Law and Morality Essay Example for Free

Law and Morality Essay 1. Criminal law is not (just) for the protection of individuals but also for the protection of society ? Moderate / Disintegration Thesis: 1 The state has power to legislate morality in order to protect itself against behaviors that may disintegrate society and its institutions ? Society â€Å"means a community of ideas; without shared ideas on politics, morals, and ethics no society can exist† (Devlin, 10). ? Devlin appealed to the idea of societys moral fabric. He argued that the criminal law must respect and reinforce the moral norms of society in order to keep social order from unravelling. Society’s morality is a crucial, if not the crucial, element that holds it together ? Societies disintegrate from within more frequently than they are broken up by external pressures. There is disintegration when no common morality is observed and history shows that the loosening of moral bonds is often the first stage of disintegration, so that society is justified in taking the same steps to preserve its moral code as it does to preserve its government the suppression of vice is as much the laws business as the suppression of subversive activities. Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals 36 (1959) ? Extreme/ Conservative Thesis: A society is entitled to enforce its morality in order to preserve its distinctive communal values and way of life HART: Hart critiques Lord Devlin’s first argument by challenging his conception of society â€Å"*He has+ a confused definition of what a society is† (Hart (1962) chapter 82). ? Attack against the Moderate/ Disintegration Thesis ? Hart argues that decriminalizing behavior, which has previously been viewed as immoral behavior, is not necessarily a threat to the society’s long-term cohesion or existence. ? [Devlin] appears to move from the acceptable proposition that some shared morality is essential to the existence of any society to the unacceptable proposition that a society is identical with its morality as that is at any given moment of its history, so that a change in its morality is tantamount to the destruction of a society. (Hart 51-52. Italics in original. ) ? The moderate thesis implies factual claims of the disintegration of society for which Devlin did not provide, and (in Harts view) could not have provided, substantial empirical support. DEVLIN: ? I do not assert that any deviation from a society? s shared morality threatens its existence any more than I assert that any subversive activity threatens its existence. I assert that they are both activities which are capable in their nature of threatening the existence of society so that neither can be put beyond the law . I would venture to assert, for example, that you cannot have a game without rules and that if there were no rules there would be no game. If I am asked whether that means that the game is „identical?with the rules, I would be willing for the question to be answered either way in the belief that the answer would lead to nowhere. If I am 1 (Hart’s term H. L. A. Hart, Social Solidarity and the Enforcement of Morality, The University of Chicago Law Review 35 (1976), pp 1-13]. ) asked whether a change in the rules means that one game has disappeared and another has taken its place, I would reply probably not, but that it would depend on the extent of the change. (Devlin, Morals 37). ? Lord Devlin does not then think that this power should be exercised against every single kind and act of immorality. Society should exercise this power only when the moral sensibility of the majority regarding a given immoral activity rises to the level of profound â€Å"intolerance, indignation, and disgust† (Devlin, Morals 17) ? DWORKIN: If society should not legislate against all immorality, because not all immoral activities and acts endanger its existence, then what standards for evidence and action will be used to justify society’s right to enforce its morality in any given case? The threshold criterion that Lord Devlin offers is public outrage, so it comes out that nothing more than passionate public disapproval is necessary after all!? (Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977, p. 245) ? Attack against the Extreme/ Conservative Thesis Hart rejected the extreme thesis on the ground that it potentially justified legal enforcement of moral values, regardless of their content, simply because they were widely held. Such restrictions restrict society from evolving naturally in terms of its citizens’ moral beliefs practices. ? Devlin? s approach of incorporating moral values into the law â€Å"regardless of content, simply because they were widely held† places â€Å"an unjustified brake on changes in [what should be dynamic ] social mores† (Peter Cane 23). DEVLIN: 2. The content of moral legislation should be determined by what he terms â€Å"public morality†. ? This is not merely the majority position that could be determined by a public opinion poll. Public morality is the view held by the â€Å"reasonable man† /â€Å"right-minded man† ? What is acceptable to the ordinary man, the man in the jury box, who might also be called the reasonable man or the right minded man Devlin The Enforcement of Morals 38 (1959) Devlin chose the man in the jury box because: a) The verdict of a jury (12 men and women) must be unanimous (at the time he was writing) b) The jury will only reach its verdict after the issue has been fully examined and deliberated. c) The jury box is the place where the ordinary persons conception of morality is enforced. ? Elsewhere his comments suggest that the content of public morality can be identified by some kind of moral intuition ? It is the power of a common sense and not the power of reason that is behind the judgments of society†¦There