Ethical Dilemmas in ‘The Dark Knight’

Upon viewing the movie â€Å"The Dark Knight’, audience can hardly distinguish ethical dilemmas raised as their intention in watching the movie was purely entertainment.   However, in order to find such ethical dilemma, one has to track down the movie part by part, scene by scene, or character by character.First and foremost, the way Bruce Wayne tried to hide in public his real identity behind the mask of Batman would suggest one of the ethical dilemma found in the movie.The conduct he exhibited implied dishonesty over sincere intention, which was to help bring out justice in the Gotham City.   Moreover, was it lying in his actions, and to whom it could benefit?   The mask of Batman was created to protect the real identity of Bruce Wayne, and therefore only benefited his own objective.Secondly, another moral dilemma displayed by Bruce Wayne was his view of putting the justice on his hand.   In real life, the existing law was the one to be on top of others as the one w ho wants to put himself on top of the law is prohibited and punishable.   Thus, the movie presented an ethically incorrect principle.Batman was a hero in the eyes of kids, and it was unquestionably demonstrated as he became a just and vigilant justice-giver.   Morally speaking, he ironically followed the ethical theory of Utilitarianism because his decision of sacrificing his own life was indeed a heroic act.   In this conduct, he offered a great benefit for a majority of the population.On the other hand, the degree of his action covered some negative points especially when Batman went wild and violent in public.   Although he neither killed anyone nor hurt any civilians, his reckless action was quite unethical.Damaging public and private property without showing any proper actions such as Batman being put in prison for civil case, created a scenario that kids might follow believing that destructive acts to other’s possessions are ethically correct irregardless of her oic motives and intentions.   Therefore, Batman or Bruce Wayne has to be penalized in the movie for such improper behavior as it could be the only way to balance the weight of Utilitarianism ethical theory.To the case of Alfred the Butler, it is much harder to locate and analyze the ethical dilemma in his behavior.   He always looked calm, reasonable and a friend to Bruce Wayne.   He never committed any unlawful acts perceptibly.   However, as Alfred the Butler knew the real identity of Batman ever since, and as we find the ethical dilemma behind Bruce Wayne’s masked heroism, the existence of Alfred the Butler in the movie made us believe that his connivance with Bruce Wayne or Batman was unethical from the start.

Hunter-gather to settled community Essay

Growth of existing trade routes –Silk Roads, Mediterranean Sea, Trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean—due to innovations and technology (caravans, compass, larger ships, credit) The rise of new trade routes centering on Mesoamerica and the Andes Commercial growth due to new trading organizations (Hanseatic League), and state practices (minting of coins, paper money) and state-sponsored commercial infrastructures such as the Grand Canal of China Trans-Eurasian trade as a result of the expansion of empire (china, Byzantine Empire, Muslim caliphates, Mongols) Cross- Cultural exchanges through existing or new networks of trade and communication. The diffusion of cultural, scientific and technological traditions and new food crops, agricultural techniques, and epidemic diseases (including the Black Death) along Eastern Hemisphere trade routes Byzantine Empire, Chinese dynasties, Islamic states, Mongol Khanates, and feudalism in Europe and Japan The expansion of state systems in the Americas: Mayan city states, Mexica (â€Å"Aztecs†), Inca Technological and cultural transfer between states and empires, including tang China and the Abbasids, across the Mongol Empires,  and during the Crusades Increased agricultural and industrial production in many regions due to technological innovations (such as Chinmpa(floating plants in the water) field systems) the expansions of textile, porcelain, iron and exports from china, Persia and India Revival of urban centers, the rise of commerce and warmer temperatures between 800 and 1300; rising agricultural productivity and population, and the greater availability of labor. Varying forms of labor organization: free peasant agriculture, guild organization, several forms of coerced and unfree labor (serfdom, mit’a, slavery) The spread and diffusion of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Neoconfucianism, and corresponding changes in gender relations and family structure. Intensification of existing regional trade networks, bringing prosperity and economic disruption ot the trading regions of the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Sahara, and overland Eurasia. European synthesis of technological developments based on knowledge developed in the classical, Islamic, and Asian worlds – resulting in new tools, ship designs, and understanding of global wind and current patterns. New transoceanic maritime reconnaissance: Zheng He in the Indian Ocean, Portuguese in West Africa, Spanish voyages across the Atlantic and Pacific, European searches for multiple routes to Asia across the North Atlantic A new global circulation of goods driven by mercantilist European monarchies, with worldwide circulation of silver from the Americas, colonial joint-stock companies, and the use of free and unfree laborers mixing African, American, and European cultures and peoples The Columbian Exchange of diseases, foods, and domesticated animals between Eastern and Western hemispheres, with subsequent population increase in Afro-Eurasia but indigenous population loss, deforestation, and soil depletion in the Americas Worldwide innovations in visual and performing arts, such as the Renaissance in Europe (with its accompanying expansion of literacy) A growing global demand for raw materials and finished products, resulting within Africa and the export of slaves to the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and the Americas; and a range of coerced labor in American colonial economies (indentured servitude, encomienda system) The formation of new political and economic elites as a result of imperial conquests and widening global economic opportunities, such as the Manchus in China and creole elites in Spanish America Fluctuating power of existing elites such as the nobility in Europe and daimyo in Japan, as a reult of increasingly powerful monarchs and leaders Gender and family restructuring: demographic changes in Arica resulting from the slave trades, the trade relationships of Southeast Asian women and European men, and the smaller size of European families Massive demographic changes in the Americas resulting in new ethnic and racial classifications (mestizo, mulatto, creole) Use of a variety of methods by rulers to legitimize, consolidate, and centralize power – including monumental architecture, urban design, religious ideas (European divine right, Aztec human sacrifice, Songhay promotion of Islam), differential treatment of ethnic and religious groups (Ottoman treatment of non-Muslims), recruitment of bureaucratic elites and military professionals (Ottoman devshirme, Chinese examination system, samurai), tribute collection, and tax farming Increased use of gunpowder, cannons, and armed trade to establish large  empires in both hemispheres: European trading- post empires in Africa and Asia; land empires in China, India, the Middle East, and Eurasia (Manchus, Mughals, Ottomans, Russians) Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British maritime empires in the Americas Competition over trade routes (Caribbean piracy), state rivalries (Thirty Years War), and local resistance (samurai revolts) challenged state consolidation and expansion

