The impact of service recovery on customer satisfaction, loyalty and Literature review

The impact of service recovery on customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth - Literature review Example This essay discusses that service quality in the hospitality industry and hotels specifically has been an area of great research interest. Research has shown importance of service quality. Parsuraman et al. indicated that service quality of hotels is both a significant differentiator and the most aggressive weapon possessed by them. Leading organizations in the hotel industry ensure to put up a high level of service quality over their competitors for over large durations of time. The relationship between service quality and customer loyalty has been of great interest. Researchers have also investigated the relationship between customer loyalty and the complaints received from the customer. Heskett et al. define customer loyalty as repeated purchasing by the same customer and their willingness to recommend the product/service to other customers without any outright benefits. High customer loyalty is beneficial to the organization as it reduces the firms’ marketing costs and inc reases its market share. There can be various reasons of a customer being loyal to a hotel. While some might be loyal because of lack of options, others might face the problem of high cost of switching. Wong and Sohal in their research found that there is a positive relationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the retail trade. Researchers have concluded that service quality is positively related to behavioural outcomes including word-of-mouth, complaints, recommendations and loyalty. Measurement of the service quality expectations of service organizations is primarily done by using the tool SERVQUAL or its variants. Babakus & Boller (1992) and Carman (1990) found that amongst the hotel customers, the most important service quality dimensions are: assurance, reliability and tangibles. Many further studies (Saleh & Ryan, 1999; Fick & Ritchie, 1991) suggested the absence of any significant differences among the rankings of any of the five dimensions. The application of Servqual to two fine dining restaurants revealed the emergence of assurance, and reliability as importance expectations of the customers, and tangibles as the least important (Lee & Hing, 1995). Gabbie and O’Neill (1997) in their research in the hotel sector found that reliability and assurance were the most important

Most Opposition to Abortion Relies Essay Example for Free

Most Opposition to Abortion Relies Essay A Defense of Abortion Author(s): Judith Jarvis Thomson Source: Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 47-66 Published by: Blackwell Publishing Stable URL: http://www. jstor. org/stable/2265091 Accessed: 10/01/2010 00:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www. jstor. org/page/info/about/policies/terms. jsp. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www. jstor. org/action/showPublisher? publisherCode=black. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [emailprotected] org. Blackwell Publishing is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy and Public Affairs. http://www. jstor. org JUDITH JARVISTHOMSON A Defense of Abortion Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception. The premise is argued for, but, as I think, not well. Take, for example, the most common argument. We are asked to notice that the development of a human being from conception through birth into childhood is continuous; then it is said that to draw a line, to choose a point in this development and say before this point the thing is not a person, after this point it is a person is to make an arbitrary choice, a choice for which in the nature of things no good reason can be given. It is concluded that the fetus is, or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak tree, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are. Arguments of this form are sometimes called slippery slope arguments-the phrase is perhaps self-explanatory-and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically. I am inclined to agree, however, that the prospects for drawing a line in the development of the fetus look dim. I am inclined to think also that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person well before birth. Indeed, it comes as a surprise when one first learns how early in its life it begins to acquire human characteristics. By the tenth week, for example, it already has i. I am very much indebted to James Thomson for discussion, criticism, and many helpful suggestions. 48 Philosophy ; Public Affairs a face, arms and legs, fingers and toes; it has internal organs, and brain activity is detectable. 2 On the other hand, I think that the premise is false, that the fetus is not a person from the moment of conception. A newly fertilized ovum, a newly implanted clump of cells, is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree. But I shall not discuss any of this. For it seems to me to be of great interest to ask what happens if, for the sake of argument, we allow the premise. How, precisely, are we supposed to get from there to the conclusion that abortion is morally impermissible? Opponents of abortion commonly spend most of their time establishing that the fetus is a person, and hardly any time explaining the step from there to the impermissibility of abortion. Perhaps they think the step too simple and obvious to require much comment. Or perhaps instead they are simply being economical in argument. Many of those who defend abortion rely on the premise that the fetus is not a person, but only a bit of tissue that will become a person at birth; and why pay out more arguments than you have to? Whatever the explanation, I suggest that the step they take is neither easy nor obvious, that it calls for closer examination than it is commonly given, and that when we do give it this closer examination we shall feel inclined to reject it. I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person. from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from here? Something like this, I take it. Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a persons right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mothers right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed. It sounds plausible. But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers 2. Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (New York, 1970), p. 373. This book gives a fascinating survey of the available information on abortion. The Jewish tradition is surveyed in David M. Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law (New York, i968), Part 5, the Catholic tradition in John T. Noonan, Jr. , An Almost Absolute Value in History, in The Morality of Abortion, ed. John T. Noonan, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass. , 1970). 49 A Defense of Abortion has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinists circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, Look, were sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you-we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, its only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you. Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says, Tough luck, I agree, but youve now got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a persons right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him. I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago. In this case, of course, you were kidnapped; you didnt volunteer for the operation that plugged the violinist into your kidneys. Can those who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned make an exception for a pregnancy due to rape? Certainly. They can say that persons have a right to life only if they didnt come into existence because of rape; or they can say that all persons have a right to life, but that some have less of a right to life than others, in particular, that those who came into existence because of rape have less. But these statements have a rather unpleasant sound. Surely the question of whether you have a right to life at all, or how much of it you have, shouldnt turn on the question of whether or not you are the product of a rape. And in fact the people who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned do not make this distinction, and hence do not make an exception in case of rape. 50 Philosophy ; Public Affairs Nor do they make an exception for a case in which the mother has to spend the nine months of her pregnancy in bed. They would agree that would be a great pity, and hard on the mother; but all the same, all persons have a right to ife, the fetus is a person, and so on. I suspect, in fact, that they would not make an exception for a case in which, miraculously enough, the pregnancy went on for nine years, or even the rest of the mothers life. Some wont even make an exception for a case in which continuation of the pregnancy is likely to shorten the mothers life; they regard abortion as impermissible even to save the mothers life. Such case s are nowadays very rare, and many opponents of abortion do not accept this extreme view. Moreover, in killing the child, one would be killing an innocent person, for the child has committed no crime, and is not aiming at his mothers death. And then there are a variety of ways in which this 3. The term direct in the arguments I refer to is a technical one. Roughly, what is meant by direct killing is either killing as an end in itself, or killing as a means to some end, for example, the end of saving someone elses life. See note 6, below, for an example of its use. 51 A Defense of Abortion might be continued. i) But as directly killing an innocent person is always and absolutely impermissible, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (2) as directly killing an innocent person is murder, and murder is always and absolutely impermissible, an abortion may not be performed. Because unplugging you would be directly killing an innocent violinist, and thats murder, and thats impermissible. If anything in the world is true, it is that you do not commit murder, you do not do what is impermissible, if you reach around to your back and unplug yourself from that violinist to save your life. The main focus of attention in writings on abortion has been on what a third party may or may not do in answer to a request from a woman for an abortion. This is in a way understandable. Things being as they are, there isnt much a woman can safely do to abort herself. So the question asked is what a third party may do, and what the mother may do, if it is mentioned at all, is deduced, almost as an afterthought, from what it is concluded that third parties may do. But it seems to me that to treat the matter in this way is to refuse to grant to the mother that very status of person which is so firmly insisted on for the fetus. For we cannot simply read off what a person may do from what a third party may do. Suppose you find yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. I mean a very tiny house, and a rapidly growing child-you are already up against the wall f the house and in a few minutes youll be crushed to death. The child on the other hand wont be crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing hell be hurt, but in the end hell simply burst open the house and walk out a free man. Now I could well understand it if a bystander were to say, Theres nothing we can do for you. We cannot choose between your life and his, we cann ot be the ones to decide who is to live, we cannot intervene. But it cannot be concluded that you too can do nothing, that you cannot attack it to save your life. However innocent the child may be, you do not have to wait passively while it crushes you to death. Perhaps a pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we dont allow the 53 A Defense of Abortion right of self-defense. But if the woman houses the child, it should be remembered that she is a person who houses it. 1 should perhaps stop to say explicitly that I am not claiming that people have a right to do anything whatever to save their lives. I think, rather, that there are drastic limits to the right of self-defense. If someone threatens you with death unless you torture someone else to death, I think you have not the right, even to save your life, to do so. But the case under consideration here is very different. In our case there are only two people involved, one whose life is threatened, and one who threatens it. Both are innocent: the one who is threatened is not threatened because of any fault, the one who threatens does not threaten because of any fault. For this reason we may feel that we bystanders cannot intervene. But the person threatened can. In sum, a woman surely can defend her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child, even if doing so involves its death. And this shows not merely that the theses in (i) through (4) are false; it shows also that the extreme view of abortion is false, and so we need not canvass any other possible ways of arriving at it from the argument I mentioned at the outset. 