...Marijuana Debate SOC 331 Cari Lynn Beecham-Bautista September 14, 2015 State vs. Federal Marijuana Legalization Marijuana usage in the United States is a controversial subject that tests the very fiber of the U.S. Constitution. The debate centers about the argument of each states rights under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. Although many states have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational usage it is still against federal laws. The nation’s capital and eighteen states have legalized medical marijuana use and two states have legalized recreational use. Widespread acceptance in favor of legalization is rapidly spreading. This paper will discuss three different scenarios where marijuana usage in states and the federal government’s stance are in conflict, through the lens of retributive, commutative and distributive justice. The first scenario that will be analyzed is a person who lives in a state that legalized medical marijuana growth, distribution and use in small quantities. To shed some light on this scenario a real world scenario will be described and analyzed. In March of 2015 a family in Washington State went on trial after being arrested by the DEA for the growth distribution and use of marijuana. The family argued that they were using the marijuana within the confines of legalized standards for an elderly man who was cancer stricken and his wife who had arthritis (Hughes, 2015). The federal government on the other hand argued the family...
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...Ethics of care – an ethic that emphasizes caring for the concrete well-being of those near you. Ethic of virtue – an ethic based on evaluations of the moral character of persons or groups. (Describing the character of someone) Ethics - The principles of conduct governing an individual or group or the study of morality. Ethics allows us to identify principles of “right” and “wrong” that: Morality - The standards that an individual, group, or society has about what’s right and wrong. Morals guide our behavior, and help us to “do the right thing”. Two Types of Ethical Issues: * Ethical problem: a situation with ethical content requiring a choice between right and wrong. * Ethical conflict: a situation where a person must choose between competing principles of right (or competing principles of wrong) (more common) Code of ethics 93% Ethics committees 25% Training 52% Changes in structure 13% Other 11% If one really believed that ethics is subjective, logically he/she should never: * Criticize or commend any person, group, organization, nation, etc. on moral or ethical grounds.e.g., “That is wrong/bad/evil” or question anybody else’s behavior (for ethical reasons). Prescriptive ethics discusses what we “should” do (it “prescribes” certain behaviours). * Prescriptive ethics is about how the world should be, regardless of how it actually is. * Theories of prescriptive ethics provide us with tools to use in figuring...
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...CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: SHOULD IT BE ABOLISHED? Capital Punishment: Meaning Punishment can be defined as suffering, loss, pain or penalty inflicted upon an individual by a legal authority, as a consequence of certain acts of commission and omission. Punishment has two aspects. First is ‘utilitarian’ in which punishment is used as a tool for increasing happiness of the society by pointing out to the criminal the wrongfulness of his crime as well presenting the punishment as a deterrent to both the criminal and the society for not repeating the crime. Second aspect is ‘retributive’ which serves as a consolation to the aggrieved or his kin that the criminal has been adequately punished. Capital punishment is the ultimate punishment in which life of a criminal is taken away by a legal authority under a process established by the law. International Scenario Although, UN “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” does not say anything explicitly about death penalty, Article 5 of the said declaration prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Activists have been arguing that death penalty is cruel and inhuman and hence covered under this article. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989, provides for the total abolition of the death penalty except in times of war or imminent threat of war. Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human...
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...TABLE OF CONTENTS TO CRIM LAW (Levine) I. Overview of CJS A. Theories of Punishment 1. Utilitarian 2. Retributive B. Who should be punished? 1. Excuse (Because of personal condition X I shouldn’t be punished) 2. Justification (I acted in the right way and don’t deserve to be punished) C. Principles that Limit Punishment 1. Legality, Vagueness Lenity II. Components of a Crime A. Actus Reus 1. Conduct 2. Attendant Circumstances 3. Social Harm 4. Causation a. Actual Causation b. Proximate Cause i. Common law: Intervening Cause? ii. MPC: Built into culpability standards 5. Concurrence of Elements B. Mens Rea 1. Common Law Standard 2. MPC Culpability Standard 3. Specific Intent 4. Transferred Intent 5. Strict Liability Crimes 6. Role of Mistake a. Mistake of Fact b. Mistake of Law C. Concurrence of Elements III. Homicide A. Common Law 1. Murder a. 1st Degree Murder b. 2nd Degree Murder 2. Manslaughter a. Adequate Provocation b. Criminal Negligence c. Misdemeanor-Mansalguther B. MPC 1. Murder 2. Manslaughter 3. Criminal Negligence C. Felony Murder Rule 1. Limitations a. Inherently...
