an imperative that in the strict sense commanded us to do what makes for happiness, because happiness is an ideal not of reason but of imagination, depending only on empirical grounds. (p. 22). Thus, a person will achieve what he imagines as happiness, depends on several factors that can impact his future states and that there is not even remote possibility that he will take up a single action that can deviate him from his mission of complete happiness. In any scenario, it is not possible for a human being to have the kind of foresight and capability to plan and achieve his sources of happiness in such a manner. Hence he can never be happy as understood in a common man’s language. Kant has expla ined that an action based on impulse to satisfy one’s feelings cannot always be right. Such an action that is motivated by some sort of inclination can never be based on moral laws. Also, what makes a person happy can be cause of other person’s unhappiness. It cannot be ethical to make another human being unhappy. Thus Kant has explained the meaning of happiness in a manner that it does not play any role in the ethical system. Alternatively he has chosen to define happiness as the end purpose of any human being’s life and not an ethic. He says: Humanity might survive even if

Macbeth Essay Example for Free

Macbeth Essay In Shakespeares famous play, Macbeth, the themes of murder, guilt, ambition and the ruthless pursuit of power is explored. He does this through the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who are tied together in an eerie search for absolute power. Throughout the play, Macbeth reveals many traits that have horrible consequences for Macbeth himself and for Scotland. In the beginning of the play, Macbeth portrays himself as a noble, sincere man who would die for his country but as the play moves forward we discover that we may have been misled. At first it seems that Macbeth is a noble warrior, but as time goes on it becomes apparent that he is a cruel, heartless tyrant, particularly when he murders Duncan and Macduffs’ wife and babes. At the start of the play, Macbeth believes the witches’ prophesies which foretell that he will become king. After he tells Lady Macbeth ‘My dearest partner of greatness’ of the witches prophesies, Lady Macbeth hatches a plan to kill the king of Scotland, which eventually results in horrible consequences for Macbeth and Scotland. Lady Macbeth explains her plan to Macbeth and her vision for his accession to the throne which would require the removal of Duncan. She suggests the murder of Duncan. Macbeth begins to feel weary and starts to have doubts. Lady Macbeth is insanely ambitious for her husband to become king, so much so that she states ‘I would, while it was smiling on my face, have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d the brains out’ rather than go back on her word like her husband has just done. However, little did either of them know that the repercussions for the killing of the king would lead to their own deaths. The people of Scotland were living in fear of an uncertain future, which influenced them to turn against their new king. Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind the murder of Duncan. She is ruthless. She was prepared to kill Duncan herself but found that he reminded her of her father and failed to go through with it only to find a few hours later, that Macbeth had carried out the deed. From there on it was a downhill slide into insanity for Macbeth as he could not live with the guilt. After murdering King Duncan, Macbeth fears he will never sleep again ‘Methought I heard a voice cry â€Å"Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢. The consequences for Scotland were catastrophic as they lost their noble king and instead found themselves being ruled by a psychopathic tyrant. Macbeth became paranoid and suspicious of everyone around him. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth could never have envisaged the consequences for themselves and their plans for the future began to fall apart. Keeping the murder of Duncan a secret tormented the couple, leading Macbeth to commit further murders. Banquo posed a threat because Macbeth feared he would get in the way of accession to the throne. He decided to hire assassins to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. Banquo is murdered and Fleance flees. That night, Macbeth is crowned and a banquet is held to celebrate. During the banquet Macbeth see’s the ghost of Banquo and has a breakdown. Lady Macbeth comes to his rescue. She tells his guests that he is having hallucinations which he has suffered from since childhood. In this scene we see Macbeth being driven mad with guilt. ‘It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood’. Behind Macbeths back, somewhere in Scotland, Lennox is walking with another lord discussing the consequences the death of Duncan will have on Scotland. Both suspect Macbeth whom they have called a ‘tyrant’, of the murder of Banquo even though Fleance has been blamed. The lord tells Lennox that Macduff has gone to England, where he will join Malcolm in pleading with England’s King Edward for aid. News of these plots prompted Macbeth to prepare for war. When Macbeth realised that Macduff had gone to England, he brutally murders Macduffs’ wife and babes who were left unprotected. All sympathy for Macbeth vanishes and is seen as a cold-blooded murderer. Macbeth reaches his lowest ebb after the murder of Macduff’s wife and babes. When Lady Macbeth commits suicide he is left with no alternative but to face his demons. Macbeth now faces the consequences of the murders alone. He goes into battle defiant and is determined not to give up. Going into war, Macbeth is faced with the prospect that he might die. He then recites his famous last words ‘Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damn’d be him that first cried, â€Å"Hold, enough! †Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ and is killed by Macduff in battle. The question remains, was Macbeth a tragic hero or was he in fact an overly ambitious, ruthless tyrant? The killing of Duncan does have terrible consequences for Macbeth and for Scotland, but after Macbeths’ death, Scotland’s reputation was restored. Freed from tyranny, the rightful king, Feance, took Macbeths place and descended the throne.