is, for example, a general abhorrence of homosexuality. We should ask ourselves in the first instance whether, looking at it calmly and dispassionately, we regard it as a vice so abominable that its mere presence is an offence. If that is the genuine feeling of the society in which we live, I do not see how society can be denied the right to eradicate it (Devlin, Morals 40). ? As DWORKIN phrases the argument: â€Å"In the last analysis the decision must rest on some article of moral faith, and in a democracy this sort of issue must be settled in accordance with democratic principles. (b) It is, after all, the community which acts when the threats and sanctions of the criminal law are brought to bear. The community must take the moral responsibility, and it must therefore act on its own lights – that is, on the moral faith of its members† (Dworkin, 246-247) HART: ? Distinguishes between Positive and Critical Morality Critical Morality: A statement of what is morally true Positive/conventional morality: A statement of what most people believe is morally true. ? Hart argued Devlin always slipped into the Positive Morality approach. The problem is that beliefs about moral matters change. At any given time in a community, there may be a consensus on some moral questions, while on other questions there will be sharp divisions. Over time, an issue may go from being a matter of consensus to being a matter of controversy, and given enough time, an issue which there was a consensus one way may eventually be a matter of consensus the other way. How can we know that our laws are enforcing society’s moral consensus rather than just protecting the last generation’s prejudices against a consensus forming around another position. (Jurisprudence, theory and contextBrian Bix p. 169) ? The Harm Principle Hart’s2 point of inception was Mill’s ‘Harm Principle’: If there are any ‘Critically Moral Rights’ or ‘Natural Rights’ there must be a natural right of every person to be equally free. Therefore â€Å"The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will is to prevent harm to others. †3 ? Starting with the liberty-protecting Harm Principle enabled Hart to cast onto Devlin the burden of proof on the issue of the relationship between immorality and social harm. Certainly, Devlin provided no hard evidence to support his assertion that society would be worse off without legal moralism but neither did Hart provide any factual evidence that society would be a better (or, at least, no worse a) place without legal moralism (Peter Cane 31). ? DEVLIN: the fact that consent is not a defence for various harm-based offences showed that the harm principle was not the laws normative foundation. HART: distinction needed to be drawn between moralism and paternalism. Paternalism is justification of interfering with another person against their will, where that person will then be better off or protected from harm. ? DEVLIN: the existence of the crime of bigamy also undermined the harm principle. HART: distinction needed to be drawn between Harm and Offense. What is wrong with Bigamy is its offensiveness to peoples religious sensibilities. ? DEVLIN: We see (moral) wrongfulness taken into account went sentencing, and we do not premise this on harmfulness because otherwise all crimes will be treated alike whether it was done maliciously or otherwise. HART: distinction needed to be drawn between principles of Sentencing and criminal liability. The fact that the moral gravity of an offenders conduct- its wrongfulness as opposed to its harmfulness can be taken into account in sentencing tells us nothing about the relationship between law and morality. [Hart offers no reason why this should be so (Peter Cane 32)] ? To sum up Hart’s position: Everyone has a priori liberty. Cannot exercise that liberty when it infringes (Harm’s) another’s liberty. A change in social institutions is not the sort of harm from which a society has a right to protect itself. A society’s right to act should be restricted to demonstrable and imminent rather than speculated and distant harm. 2 3 Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, p. 14. John Stuart Mill â€Å"On Liberty† ch. 1 ? Problem: The law seems to have little or nothing to do with the immediate consequences of the criminalized conduct. These include the criminalisation of attempts, offences of risk-creation, and the acceptability of strict and negligence-based criminal liability. (Peter Cane 33) ? In order to protect the ‘Harm Principle’ there are 2 reactions to criminal liability that seem to contradict the requirement of â€Å"Harm† : 1. Any law that is not premised on harm is wrong, should be decriminalized 2. Attempt to rationalize in terms of the harm principle any and every aspect of the criminal law that appears at first sight to be inconsistent with it. This is the strategy adopted by Gardner and Shute in relation to rape, and their approach could be applied more generally to cover risk-creation and attempts, for instance. We might say (as Gardner and Shute say in relation to rape) that a society in which the creation of certain risks was not a crime, or in which attempting and contemplating crimes were not themselves crimes, would be (in some sense) a worse society to live in than one in which they were. A worry about this sort of argument, however, is that it depends on the aggregate effect of many such acts, and does not seem to justify coercion of any individual. ? Classifying such diffuse effects as harm seem[s] to reduce the significance of Mills principle to vanishing point. 