Critical thinking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Critical thinking - Essay Example I was interested in determining whether media stereotyping of the Arab world was justified or not. The video allowed me to understand that the media portrayed a negative picture of the Middle East region resulting into possible negative implications on its relationship with western countries. It is through this video that I now understand that the media fails to demonstrate that there are specific extremist groups that mastermind terrorists and they do not represent the Middle East or Arab world in general. It is because of this stereotyping that the western society has negative perceptions and attitudes about Arabs. While watching this movie, I realized that the western media is interested more in profits than the negative social, political and religious consequences that they caused within the world in general. The stereotyping has for instance resulted in racist perceptions, which tend to associate Arabs with terror related crimes. The negative image on the Islamic religion, as portrayed in the western media has also caused general or global distrust and the widening of the gap between Christians and Muslims. This video influenced my learning more because it motivated me to conduct further inquiries into the historical relationships between the west and the Arab world. I realized that this relationship have been worsened by cases of terror attacks and the misleading pictures on Hollywood blockbusters. This is due to the reality that most of the terror attacks on western soils have been attributed to Muslims from the Middle East or Arab countries. The second issue that significantly influenced my learning processes during the course is the contribution of the Arabs towards modern civilization. My interest in the history of contemporary civilization caused me to inquire further into discoveries by the Arabs, which have made the modern

Review of Three Ethical Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Review of Three Ethical Theories - Essay Example According to this theory, individuals are seen as rational and utility maximizing entities. Several business decisions today are based on this principle; that is, the correct business decision is one that maximizes the net benefit to the society. Thus, the decision which is in the best interests of the society is one that maximizes the net benefit to the society. The founder of traditional Utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, argued that best and most valuable judgments are those that are based on objective considerations (Scarre, 1996). Thus, the benefits and costs of each public policy should be weighed and then the policy should be executed only if the benefits outweigh the costs. The theory inherently assumes that the costs and benefits can be measured (Scarre, 1996). Thus, the value of the costs can be subtracted from the value of benefits. The theory does not aim at maximizing an individual’s utility. It aims at maximizing the net benefits to the society. The provision of pub lic and merit goods is based on this theory. It is consistent with morality since it takes into account ‘everyone’s’ interests in equal amount. ... According to him, each individual have a moral right to this and that this moral right of individuals translates into duties for other individuals. The first foundation of this imperative is based on the principles of universibility and reversibility (Butler, 2008). Thus, individuals must ask themselves how they would feel if other treated them the same way and how would they feel if everyone did the same. Thus, according to Kant, the immoral decisions and actions were those that one wouldn’t want for oneself (Butler, 2008). The second imperative states that individuals ought not to be treated merely as means; that is, their capacity to choose freely for themselves must also be developed. This clearly demonstrates that while the Utilitarians imply an ‘economically rational’ justification for actions, Rights Ethics correctly captures the human values and goes beyond the traditional cost-benefit analysis. Thus, according to Utilitarians, individuals could be deprive d of their right to liberty simply because the net benefit isn’t maximized (Jeurissen, 2007). Hence, Rights Ethics takes a step forward by respecting not only the positive but also the negative rights of individuals ( that is, the freedom from coercion). Thus, the Rights Ethics many of the flaws associated with the Utilitarian view. Firstly, the utilitarian view simplistically assumes that all the consequences of an action can be quantitatively measured (Smart & Williams, 1973). This is not always the case. For instance, how could one assign a value to one’s life? Secondly, it deals insufficiently with rights, morals and justice (Smart & Williams, 1973). As outlined in the following