Legislating Morality The ideas of Thomas Hobbes, the influential English philosopher who lived in the late 1500s to middle 1600s, are still considered important today. Hobbes is best remembered for his ideas on political philosophy. While Hobbes throughout his life championed the idea of absolutism for the sovereign he also is responsible for many of the fundamentals of Western political thought such as equality of men, individual rights, and the idea

Bentham Utility Jeremy Bentham's philosophical theory of utilitarianism presented a unique metaphysic that may apply to some ways of practical though. The theory itself is an ethical guideline used to help present cases of morality. The theory, developed in the 19th century supposes that right action corresponds with the result that produces the most good. When an action has accomplished such a transition is said to have some sort of utility

not committed a crime-- an innocent person. Similarly, it might happen. that the general welfare is promoted by punishing people excessively -- a greater punishment might have a greater deterrent effect. But both of these are, on their face,.violations of justice, which Retributivism would never allow." (Rachels, 135) The danger presented here is one which threatens under any condition of ethical diversion. In the case of lying, there is an

Yet official Catholic support for union organizing and for strikes, and for state planning to ensure a decent livelihood for all, has been augmented over the years by a heightened recognition of the need to combat underlying institutional imbalances of power. Though the overarching goal of a peaceful and harmoniously ordered community endures, Catholic sensitivity to the dynamics of power, the reality of sinful systems and structures, and the

In principle, Dworkin argues that the truth is always knowable for any given factual circumstances; the difficulty is that the human intellect is imperfect. In the same way, there is a finite number of individual particles of sand on the earth at any moment in time. Human intellect and capabilities are incapable of determining that precise number; it would require a hypothetically limitless intellectual capacity. Judge Hercules possesses that

.." I have great difficulty with the idea that someone should give up having feeling and partiality of one's own. It seems that the ideal person would be more likely to respond spontaneously with emotion of one's own -- for something of the value of being human seems to be lost if one loses one's uniqueness of response. Moreover, it seems to devalue and destroy the self to deny that one's