Preview

Making Moral Decisions

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1786 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Making Moral Decisions
01:356:155
Dec, 1, 2013
FD4
Making Moral Decisions
George Orwell and Claire McCarthy When an incident occurs, people would like to deal with it in the way they prefer. However, there always are some situations that force people to make decisions that are opposite to their own will since people live in society and they need to consider other's opinions. No matter if people realize or not, it is hard to make decisions totally in terms of if they like it or not, because there are many factors which need to take into consideration like moral and ethics and the effect exerted on whole society and other people’s opinion. Both George Orwell and Claire McCarthy faced the dilemma of making a choice between their feelings and other people’s thoughts. In Orwell’s article “Shooting an Elephant”, he describes a poor elephant that destroyed people’s homes and kills a man. The people in town wanted him, as sub-divisional police officer, to kill that elephant. Orwell in fact did not want to kill the elephant but he did because other people wanted him to do and pressured him to make that choice. Claire McCarthy met a similar problem in her article “Dog Lab”. She knew dog lab was an efficient way for students like her to learn knowledge but she was feeling terrible and uncomfortable with killing dogs even though there were some values to do so. People in society approve of dog lab as the way to learn and they have not yet found other methods to substitute it. However, McCarthy believed in terms of morals and ethics she cannot kill an innocent dog. These two authors have no choice because they have to shoulder their responsibility. Orwell killed the elephant because he represented those people who dominate Burma and he needed to satisfy the masses in order to behave like the people in charge. McCarthy killed a dog during the experiment because she needed to well prepared for future operation on her patients. Making a decision is never easy especially when

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    People make many decisions in life such as, should I go to college, what college should I attend, what am I majoring in, which people should I hang out with, etc. All of these question is very important that we make every day. In making decisions there is a process that happens on how we make our final decisions. In Orwell’s essay “Shooting the elephant” and McCarthy’s essay “Dog Lab,” they went through the same process on making their decisions. Orwell’s essay was about a police officer that went through a tough time deciding if he should kill the innocent elephant that go out of his cage. McCarthy’s essay was about a medical student that studies a lot and had to decide if she should participate on a class experiment. The process is first…

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    24, March 2013 Moral Dilema Determination inspired many of the suffering persevere in their rescue efforts which eventually paid off…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The incident of shooting the elephant gave rise to a much-talked issue. It also created a tremendous negative impact on Orwell’s mind. Even the opinion of his fellow Europeans differed – the older people supported his act, while the younger ones condemned it and argued that ‘it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie’. However, deep in his mind Orwell always knew that he had shot the elephant ‘solely to avoid looking a…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Morality and Case Study

    • 1377 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The case study presented is a young immigrant couple striving to better their lives in a country of opportunity. This couple has endured a hard-working life style to begin a new life as a young married couple in their own home. The problem that they encounter is that the young wife discovers she is pregnant, which may have been a joyous surprise to the couple, but an ultrasound revealed that the fetus has an abnormality of the absence of bilateral arm development and a 25% chance that the fetus may have Down syndrome. The dilemma is how the physician and young couple and family have differing beliefs of what it means to be human.…