2. The extreme view could of course be weakened to say that while abortion is permissible to save the mothers life, it may not be performed by a third party, but only by the mother herself. But this cannot be right either. For what we have to keep in mind is that the mother and the unborn child are not like two tenants in a small house which has, by an unfortunate mistake, been rented to both: the mother owns the house. The fact that she does adds to the offensiveness of deducing that the mother can do nothing from the supposition that third parties can do nothing. But it does more than this: it casts a bright light on the supposition that third parties can do nothing. Certainly it lets us see that a third party who says I cannot choose between you is fooling himself if he thinks this is impartiality. If Jones has found and fastened on a certain coat, which he needs to keep him from freezing, but which Smith also needs to keep him from freezing, then it is not impartiality that says I cannot choose between you when Smith owns the coat. Women have said again and again This body is my body! and they have reason to feel angry, reason to feel that it has been like shouting into the wind. Smith, after all, is 54 Philosophy Public Affairs hardly likely to bless us if we say to him, Of course its your coat, anybody would grant that it is. But no one may choose between you and Jones who is to have it. We should really ask what it is that says no one may choose in the face of the fact that the body that houses the child is the mothers body. It may be simply a failure to appreciate this fact. But it may be something more interesting, namely the sense that one has a right to refuse to lay hands on people, even where it would be just and fair to do so, even where justice seems to require t hat somebody do so. Thus justice might call for somebody to get Smiths coat back from Jones, and yet you have a right to refuse to be the one to lay hands on Jones, a right to refuse to do physical violence to him. This, I think, must be granted. But then what should be said is not no one may choose, but only I cannot choose, and indeed not even this, but I will not act, leaving it open that somebody else can or should, and in particular that anyone in a position of authority, with the job of securing peoples rights, both can and should. So this is no difficulty. I have not been arguing that any given third party must accede to the mothers request that he perform an abortion to save her life, but only that he may. I suppose that in some views of human life the mothers body is only on loan to her, the loan not being one which gives her any prior claim to it. One who held this view might well think it impartiality to say I cannot choose. But I shall simply ignore this possibility. My own view is that if a human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he has a just, prior claim to his own body. And perhaps this neednt be argued for here anyway, since, as I mentioned, the arguments against abortion we are looking at do grant that the woman has a right to decide what happens in and to her body. But although they do grant it, I have tried to show that they do not take seriously what is done in granting it. I suggest the same thing will reappear even more clearly when we turn away from cases in which the mothers life is at stake, and attend, as I propose we now do, to the vastly more common cases in which a woman wants an abortion for some less weighty reason than preserving her own life. 3. Where the mothers life is not at stake, the argument I mentioned at the outset seems to have a much stronger pull. Everyone 55 A Defense of Abortion as a right to life, so the unborn person has a right to life. And isnt the childs right to life weightier than anything other than the mothers own right to life, which she might put forward as ground for an abortion? This argument treats the right to life as if it were unproblematic. It is not, and this seems to me to be precisely the source of the mistake. For we should now, at long last, ask what it comes to, to have a right to life. In so me views having a right to life includes having a right to be given at least the bare minimum one needs for continued life. But suppose that what in fact is the bare minimum a man needs for continued life is something he has no right at all to be given? If I am sick unto death, and the only thing that will save my life is the touch of Henry Fondas cool hand on my fevered brow, then all the same, I have no right to be given the touch of Henry Fondas cool hand on my fevered brow. It would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide it. It would be less nice, though no doubt well meant, if my friends flew out to the West Coast and carried Henry Fonda back with them. But I have no right at all against anybody that he should do this for me. Or again, to return to the story I told earlier, the fact that for continued life that violinist needs the continued use of your kidneys does not establish that he has a right to be given the continued use of your kidneys. He certainly has no right against you that you should give him continued use of your kidneys. For nobody has any right to use your kidneys unless you give him such a right; and nobody has the right against you that you shall give him this right-if you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due. Nor has he any right against anybody else that they should give him continued use of your kidneys. Certainly he had no right against the Society of Music Lovers that they should plug him