Perhaps television's most prominent government agent of the past decade, Jack Bauer, protects America from terrorist after terrorist in the popular Fox TV show, 24. In show, Bauer has to make multiple moral decisions within short periods of time, a majority of which have drastic implications towards both him and the American public. In every season Bauer is faced with the question, "To or for whom am I responsible?" At times, this question becomes very personal, involving close friends as well as his wife and daughter. Often he must choose between personal relationships or the protection of the people of the country he fights for. These decisions always prove to be difficult, and Bauer never arrives at the end of a conflict without having sacrificed large amounts of either personal or public protection. Through the eyes of Ayn Rand and Ai Weiwei, Bauer's moral responsibility, "to whom he is responsible", can be analyzed and understood in light of the actions he takes in unimaginably difficult situations in which his responsibilities clash.
Ayn Rand and her ideas about value and the significance of what is valuable creates a way of analyzing Jack Bauer's motives and actions in regards to his moral responsibility. Rand declares that a value is "that which one acts to gain and/or keep." By this definition, Jack Bauer's values include the security of the country, lives of his family members, his job, etc. While these are values that he has, the ultimate value, as described by Rand to be the final goal or end, is not as easy to identify with this character. However, there are clear instances that suggest a certain ultimate value towards which Bauer is most responsible. For example, one of Bauer's friends and coworkers, Agen...
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... the people but not the government, Bauer and Ai Weiwei share the understanding that one is morally responsible to the society, even when the government of that society declares your actions unlawful.
The question of moral responsibility and to whom one is responsible is one that people have struggled to answer. Ayn Rand's idea that one's values define one's moral responsibility in addition to Ai Weiwei's display of moral responsibility to the people of China shed light on exactly who Jack Bauer has determined he is responsible for. While it is clear that he desires only the best for his friends and family, he decides to be take moral responsibility for the entire civilian population of the United States. At the end of the series, this decision to protect Americans at all costs leaves him alone, on the run, and rejected by the very nation he swore to protect.
...ahlquist’s sacrifice highlights Heinlein’s belief, that the same self-sacrificing impulse that Winston had, might facilitate positive social change. Contrastingly, Le Guin highlights the continued anomalies in human morality where society willingly sacrifices its morals to meet selfish needs. Overall, people’s capacity to effect social change is relative to the prevailing social conditions, their ability to impact critical aspects of the prevailing conflict and their capacity to accept self-sacrifice as morally justifiable. Consequently, moral ambiguity prevails.
Between all of the criminal shows on television these days, it is hard to get an accurate idea of what it truly means to be a police officer or a detective. Sure, it is simple to listen to all of their analysis and listen to the way they find the bad guys, but is that truly how it works? Criminal Minds is one of the most popular shows on television today because of the way it portrays the FBI in their endless search of new bad guys and the way it shows the criminals’ plot and true evil. Law and Order carefully portrays the entire process behind putting the criminals away. 24 goes through the entire day in one, twenty-four, episode season just to show the viewer every moment of a story. Shows like Psych make fun of the police officers and the
Fraud, murder, courage, and strong will are all words that can be linked to humanity. These words will often raise questions like, who did it, how they did it, or why. Can it be that the true answer to these questions lies in getting a better understanding of our human nature? Does man act according to his divine plan, or is he taught how to act? In analyzing the works of Hsün Tzu and Jean-Paul Sartre, I will determine which of these two philosophers offers the strongest foundation for living an ethical life in the modern era.
...en when tough situations are presented to a person. Motivation from peers, educational leaders, or other members of society may help those that should learn to behave ethically, but the bottom line is following one’s inner code of ethics, which constitutes character.
Value is someone’s moral standard of right and wrong, and is based off of one’s motivations or aspirations of life. Common values include loyalty, patriotism, and trust.
Self identity is a path whose road is paved by past experience, leading each person to a destination specific to their own knowledges and beliefs. This notion, as depicted in Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood and Peter Weir's The Truman Show, is a key feature in the development of morals in an individual. A person’s up-bringing, their environment, and the ideology of those close to them, all play a major role in the creation of their characters and what they may depict as right or wrong.
A code of ethics is essential in today business world, and customers honestly base a company’s reputation on these bases. Simply defined a code of ethics is a set of core values designed to help professionals manage a business that is honest and possess integrity. For example, a code of ethics document should highlight the mission and the values of a business. As well as, illustrate how professionals should approach issues, the ethical principles based on the company’s core values, and caliber to which the professionals are held. It is highly critical that a company like the Cheesecake Factory withholds an ethical and socially responsive code of conduct.
In the book, Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, a mentally unstable character, named Lennie, commits a crime out of fear. This situation presents his closest friend, George, with a moral dilemma as to whether or not he should put his mentally disturbed friend out of his misery while making us think what we would do in a similar situation. Steinbeck presents the moral dilemma and its resolution mainly through characterization, conflict, and foreshadowing. This text deals with the value of life and the moral issue of whether or not a human should be able to take life away from another human due to their suffering.
For example, Snowden broke the law by leaking info about PRISM because he believed they were violating citizen’s privacy rights. Citizens react by saying, “He uncovered questionable activities that those in power would rather have kept secret.” This supports Kathy’s claim because it shows that Snowden benefitted a lot of people by following his own morals. This also signifies the importance of following your morals instead of being the agent to injustice. In addition, Kathy explains, “ Americans were disturbed by the idea of the U.S government compiling information from their emails, facebook pages and google searches.” This proves that the government commits acts that they do not tell the people. They created an unjust law that no one could spread the information. In order for fairness for the population, the law had to be broken.
When reading William Craigs article on Meta-ethical foundations, he discussed a lot about his three basic ideas of what is needed to live a morally acceptable life. He highlights the three foundations of a persons moral source, obligation and accountability. For this paper i decided to take on the task of defining moral accountability and relating it to a real world business perspective. To begin, accountability according to the merriam webster dictionary is, “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions.” Craig applies this definition to his metha-ethical paper by asking us when we are held moral accountable for our actions, if at all. From a theistic point of view it is very clear that we are morally
Values can affect ones character depending on what trait they pick up rather it’s a negative or positive one. For example, a father makes a promise to his child to take the child to the park. If the father never keeps his promise then every time he makes another promise the child make have lack of trust in their father to keep that promise. Especially there is no good reasoning why the father could not keep the promise. This may be because the father has bad values. Now, if that same father makes the same promises and keeps those promises, the child now believe their father that when he make a promise he does what he says and that build trust. Trust builds character and the father would look upon as having a good value...
Values remind me of ethics and morals, necessary in any walk of life and imperative in the work place. These concepts are guidelines in which employees need to follow to be successful. “Values represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.” (Robbins, 136) Integrity, courage, service, wisdom, respect and goal setting are a few of the values that are most crucial to me and what I hope to achieve within any work place setting. Values should be lived every day in the work place and should exemplify the
Values can be defined as “the context within an organisation or a society’s norms are established and justified”. . Ethics and values work interdependently and as a result, employees are more attracted to an organisation that has a good set of ethics and values.
Ethics are known as understanding what is right and wrong. It means more than just abiding the laws, which include lists of ‘to do’ and ‘not to do’. Every individual responds differently towards ethical behavior. It depends on one’s personal core values to shape their self-identity. (Kerns 2011) With the set of morals and values, it serves as a motivational guide in life, helping one to differentiate what are the appropriate actions to be taken in dealing with ethical issues. In this society, people are often influenced by temptations around them; this applies even to an ethical individual.
“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.” Robert Mckee