Moral Challenges Essay Example for Free

Moral Challenges Essay Morality is a highly contested topic in every day life. It can be defined as a thought process of making decisions based on one’s beliefs or desires shaped by one’s culture. A right or wrong moral decision can therefore be said to be a product of culture and law stipulated in a constitution and applied in a certain jurisdiction. In everyday life, we are faced with challenges and situations that require our judgment and actions (Kermerling, 2002). In this paper, I will explore two moral situations in which I believe I made the right and wrong decisions respectively, the parties that were involved, the reasons behind my actions and the consequences that followed my decisions and actions. Lastly, I will identify what actions I will take if faced with the same situation the next time to avoid making wrong decisions. Moral Challenges A Right Moral Decision The decision I made to take responsible leadership role and mitigate the planned students’ strike was one of the most acceptable action I ever made in my life. I was actively involved in a peace mission to contain the strike that was organized by drunken and unruly students in the university. The judgment process was affected after the students took alcohol and caused disorder in the institution (Cima, Tonnaer Hauser, 2009). The peace mission involved the director of the faculty, a lecturer, the student leaders and a few students. The students had issues with a lecturer who had failed to show up in three lectures. While it was right for the students to complain over the absence of the lecturer, it was expected for them to follow the right procedure in addressing the problem. The organizers of the strike came while drunk and tried to convince and force the rest of the students to join them in a demonstration to the administration offices. Some students got tempted and joined the unruly students claiming that the administration has failed to act appropriately to their claims. As the chair person of the students union, I took an initiative and addressed the students and informed them that contrary to the claims of some of them, the issue was being addressed and that the lecturer in question had been summoned and appropriate solution would be arrived at soon. I spoke with wisdom, â€Å"Comrades, we are gathered here to inquire about our rights to have normal and uninterrupted studies. Besides, any missed lecture means waste of time and resources. However, the lecturer in question has been summoned and the decision will be communicated to us in appropriate time. Furthermore, I have called the director of the faculty and informed me that he will be here with us in the next one hour. Therefore, I request all of us to have patience since the issue is being handled wisely by the administration. Thank you! † My speech caused a mixed reaction with minority of them accusing me and the rest of the leaders of being sympathizers and colluding with the administration and not giving students’ interests any priority. They begun singing and chanting and demanded at the top of their voices that, â€Å"we demand that you and all our leaders join us in the fight for our rights†¦ we want to show the lecturer a lesson. † Majority of the students were convinced in my speech and they helped in calming the situation. Later, the faculty director arrived and he addressed us all giving the way forward to the satisfaction of the majority. The main architects of the strike were identified and suspended and others expelled and the university once again realized the tranquility which was important in the learning process. This benefited the administration as it served as a wake up call and they moved with speed to address majority of issues by factoring in student needs. The rest of the students benefitted by continuing with normal learning and all the issues raised were addressed with the lecturer getting a warning A Wrong Moral Situation An incident I remember to have taken a wrong decision involved taking side with my brother to indict our house help. Due to my brother’s recklessness, he had left the car keys in his girlfriend’s house. The girlfriend quietly sneaked in our compound and took off with the car whose keys were forgotten in her house. Unfortunately, the girlfriend was a drug dealer and so used the car to transport hard drugs to her customers. She got spotted by the police although she managed to escape abandoning the car and drugs. After learning that the car was in police station, my father rushed home to interrogate us all before proceeding to the police station to record a statement. On sharing with my brother we called his girlfriend and struck a deal to be silent on the whole issue and put the whole blame on the house help. Although I knew the whole truth that my brother had forgotten the keys at his girlfriend’s house, I argued in defense of my brother. I maintained that it was the house help’s responsibility to take care of everything. My brother after gaining confidence and my support, he made his remark in a family meeting, â€Å"I fail to understand how the car came to be used in drug trafficking. It is evident that the house help has been colluding with drug traffickers. The house help should get sacked with immediate effect. † He talked harshly as he left the sitting room, â€Å"He should provide a succinct explanation in this meeting or else he will do it better at the police. † I felt a push inside my heart that what I was doing was wrong but I convinced myself that I had the obligation of defending my brother no matter what and so I cared less of the consequences to the other party. This is the case that happens with psychopaths (Cima, Tonnaer Hauser, 2009). The houses help felt much threatened and could not raise point to defend himself even when it meant he was not guilty. This led to his sacking letting my brother to go scot-free. My brother’s girlfriend and her gang made their best not to be caught in the scandal as they feared the consequences like imprisonment and fines. But the house help suffered unfairly as he lost his job failing to get paid and getting disturbed with even not knowing what could follow. I regretted of making such decision and I made a promise to myself that in case I got faced with the same problem, I would first remind my brother that it should be his responsibility to be accountable for every action he takes and that the house help has aright to expression and fair treatment. This will serve as an example and a wake up call for him to act appropriately in future. The issue of defending my brother and his girlfriend was not moral as it led to the firing of the house help. I will in future keep morals and make sensible decisions which respect all people regardless to class (Kermerling, 2002). In general, it is important that we make decisions based on our beliefs and moral codes on what is right and wrong. This will help shape our society and make everyone act to appropriately. Right moral decisions have significant benefit in the society. With right moral judgments, justice will be maintained and the offenders will be punished. Wrong moral decisions deprive the society of peace and justice. The poor and the minor groups in our society will always be intimidated as they are powerless. Reference: Cima, M. , Tonnaer, F. , Hauser, M. D (2009). Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care. Human Molecular Genetics’ Special Review Issue: Molecular Genetics Advances in Neurological Disease. 3(1): 329-45. Kemerling, G (2002). Kant: The moral order. Retrieved June 06 2010 from: http://www. philosophypages. com/hy/5i. htm

