Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Should Abortion Be Legal - 1320 Words

Abortion, as you all may know, is a really popular topic. There have long been many debates between the two groups, pro-life and pro-choice. People who are pro-life believe that part of the government’s job is to protect all forms of human life. Those who are pro-choice believe that every individual should have control over their own reproductive systems. Pro-life supporters strongly believe that even an undeveloped fetus has life; it is still growing and it needs to be protected. And this sounds reasonable. However, after doing more research on this topic, I believe abortion should remain legal. In this speech I will be explaining how making abortion illegal could lead to emotional instability, illegal abortions, and how it could violate a women’s right to choose. Making abortion illegal could leave victims of rape to become emotionally unstable if they were to become pregnant. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted in the United States and in 2007, there were 248,300 victims of rape. In 2004-2005, 64,080 women were raped. Of those 64,080 women, it was estimated by RAINN (the Rape, Abuse Incest National Network), that there were 3,204 results of pregnancies during that period. Victims of sexual assault are likely to suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and drug abuse, and they are more likely to attempt suicide. Most of these rape victims who have such aShow MoreRelatedAbortion Should Not Be Legal1647 Words   |  7 PagesOne of the most highly debated topics is abortion and whether or not it should be legal. People who oppose abortion, meaning they are pro-life claim that abortion should be completely illegal with no aspects of it whatsoever; it can be a murder for the people standing against it. The other side of the argument, meaning people who are pro-choice, defend it by believing it to be a right been given to the women. They also claim even if abortion was to be illegal, it would still be practiced. EveryRead MoreAbortion Should Not Be Legal920 Words   |  4 Pagesworld has struggled with for ages and one thing that people are advocating around the world for is abortion. Abortion is either a procedure or pill that stops a fetus s heart. Abortion should not be legal because life beings at creation, abortions are a direct violation of the 14th amendment, and thousands of people would love to adopt a child: handicapped or otherwise. Abortion should not be legal because life begins at creation. What is creation? Some people say conception, but it actually isRead MoreShould Abortion Be Legal?1217 Words   |  5 PagesNovember 2015 Should Abortion be Legal Among all the issues that have been fought for or against in the United States, abortion may be one of the most popular issues that Americans are passionate about. Abortion is defined as the removal of the embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy. Thousands of abortions take place every single day, and yet public opinion remains at a standstill as to whether or not abortion is ethical. Everyone holds different opinions on abortion. The proponentsRead MoreAbortion Should Not Be Legal Essay1596 Words   |  7 Pages Abortions have been performed on women for thousands of years. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. Most often it is performed during the first 20 weeks of being pregnant. The controversy over whether or not abortion should be legal continues to divide Americans till this day. An important landmark case was the Roe v. Wade case, where the Court argued that the zone of privacy was broad enough to encompass a woman s decision whether or not to terminateRead MoreShould Abortion Be Legal? Essay1089 Words   |  5 PagesWhen the word abortion is heard, it is always associated with many negative things such as murder and inhumanity. However not legalizing abortion creates a huge problem for women around the world. Having a child takes consideration, planning and preparation and if pregnancy happens without any of this, why bother to have it at all? The reasons why abortion should be legal is that it supports the fundamental human rights for women by giving them a choice, it reduces crime by reducing the number ofRead MoreShould Abortion Be Legal?1135 Words   |  5 PagesKelsi Hodgkin Composition 1 Professor Chipps 19 October 2015 Should Abortion Be Legal A common debate in the world today involves abortion, the deliberate end of human pregnancy, and whether or not it should be legalized. â€Å"Every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day† (â€Å"Abortions Worldwide this Year†). On one side of the argument, people are not disturbed by this grotesque number, and on theRead MoreShould Abortion Be Legal?963 Words   |  4 PagesLegal or Illegal? Which would you prefer? Not many are willing to discuss such a gut wrenching topic, but this needs to be addressed. It is a very controversial topic with having to do with women rights and activists. Since there are two sides to every argument, there is one side such as to make abortion legal and the opposing side to keep abortions illegal. In my opinion making abortion illegal can regulate the amount of women who do get pregnant. I believe that making abortions legal will let womenRead MoreShould Abortion Be Legal?867 Words   |  4 PagesABORTION Abortion is a deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. There are series of legal, moral and ethical issues which may arise about abortion. Most