4 Reinterpreting the harm principle to encompass such non-individualized harm =(what Hart called) the moderate thesis in different garb! PETER CANE: ‘Taking Law Seriously: Starting Points of the Hart/Devlin Debate’(2006) 10 (1/2) The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 10, No. 1/2 (Jan. , 2006) ? The debate about the limits of the criminal law has become a debate about the meaning of the harm principle and the definition of harm. Devlins approach was better. He asked a nonleading question: what factors ought to be taken into account in deciding whether conduct ought to be criminalised? Harm (however defined) is one such factor. But should it be given lexical priority over other relevant factors? ? It is easy enough to accept Harts idea that freedom is a basic human value. Human beings are individuals, and being able to express that individuality in ones choices and actions is an essential component of human well-being. Alongside the individuality of human beings, however, their other most noticeable characteristic is sociability. It is not just that most people choose to live in (larger or smaller) communities or that most people belong to various overlapping and interacting groups. People are also heavily reliant on those communities and groups, and on their relationships with other human beings. If individual freedom is a precondition of human flourishing so, too, is membership of communities and groups, and a rich network of social interactions. ? The law has many social benefits: We must view the law positively as a set of social resources rather than negatively as a restraint on individual freedom. ? This misconception arises from an unsophisticated picture of criminal penalties that fails to recognize their variety and the varying degrees to which they invade individual autonomy, and impose harsh treatment on and stigmatize the offender. This is, no doubt, partly the result of Harts argument that rules and principles of sentencing are irrelevant to questions about the limits of the criminal law. This is incorrect: Some conduct should not be criminalised at all, no matter what the penalty. But in relation to some conduct, the answer to the question of 4 N. E. Simmonds, Law and Morality, in E. Craig (ed. ), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2004), retrieved 19 May 2004 from http:/ www. rep. routledge. com. whether it should be criminalised will depend on whether a suitable penalty is available. Penalties relate to stigma, and stigma relates to informing a societies interactions. ? The conception of the criminal law and of law in general that underpins the Hart-Devlin debate is what we might call a conception of law as coercion. According to this understanding of law, its prime significance and function is to secure compliance with its norms by threats of coercion and imposition of punishments and other sanctions. Laws coerciveness is seen as the characteristic most relevant to determining its proper limits. This is a deficient understanding of law and its social functions. For the typical, law-abiding citizen the significance of law resides not in its coerciveness but in its normativity. Such a person obeys the law not in order to avoid its coercive sanctions but because they consider obedience to be the preferable or correct course of action. A legal system could not operate effectively if this were not so. In this light, we must question whether a theory of the limits of law based on the assumption that law is seen by those to whom it is addressed as an invasion of their autonomy is likely to be sound. Why should we determine the limits of law by reference to the perspective of the minority of people who obey it only because of its coercive capacity, rather than the perspective of those who view law as a legitimate source of standards of behaviour? If law were viewed from this latter perspective, the idea that it might appropriately prescribe standards of behaviour that express shared social values and aspirations would seem much less objectionable. DWORKIN: Distinguishes between Goal-Based Strategy and Rights-Based Strategy: Goal-Based Strategy: Even if the behavior is bad for the community as a whole, just considered in itself, the consequences of trying to censor or otherwise suppress it would be, in the long run, even worse. Rights-Based Strategy: Even if the behaviour makes the community worse off, even in the very long run, it is nevertheless wrong to censor or restrict it because this violates the individual moral or political rights of citizens who resent the censorship. Favouring the Rights-Based Strategy (p. 194) People have the right not to suffer disadvantage in the distribution of social goods and opportunities, including disadvantage in the liberties permitted to them by the criminal law, just on the ground that their officials or fellow-citizens think that their opinions about the right way for them to lead their own lives are ignoble or wrong. I shall call this the right to moral independence, Justification of the Right to Moral Independence Rights are individual’s trumps5 over a background justification for political decisions that states a goal for the community as a whole. If someone has a right to moral independence, this means that it is for some reason wrong for officials to act in violation of that right, even if they (correctly) believe that the community as a whole would be better off if they did. To some extent, the argument in favour of a particular right must depend on which general background justification for political decisions the right in question proposes to trump. 