A Separate Peace :: essays research papers

Sitting in my third grade classroom we chattered anxiously, waiting for the spelling quizzes to be passed back. My teacher placed them all facing down on our desks, a rather pointless effort when she was already aware that at any moment the room would burst into havoc with yells of "what did you get?", shouting numbers back and forth, and of course superior comments from the students proud of their marks. I quickly flipped mine over and grinned at the 8/10 scrawled in red marker near the top of the page. "What did you get?" sure enough my friend Jenny thrust me her paper. As I stared down at her 100% sitting aside a bright yellow smiley sticker I felt a familiar twinge of jealousy. From that day on I had a secret goal to achieve higher marks than my friend. I can not remember when this rivalry ended, but I do know that it is normal behavior. Each person feels rivalry or competition to other humans, for the majority of their lifetime. This rivalry greatly affects our ability to understand others, and this eventually results in war, discrimination, and enmity. Children are definitely culprits for acting inhumane to each other with teasing, competition, and often hurtful remarks. Although this is the way children often act, it is in the teenage years realization, along with careful thought and consideration, brings each individual to understand wider prospects of human nature; that people coldly drive ahead for themselves alone. Man’s inhumanity1 to man is a way for people to protect themselves from having pain inflicted on them by fellow humans, and achieving their goals and desires free from interference of others. The concept of man’s inhumanity to man is developed in John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace. The primary conflict in this novel centers on the main character, Gene, and his battling of jealousy, paranoia, and inability to understand his relationship with his best friend Phineas. Yet the larger battle of man’s inhumanity to man is portrayed by the backdrop of World War II. Gene Forrester is an average, studious, young man attending Devon school in New Hampshire during the second World War. His roommate at Devon, Phineas (otherwise known as Finny) sends Gene on an unexpected journey of self discovery. Finny represents man in his innocence, a kind of edenic2 Adam. He is very athletic, honest and trusting.

A Event That Changed My Life

BRAINSTORMING: 1. )Moving away to a different state. Positives: a. )started college b. )stayed out of trouble Negatives: a. )had no family to turn to b. )had a lot of trouble finding a place to stay 2. )Being a troubled teen. Positives: a. )learned from experiences I had Negatives: a. )had a lot of trouble with the police b. )didn’t go to school c. )ran away Final Draft: OK so basically I have decided to tell you about me being a troubled teen. Everybody I am sure has either had some kind of trouble as a teen or been in some kind of trouble as a teen. Well some has been worse than others right. Well mine started off when I was 14. I thought I could do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it and knew everything. Needless to say it didn’t happen that way. When I was 14 I got into a lot of trouble. I didn’t listen to my mom, I would sneak out the house, and I got into a lot of trouble with the police for fighting a lot, and always skipped school. I never hung out with people that did anything good. The people I hung out with where negative. Well one day I went to school and got into a really bad fight and ended up in a juvenile facility over it. I was there for about a month went to court and the judge put me on probation for 3 years. Well I still thought I could do what I wanted to do. So I still kept doing the same behavior I was doing before then. Needless to say I ended up violating probation when I was 15 and they locked me up. I was in a juvenile facility for 3 months then went to court and they put me in a program for 1 year. Well when I got to the program I thought it was going to be easy. But I ended up finding it was actually very difficult. Well after I got out of my program I decided that was something I had never wanted to experience again. So still to this day, and am 21 now, I have not been back in jail or nothing. I have been abiding by the laws and actually I am doing really well for myself. But before I could realize that’s not the life I wanted to live anymore I had to make a change, and not for anybody but myself. Narrative essay:

Animal Testing Should Be Banned Essay - 1646 Words

Animal Testing Should Be Banned Throughout the decades, animals have been used in medical research to test the safety of cosmetics including makeup, hair products, soaps, perfume and countless of other products. Animals have also been used to test antibiotics and other medicines to eliminate any potential risks that they could cause to humans. The number of animals worldwide that are used in laboratory experiments every year exceeds 115 million animals. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of countries collect and publish data concerning animal use for testing and research, so the exact number of animals used in experiments are unknown. (Author, Year). Whether we should or shouldn’t use animals in medical research has been a heated debate for countless generations. Many American’s value the achievements that animal experimentation has provided but new understandings about the nature of animals have caused people to reconsider the ethics of using animals for human gain (Driscoll and Finley para 1). D espite the numerous benefits of animal experimentation, there are many negative aspects. Animals should not be used in medical testing because they are abused, many drugs/antibiotics that are tested on animals and were deemed safe were not safe for humans and lastly, there are alternate ways that are more cheap and effective in testing the safety of products. Animal experimentation can sometimes be driven by curiosity, the belief that animals do not experience pain orShow MoreRelatedShould Animal Testing Be Banned?844 Words   |  3 PagesShould animal testing be banned? Nowadays, a lot of animals has been tested on a range of experiments over the world. You could be supporting animal teasing cruelty without knowing it. 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