into you in the first place. And if you now start to unplug yourself, having learned that you will otherwise have to spend nine years in bed with him, there is nobody in the world who must try to prevent you, in order to see to it that he is given something he has a right to be given. Some people are rather stricter about the right to life. In their view, it does not include the right to be given anything, but amounts to, 56 Philosophy Public Affairs and only to, the right not to be killed by anybody. But here a related difficulty arises. If everybody is to refrain from killing that violinist, then everybody must refrain from doing a great many different sorts of things. Everybody must refrain from slitting his throat, everybody must refrain from shooting him-and everybody must refrain from unplugging you from him. But does he have a right against everybody that they shall refrain from unplugging you from him? To refrain from doing this is to allow him to continue to use your kidneys. It could be argued that he has a right against us that we should allow him to continue to use your kidneys. That is, while he had no right against us that we should give him the use of your kidneys, it might be argued that he anyway has a right against us that we shall not now intervene and deprive him of the use of your kidneys. I shall come back to third-party interventions later. But certainly the violinist has no right against you that you shall allow him to continue to use your kidneys. As I said, if you do allow him to use them, it is a kindness on your part, and not something you owe him. The difficulty I point to here is not peculiar to the right to life. It reappears in connection with all the other natural rights; and it is something which an adequate account of rights must deal with. For present purposes it is enough just to draw attention to it. But I would stress that I am not arguing that people do not have a right to lifequite to the contrary, it seems to me that the primary control we must place on the acceptability of an account of rights is that it should turn out in that account to be a truth that all persons have a right to life. I am arguing only that having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another persons body-even if one needs it for life itself. So the right to life will not serve the opponents of abortion in the very simple and clear way in which they seem to have thought it would. 4. There is another way to bring out the difficulty. In the most ordinary sort of case, to deprive someone of what he has a right to is to treat him unjustly. Suppose a boy and his small brother are jointly given a box of chocolates for Christmas. If the older boy takes the box and refuses to give his brother any of the chocolates, he is unjust to -him, for the brother has been given a right to half of them. But 57 A Defense of Abortion uppose that, having learned that otherwise it means nine years in bed with that violinist, you unplug yourself from him. You surely are not being unjust to him, for you gave him no right to use your kidneys, and no one else can have given him any such right. But we have to notice that in unplugging yourself, you are killing him; and violinists, like everybody else, have a right to life, and thus in the view we wer e considering just now, the right not to be killed. So here you do what he supposedly has a right you shall not do, but you do not act unjustly to him in doing it. The emendation which may be made at this point is this: the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly. This runs a risk of circularity, but never mind: it would enable us to square the fact that the violinist has a right to life with the fact that you do not act unjustly toward him in unplugging yourself, thereby killing him. For if you do not kill him unjustly, you do not violate his right to life, and so it is no wonder you do him no injustice. But if this emendation is accepted, the gap in the argument against abortion stares us plainly in the face: it is by no means enough to show that the fetus is a person, and to remind us that all persons have a right to life-we need to be shown also that killing the fetus violates its right to life, i. e. , that abortion is unjust killing. And is it? I suppose we may take it as a datum that in a case of pregnancy due to rape the mother has not given the unborn person a right to the use of her body for food and shelter. Indeed, in what pregnancy could it be supposed that the mother has given the unborn person such a right? It is not as if there were unborn persons drifting about the world, to whom a woman who wants a child says I invite you in. But it might be argued that there are other ways one can have acquired a right to the use of another persons body than by having been invited to use it by that person. Suppose a woman voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will issue in pregnancy, and then she does become pregnant; is she not in part responsible for the presence, in fact the very existence, of the unborn person inside her? No doubt she did not invite it in. But doesnt her partial responsibility for its being there itself give it a right to the use of her 58 Philosophy ; Public Affairs body? 7 If so, then her aborting it would be more like the boys taking away the chocolates, and less like your unplugging yourself from the violinist-doing so would be depriving it of what it does have a right to, and thus would be doing it an injustice. And then, too, it might be asked whether or not she can kill it even to save her own life: If she voluntarily called it into existence, how can she now kill it, even in self-defense? The first thing to be said about this is that it is something new. Opponents of abortion have been so concerned to make out the independence of the fetus, in order to establish that it has a right to life, just as its mother does, that they have tended to overlook the possible support they might gain from making out that the fetus is dependent on the mother, in order to establish that she has a special kind of responsibility for it, a responsibility that gives it rights against her which are not possessed by any independent person-such as an ailing violinist who is a stranger to her. On the other hand, this