    • 1377 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As an ethical theory, natural law has a number of strengths; it allows Christians today, using their human reason to guide them, live as God intends them to live. However it can be argued that is has a number of weaknesses also, for example its religious underpinning.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    right to steal in order to save a human life. On the one hand, some argue that stealing even if…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    4) The European people were divided in the Orwell's decision to shot the elephant. The older Europeans supported Orwell's decision in shooting the elephant, because the elephant had gone mad and attacked. Younger Europeans disagreed with his decision in belief that the elephants life was more vaulible than a Coringhee coolie. “...because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie.” (984). I for one support Orwell's decision to shot the elephant. He made the right decision due to the fact that the elephant had gone off and killed another animal. If he had not shot the elephant their was a chance that the elephant could have killed other animals or even a…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Frankena (1973) Socrates argued that there were three typical patterns of reasoning in moral matters. The first belief was that no one should harm to another person. The principle was if an action was to the detriment of another human then it went counter to moral reasoning. If a person killed another person for whatever cause then it cannot be justified using moral reasoning. This belief has been used by those who oppose fighting a war, condemning a person to death for a crime, or by those choosing to object to abortions. Frankena (1973) uses Socrates example about escaping from jail to validate the point that the action would do harm to the state. Thus, it would hurt people.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Libertarians support the view that people have free will and so we are free to make moral decisions. For a Libertarian, the key evidence for this is the act of decision making in our daily lives. Hume states that “experience is what we see to be true”, each human being experiences the feeling of being free to make a decision. If experiencing any other action constitutes it to be true, then why not the same for free will? Libertarians argue that we have awareness of the choices we make; we can choose to do anything that we are capable of. Though we are influenced by our environment and experiences, ultimately we can make our own decisions, nothing is inevitable or determined. Libertarians hold the belief of a moral self; humans want to want to do things. For example, a smoker may think it would be a good idea to give up smoking, but their addiction is too strong for them to think it possible or in any way likely; they want to want to give up smoking. Humans are unique in this way and it is this which is called the moral self. Libertarians are dualists believing that the human mind is separate from the physical world. It is because of this that our reason and autonomy, our moral self, can transcend over other causal determinants. Kant argues that by applying reason to decisions we can escape any authority from cause and effect or desires and emotions, we are the agents of our own decisions. Libertarians believe in a forking path of choices rather than the straight road of determinism.…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Even though living in pain can be a physical and emotional toll on a person’s life, no one can judge or comment on it without knowing how it feels, but choosing to end your life for this cause is ethically wrong. A person should not be able to choose between life and death like it is something normal that we do every day. Dying is not the answer to a person’s problems, pains, or sufferings. Now a day technology and medicine are highly advanced and can cure or reduce the pain of a person with a disease. Choosing to end your life is basically committing suicide and suicide is wrong.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The company that I chose to compare to my Ethics Awareness Inventory Scoring Summary is Pfizer. Pfizer is a multination pharmaceutical company; they develop and produce medicines and vaccines for a wide range of conditions. Pfizer is a company had an annual income of 67 Billion dollars last year (P., 2012). Some of the popular products that Pfizer makes are Advil, Celebrex, Viagra and Lipitor. The reason I chose Pfizer is because I have always been interested in the company because it is their moral obligation to serve the people of the world community with pharmaceutical goods for the betterment of the life of the community.…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the economic recession struck the United Sates, whenever the hard working taxpayers of this country see and hear the reports about the billions of dollars of our taxes being used in bailout relief for several of these powerhouse banks, and companies, it often tends to have a negative thought and impact in our minds. With thousands of Americans out of work, and thousands of people struggling to make ends meet, the mere thought of these huge finical corporations receiving a “pardon” on my dime infuriates me. But I then attempt to analyze the reasoning of why our government would even allow these Mongol companies to make the rich, richer, by taking taxpayer funds from the hard working class men and women. In order to find an answer to this analysis, I would first have to identify the normative ethics that deals with the utilitarian and deontological implications as to why should the top executives of the major banks that received bail-out money are allowed to receive large bonuses?…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shooting An Elephant

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell is an essay surrounding the difficulties of doing what you are supposed to do versus what others want you to do. For Orwell the problem boiled down to whether he should leave an elephant ,that went on a rampage but was now calm, alone or to shoot it because that was what the locals wanted him to do. Orwell didn't feel like it was necessary to do it but the pressure from the mob made it seem like the only choice he had. So he chose the words of others over his own morals.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ethics and Morality

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Mary is a student in your class. As you prepare for your final exam comprised of essay questions, you notice her copying and pasting her responses directly from the internet. The university has well known policies concerning academic dishonesty, and the consequences for violating them include expulsion. You know that Mary is the first in her family to attend…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Moral Dilemma

    • 685 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The world of morality does not always operate in shades of black and white, more often than not it ventures into realms of different hues of gray. Who should be allowed to decide one’s life? People with faith in the justice system believe that the choice should be left to a judge and jury; people with faith in religion believe the choice can only be made by a god. What about one man? In “Gentlemen, your verdict” by Michael Bruce, Lieutenant-Commander Oram must sacrifice the lives of some of his crew in order to save five men. Furthermore, “The Firing Squad” by Colin McDougall, is about Captain John Adam and how he has to choose between getting his bad records erased forever and starting from scratch or carrying out the execution of Private Jones. The protagonists in the both stories are facing moral dilemma, a sense of duty and their manhood and courage. However, can anyone be allowed to decide the fates of others? And how can we be sure that we have acted morally in a serious situation?…

    • 685 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays