Kant: Goodness :: essays research papers

Kant: Goodness The philosopher I used is Immanuel Kant. He was very practical in his thinking of goodness. A quote of his was "I ought, therefore I can". His view was good anything is under good will . He believed good will was the primary goodness, good in its purest form, and that it couldn't be corrupted. Good feelings and good intentions and actions can be interpreted in different ways; man can corrupt these things into evil...even though it still might be good in that man's eyes. What he's really trying to say is that good will is good in its objective form. Therefore, it defines goodness. A few examples of forms of goodness that could be corrupt are intelligence, courage, and resolution. These things can be very good, but can be used for evil as well. The short story I would like to allude to in order to connect these themes and ideas is "A Good Man is Hard to Find". The title even has "good" in it...and according to Kant, goodness in its purest form is good will. The question now would be, does the Misfit have good will? Is what he is doing good, objectively, and purely? He is purging and purifying the world. He is Christ like in many senses. He is purifying the world by purging it of its evil...relating to the Old Testament. God decided that the human race was too evil to survive, so he flooded it. God killed, as well as the Misfit. This isn't the same as Christ, though; it just adds to the religious element. Christ's mission was to try and rid the world of evil, and sacrificed for it. The Misfit sacrificed his freedom initially, was "reborn" again by escaping from jail, and become a Christ like figure again...he's now reborn, and his mission has an even stronger exclamation point on it, just like Christ's after he was resurrected. The literal differences are obvious; Christ never held anyone at gunpoint, let alone kill old ladies (no matter HOW hateful). But the allusions above illustrate that the Misfit was indeed a Christ-like figure with good intentions; good will . The Misfit was in a world of evil where he felt it was his mission, as well as his intention and his will, to be the savior of the good people. When it really comes to good will, I believe that the Misfit did have good will and that, in a world such as his, the South, he was not just playing God, but his will was forcing him to be God to judge the "infidels".

Psychology of Human behavior Essay

Psychology is an aspect of science which basically study behavior and the human mind. The definition is a triad of component in that it contains a scientific scope or aspect, the human behavior and the human mind. The scientific study approach each aspect of it study in a systematic approach and in an objective manner of observing the changes and the experiment as a whole. Behavior see the changes in what human do such as measuring or observing things like blinking of an eye or tachycardia which simply means increase in heart rate. The mind is the unconscious and conscious mental aspect of humans. There has been a lot of psychological influence both in the past and present on the perception of human behavior, all of which can be attributed to the great research and experiment conducted by different psychologist and scientist to understand human nature. In the aspect of learning, there are different experiments conducted to understand what learning entails. Some of the works range from the experiments of the Edwards Lee Thorndike in the year 1898. He was one the people that lay the foundation of the new behaviorism. He conducted an experiment on the animal learning modalities where he used cats. The cats were placed in a cage and food was then placed outside the cage. He timed the duration the cats took to learn the method of opening the cage to get to the food. He then repeated the experiments and later found that the cats would repeat such behavior that already worked for the cats so it can escape to get the food. With the result of the experiment he then proposed the â€Å"the law of effect†. Among the great works on the behaviorism is the work of the Russian Ivan Pavlov. He is a physiologist and he had won a Nobel Prize before the experiment on the behaviorism. He conducted this experiment in 1906. The experiment which was later termed or called the pavlovian or classical condition has since remained one of the most important principle of the learning and human behavior. He found out that a dog that has food repeatedly placed in it’s mouth will tend to salivate even if the food is placed in the dogs mouth. He then conditioned the placement of food in the dog’s mouth with the ringing of the bell. He later discovers that if the bell is rang alone even without placing the food in the dog’s mouth, the dog will eventually salivate. In this experiment, Pavlov proved that there is a type of learning where organisms tend to associate one stimulus with another. He called this the classical conditioning. Later researches had already confirmed that this learning modalities to be common in most people (Microsoft Encarta, 2008). Thorndike and Pavlov works serves as template for other developers of the theory of behaviorism. In the year 1913, a renowned psychologist at the Johns Hopkins University known as John Watson publish his research work on the animal behavior. This set a clear vision for the psychology of behavior. Publication entitled â€Å"Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. † With his goals to completely redefine the concept of behaviorist psychology wrote a purely objective experimental branch of natural science (Microsoft Encarta, 2008). He encourages his other contemporaries to abandon all the speculative theories about unconsciousness. He emphasized on the importance of observing and the need also to quantify behavior. The works of John Watson encourage more American psychologists to adopt the concept of behaviorism and the use of animals for such experiments. Later there were different setting up of laboratories that with the sole purpose of studying, predicting and controlling human behavior. what the behaviorist focused on is to vary a stimulus in a specified period in time and then observe the animals’ response to such varied response. The psychologist of that time sees no reason why speculation should be made in regards to the site of the mental abilities. One of the Watson point of view is of belief that recording of certain musculature in the oropharynx should be the order of the day and not just talking to oneself silently. In the late 1930s behaviorism was taking to another pedestal with the works of the B. F Skinner. He was regarded as the most forceful leader of behaviorism and he coined the word reinforcement, he made an apparatus named the Skinner box and this he used to test the animals. He conducted the animal experiment on rats and pigeon and then identified some specific response and mode of learning. He argued that there is always a place of reinforcement in human learning process. The reinforcement can be from within the person’s vicinity. He called this process of learning the operant conditioning. B. F. Skinner experiments and point of view made him one of the most famous behaviorists of the 20th century. Operant conditioning explains the way a mouse can learn to maneuver via a maze. What Skinner did was to reward the mouse with a food when the mouse gets to the side of the first turn of the maze. So once this first part of learning is ingrained, the reward giving to the mouse is then stopped until the mouse is able to make the second turn and after several times of moving through the maze the mouse will get to the end of it and gets its rewards. The works of Skinner was later applied in behavior modification in places like the classrooms and hospitals. â€Å"With his knowledge in human behavior and learning, he later invented the first teaching machine† (Microsoft Encarta, 2008).