argument would give the unborn person a right to its mothers body only if her pregnancy resulted from a voluntary act, undertaken in full knowledge of the chance a pregnancy might result from it. It would leave out entirely the unborn person whose existence is due to rape. Pending the availability of some further argument, then, we would be left with the conclusion that unborn persons whose existence is due to rape have no right to the use of their mothers bodies, and thus that aborting them is not depriving them of anything they have a right to and hence is not unjust killing. And we should also notice that it is not at all plain that this argument really does go even as far as it purports to. For there are cases and cases, and the details make a difference. If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say,Ah, now he can stay, shes given him a right to the use of her house-for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars 7. The need for a discussion of this argument was brought home to me by members of the Society for Ethical and Legal Philosophy, to whom this paper was originally presented. 59 A Defense of Abortion burgle. It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars. It remains equally absurd if we imagine it is not a burglar who climbs in, but an innocent person who blunders or falls in. Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You dont want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective; and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not-despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this wont do-for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable! army. It seems to me that the argument we are looking at can establish at most that there are some cases in which the unborn person has a right to the use of its mothers body, and therefore some cases in which abortion is unjust killing. There is room for much discussion and argument as to precisely which, if any. But I think we should sidestep this issue and leave it open, for at any rate the argument certainly does not establish that al l abortion is unjust killing. 5. There is room for yet another argument here, however. We surely must all grant that there may be cases in which it would be morally indecent to detach a person from your body at the cost of his life. Suppose you learn that what the violinist needs is not nine years of your life, but only one hour: all you need do to save his life is to spend one hour in that bed with him. Suppose also that letting him use your kidneys for that one hour would not affect your health in the slightest. Admittedly you were kidnapped. Admittedly you did not give 6o Philosophy Public Affairs anyone permission to plug him into you. Nevertheless it seems to me plain you ought to allow him to use your kidneys for that hour-it would be indecent to refuse. Again, suppose pregnancy lasted only an hour, and constituted no threat to life or health. And suppose that a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape. Admittedly she did not voluntarily do anything to bring about the existence of a child. Admittedly she did nothing at all which would give the unborn person a right to the use of her body. All the same it might well be said, as in the newly emended violinist story, that she ought to allow it to remain for that hour-that it would be indecent in her to refuse. Now some people are inclined to use the term rightin such a way that it follows from the fact that you ought to allow a person to use your body for the hour he needs, that he has a right to use your body for the hour he needs, even though he has not been given that right by any person or act. They may say that it follows also that if you refuse, you act unjustly toward him. This use of the term is perhaps so common that it cannot be called wrong; nevertheless it seems to me to be an unfortunate loosening of what we would do better to keep a tight rein on. Suppose that box of chocolates I mentioned earlier had not been given to both boys jointly, but was given only to the older boy. There he sits, stolidly eating his way through the box, his small brother watching enviously. Here we are likely to say Youought not to be so mean. You ought to give your brother some of those chocolates. My own view is that it just does not follow from the truth of this that the brother has any right to any of the chocolates. If the boy refuses to give his brother any, he is greedy, stingy, callous-but not unjust. I suppose that the people I have in mind will say it does follow that the brother has a right to some of the chocolates, and thus that the boy does act unjustly if he refuses to give his brother any. But the effect of saying this is to obscure what we should keep distinct, namely the difference between the boys refusal in this case and the boys refusal in the earlier case, in which the box was given to both boys jointly, and in which the small brother thus had what was from any point of view clear title to half. A further objection to so using the term rightthat from the fact that A ought to do a thing for B, it follows that B has a right against A 6I A Defense of Abortion that A do it for him, is that it is going to make the question of whether or not a man has a right to a thing turn on how easy it is to provide him with it; and this seems not merely unfortunate, but morally unacceptable. Take the case of Henry Fonda again. I said earlier that I had no right to the touch of his cool hand on my fevered brow, even though I needed it to save my life. I said it would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide me with it, but that I had no right against him that he should do so. But suppose he isnt on the West Coast. Suppose he has only to walk across the room, place a hand briefly on my brow-and lo, my life is saved. Then surely he ought to do it, it would be indecent to refuse. Is it to be said Ah, well, it follows that in this case she has a right to the touch of his hand on her brow, and so it would be an injustice in him to refuse? So that I have a right to it when it is easy for him to provide it, though no right when its hard? Its rather a shocking idea that anyones rights should fade away and disappear as it gets harder and harder to