5 Dworking, Taking Rights Seriously Dworkin assumes that the background justification with which we are concerned is some form of utilitarianism, which takes, as the goal of politics, the fulfilment of as many of peoples goals for their own lives as possible. This is the most prevalent background in Western Democracies. Suppose we accept then that, at least in general, a political decision is justified if it promises to make citizens happier or to fulfil more of their preferences, on average, than any other decision could. Suppose we assume that the decision to prohibit pornography altogether does, in fact, meet that test, because the desires and preferences of publishers and consumers are outweighed by the desires and preferences of the majority, including their preferences about how others should lead their lives. How could any contrary decision, permitting even the private use of pornography, then be justified? A proper understanding of the underlying justification for utilitarianism will itself justify the Right. Utilitarianism owes whatever appeal it has to what we might call its egalitarian nature. Utilitarianism claims that people are treated as equals when the preferences of each, weighted only for intensity, are balanced in the same scales, with no distinctions for persons or merit. Even if the majority’s preference (i. e. that which will make the majority happier) is to disadvantage or to advantage a minority, this is inconsistent with the very essence of utilitarianism , so even if it does result in fulfilment of as many of peoples goals for their own lives as possible, utilitarianism cannot allow that without undermining the philosophy that bore utilitarianism itself. Dworkin’s argument, therefore, comes to this: If utilitarianism is to figure as part of an attractive working political theory, then it must be qualified so as to restrict the preferences that undermine egalitarianism. One very practical way to achieve this restriction is provided by the idea of rights as trumps over unrestricted utilitarianism. The right of moral independence can be defended in a parallel way. Neutral utilitarianism rejects the idea that some ambitions that people might have for their own lives should have less command over social resources and opportunities than others, except as this is the consequence of weighing all preferences on an equal basis in the same scales. It rejects the argument, for example, that some peoples conception of what sexual experience should be like are inherently degrading or unwholesome. But then it cannot (for the reasons just canvassed) count the moral preferences of those who do hold such opinions in the calculation whether individuals who form some sexual minority, including homosexuals and pornographers, should be prohibited from the sexual experiences they want to have. The right of moral independence is part of the same collection of rights as the right of political independence, and it is to be justified as a trump over an unrestricted utilitarian defence of prohibitory laws against pornography. Limitations on the Right: (p. 195) Suppose it is discovered that the private consumption of pornography does in fact significantly increase the danger of crimes of violence, either generally or specifically crimes of sexual violence. Or suppose that private consumption has some special and deleterious effect on the general economy, by causing great absenteeism from work. Then government would have, in these facts, a justification for the restraint and perhaps even for the prohibition of pornography that does not include the offending hypothesis either directly, by the assumption that the hypothesis is true, or indirectly, in the proposition that many people think it true. Can we find a plausible justification for restricting the display of pornography that does not violate the right of moral independence? We can, obviously, construct a certain argument in that direction, as follows. Many people do not like to encounter genital displays on the way to the grocer. This taste is not, nor does it necessarily reflect, any adverse view of the character of those who do not mind such encounters. Another may argue, for example, that his own delight in other peoples bodies is lessened or made less sharp and special if nakedness becomes either too familiar to him or less peculiar to those occasions in which it provides him special pleasure, which may be in museums or his own bedroom or both. Or that sex will come to be different and less valuable for him if he is too often or too forcefully reminded that it has different, more commercial or more sadistic, meaning for others. Or that his goal that his children develop certain similar tastes and opinions will be thwarted by the display or advertising that he opposes. None of these different opinions and complaints must be the product of some conviction that those with other opinions and tastes are people of bad character. The Williams Report: If one accepted, as a basis for coercing one persons actions, the fact that others would be upset even by the thought of his performing those actions, one would be denying any substantive individual liberty at all. 5 5 Report, p. 100. Laws against public sex would generally be thought to be consistent with the harm condition, in the sense that if members of the public are upset, distressed, disgusted, outraged or put out by witnessing some class of acts, then that constitutes a respect in which the public performance of those · acts harms their interests and gives them a reason to object . The offensiveness of publicly displayed pornography seems to us to be in line with traditionally accepted rules protecting the interest in public decency. Restrictions on the open sale of these publications, and analogous arrangements for films, thus seem to us to be justified . If one goes all the way down this line, however, one arrives at the situation in which people objected to even knowing that pornography was being read in private; and if one accepted as a basis for coercing one persons actions, the fact that others would be upset even by the thought of his performing these actions, one would be denying any substantive liberty at all.

Richard Wagamese Review Essay Example for Free

Richard Wagamese Review Essay Richard Wagamese, Canadian author who wrote the book â€Å" Indian Horse† came to speak at Acadia. I was blown away from his speech. He came to the podium, humble and spoke in his native language. He then translated what he had said, welcoming and thanking everyone in the audience. Wagamese then began retelling his past. He started off with the 60’s scoop, being one of the victims and taken away to a white foster family. He described to have lost family name and his identity. Wagamese faced many hardships in his new home. He described his first feelings of abuse, since he was never hit before; his first hit was so surprising he didn’t know what to feel. Then in school kids would bully him for being â€Å"slow†, for not being able to spell the alphabet. No one taught him how to learn, and so he tried to learn all by himself. Then, Wagamese told the audience about a particular teacher. She was the one who stuck with him, discovered his terrible vision, got him glasses, and patiently taught him everyday the alphabet. â€Å"Hold on to that story,† Wagamese said. He fast forwarded until he was sixteen. When he discovered he had the rights to leave the foster home. He left, stranded on the streets and starving for food. One night he found a place to sleep. He put his ‘nice’ pair of shoes on the side of his head and the next morning they were gone. In March with winter just lifting off and only a pair of socks on, he marched through the wet slush. Along the way a man selflessly helped Wagamese dry off and warm up with a couple of cups of coffee. Again he repeated, â€Å"Hold on to that story.† Wagamese moved to another story about a library he visited everyday to educate himself. A librarian noticed him, how he would come and sit for hours and read. Noticing he was hungry, she took a step ahead and left a lunch bag for him to eat. They eventually connected and from then on Wagamese discovered more about the library from the librarian.

Effect of Agency on Gambling Behaviour in Schizophrenia

Effect of Agency on Gambling Behaviour in Schizophrenia The Effect of Agency on Gambling Behaviour in Paranoid Schizophrenia Introduction Our sense of agency is a form of self-consciousness which allows us to distinguish between ourselves and other individuals; it makes us aware of which thoughts and actions are our own (Haggard Chambon; 2012). This construct can be measured through the use of the intentional binding task (Moore Obhi; 2012). When an individual preforms an action that is then followed by an effect such as an auditory tone, there is a perceived reduction in the length of the interval between the action and the effect. Since this only occurs for actions that are intentional, this phenomena is called intentional binding and has been suggested as a reliable measure of agency (Haggard, Clark Kalogeras; 2002). A disturbed sense of agency is symptomatic of schizophrenia, a long term psychotic disorder marked by severely impaired thinking and abnormal behaviour, including delusions and hallucinations (Andreasen Olsen; 1982). Sufferers of the disorder may either feel that external forces are controlling their actions or thoughts, or they may feel in control of events that in fact are not caused by their actions. Martin (2013) called this experiences of activity; patients form the grandiose delusion that they can control some external events by the sole means of their mind. The first intentional binding patient study (Haggard, Martin, Taylor-Clarke, Jeannerod, Franck, 2003) compared the magnitude of intentional binding in patients with schizophrenia to a healthy control group. They established that intentional binding was significantly more robust in patients compared to controls. Using the same task, a more recent study (Voss, Moore, Hauser, Gallinat, Heinz Haggard; 2010) found that the predictive component is either absent or faulty in schizophrenia, therefore a greater reliance on the external effect rather than the intended action leads to hyper-binding. The severity of positive symptoms, as in the paranoid schizophrenic subtype, was also found to correlate with impairments in action-effect predictions. Various studies have documented a high level of comorbid psychiatric disorders among individuals with gambling disorders, including Schizophrenia. Pathological gambling was first recognised by the APA as an impulse control disorder in 1980, and can be defined as the recurring behaviour of gambling on games of chance despite the resulting negative consequences, leading to the individual becoming incapable of controlling the time and money spent, even when losing. Research conducted by Desai Potenza (2009) investigated the co-occurrence between pathological gambling and schizophrenia. The researchers interviewed a sample of 337 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Using the DSM-4 criteria for pathological gambling, the researchers found that these patients may be at a particularly high risk; 19 percent were classified as either problem or pathological gamblers. Just under 10 percent met the diagnosis for pathological gambling, the most severe form of the disorder; recent studies hav e estimated the rate among the general population at less than one percent. Wegner and Wheatley (1999) suggested that the sense of agency also plays a role in phenomena such as superstition and gambling, in which individuals experience subjective control over uncontrollable entities; this is often know as illusion of control. Similar to delusions of activity in schizophrenics, various studies have shown that an irrational sense of personal control over the outcome, even in games of pure chance, is a possible factor in the maintenance of problem gambling. A study by Moore and Ohtsuka (1999) assessed the