...question “what is a person,” is a question that many use to argue points of contention. In cases relating to abortion, capital punishment, or even animal rights, this question is posed to create a line; on opposite sides of this line lay the differences between “persons” and “not persons.” However, it is not practical, nor is it possible to have one unified definition that defends or refutes any of these points. It is important to note that although this question can be answered for individual points, it is not a question that can be answered with the same boundaries for all points collectively. Although a case by case basis can be given, a unified answer lies in the fact that the all points can collectively be answered ethically. As defined by Mary Warren in her argument that abortion is an ethically acceptable action, a person is a being that fulfills five characteristics: consciousness, reasoning, motivation, capacity to communicate, and the concept of self (the ability to see oneself as an entity). She concedes that there are cases in which a person may be considered a person if that being has several of these characteristics, but also states that in these marginal cases, the greatest benefit to society is that personhood is defined to ethically condone the most moral actions. For example, in the case of a mentally retarded human being who most likely has consciousness, motivation, and communication skills, that person should be considered a person as this person has lived...
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...Topic: What kind of person is Javier? Javier, a mature man, is one of the main figures in “La Linea”, which was written by Ann Jarmillo. Javier wanted to go to New York and earn money to send to his family in Mexico. On the way, Javierg had helped Miguel and Elena, who desired to join their parents in California. In spite of his talkativeness, Javier is a real picture of unselfishness and cleverness. At the beginning of Javier’s appearance, the first of his personal characters is talkative, “a fast-flowing river of words, as if he’d been starved for conversation.” He talked, talked, and talked without Miguel’s listening and answer. Talkativeness is really a bad impression to the reader at the inception about Javier. If we keep our reading, we can find out that Javier is an unselfish person. He’s really a good man. He’d taken a big risk to attract the “federales” and make a chance for other people in the bus to escape. He didn’t care what happened to him after the risk. Even he had a family to think about, a son, a daughter, a wife. When Javier met Miguel and Elena again, and they were in the “mata gente” together, Javier did as much as he could for Elena and Miguel. Though he had been through many hard times before he could be on the “mata gente”, he still kept looking out for every big and little danger. He had not slept, “his eyes were red, and his face was drawn.” Nevertheless, he told Miguel: “Rest some. I’ll keep watch for a while.” In many times, they had to hop...
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...and Goodness Throughout history, in all areas of the world, there is an ongoing discussion about what it means to be a good person. Every society has different expectations and standards that it’s citizens are expected to adhere to, creating discrepancies in what the “proper” meaning of a “good” person is. Throughout different cultures, a common characteristic of a “good” person is someone that wants to help others and commits acts of a selfless nature; so, a good person is someone that lives not only for themselves, but for others, through selfless acts and the desire and drive to bear fruits of a good nature. Good People and Good Character If someone is to be a good person, they must first have good character. By definition,...
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...that the reason for this being is that “Human behavior deteriorates when many people are crowded closely together, contending elbow to elbow for the same space without respite” (72). Where in which, Cooper then points the blame for our selfishness and carelessness on the Vietnam War by stating, “Vietnam War and its aftermath made a fundamental, enduring contribution to what we have termed modern America callousness” (72). Cooper continues his arguments by saying that “The quest for wealth and aggrandizement encompassing all,…for many as the meaning of life, or a substitute for meaning” (72) He says that this idea is natural to us and that we believe that “Those who possess wealth, power, and their trappings constitute the elite, and thus demonstrate superiority in the struggle for existence.” (72) Throughout his essay Peter Cooper thoroughly demonstrates why we as humans are selfish, and greedy, and have no remorse for those who do not contribute to further moving us along in life. Similarly to his arguments I find that people genuinely lack compassions for one another. As a people, we are really concerned with what people can do for us rather than really getting to know them. There was a time when people got to know the people that lived in the same community as...
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...in order to be a good person. The first is integrity. It encompasses all of the traits that make a truly “good” person, such as honesty and being morally upright. An individual with integrity will keep their word, they won’t go behind your back, and they follow a code of ethics that make them predictable, but safe. No unpleasant surprises come from someone with a high sense of integrity and they adhere to principles of common decency. Courage is the next character trait a good person should have. Someone who can’t and won’t stand up for their own beliefs will definitely no stand up for you or anyone else. A sense of humor is a great character trait for a good person. Life is full of ups and downs and everything is easier if one keeps a sense of humor, or at least surrounds oneself with those who have one. Intelligence, education, and common sense are important builders of character. I have met plenty of people with high IQ’s and no common sense. My personal belief is that common sense, social intelligence, and “street smarts” are pretty much all in the same. Being able to solve the most difficult math problem won’t make you a good partner or friend, if they cannot hold a conversation, relate to others, and have zero social skills. Relating to others is an ability that requires the use of common sense, which dictates what to do or not to do in everyday situations. Kindness is another character trait, like integrity, that a good person should have. A person who possesses kindness...