accord them to him. So my own view is that even though you ought to let the violinist use your kidneys for the one hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so-we should say that if you refuse, you are, like the boy who owns all the chocolates and will give none away, self-centered and callous, indecent in fact, but not unjust. And similarly, that even supposing a case in which a woman pregnant due to rape ought to allow the unborn person to use her body for the hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so; we should conclude that she is self-centered, callous, indecent, but not unjust, if she refuses. The complaints are no less grave; they are just different. However, there is no need to insist on this point. If anyone does wish to deduce he has a ight from you ought, then all the same he must surely grant that there are cases in which it is not morally required of you that you allow that violinist to use your kidneys, and in which he does not have a right to use them, and in which you do not do him an injustice if you refuse. And so also for mother and unborn child. Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it-and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases-nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interes ts and concerns, of all other duties 62 Philosophy Public Affairs and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive. 6. We have in fact to distinguish between two kinds of Samaritan: the Good Samaritan and what we might call the Minimally Decent Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan, you will remember, goes like this: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him he had compassion on him. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. (Luke I0:30-35) The Good Samaritan went out of his way, at some cost to himself, to help one in need of it. We are not told what the options were, that is, whether or not the priest and the Levite could have helped by doing less than the Good Samaritan did, but assuming they could have, then the fact they did nothing at all shows they were not even Minimally Decent Samaritans, not because they were not Samaritans, but because they were n ot even minimally decent. These things are a matter of degree, of course, but there is a difference, and it comes out perhaps most clearly in the story of Kitty Genovese, who, as you will remember, was murdered while thirtyeight people watched or listened, and did nothing at all to help her. A Good Samaritan would have rushed out to give direct assistance 63 A Defense of Abortion against the murderer. Or perhaps we had better allow that it would have been a Splendid Samaritan who did this, on the ground that it would have involved a risk of death for himself. But the thirty-eight not only did not do this, they did not even trouble to pick up a phone to call the police. Minimally Decent Samaritanism would call for doing at least that, and their not having done it was monstrous. After telling the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus said Go, and do thou likewise. Perhaps he meant that we are morally required to act as the Good Samaritan did. Perhaps he was urging people to do more than is morally required of them. At all events it seems plain that it was not morally required of any of the thirty-eight that he rush out to give direct assistance at the risk of his own life, and that it is not morally required of anyone that he give long stretches of his lifenine years or nine months-to sustaining the life of a person who has no special right (we were leaving open the possibility of this) to demand it. Indeed, with one rather striking class of exceptions, no one in any country in the world is legally required to do anywhere near as much as this for anyone else.

Restaurant Industry :: essays research papers

Discussion of the problem Sanjay Thomas, a second-year MBA student at M.I.T. Sloan School of Management has three choices after he graduates. The first one is an excellent job offer that he received from a top-flight management consulting firm. The second option is to open an upscale restaurant that will serve Indian gourmet cuisine. The third option is to open the restaurant with his aunt. Each option has positive and negative aspects, but when Sanjay compares them only the financial benefits are relevant. If Sanjay takes the job offered by the management consulting firm he would earn a salary of $80,000 a year. If he decides to open the restaurant, he would face a different scenario. To figure out Sanjay’s salary he would have to take into account three variables: number of meals sold, revenue per meal, and labor cost. If Sanjay opens the restaurant in partnership with his aunt, she would guarantee him a salary of at least $3,500 a month, and in return she would get 90% of all monthly earnings in excess of $9,000. Data Analysis Sanjay estimated the following statistics for the variables that affect the expected salary at the restaurant. First, the number of meals obeys a normal distribution with a mean of 3,000 and a standard deviation of 1,000. Second, the revenue per meals is $20.00 with a probability of 25%, $18.50 with a probability of 35%, $16.50 with a probability of 30%, and $15.00 with a probability of 10%. Third, the labor cost follows a continuous uniform distribution between $5,040 and $6,860. He also estimates that there are two fixed costs. One is the fixed cost per meal of $11 and the other one is non labor cost of $3,995. All these variables and fixed costs were used in a simulation software package to forecast the expected salary on the restaurant for the two situations: one running the restaurant by alone, and the other one, running it with his aunt. Each simulation consisted of 10,000 trials. The result of Sanjay running the restaurant alone is represented in Graph A. With a mean of $10,845 and standard deviation of $8,568 (Table 1), this option shows that the expected salary would be higher than the $6,666 monthly salary that he would earn in the consulting firm ($80,000/ 12). At the same time, the standard deviation projects a high variability on the expected salary, which means that there is the potential of earning more money than at the firm and of losing money running the business.