Music vs. Books Essay

We live in the age of information; where our generation needs some sort of communication in various ways. Weather it may be through music or books, there are several variations on communication, just depends on how you want to target them in order to get the information across. Both music and books have similarities as well as differences. Each has its’ own advantages and disadvantages. Music produces sound that is also a form of art, where books are illustrated pieces of paper which are presented in a different way than music; such as written form. Music and books can have advanced effects on your life in different ways, like music can have more of an effect on you then a book would. With in doing so comparing the two; they have both been traced back in time to as far as the ninth century B. C. , Books back then had been written on stone, tree bark, metals and clay while music had been around for about forty thousand years. Both music and book have been passed down from generation to generation. Music from where it started until today has many genres such as; Jazz, Hip Hop, Rap, Folk, Oldies, County, R&B, and so much more, books come in various ways such as; magazines, news papers, and journals. Due to its advantages, music is considered more. Music has an advantage where it uses sound while books use the eyes to relay the messages, for some people hearing is an advantage to seeing and vice versa. In order to read a book you have to be educated where music you don’t need the prior education, and you only have to understand the music to understand the message the singer is putting across. Books will give you information that you are looking for while music gives you the information while as entertaining you at the same time. Many people at one time can listen to much while with a book only one person can MUSIC VS. BOOKS 3 read it at a time. Some books can carry hidden messages that the author is trying to get across, while music is direct and to the point. Books tend to stimulate mental journeys and expanded awareness of realities different from our own. This is a very true statement, because a person can use his or her own experiences and compare them to a different reality. When a person reads about an explorer and his many adventures, it can make he or she think about testing their limits and own abilities and go out and pursue their own journeys. Both books and music need parental guidance. There are so many different vulgarities that song writers and authors use, it makes parents worry about what their children read and/or listen to. Different types of music can give either a negative or positive impact on people, sometimes music can give both negative and positive impacts. It truly depends on how a person interprets a certain song or lyric. Books have almost the same affect as music in this aspect. Books can be very useful and eye-opening, and they can also be misleading. Most generally non-fiction books and biographies tend to be useful, where fictional books can be misleading, for example, a book can say that there are talking bears when in reality bears and other animals do not have this ability. Music and books can be great influences as well as bad influences sometimes. It all depends on how a person acts, reacts, and interprets what he or she reads or hears. Both music and books can impact a person’s life in a positive way. Music allows someone to express themselves and his or her emotions. A book allows a person to escape reality and enter into an alternate reality, and allows his or her mind to partake in events that they would never be able to in real life. Music vs. Books 4 References Recomparison. com  © 2012 reComparison – Compare it Yourself http://recomparison. com/comparisons/100456/influence-of-books-vs-influence-of-music/