association between beliefs about illusion of control or internal locus of control and their relationship to gambling frequency in young people. The results indicated that irrational control beliefs were strongly associated with problem gambling; the illusion of internal control over gambling significantly predicted gambling frequency and problem gambling. Toneatto, Blitz-Miller, Calderwood, Dragonetti, Tsanos (1997) found that scoring highly on the South Oaks Gambling Screen (Lesieur Blume, 1987) was correlated considerably with exhibiting cognitive distortions during an interview, in which individuals expressed the belief that they are able to control the outcome of their gambling, along with an extravagant level of self-confidence. Heavy gamblers also made more active attempts to influence the outcome using gambling systems, rituals and superstitions. Sense of control over gambling appears to have cultural differences; Majamà ¤ki Pà ¶ysti (2012) found that Finnish gamblers stress their individual competence and will to take more risks than gamblers in France, even in games of chance, imagining a greater sense of control. Taken together, research suggests that Pathological Gamblers may experience a similar heightened sense of agency to Schizophrenics, in that they exhibit the illusionary idea that they are able to control outcomes which are not within their personal influence. Although the experience of agency between two disorders have not been directly compared, this could perhaps explain the high comorbidity between the two disorders. I therefore propose that a disturbed sense of agency will be present in both schizophrenics and pathological gamblers during a gambling task and may contribute to the development of gambling disorders. Methods In order to study the possible effect of agency on pathological gambling in schizophrenia, I intend to use as many participants as possible in order to obtain the largest, most generalizable sample; participants will be age and gender matched to eliminate extraneous variables. I will use the age range of 16-35, encompassing the peak ages of onset and acute psychosis whilst avoiding using minors for ethical reasons. I will be using a healthy control group, a group of pathological gamblers and a group of paranoid schizophrenics, as they present more positive symptoms than the other subtypes, which correlate with experience of activity delusions. In order to participate individuals must have a professional medical diagnosis for their disorder, as well as normal or corrected hearing and eyesight. Firstly, I would like to establish the level of individual sense of agency for each group during an intentional binding task. Following a voluntary or involuntary key press, participants will experience an interval followed by an auditory tone; they will then be asked to estimate the length of time between preforming the action and producing the effect in milliseconds. Research has shown that there is a perceived reduction in the length of the interval between the action and the effect where the participant believes that they produced the action voluntarily. Secondly, participants would complete a computer gambling task (Rachlin 1986) in order to simulate real life tendency to make a safer or riskier choice during a game of chance. This is a task in which they are asked to choose between two spinning wheels, where the pointer landing on a white coloured section would indicate a monetary win. On one wheel, a win is less likely but twice as substantial, on the second the win is less valuable but more consistent. In order to increase the ecological validity of the situation and hold the attention of the participant, they will have the opportunity to win the money collected during the task. This task will take place within a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. This machine uses the Blood-oxygen-level dependent contrast (Huettel, Song McCarthy (2009) in order to detect changes in cerebral blood flow during the task, indicating neural activity in different brain regions. Results and Implications My predicted results would be that based on prior research the schizophrenic group will experience substantially more hyperbinding on the intentional binding task than the healthy controls; however I also hope to see the same with the pathological gamblers. Amongst that group, those who experienced the strongest feeling of agency would take the most risks during the task. I would expect to see similar, and greater, patterns of activation in the areas associated with agency, specifically self-agency, during the task in the fMRI machine for the PG and Schizophrenic groups. This would include the TPJ Precuneus, which has been implicated in a large number of studies during tasks relating to agency (Brass et al. 2009; Nahab et al. 2010; Schnell et al. 2007; Spengler et al. 2009; Yomogida et al. 2010) and has been suggested to contain a mechanism which allows us to determine mismatches in sensory feedback (Tsakiris et al. 2008) and attribution of external cause for events (Seidel et al. 20 10). A second area involved is likely to be the dMPFC, active during agency tasks due to its role similar role in predicting events. (Volz et al. 2003, 2004, 2005). Thirdly, I would also expect so see activation in the pre-SMA, which is involved in the development of intention to create voluntary movements(Picard and Strick 1996). Transcranial magnetic stimulation (tms) supressing neural activity of this area results in a decrease in intentional binding (moore 2010). Although increased blood flow will be present in these areas during all forms of agency experience, these areas have been found to be more strongly associated with external agency attributions; therefore it is possible that I will see more activation of these three regions in the healthy