The Name Of The Rose :: essays research papers

In the title of the novel, The name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, the 'rose' can signify many ideas. By making this the title of the book, Eco has attracted the attention of a reader because it suggests a number of things. A rose can be all of nature, the most beautiful of it, a girl, etc. Just as the title suggests several answers, so can the implications in the novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The rose can be the Church, the richest and most powerful organization in the entire world. As each of its most devoted die, a little bit of the doctrine is forgotten until the 'name becomes bare', it can no longer be understood as its whole. In return, the most learned abbey in Europe burns to the ground, much like the martyrs it exalted.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Instead of seeing the deaths for what they are (just random acts, committed by several people, not one depraved person, but individual curious ones) William goes on wild goose chases, i.e. trying to find Adelmo's murderer before realizing that it was a suicide. He looks for evidence that simply is not there, then finding the next real clue, usually a body, searches in vain for what he wants to be the truth. Blinded by what he thinks is true, instead of what is right in front of his face, he searches and searches not judging by 'names' so much as placing the wrong meaning on them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Near the end of the novel, William gives Adso the following advise ' Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth…he loved his truth so lewdly that he dared do anything to destroy falsehood…the truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for truth' (491). Thus, the theme of the novel is the truth. William searches for it and searches for it, and finally finds it when, infuriated, he sees the clues for what they really mean, instead of what they desired them to mean.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Semiotics teaches that each element is meaningless until it is differentiated from the other elements. This can be applied several places in the novel, first as each death cannot be solved on it own, but only in conjunction with the other murders. In addition, William singles out the library as the common denominating factor not, for example, sleeping quarters or the Church.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The title 'The Name of the Rose' can apply in this fashion: William comes across a bud, as he searches for clues, the petals continue falling off, as the rose dies, when enough petals have dropped, he can see what makes the flower.

Chlorine and Magnesium Lab Introduction

iLab, Week # 3 ATOMIC WEIGHT OF MAGNESIUM LAB Introduction The purpose of this lab experiment is to determine the atomic weight of magnesium by measuring the amount of hydrogen gas evolved when hydrochloric acid reacts with magnesium. The reaction is as followed: Mg + 2HCL ? H2 + Mg2+(aq) + 2Cl-(aq) In this experiment there is a one to one relationship between the number of moles of hydrogen gas evolved and the moles of magnesium metal consumed in the reaction.Therefore in the finding of the experiment moles of H2 evolved is equal to the moles of Mg consumed, and atomic weight of Mg is equal to the weight of Mg consumed per moles of H2 evolved. Procedure 1st. Obtain a 600ml beaker, add 300ml of water 2nd. add 30ml of HCl (2M) to the beaker and stir 3rd. add 10mg of Magnesium metal to the beaker 4th. Allow hydrogen gas to evolve, all of the magnesium should be consumed. 6th. Record the amount of hydrogen gas evolved using the chemical property dialog. Observations and Results Moles of hydrogen evolved: 0. 000829g (8. 29 x 10-4)/ 0. 000411 moles, (4. 1 x 10-4) Calculated atomic weight of magnesium: ______________ Atomic weight of Mg = weight of Magnesium/moles of H2 Moles of H2 evolved = moles of Mg consumed Atomic weight of Mg= /0. 000411moles During my observation I noticed that when 10mg of magnesium metal was added to the beaker a shaded area appeared on the bottom of the beaker. When the bubbles stopped and the shaded area in the beaker disappeared it showed that the magnesium has been consumed. Discussion Conclusion < Within a few sentences, provide a concluding statement about the results of your laboratory>