Forensic Evidence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Forensic Evidence - Essay Example Was it phoned in? Was it something that police on patrol or some other duty came upon? Was it reported at the police station and thus police officers we sent to inspect? How was the crime incident reported? Who made the report to the police and when and how? All of this information is unavailable and unrecorded. This information is important as the time between when a crime took place and when the crime scene was secured and inspected is important since it has a bearing on any contamination of the crime scene that may have taken place. It also has bearing on the veracity of the crime report. Could this be a staged crime? Or did the crime actually take place as reported? These are the first most glaring deficiencies of this crime report. The report is also lacking in the information about the complainant. It is even lacking in the full name of the complainant – a Mr D. Young. David? Daniel? This sort of ambiguity on the name is further compounded by the fact that there is no me ntion of whether this complainant recorded any type of written statement. One would expect that a signed statement from the complainant would be part of the crime scene report. There are no details of what the complainant reported or where even Mr Young was when the alleged crime took place. In addition there is no descriptive information about Mr Young. ... If Mr Young was injured, what kind of injury was it? There is not even a description of the injury that Mr Young is said to have suffered or how it was reported to have been sustained. Was he treated for the injury? If so, where was the treatment done. The report mentions that a witness claims to have seen someone running away from the premises at 1030 pm on the 20th. There is no mention of even a rough description of what this person who was seen running away looked like. It is also unclear who the witness was, was it Mr Young? Did the witness record a statement? What role did the witness play in the crime scene and what does he look like? The report is alleged to be that of burglary but makes no mention of what was taken away or what was missing or whether this was an unsuccessful burglary or whether the burglar was intercepted before or while committing the crime. The report says that the burglary may have happened at 1030pm at night yet there is no description of the lighting in the room and how much light was available at that time. Is there a landing light? Did the events take place in the dark or were the lights on when they happened? The scene report claims this is an examination of the bedroom. It makes no mention of what type of house this crime allegedly took place in. Was it a bungalow? Was it a flat? Was it a mansion? Is it a multi-floored building? If not, how many floors? Where is the bedroom relative to the rest of the house? Are there any other houses besides it? The report makes no mention of how many bedrooms there are in the house and who resides in the house – we can only assume that it is Mr Young but it hasn’t been stated. Who else lives there? The report makes no mention of whether the house was a wooden house, concrete house or even a

Marketing of financial services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Marketing of financial services - Essay Example Reduction in the incidence of interest rate clustering, however, is not very costly. Hence, Ashton and Hudson implied that the more na've customers should take a more active stance in their finances - be more involved as "[t]he degree of price or interest rate clustering appears to be exaggerate when low levels of financial involvement are concerned" (Ashton & Hudson 2008, p. 1402). Citibank offers several savings and investment products, whether local currency denominated or foreign currency denominated, to its clientele. These savings and investments products are offered with range of interest rates. A look at the bank's Web page on its savings and investments products shows that its US Dollar Reward Saver is marketed as giving 2.50 per cent gross per annum rate which is much higher than the account's actual annual equivalent rate or AER of 2.02 per cent. Although both rates were published in the Web page, a na've customer - whose interest or whose lack of "ability to process information" (Ashton & Hudson 2008, p. 1393) is the one being exploited - would immediately zero in on the "earn up to 2.50% gross p.a. fixed for 6 months" (Citibank 2008) and ignore the subsequent "2.02% AER on your US Dollars in the UK2.50 per cent gross" (Citibank 2008). Clearly, in this example, the bank is playing in a very broad context of marketing ethics. Another example is the bank's Reward Saver Issue 2 product which is being offered at a gross per annum interest rate of 6.35 per cent while in reality, the customer will actually be getting an interest rate closer to 5.08 per cent which is the AER. Even the AER is structured in a way to maximise or to exploit the na've's customer's tendency to round up - in here, the na've customer would think that 5.08 per cent is substantially higher than 5 per cent. An example which provides proof to Ashton and Hudson's conclusion on the rounding - "If the number is not already a round number an individual would round a number to the closest reference number" (Ashton & Hudson 2008, p. 1394) - is the bank's net interest rate per annum for its 60 day direct savings account. The bank gives 2.48 per cent for accounts with more than '75,000. A customer with the characteristics described by Ashton and Hudson will immediately round this rate off to 2.5 per cent. The 0.02 per cent difference from the rounding off can be translated to '15 every year for a '75,000 account! Ashton and Hudson observed that for mortgage rates, the interest rate clustering "occurs very frequently just below round numbers giving strong evidence for the common use of na've number processing strategies" (Ashton & Hudson 2008, p. 1401). Unfortunately, for Citibank United Kingdom (and even for HSBC UK) I could not obtain interest rates for their mortgage products, hence I applied the findings of the research to the bank's credit card rates. For its Citi Platinum MasterCard, Citibank charges 5.8 per cent for balance transfers and an APR of 16.9 per cent which are examples of the observation made by Ashton and Hudson - clustering just below round numbers. This can also be observed in the bank's Citi AAdavatage