arguments about abortion are often focused on political insinuations and the legal aspect of such actions. Some frequently asked questions’ regarding the issue is if the practice should be outlawed and regarded as murder or should women have the right to practice it. For example, prior toRead MoreShould Abortions Be Legal?939 Words   |  4 PagesShould abortions be legal? Abortions have been a big issue since the Roe v Wade case. There have been a lot of disagreements between the Pro-life supporters and the pro-choice supporters. Pro-life supporters feel like abortions deter murder, while pro-choice supporters believe that the women should be able to make their own decisions. I am a part of the pro-life supporters because I feel like abortions are wrong for several of reasons. Why should women get an abortion if there are other choices forRead MoreShould Abortion Be Legal?1052 Words   |  5 PagesAbortion is a personal matter and is a very sacred and sensitive topic. The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy is what we know of as an abortion. Although abortion is considered to be immorally wrong to some people, it should be a fundamental right for women to control their own bodies. Abortions are one of the many things that everyone has an opinion on. It is one of the most controversial topics anyone will not agree upon. When abortion is discussed, people tend to assume one of two positions:

Monday, December 16, 2019

Critically assess Thomas Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil Free Essays

string(144) " is God who created everything to have a certain nature and if something falls short of this God given nature then it is suffering a privation\." Introduction St Thomas Aquinas was one of the most influential theologians to date and his influence on the Catholic faith and understanding of ethics is both vast and undeniable. As a theologian he took great influence from the work of St. Augustine who in turn took influence from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. We will write a custom essay sample on Critically assess Thomas Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil or any similar topic only for you Order Now To understand Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil it is important to first examine the influence he took St. Augustine. I will also look at another approach to the problem of evil given by the modern British theologian John Hick. I will see if this accounts for anything which Aquinas’ account does not. St. Augustine’s work on the problem of evil came as a reaction to the Manicheans’ who believed in a type of ‘cosmic dualism’. Their belief was that there were two opposed forces in the universe; the force of good and the force of evil. The force of evil was responsible for all evil that occurred in the world; be it the death of a relative or a very poor yield of crops. These forces, according to the Manicheans’, were in a constant cosmic battle against each other. This view of the forces of good and evil can be seen in modern literature and film and a good example of this is the book Lord of the rings. In the lord of the rings Frodo and the other members of fellowship can be seen to represent the force of good and Sauron and his dark army can be seen to represent the forces of evil. The Manicheans supported their dualist claim that there were both evil and good forces in the world through quotations found in the book of revelations which state that S t Michael and some angels went into battle with the devil and his angels (the similarity between this and the battles in the lord of the rings is very apparent). St Augustine did not accept the Manicheans account as he did not believe it was a Christian position; believing that there was a separate force of evil was not a defensible position for a devout Christian. Many religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam, state that there is only one God and that one God created the universe and everything within it. From this we can take the position that there can be absolutely no independent or separate power of evil due to the fact that everything that exists was created by an all powerful and completely good God. But how then does one account for evil being present in some form within the worldSurely one must either accept that evil does not exist at all or that the God of which we speak is not utterly good or that god is not omnipotent. Cleverly St. Augustine managed to avoid this problem by introducing some of the philosophy of Aristotle; namely that of his work on absence. Aristotle believed that many things we could view as being a negative force or thing could actually be explained in terms of the absence of something good. Where we may view sickness as being the introduction of a virus or a parasite into somebody’s previously healthy body Aristotle would have viewed it as a ‘lack of health’. So where health is not present there is sickness. Another good example is ‘where there is darkness there is an absence of light’. So, for Aristotle, many negative things can be seen as an absence of something positive. To further illustrate this point Aristotle gave the example of a ship being wrecked. If the pilot of a ship is not on the bridge and the ship crashes into rocks and becomes wrecked it is due to the absence of a pilot. The pilot himself did no wrong; he was not inattentive or inebriated during duty; he merely was not there. It was the absence of the pilot which caused the ship to crash. This illustrates that