Life of Isaac Deutscher Essay

Trotskyism is a theory by a German, Leon Trotsky who was a Bolshevik-Leninist and also a Marxist. Trotsky politics do not advocate for socialism but rather proletarian revolution in a country, proletarian revolution is a revolution whereby the working class work together to overthrow bourgeois. Trotsky’s followers are known as Trotskyist or Trot. The play Trotsky’s bar mitzvah is a ten minute play that was produced in Louisville KY. The drama explores the life of a Jew in the twentieth century. The play is somewhat based on the life of Isaac Deutscher. Isaac Deutscher was born in Chrzanow in Poland into a family of religious Jews, he studied the torah and the Talmud but by the time of his bar mitzvah he had lost his faith. After testing God by eating forbidden food at the grave of a holy person and witnessing that nothing happened, he became an atheist. The play examines the life of Isaac Deutscher and the challenges he went through that eventually led him to loose his religion. Since the play is set in modern times, the viewer is able to relate to the life of the main character in the play and understand the life of a modern ay Jew. The charm in this play is irresistible, Max Apples is willing to experiment and try almost anything. He welcomes new ideas and his language is versatile. In the play he captures the audience by recreating history afresh and using an approach that the viewer is able to relate to. The author of the play, Max Apple has been compared favorably with other prominent writers such as John Barth, Philip Roth, and Woody Allen. Although his work has received critical acclaim and enjoys considerable popularity, some commentators think Max’s work in literature may have limited relevancy due to Max Apple’s heavy usage of cultural references, he makes use of plenty of his Jewish traditions in which some non Jewish readers find hard to relate to. However, it has been posited by some scholars that Apple’s audience is increasingly a younger generation, the younger generation is more sympathetic to his flashy postmodern technique in literature and for whom the written language of the play is less meaningful than apples pictograph which is flashy. The author has borrowed real-life figures for use in his fiction for purely utilitarian and pragmatic purposes: the author assumes that his readers know some things and hence commences his work from there. He has stated that he tries to write very quickly and economically so that anything that saves him from descriptions and unnecessary words is always helpful to him. That explains why the play ‘Trotsky’s bar mitzvah’ is rather short. The playwright does not use long descriptive sentences. The play is given serious themes by the author, examples of these serious themes include: death, love, health, money. The use of humor is widely employed in his work; the author uses comic relief as he examines the variety of human attributes. To the author, allusions, ironies, and levels of meaning make writing rather tiresome and instead he prefers the use of symbols, acronyms, images, real names, datelines, and the kind of catchy and absurd headlines often found in tabloids to give his writing an edge that it has over other types of literary works. The author is indeed charming in script as well as in character as depicted in the play, he is more interested in exploring new forms of writing, Max Apples has a refreshing and an uncommon way of telling a story. In conclusion it is clear to say that that play ‘Trotsky’s bar mitzvah’ is wide known for its characteristics in comedy, intelligence, and witty inventiveness. Although it has a cultural bias that tends to discriminate non Jews or people who have no knowledge of Jewish traditions, it is safe to say that it is indeed a fascinating piece of work. REFERENCES 1. http://actorstheater. com 2. Jerome Beaty, J. Paul hunter: new worlds of literature. 3. http://seanhart. com/barmitzvah 4. http://the nation. com/doc/200503/aronson

Roshamon essays

Roshamon essays In the movie Roshamon, point of view is the predominant technique used to tell the story. What actually happens to the characters is overshadowed by the way they see themselves during the story. "There are four basic types of point of view: the first person, the omniscient, the third person, and the objective. In first person, the narrator tells his or her won story. They can either be an objective or subjective observer. An objective narrator can be relied on to relate the events accurately, but a subjective observer can't be totally relied on to tell the truth."" (Giannetti, 401) In Roshamon, the first person point of view is used but in the subjective sense. We as viewers got to see how each character portrayed themselves during the movie through their point of view. The point of view tells more about the person telling the story then the actual story. What they say reflects how they see themselves, or how they need to see themselves. For example, the bandit needs to see himself as brave and fearless. He cares more about his ego than his life. The bandit was so concerned with the fact that someone accused him of falling off his horse that he confessed to murdering the man in the woods. The bandit couldn't bear to have anyone think of him as weak. When the woman tells her version of the story, she portrays herself as being the selfless woman who would rather die than have her husband think poorly of her. She claimed to have tried to kill herself twice When the medium tells the man's story through the priest, the man has to preserve his self-image by lying to himself. He claimed his wife was so evil and he should be pitied because he was married to her. The man, in turn, kills himself just so he does not look weak because of The woodcutter's story is very absurd. He covers up for himself ...

Truman Show essays

Truman Show essays Images are reflection of our perspective, Christof the composer of the reality TV show The Truman Show has his perspective which he had addressed them in the movie. First is the manipulation of people for them to believe in the set issue, and second is to show the perfect imagination world. There are many images created by the both composers of the movie The Truman Show and the novel Galax-Arena. Both of these texts are all about creating fake world and manipulation of people to make them believe in certain things. However there are differences between the two texts as well, the purposes of The Truman Show is to entertain the audiences who watch Trumans reality TV show, to show therefore they have different storylines as well. For example Truman was born t recognize that it was a huge studio. In Galax-Arena, the children were kidnapped and were put in a strange place, which they were made to believe that it is another planet. The two texts also tried to create image which show the same perspective of manipulation t escapes, and Truman was made to be scare of waster, and that he is locked in a huge studio. The similar goal is the idea of manipulating people to believe false reality. For example, Hythe told a lie to Joella that they are in another planer, ...