Word: moral
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...institutions," Chaouli says. He doesn't deny that there are moral aspects to literature, but he says that there is no way of knowing what effect a piece of literature will have on a reader. There is no reason to assume that literature will raise the moral standards of its readers...
...given this philosophy of environmentalism, one interesting question to ponder is whether or not we humans have a moral obligation to "save our earth." Does morality exist outside the network of human interrelationships, and if so, do we have a moral duty to protect trees or other animals besides ourselves? I recall one of my professors distinctly claiming that passing down an earth depleted in biodiversity to our grandchildren would be immoral. The loss of biodiversity has been a result of human encroachment on novel landscapes: as our populations grow exponentially, so does the need for inhabitable land which leads...
...disagree. One way of placing environmentalism within a moral framework is to think in terms of environmental justice. This rapidly emerging field considers who are the winners and the losers of environmental change and whether that status is deserved. An illustrative example is again the topic of climate change, which is caused primarily by the increase in the content of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. An important effect of global warming is the rise of global sea levels, which is a prospect that severely threatens many small island nations and peninsulas. Bangladesh is a country whose...
...emitter of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is the United States, followed by most nations of the developed, industrialized world. This situation highlights an environmental injustice perpetrated by the industrialized world towards a poor developing nation. As such, it's not a stretch to say that we have a moral responsibility to dampen the adverse effects of climate change in order to protect the populations who are most vulnerable to those hazards. To me, this notion of environmental justice is compelling and reassures me that my attempts to protect the environment are indeed the "right thing...
...baffled by the concept that one should be ruled by one's passions, which are unstable, irrational and often contrary to one's moral and social duties. No culture in history has valued romantic love like our own, and yet there is every indication that this has not made for happier families or for more selfless individuals. The ancient Romans had the motto dux vitae ratio ("reason is the guide of life"). The claim that love can justify anything amounts to unconditional surrender before our own fickle passions and to the rejection of everything that moral thought should stand...