negativ e things occur when there is an absence of some good which should have been there. St. Augustine took Aristotle’s work on absence and applied it to his own work on the problem of evil, and the idea that something negative was the absence of something positive became a central theme in his theology. Augustine did make some changes to the idea of evil being an absence of good as he believed that not every single absence is an evil; he did this by stating the difference between a privation and an absence. The distinction he made is this; an absence exists when some good is not present that should not be present in the first place whereas a privation (privatio bonni (a privation of good)) exists when some good is not present that should have been there in the first place. To illustrate this a few examples are useful. If a stone does not have eyes then there is an absence of some good but the stone is not intended to have eyes so this seen as an absence not a privation. If a person does not have wings then there is an absence of some good, but the person is not i ntended to have wings so this is seen as an absence and not a privation. Now if we look at privation then the difference should be clear. If a person does not have eyes then this is a privation and not an absence as a person is intended to have eyes, there is something missing which should be there. If a giraffe does not have a neck then this is seen as a privation and not an absence as there is something missing which should be there. In other words; if something falls short of what it is supposed to be then it has suffered a privation. Who decides the way something is supposed to be is God. It is God who created everything to have a certain nature and if something falls short of this God given nature then it is suffering a privation. You read "Critically assess Thomas Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil" in category "Essay examples" Furthermore; if something falls short of its God given nature then it is not as God intended it to be, thus, it is to an extent evil. So t he person without eyes is suffering, to a certain extent, from an evil (a privation of good). It is important to note here that these privations do not occur from free choice; they are existent because of some ‘natural evil’ which occurred; for example a birth defect. No choice was made by the person to have no eyes; it was not because of a choice they made. So if these types of privation are seen as natural evil then what is moral evilHow does moral evil occur? St. Augustine believed that human beings and angels were different to the rest of God’s creations. What they had, which God’s other creations did not, was free will. Where all of God’s other creations were susceptible only to natural evil (they had no choice over the privations which they may have suffered) humans and angels had the ability to choose whether or not they wanted to fall short of God’s intended nature for them. A human being has the choice to be good, to help those who need help or to act in a godly manner and the choice to not be good, the choice to fall short of God’s intended nature. They have freedom; the freedom to act in the right way or in the wrong way. They can choose to act in a manner that makes them fall short of God’s intended nature (as in the story of Adam and Eve). So in other words; moral evil occurs when humans use their freedom to fall short of God’s intended plans for them. Because humans have this fre e choice where all of God’s other creations do not it is humans which are responsible for all moral evil. Augustine also believed that there was a mysterious connection between human’s free choice to fall short of Gods intentions and the occurrence of natural evil; he thought there was a link between choosing to act in the wrong way and the occurrence of natural disasters. He took the biblical account of creation totally literally and from that he assumed that God created the world without any ‘natural evil’ whatsoever. There would have been no earthquakes, there would have been no tsunamis and there would have been no volcanic explosions (in fact there would have been no volcanos at all). He believed that all of these features of the world were brought about by humans and angels using their free choice to rebel against God. So now the background to Aquinas’ theology has been established we can look at Aquinas’ work in some detail. St. Thomas Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil took much from Aristotle and Augustine. Like Aristotle he saw that many negative things can be seen to be an absence of something else, i.e. darkness being an absence of light. He also saw the need to make a distinction between absence and privation, for he too believed that it was not evil for a stone to not have eyes. He took these ideas and expanded on them to create a much more detailed view of what evil can be seen to be. He states ‘For evil is the absence of the good, which is natural and due to a thing’. He stated that pure evil is totally impossible and this is due to two reasons. If pure evil was possible then it would imply that there was a separate force of evil, opposed to that of good. If this were the case then it would mean that God was either not utterly good, or it would mean that God was not omnipotent. It would also negate the idea that evil is an absence of good. The other reason that Aquinas stated that pure evil was impossible is that for something to be purely evil, by definition, it would have to