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...CH5. Natural Resource Utilization & Pollution of the Environment * Resource depletion: the consumption of finite or scarce resources. * Pollution: undesirable contamination of the environment by the manufacture or use of commodities. * Conservation: the saving or rationing of resources for future use. * Private costs: costs of production borne by the producer. * External costs: costs of production not borne by the producer. * Social cost of production: = private costs + external costs * Internalization: make producers bear the total social cost of production. * Ecological system: an interrelated and interdependent set of organisms and environments * Ecological ethics: ecosystems as having inherent rights or interests and we have direct duties to them. * Ecofeminism: socio-ethical theory which combines ecological ethics with a critique of paternalistic patterns of domination (top down hierarchical authority structures) in our political and economic institutions as contributing to environmental exploitation. * Unlimited resource view: view encapsulating the attitude of bygone times which regarded the earth’s carrying capacity as unlimited, and air and water as "free goods." * Sustainable growth: a level of economic and population growth which enables each generation to hand down a world no worse than it inherited to succeeding generations, which avoids the Doomsday scenario. * Doomsday scenario:...
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...Additional Tools, Techniques and Dilemmas This document includes the cases and articles listed below in italics. You may find some of the principles described in the articles useful in doing your analysis of the cases. Velasquez, Distributive Justice Rich Dead, Poor Dead Kelo vs. City of New London _____________________________________________________________________________ Distributive Justice Manuel Velasquez Questions of distributive justice arise when different people put forth conflicting claims on society's benefits and burdens and all the claims cannot be satisfied. The central cases are those where there is a scarcity of benefits such as jobs, food, housing, medical care, income, and wealth-as compared to the numbers and the desires of the people who want these goods. Or (the other side of the coin) there may be too many burdens - unpleasant work, drudgery, substandard housing, health injuries of various sorts-and not enough people willing to shoulder them. If there were enough goods to satisfy everyone's desires and enough people willing to share society's burdens, then conflicts between people would not arise and distributive justice would not be needed. When people's desires and aversions exceed the adequacy of their resources, they are forced to develop principles for allocating scarce benefits and undesirable burdens in ways that are just and that resolve the conflicts in a fair way. The development of such principles is the concern of distributive...
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...moral standards as they apply to business policies, institutions, and behaviour * Corporate Social Responsibility refers specifically to a description and moral evaluation of the impact than an organization has on society * Ethics can be a business constraint “ethics costs” but also an advantage “ethics pays” 1970 – 1985: Rise of business ethics (academia) 1985 – 1995: Ethics into firms 1995 – 2000: Internationalization 2000 – 2012: Corporate Scandals and government regulation * Ethics Scandal Costs: Fines, lawsuits, prison, investor losses, bankruptcies, unemployment, and increased regulation * Market Morality: Will everyone invest their money as agreed or will greed effect them? * Parable of the Sandhu Ethics vs. the law Unclear over moral responsibility Easier to say what is morally right than to do it * Employees value health and safety ethics Consumers value product safety Shareholders want return on investment Need to look at environment * Macroenvironment: social, economic, political, technological factors * Our society is pluralistic in nature * Pluralism: there is diffusion of power among society’s many groups and organizations Decentralization and diversity of power * Strengths of Pluralism: prevents power concentration; maximizes freedom; diversified loyalties; provides safeguards; disperses individual allegiances. Has a set of built in checks and balances * Weaknesses of Pluralism: pursuit of self-interest;...
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...Functionalism, strain and Subcultural theories Durkheim’s functionalist theory Functionalism – society based on value consensus. Members of society sharing common culture. In order to achieve this, two things needed: - Socialisation – helps ensure individuals share the same norms and values. Shows the way to act. - Social control – rewards for conformity and punishment for deviance. Controls behaviour. Inevitability of crime – functionalists see crime as inevitable and universal. Every society has crime. Two reasons why crime and deviance are in all societies: - No everyone is equally socialized into norms and values. Some are likely to be deviant. - Diversity of lifestyle and values. Different groups have their own subcultures with distinctive norms and values. Some may see deviant acts as normal. > Durkheim says in modern societies there is tendency towards anomie. The rules for behaviour become weaker and less clear-cut. This is because modern societies have a complex division of labour meaning individuals become more different from each other. Crime is more likely. Positive functions of crime – it also performs two positive functions Boundary maintenance - produces a reaction from society, uniting members in disapproval of criminals and reinforcing their commitment to shared norms and values. Adaptation and change – all change starts with an act of deviance. There must be scope to challenge existing norms and values and this will seem deviant in the...
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...Crime and Deviance AN INTRODUCTION TO CRIME AND DEVIANCE Definitions * Crime- An act which breaks the criminal laws of society. * Deviance- refers to the behaviour which is disapproved of by most people in society and which does not conform to society's norms and values. TOPIC 1: FUNCTIONALIST, STRAIN AND SUBCULTURAL THEORIES Durkheim's functionalist theory: * Socialisation and Social control are two key mechanisms which allow social solidarity to occur in society. The inevitability of crime: * Functionalists see too much crime as destabilising society. * They also see crime as inevitable and universal- Durkheim, 'crime is normal... an integral part of all healthy societies.' * There are two reasons why C&D are found in all societies; 1.Not everyone is equally effectively socialised into the shared norms and values. 2. Different groups develop their own subculture and what the members of the subculture regard as normal, mainstream culture may see as deviant. * Durkheim also discusses that in modern societies there is a tendency towards anomie (normlessness). The diversity of modern societies means that the collective conscience is weakened, and this results in higher levels of C&D. The positive functions of crime: * For Durkheim, crime also fulfils two important functions; boundary maintenance and adaptation. * Boundary Maintenance- In Durkheim's view, the purpose of punishment is to reaffirm society's shared rules and reinforces...