7 Up Lifespan Development

Professor Massey 10-22-2009 Lifespan development Seven up paper In the documentary Seven Up, I had to watch Suzy grow up. Suzy seemed to have been raised with good morals and with both parents influencing her decisions in video. When she goes home her mom makes her tea, she watches TV with her mom, does homework and then sees her father. She is usually in bed by 7 p. m. She seems to be from the upper class because of the type of school she is at and how she portrays herself. She is receiving a very good education in the first video and she wanted to go to college or the university in the area. Suzy reports that she has a boy friend that is 13 and also partakes in ballet. She wants to have two kids and wants a nanny to help raise them. Her parents are the most influential people in her life and have been helping her make better decisions. Suzy also acts a little raciest when she states that she doesn’t want to know any colored people. I think the fact that she doesn’t want to meet any colored people will hurt her in the future because everyone in the world will meet someone they don’t want to meet. People see all races and all different kinds of people without trying. She will have to accept the fact that she will meet colored people. Suzy’s attitude at her age makes me feel like she will be in many relationships. She is only seven and has a boy friend that is thirteen. I believe that the way she was raised has an impact on that. If she was raised to find a boy and marry him and have children that’s what she will try to do. Suzy has a very outgoing personality. At the age of seven she has a boyfriend and already knows what she wants in life. She wants to raise her kids with help and at the age of 23 I still don’t know about what I want. She seems like she is older then she really is. I feel that she is this way because it is how her mother and father raised her to be. I believe her parents told her that she has to work for what she wants and that nothing is going to be given to her. Her self esteem seems to be really high and she was always smiling. I feel like because the way she was raised, she will be able to handle different circumstances in her life. Her sense of diversity is not very good. She does not want to meet any colored people, which is not a good thing to have in the real world because if she is to work in any business she will have to work with all different races. Suzy’s young adult hood will be a challenging one. She will have to learn to work with new and different people that she may not want to work with. She also would have to deal with meeting a colored person which she made clear that she didn’t want to meet. I believe once she allows herself to be able to work with all these different people she will have a successful life and career. In her middle adult hood years she will be having a good career starting to settle down and being home more with her children. She will be able to retire while her husband works and take care of the house. I believe overall her life will be a good one and she will be happy through most of it. I feel like Suzy will work in a business and end up in a high position in the business world. As I said earlier, Suzy would like to have two children after she gets married. She would like to be married around the age of 27 or 28. She would hire a nanny to help her take care of the children while her husband and she are at work. I also believe that Suzy will accomplish almost all the goals she set for herself. She had a good head on her shoulders when she was younger and I think that helped her out throughout her lifetime.

Aztec and Inca Civilizations

I think the Aztecs were more impressive, in one of the captions I read that one of their squares was twice as large as the city of Salamanca surrounded by porticoes daily sixty thousand people are buying and selling all kinds of merchandise that the world has to offer embracing the necessaries things of life. In the same square there are some people who constantly go around watching sells and the measures used for sales these people have been known to go around and stop unfair deals or break the measures completely. The men and women who agree to be sacrificed are thrown to their backs, so they can be sacrificed to their gods and without uttering a word and remaining perfectly still while a priest comes over with a stone knife to cut their heart out. This is one of the things as to why I think the Aztecs were more impressive because of the discipline they had, even when they are having their heart cut out while they are still alive. The boys and girls were brought up differently with a few similarities. The differences for boys were they were expected to have more responsibilities such as growing to become fierce some brave and warriors, fishermen, farmers and craftsmen, like their fathers. The daughters were expected to follow their mothers and work indoors managing the house and raise the children. Something similar both boys and girls had in common was they were taught their responsibilities from a very young age, they were also expected to go to school for at least a little time between the ages ten and twenty, the school the rich or the gifted were able to attend was called calmecac, there was another school that most of the population attended who were not rich or considered gifted, which was called tepochcalli. Their (was little difference) in (Aztec religion and civil society. The tlacatecuhtli or â€Å"chief of men† controlled