control group. This was suggested as the result of a met-analysis performed by Sperduti, Delaveau, Fossati Nadelfound (2011), recognising that the bilateral insular cortex, premotor and primary somatosensory cortex are only active during the production of voluntary movements (Ciccarelli et al. 2005; Francis et al. 2009; Tatsuya et al. 1999 and therefore experiences of self-agency. The bilateral insular cortex is of particular interest in this study as it has been noted in the impairment of attribution of self-agency in schizophrenic patients, and is correlated with positive symptoms. (Wylie and Tregellas 2010, Voss et al. 2010) Although the high level of comorbidity between Schizophrenia and Pathological Gambling is well documented, the effect of agency has not been studied directly in relation to the disorders, so results are difficult to predict. However, this area of study is worthwhile as it establishes the significance of screening patients with Schizophrenia for gambling disorders and helps to detect the aspects of the population that may place these patients at particular threat of developing pathological gambling. Patients who exhibit both these disorder have been found to respond less favourably to treatment, and may experience longer and more frequent durations in hospital, due to poor response and adherence to medication; this increases both the cost and encumbrance to society. Other negative consequences include increased aggression, alcoholism, depression, homelessness and likelihood of becoming a victim of crime. (Green, Drake, Brunette, Noordsy, 2007, Desai Potenza, 2009). The stress caused by gambling disorders, such as financial and relationship problems, may increase the risk of episodes of psychosis. (Borras Huguelet, 2007) Discovering reliable therapies for this group is of importance for future research because current research trials developing treatment for gambling addictions usually do not permit the inclusion of participant who have been diagnosed with a psychoticdisorder such as Schizophrenia; so far there has been no clinical studies of treatments for individuals with these co-occuring disorders. (Enrique Echeburà ºaa,b,*, Montserrat Gà ³mezc, Montserrat Freixac) 2011. Most significantly, this research could provide insight into the brain regions and theoretical processes involved in the maintenance of gambling disorders, in a population in which it is not only incredibly prevalent but also particularly harmful.

The Heroic Code Essay -- Trojan Princes Epic Heroes Essays

The Heroic Code Often, epic heroes can be characterized the same way. They are portrayed as superhuman beings, possessing strength, physical beauty, and intelligence. These heroes aspired to live by a heroic code that would ensure immortality by keeping their memory alive in the people. Homer's The Iliad shows how the heroic code was ingrained in ancient Greek warriors. In many cases, the Greeks put this code of honor above their own lives. During a battle, Glaukos, a Trojan, and Diomedes, an Achaian, encounter one another in a space between the two armies. By chance Diomedes asks who his enemy is. The two men then realize that their fathers were friends. To keep the family friendship alive, the men share a handshake of peace. This embrace shows how the Greek warriors were de...

Code Of Hummurabi :: Hummurabi Code of Law

History is the past, which for the most part can not be scientificately proven. The real; goal of History is to rediscover past. A dramatic error happens when past is rediscovered from our own bias that is from the way we see it. Even certain artifacts and works pf literature that we have left from earlier civilizations can be interpreted in several different ways, or misinterpreted to a certain extend or entirely. Usually interpretation or even misinterpretation is affected bu the concept of ethnocentrism, where different communities have an already set up establishment of certain norms based on their own believes, traditions, social, legislative, and personal values and ethics from which they judge other foreign communities. When considering other societies, it is usually a difficult task to view â€Å"other world† without any observer prejudices. Each world, our and their can evoke its own realities that are more or less comparable from one period to another, or from one cu lture to another. One of the obvious misinterpretations, discussed in this paper, took place considering historical document written by king of Mesopotamia. Our textbook, Arts and Culture,(p 98) presents Hammurabi’s Code as a â€Å"Law Code† of king Hammurabi. It was, in turn something quite different from a Code of Laws existing in our judicial and legislative structure of government and society. Hammurabi’s Code- â€Å"A law Code† or a set of royal decisions As written in Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings, (p26), the code consists if 282 laws that are branched at the beginning and end by a prologue and epilogue. The â€Å"Code† touches almost every aspect of everyday life in Babylonya. As the prologue states, the laws were supposedly written â€Å"to promote the welfare of the people,†¦to cause just to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak† ( The Human Record, p 12). Furthermor e, just like a real Law Code, each â€Å"law† is written in the form of conditional sentence: in which the phrase is introduced by a certain condition, â€Å"if† and the consequence follows â€Å"then†. Another fact makes Hammurabi’s â€Å"Code† so similar to the U.S. Constitutional Law Code is that it follows specific order, consisting of separate â€Å"chapters† associated with similar issues. For instance;† The Administration of Justice† â€Å"chapter† is followed by â€Å"Felons and Victums†, which is in turn followed by â€Å"chapter† that talks about â€Å"Property† issues.