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...On How to Build a Moral Machine Paul Bello PAUL . BELLO @ NAVY. MIL Human & Bioengineered Systems Division - Code 341, Office of Naval Research, 875 N. Randolph St., Arlington, VA 22203 USA Selmer Bringsjord SELMER @ RPI . EDU Depts. of Cognitive Science, Computer Science & the Lally School of Management, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180 USA Abstract Herein we make a plea to machine ethicists for the inclusion of constraints on their theories consistent with empirical data on human moral cognition. As philosophers, we clearly lack widely accepted solutions to issues regarding the existence of free will, the nature of persons and firm conditions on moral agency/patienthood; all of which are indispensable concepts to be deployed by any machine able to make moral judgments. No agreement seems forthcoming on these matters, and we don’t hold out hope for machines that can both always do the right thing (on some general ethic) and produce explanations for its behavior that would be understandable to a human confederate. Our tentative solution involves understanding the folk concepts associated with our moral intuitions regarding these matters, and how they might be dependent upon the nature of human cognitive architecture. It is in this spirit that we begin to explore the complexities inherent in human moral judgment via computational theories of the human cognitive architecture, rather than under the extreme constraints imposed by rational-actor models assumed throughout...
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...Business Ethics (Supplementary Lecture Notes) Mr. Joel C. Porras “Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actios, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, they beconme your destiny.” ANONYMOUS Preliminary Notions: A. Etymological: The word ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos” ,meaning : custom, a habitual way of acting character, a meaning that the Latin terms “mos” , “moris” also connote. Among the Greeks , “ethics” meant what concerns human conduct/human action. B. Descriptive: Largely a concern of cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its task is to describe how some person, members of a culture or society address all sorts of moral issues, what customs they have, and so, how they are accustomed to behave. C. Met-ethics: Concerns itself with the meanings of moral terms: like good and bad, right and wrong, duties and rights, etc. Hence the concern is with the understanding of the use of these terms, their logical forms and the objects to which they refer. Sometimes the concern of meta-ethicist is even more fundamental: What is the possibility of moral philosophy. D. Normative: Ethics is normative, not in the way that logic is, namely. With regard to the correctness of our thinking, but with regard to the goodness of our living, the right orientation of our existence. It is a practical science, not simply because it treats human action,...
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...VOLUME EDITOR S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins, wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow. SERIES EDITOR FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). P H I L O S O P H Y F O R E V E RYO N E Series editor: Fritz Allhoff Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking.Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too.This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious. Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind Edited by Michael W. Austin Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking Edited by Fritz Allhoff Food & Philosophy: Eat,Think and Be Merry Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking Edited by Steven D. Hales Whiskey & Philosophy:...
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...62118 0/nm 1/n1 2/nm 3/nm 4/nm 5/nm 6/nm 7/nm 8/nm 9/nm 1990s 0th/pt 1st/p 1th/tc 2nd/p 2th/tc 3rd/p 3th/tc 4th/pt 5th/pt 6th/pt 7th/pt 8th/pt 9th/pt 0s/pt a A AA AAA Aachen/M aardvark/SM Aaren/M Aarhus/M Aarika/M Aaron/M AB aback abacus/SM abaft Abagael/M Abagail/M abalone/SM abandoner/M abandon/LGDRS abandonment/SM abase/LGDSR abasement/S abaser/M abashed/UY abashment/MS abash/SDLG abate/DSRLG abated/U abatement/MS abater/M abattoir/SM Abba/M Abbe/M abbé/S abbess/SM Abbey/M abbey/MS Abbie/M Abbi/M Abbot/M abbot/MS Abbott/M abbr abbrev abbreviated/UA abbreviates/A abbreviate/XDSNG abbreviating/A abbreviation/M Abbye/M Abby/M ABC/M Abdel/M abdicate/NGDSX abdication/M abdomen/SM abdominal/YS abduct/DGS abduction/SM abductor/SM Abdul/M ab/DY abeam Abelard/M Abel/M Abelson/M Abe/M Aberdeen/M Abernathy/M aberrant/YS aberrational aberration/SM abet/S abetted abetting abettor/SM Abeu/M abeyance/MS abeyant Abey/M abhorred abhorrence/MS abhorrent/Y abhorrer/M abhorring abhor/S abidance/MS abide/JGSR abider/M abiding/Y Abidjan/M Abie/M Abigael/M Abigail/M Abigale/M Abilene/M ability/IMES abjection/MS abjectness/SM abject/SGPDY abjuration/SM abjuratory abjurer/M abjure/ZGSRD ablate/VGNSDX ablation/M ablative/SY ablaze abler/E ables/E ablest able/U abloom ablution/MS Ab/M ABM/S abnegate/NGSDX abnegation/M Abner/M abnormality/SM abnormal/SY aboard ...
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