fall short of its God given nature by 100%. As God created everything that exists then something that fell short of its God given nature by 100% would not exist. Even Satan, according to Aquinas, cannot be seen to be totally evil. Satan was created by God and is evil because he chose to rebel against his God given nature but he is good in the fact that he exists and is one of Gods creations. Another example would be that of Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao was good to the extent that he existed but was bad because he failed to live up to God’s intended nature for him (because he killed around 10 million people). So, for Aquinas as for Augustine, pure evil does not exist. Another feature that Aquinas added to Augustine’s work was the differentiation between evil suffered and evil done. It is evil done that creates moral evil. It is not evil to have a thief steal your wallet; there is evil in the crime and the person who has been robbed has suffered from evil but they have committed no evil themselves, they have done nothing morally wrong and they have created no moral evil. It is the thief who has done something wrong; he has committed an evil act and has created some moral evil. So far it appears that Aquinas’ and Augustine’s approach to the problem of evil are the same (if not for a few revised definitions and differentiations). Where Aquinas really made a difference was with his work on the idea of natural evil. Unlike Augustine Aquinas effectively denied that natural evil exists. He did not believe that volcanoes and tsunamis were brought about by the free choices of angels and humans. Furthermore he did not believe that the world was created without things such as volcanoes and tsunamis, flesh eating tigers and fatal illnesses. He believed that all of things have always existed from the moment of creation and all of these things were created by God for a reason. The things which we may view as evil are only evil from a homocentric perspective; we only see tsunami’s as being evil because they kill other humans. We only see flesh eating tigers as evil because they are a threat to us. These things which we view as evil are only seen as evil from our perspective. Aquinas’s approach does not look at the world from a homocentric perspective; instead he looks at the world from the perspective of god (a theocentric perspective). When the world is looked at from God’s perspective what is seen as evil changes vastly. When a tiger eats a human or even a baby this not evil. The tiger is fulfilling its God given nature perfectly when it kills other beings to eat them. God designed the tiger to eat meat to sustain its own life; if it did not eat meat to sustain its own life then it would not be fulfilling its God given nature and then it would be succumbing to evil (it would be falling short of God’s intentions for it). Even the recent tsunami in Japan, according to Aquinas, cannot be seen as a natural evil. He would say that the tsunami was good in that it was fulfilling its God given nature to the fullest extent. The tsunami did what it was intended to do. It was being a good Tsunami. All of God’s creations are seen to be good if they fulfil their God given nature, if they do what God intended them to do. A volcano that erupts is a good volcano, a sheep that eats grass is a good sheep, and a fox which eats chickens is a good fox and so on. Obviously from the chicken’s perspective it is a bad thing that the fox eats it but from God’s perspective the fox is being a good fox because it is acting as God intended it to act. If the chickens were not killed by foxes or any other animal there could be a situation where there were too many chickens and this could lead to other problems such as chickens eating all the food and leaving none for other animals. In the same way if there were no disasters such as tsunamis then there could be too many humans in the world and this would leave no food for God’s other creatures. The same applies to things such as the AIDS virus. Although we see it is a very bad thing, in God’s eyes it may be seen as necessary to keep the population at a certain level without overcrowding. Because the AIDS virus was created by God it is not evil if it fulfils its God given nature. It is only from a human perspective that the A IDS virus is seen as a bad thing. This is a philosophically interesting and attractive position to take on the problem of evil. Aquinas’ approach not only deals with moral evil in an effective manner but also explains what Augustine would call ‘natural evil’ in a much more logical way. Aquinas’ decision to look at the world from a theocentric perspective allowed him to explain things such as tsunami’s and AIDS without turning to mysterious effects of moral evils. In effect Aquinas took Aristotle’s conception of a ‘good man’ or a ‘good carpenter’ and extended it to encompass all of God’s creations and in doing so created a much more philosophically sound approach to the problem of evil. One problem with Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil is that he does not explain what use evil has. Why is evil allowed to be prevalent in the worldWhy does God allow so much suffering to occurAlthough Aquinas states that evil is not ‘something’, it is an absence of good he does not explain why God allows man to fall so short of our intended nature and thus allow evil to exist (even if its existence can only be explained in terms of a lack of good). One theologian who does manage to explain why evil