Proctor in The Crucible :: Arthur Miller

The Crucible In the The Crucible by Arthur Miller, justice is raped by the immorality of those who kill for pleasure. Salem 1690’s, an epidemic of accusations is going around the village. Women, Men and Children are accusing others of witchcraft. More than a dozen of girls fell ill, everything attributed to the devil. Men and Women are being killed by immoral accusations, some of them because of land disputes, but others because of forbidden passions. A forbidden passion between Proctor and Abigail leads into the tragedy of the play. Proctor is a man with a lot of moral problems, who always concerns only for the care of his family and social welfare. When avoiding his involvement in the trails of witchcraft, he is accused of witchery and sentenced to death. Arthur Miller shows us Proctor as a common farmer, who is honest, and respectable, who only cares for his family. Proctor lives in the town with his wife and their children. Nevertheless, as the play goes, Miller lets us know that Proctor has a significant secret, an extramarital relation with Abigail Williams, relation that was over for Proctor, but not for Abigail. In the following passage Abigail tells Proctor, why she loves him: â€Å"I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart! I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was thought by all these christians women and their covenanted men! and now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet.†(page 177) Abigail does not want to believe that everything is over between her and Proctor. For Proctor everything is something of the past, while there is something in him that makes him feel love for Abigail. On the other hand, for Abigail, Proctor is everything and will make everything possible to get his love. Love that will soon come a passion that will set the tragedy in the play. In addition, this affair causes Elizabeth to not believe Proctor, which causes lack of communication between the matrimony. Proctor, who for seven months was trying to get Elizabeth trust again is tired of her suspicions, and tells that, â€Å"Spare me! you forget nothing and forgive nothing. Learn charity, woman.

Leadership Qualities by Community Outreach Program Essay

The Asian American Drug Abuse Program follows the s2/m2 level of Situational Leadership theory developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. This model works best for AADAP because the services they provide for people are mostly therapeutic in nature. AADAP offers many programs like residential services and employment access which are aimed at potential clients who are motivated but lack the skills to change without some form of treatment and rehabilitation. With regarding the Managerial Grid format put forward by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, AADAP is highly focused concerning both the people whom they help and the production they create. Based on the therapy provided and job training opportunities offered AADAP can be considered at the highest levels of the Managerial Grid often referred to as the team style. The Boys and Girls club of America at its best would follow the s3/m3 tier of the Hersey and Blanchard Situational Leadership theory. Boys and Girls clubs fit this role by placing more emphasis on building relationships. Main goals of the club are to provide young kids with a safe environment during the summers and after school while supporting healthy habits, positive values, and a commitment to learning. As the Boys and Girls club is compared to model set by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, their high focus on their people along with highly subjective production lands this club securely with the â€Å"country club† or accommodating style. The Division of Family and Children Services operates to completely different means from national or local programs centered at helping the community. Those other programs, the Boys and Girls club and AADAP, have placed a greater emphasis on individual treatment and mentoring while the Georgia state Division of Family and Children Services is clearly weighted heavier towards high productivity. Programs sponsored by this division are about getting vital services to children and families like food and social services but without the types of relationships that clubs like the Boys and Girls offer the Division of Family and Children Services fits into the dictatorial style of the Managerial Grid. While comparing this Division to the Situational Leadership theory many similarities show up between s1/m1 levels of maturity and people who couldn’t work and would need to use programs like food stamps that this Division offers. All of the levels presented by Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey in their Situational Leadership theory show different managerial styles just like the Managerial Grid. While they lean on different support structures and focuses, they both present a similar message of utilizing separate styles and leadership roles based on your staff or clients and based on the type of business you are trying to lead.