all the religious ceremonies) who (was also the military leader under the tlacatecuhtli were several religious and other offices which included military generals. Priests and priestesses were very important in society they acted as) scientists (and) doctors, and (taught science, art, music, dance, history, and counting. They also knew astronomy and astrology. They had to perform) very (difficult ceremonies). (Religion played an important part in Aztecs lives and was very complicated because they adopted many of the) aspects of the (people they conquered. They had three dominate gods: Huitzilopochtli, (â€Å"Hummingbird wizard† the native and) the (chief god of the tenochca, Huitzilopochtli was the war and sun god), Tezcatlipoca (â€Å"smoking mirror† chief god of the Aztecs in general) and Quetzalcoatl (â€Å"sovereign plumed serpent† widely worshipped throughout Mesoamerica and the god of civilization, priesthood and learning). Below these three gods were four creating gods who kept themselves from the human world. Under these were a large number of other gods, the most important) was (tlaloc, the rain god); chalihuitlicue, (the god of growth and Xipe, the â€Å"flayed one† a god connected with spring. The Aztecs worshipped about) one thousand (gods, but the sun god was the most important. Religious ceremonies were held in a temple called a teocalli. The temples had pools for ceremonial cleansing, gardens, living quarters for a priest, and racks to hold the skulls of victims. The most prominent part of Aztec religious life was the role of human sacrifice. It was practiced in all of Mesoamerica but the) tenochca (used sacrifice on a grand scale. We don’t know a great deal about the details, but we can successfully reconstruct its character and justification with a high level of accuracy).

Our Dreams essays

Our Dreams essays In Stephen Kings article Why We Crave Horror Movies, King explains why people go to horror films. Watching horror films is a way that many people show they are not hesitant to sit through a few hours of the same killing and menacing seen on evening news reports.These pent up emotions and fears need to be exercised and checked on a regular basis. There needs to be a forum in which our deep, dark desires can be expressed freely without repercussions, before they seep through into day to day routines. This exercise comes in many forms; some people participate in full body contact sports, others who cannot bear the burden of their pent up emotions inflict violence on others. The vast majority of people seek solice in jam packed movie theaters viewing horror movies, movies such as Freddy vs. Jason. Horror films allow the viewer to acknowledge that people are not perfect, and that there is something nasty within us. Watching a serial murderer on the news brings about a sense of hatred and disdain. We wonder what could possibly lead to such a horrible situation. On the other hand, a machete wielding, hockey mask wearing demon named "Jason", brings out an exhillerance and enjoyment when he routinely goes on his killing sprees. To be productive, well adjusted members of society our anticivilized emotions must be repressed, but a part of our identity is also repressed. Horror movies allow us to acknowledge that we are not perfect and that what is in the depths of our minds is nasty. Horror movies are excellent at showing what we in reality cant see so clearly, good Horror movies reinforce normality, we go to a horror movie watch our deep dark emotions portrayed ...

America and Affirmative Action essays

America and Affirmative Action essays Every day in our country, affirmative action allows for certain people to attain jobs. Who are these people and what is affirmative action? These people are minorities and women, and affirmative action is the nation's most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination. Affirmative action can call for an admissions officer faced with two similarly qualified applicants to choose the minority over the white, or for a manager to recruit and hire a qualified woman for a job instead of a man. Generally, affirmative action decisions are not supposed to be based on quotas, nor are they supposed to give any preference to unqualified candidates. Also, they are not supposed to harm anyone through reverse discrimination. As with most controversial issues, there are two sides to the debate. The opposing side argues that favoring minorities and women goes against the American way because the battle to guarantee equal rights has already been fought and won. The supporting side's argument is that although there has been an attempt at equality for all, all are not yet on a level playing field. Granting minorities and women modest advantages is more than fair, given hundreds of years of discrimination that benefited whites and men. These sides were examined in 1973 by Philosophy & Public Affairs. Thomas Nagel's "Equal Treatment and Compensatory Justice" and Judith Jarvis Thomson's "Preferential Hiring" both defended the use of preferences but on different grounds. Thomson defended job preferences for women and blacks as a form of compensation for their past exclusion from the academy and the workplace. Preferential policies, in her view, worked as a kind of justice. Nagel, by contrast, thought that preferences might work a kind of social good, and without doing violence to justice. The terms of the popular debate over racial and gender preferences were the same as those of philosophers. Preference's defender...