exists is John Hick. Hick rejects much of the traditional Christian approach to the problem of evil and states that the ideas which underlie much of traditional Christian theology are false and effectively outdated. It is now useful to look at Hick’s approach to the problem of evil to see how it differs from Aquinas’ approach and to see whether it manages to successfully account for why evil is allowed to exist in the world. John Hick is a British philosopher and theologian who effectively denies much of traditional Christian beliefs. For example he denies that the humans were ever perfect and in doing so he denies the story of ‘the fall’. He does this by looking at scientific research and using this to show that it is very improbable that humans were ever perfect, improbable that the Garden of Eden existed. This is radically opposed to Aquinas’ view as Aquinas was a firm believer in the story of ‘the fall’, from which stemmed all evil. Hick took much inspiration from St Ireneus who believed that human kind was created in God’s image. We were created to look like God but it was our responsibility to become like God. It is our responsibility to grow morally through our own free choices. We must choose to live a way of life that reflects the ‘divine’ way of life, we must choose to act in the way that God would. But how can we do thisHow can we grow to become more like GodHick believes that we can grow to become like God through our own free choices. Through our choice to act in the right way and not commit evil acts or give in to our weaknesses we can grow morally and spiritually to become more like God. Hick goes on to state that the evil which exists in the world is part of God’s creation. The evil which we find all too easy to give into was created by God as a gift. It is through this evil that we can grow into God’s likeness. We can choose not to give in to our base desires and do the wrong thing. We can choose not to remain in our animal state and accept that ‘we are only human’. We can choose to adopt the features of God such as kindness, compassion and love and if we do we grow spiritually and grow away from our animal state. So Hick believed that evil was put into the world to allow us to make free choices; choices between right and wrong, good and evil. He developed this line of reasoning in an attempt to prove that a belief in an all powerful, all good and all loving God was not an irrational belief. But this still begs the question; if God wants us to believe in him and act in the right way why does he not prove his existence to usWhy doesn’t he show himself to usIt would seem like the sensible thing to do, it would stop all speculation over whether God exists or not and it would be very likely that people would stop acting in an evil way. Hick claims that God does not show himself to us in order to protect human free will. God chooses to remain hidden to preserve our freedom. This allows us the make our own choices and to choose to act how we want. It is this freedom, according to Hick, which allows us to grow morally and spiritually and thus grow into God’s likeness. If God did show hi mself then this would destroy our free choices and thus stunt our moral and spiritual development. So; God cannot show himself as it would destroy human freedom, it would destroy our freedom to act in whichever way we please. Without this freedom we would not be able to grow into God’s likeness. So it is evil which allows us to become more like God. It is evil which makes us more moral beings. This approach to the problem of evil does overcome some of the objections faced by Aquinas’ approach as it manages to explain why God permits evil to exist in the world. The approach devised by Hick’s manages to justify why belief in an all powerful, all good and all loving God is not irrational in the face of great evil. This is something which Aquinas fails to do. Aquinas does manage to explain how there is evil in the world but not why. To conclude I have found that Aquinas’ approach, despite it underpinning much of Catholic belief, fails to account for why God permits evil to exist in the world. Aquinas does manage to explain how it exists and blames this on the bad choices of humans but he fails to explain why it exists. He fails to give evil any purpose unlike Hick who explains why and how evil exists in the world. Hick states that God gave us evil as a gift which will bring about the highest good and he explains this point well. So, although Aquinas does give a fairly good account of how evil exists and makes a good point in stating that natural evil does not exist, he fails to justify or explain why evil is permitted in this world. Because of this I am inclined to reject Aquinas’ pre-scientific theory in favour of the better explained, more scientific and more plausible theory devised by Hick. Bibliography Herbert McCabe. God and Evil: in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Continuum international publishing group. 2010 http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/probevil.html Peter Vardy. A thinker’s guide to evil. John Hunt Publishing. 2003 Peter Vardy. A thinkers guide to god. John Hunt publishing. 2003 How to cite Critically assess Thomas Aquinas’ approach to the problem of evil, Essay examples

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Bibliography free essay sample