Creative writing

What is creative writing? One of most known forms of creative writing is novel, however it is not the only one. Creative writing also includes plays, short stories, comic books etc. The main characteristic of creative writing is that it has to be actually a writing which contains some imaginary elements. The author doesnt necessarily have to write about some unreal, supernatural, made up experiences but can definitely describe an event that has never happened. Creative writing is specific because even when you write about real event, as soon as you change some details or add something it becomes creative. There are few things that will help you to complete a successful creative writing. Before you will start your writing process, try to find the most comfortable place for this. You should be able to relax and to use all the creativity you have. Try to write your essay when you are active and full of ideas. Dont try to write if you feel that you have no ideas and desire to do this. The process of writing a creative story includes few stages. A person who will go through this stage will be able to write a successful story for sure. First thing that you should do while in writing process, is to find an interesting topic and inspiration. In order to find an interesting and exciting topic for your writing, try to think of something that you are interested in. Sometimes you may get your inspiration from some things that you have never though about, like religion, family, art, etc. In order to inspire yourself for creative writing try to use such techniques as brainstorming, questioning yourself, thinking about some meaningful events in your life. All this will help you to come up with few interesting ideas for your writing. After finding an interesting topic for creative writing think about it. Try to think about the subject and theme of the writing. You should identify for yourself what you want to write about. You can make short notes in form of an outline; this will help you to remember everything you wanted to mention in your creative writing. Next step in preparing creative writing is analyzing your audience and defining the purpose of the writing. While analyzing the audience, you should assume what type of readers will be interested in the writing. Also define for yourself what effect your creative writing should have on the readers . Do you want to entertain them, or to make them think about your subject? Having identified some basic concepts of your creative writing think about the style that you would like to use. Determine the form of creative writing you will use. Remember that the style and the language that you will use for your writing should be clear for your audience. After you complete the first draft of your creative writing try to revise it. It will be better if you will revise it few days later, because during this time you will get some new ideas that will help to improve the writing. While revising your paper, try to eliminate some unnecessary words. Keep your paper focused and make sure that it is really creative. Finally, dont try to restrain yourself. Unlike the formal essays creative writing is the piece of creativity; the part of yourself. Use the flight of your thought and let your imagination create. Good luck!