EC Law Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

EC Law - Case Study Example It is essential to ensure that Community rights are enforceable against both the public and private parties to a lawsuit. Section 2(1) of the European Communities Act1 1972, which gave legal effect to EC law in the United Kingdom, states that, "All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictionsprovided for by or under the Treaties, are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognized and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly"2. It renders effective all directly effective Community law, irrespective of whether they were made prior to or after the passing of the Act. Section 3 of this act makes it mandatory for all the courts to interpret EC law according to the rulings of the ECJ. The UK courts have all along been applying directly effective provisions without any reluctance. However, their unwillingness to apply the Von Colson principle3 is clearly evident. The purpose of this Directive is to put into effect in the Member States the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, including promotion, and to vocational training and as regards working conditions This principle isreferred to as "the principle of equal treatment"5. Nevertheless, Duke's employer being a priva... In Von Colson8, the House of Lords were of the opinion that it did not provide a power to interfere with the method or result of the interpretation of national legislation by national courts. They observed that the Equal Treatment Directive was subsequent to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and that therefore it would be unfair on Reliance to 'distort' the construction of the Act to accommodate it. The House of Lords applied similar objections in relation to the Northern Ireland legislation9, even though it was ratified after the Directive. "Direct effect means that someone may cite a Directive as law without having to cite any domestic legislation which was meant to implement that Directive"10. Indirect effect was described in Von Colson v Land Nordrhein-Westfalen11, where the ECJ observed that courts can interpret national legislation in the light of the Directive. Its exact status is unclear as it a judicial tool of interpretation rather than a static analytic method12. In respect of EC Law the ECJ's decision is final. Since, Treaty is generally couched in wide-ranging terms; the Court has to provide the necessary detail for the functioning of European law. Further, the decisions of the ECJ are binding on the courts of member states with no right of appeal. In a manner analogous to the House of Lords, the ECJ is not bound by its own previous decisions, although it usually follows them. It falls within the jurisdiction of the ECJ to hear complaints in respect of non fulfillment of treaty obligations by a member state. It is also the competent authority in deciding the legality of actions of the Council of Ministers and the

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 67

Assignment Example The drought affected the economy very badly and reduced grain production levels. On top of that, the ‘financial bondage’ was imposed by the IMF and World Bank, although this term is not used in the article. In league with other Western powers and the media, they engaged in lies about Zimbabwe that made matters difficult for the country. Together with the land issue re-erupting after war veterans demanded compensation, these circumstances led to Zimbabwe’s financial woes in 1997 and more troubled years ahead. The land issues have roots in the 1930 Land Appropriation Act, which restricted the native black people’s access to land under British colonial rule in favor of the white settlers. This put pressure on the limited land available to blacks in tribal reserves. After independence, the Lancaster House Agreement only postponed resolving the problem by protecting white owners for another decade. The 1985 Land Acquisition Act did try to alleviate the problem through land redistribution, but problems such as racial tensions and overcrowding persisted. Then the demands of the war veterans only added to the pressure. President Mugabe took a bold step by forcefully taking land back from whites and distributing it among the majority blacks, but favoritism and corruption were evident, and therefore, ordinary Zimbabweans continue to suffer. Zimbabwe is in dire need of addressing issues of inequality, ensuring self-sustenance, protection from outside exploitations, elimination of corrupt and the implementation of fair practices, and above all good governance if it is to prevent a total Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 223 Assignment Example His second argument was based on and backed by observations made by fellow astronomer, Adriaan van Maanen. Van Maanen claimed to have observed he Pinwheel Galaxy rotate. For this to be possible, it would mean that it was revolving at a speed faster than the speed of light, which was impossible. Andrew Mackellar was unfortunate to lose the prize. He made his discovery at a time that World War II was at its peak. All efforts were towards winning the war and there wasn’t an opportunity for him to present his findings to fellow scientists at a