Works discusses this technological age and how the ever changing media is affecting human behavior. Bilton focuses on addressing this â€Å"technopocalypse† and reassures his reader that â€Å"the more things change the more they stay the same† giving an appeal to the older generations and making the younger generation feel less stupid. Throughout his book he touches on plenty of subjects but the one I focused on was his views and details about social networking sites and how they are becoming a source for â€Å"information overload† and communities that allows people with similar interest to â€Å"hang-out†. Bilton however, focuses on the positives of â€Å"information overload† and these virtual communities but does provide facts about how they can lead to a decrease in offline efforts to interact or attempts to create relationships with local human beings. I did agree with his positive points and can compare them to Professor Turkle’s negative views in my source Alone Together. Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. 1. New York: Basic Books, 2011. Print. Professor Sherry Turkle teaches Social Studies of Science at MIT and is a licensed clinical psychologist. In Alone Together she compares the Internet to a ball and chain that keeps us tethered to the screens of our computers and cellphones. She summarizes her view in the statement â€Å"We expect more from technology and less from each other†. The first half of her book focuses on social robots and our relationships with these machines created to sweep our floors and provide us and our older family members a sense of companionship, one example she uses is a sex robot, that have now become a substitute for the difficulty of having to deal with other people. The next half of her book expresses her concern with online interaction and how it allows us to interact with one another despite being present in each other’s lives. Technological interaction such as email or text messaging also provides a great excuse for us to not have to speak in real time. It’s easy to say â€Å"I’ll get back to you later† instead of dealing with these social situations. This book is the perfect source for my thesis as it really cracks down on why technology affects our way of social interactions in a negative point of view. This relates to my previous source, I live in the Future and this is how it works, by providing a different viewpoint about technology and how it can affect our lives in a darker light. He specializes in the field of measurement and evaluation. He is a member of the Division of Educational Psychology and Methodology. In his examination he details his findings about the relationship between first-year college students and their use of social networking sites. He focused on two questions. Is there an impact of loneliness on Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook among first-year college students and is there an impact on Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook on loneliness. He collected his data from 340 first-year college students. He found no reciprocal relationship in his results. The results of the â€Å"Qualities of Peer Relations On Social Networking Websites† focuses more on the relationships of social network users as opposed to this study that focuses on college students who wish to cure their loneliness. This study, â€Å"An Examination†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , however provides some information about other studies that argue about reduced interactions and neglect with family relationships and friendships due to Internet use. Their study examined teenagers, when they were thirteen, social relationships with their mothers and later, when they were twenty, their quality of social relationships with their peers online. What they concluded from their results was that poor quality relationships with their mothers at the younger age caused youths to prefer online communication and have poor relationship qualities with their online peers. They discuss their results and discuss the importance of family interactions at a young age and how it affects their future interactions with peers. This relates to â€Å"An Examination†¦Ã¢â‚¬  by researching a different aspect of social networking and in fact finding an adverse effect on social interactions of those users. Professor Turkle from Alone Together would probably be pleased with the findings of this research as it helps support her view that technology has put a dent in the quality of our conversations and relationships. The results of the study revealed that adults who as teens were more negative in their offline interactions were less likely to have a social network account as an adult as compared to teenagers who were more positive in their offline interactions would have most likely kept their social network account as adults. The findings in this study can be compared to the results from â€Å"Qualities†¦Ã¢â‚¬  because they both find that offline interactions affect online interactions. If you are a negative person offline you probably are a negative person online and would probably avoid social networking in the first place because you are so down in the dumps. If you are a positive person you want to share the happiness of your life as much as you can and social networking helps make it something you don’t necessarily have to leave your house to do. This can also be compared to â€Å"An Examination†¦Ã¢â‚¬  as both studies found no evidence that social networking will make a lonely person happier. I’ll probably change my thesis to social networking sites do not lead to lack of offline social skills after thoroughly reading through my chosen sources.