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...JROTC has been around for over 100 years, but the spirit continues to strive young cadets into becoming not only better citizens but well-mannered respectful young adults. JROTC’s mission is to motivate and mold young cadets into becoming better citizens. Throughout the year, JROTC has mold me into a better person because of it. I did not expect to have greeted many cadets, accomplish what it means to be a cadet and be devoted towards the program. However, the top three things i have learned in JROTC is leadership skills, teamwork skills, and responsibility. The first thing I have learned is leadership skills, the definition of leadership is taking or having the opportunity to being a leader. I have learned the importance of being a leader....
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...What kind of a person is John Clendenin? Intelligence, Ambitious and Capability When John Clendenin studied at Harvard Business School, he had already set himself a clear and ambitious career path: from successful corporate officer in Fortune 50 to on the board of several others, and eventually to be a cabinet-level position in our government. Actually he was ahead of his HBS plan after graduating within three years. John first came to Xerox was in 1983 after his first year at HBS. He worked as productivity consultant in the parts and supply area of Xerox US Marketing Group (USMG). He constructively suggested the efficient cost management, when he showed that Xerox was over-packing in distribution and found that the company would be more economically by having vendors’ ship directly to end users in Xerox rather than through central corporate warehouses. His excellent performance in the internship made him stay in the company and for more achievement in the future. From a productivity consultant to administrative manager for the area, John elevated to the head of the Xerox’s Multinational Development Centre (MDC) in 1986. Just within short three years in this position, Clendenin had led his group gaining a great achievement by improving the efficiency of the company’s worldwide logistics and inventory management system. His team had discovered and exploited business opportunities that saved Xerox millions of dollars a years. Their budget grown from $400000 to $4 million, its...
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...To what extent does rationality and consciousness constitute what it means to be a person? Both rationality and consciousness play an important role in the development and confirmation of a human being, however, other factors are also to be considered, the primary one being the physicality of the person. Each of these contributes to the clarification of a human being, and at what point they are to be considered a ‘person’, and not just a ‘human being’. It can be stated that due to serious birth defects to the physical characteristics of a human being, they may not be qualified as a person; this idea is supported through the view of Mary Warren in which she states that ‘personhood involves communication’. According to this, someone who suffers from mutism and thus cannot communicate linguistically will not be classified as a ‘person’. As a consequence of the idea that someone is not a ‘person’ because of their inability to communicate, abortion becomes acceptable, furthermore, someone born with the effects of pre-birth use of thalidomide may not be constituted as a person, again accepting abortion due to the their physical appearance. Despite consciousness and rationality both playing a role in what constitutes a person, some views, such as those of Maryanne Warren suggest the contrary, and that it is the physicality which decides. However, evidence and multiple views strongly suggest otherwise, and that it is in fact the consciousness and rationality, otherwise known as...
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...What is the relationship between person – supervisor fit and job satisfaction? Testing with mediating variable organisational commitment & moderating variable perceived organisational support. Hans Boudewijn, Michèlle Merkx & Eefje Vogels University of Amsterdam, Business School The Netherlands Abstract Today, little is known about the individual relationship of Person-Supervisor fit and job satisfaction. This study examines this relationship as well moderating effect of perceived organizational support and the mediating effect of organizational commitment. This idea came from a real life example on the University of Amsterdam. Employees working in the University were dissatisfied by the low level of perceived support from the organisation itself, but were still satisfied on their job overall, because of the good fit between the employee and the supervisor (Person-Supervisor fit). In this study only evidence is found for the direct relationship of Person-Supervisor fit and job satisfaction and the moderating influence of perceived organizational support, when the level of perceived support is low. This study contributes to the existing literature by extending the current knowledge about the relationship between Person-Supervisor fit and job satisfaction. This information is valuable to applicants, recruiters and employees because it influences their attitudes, decisions and behaviours in the work domain (Kristof-Brown, 2005). Evidence is found for direct relationship...
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...John Mac Naughton once said. It is particularly true in Vietnam where men who can not be regarded as a mature person until he gets his first baby, even though they might have already got a well-paid job and married a good woman. In my opinion, having the first child is the most important event marking the maturity of a people in both financial and spiritual terms. In this essay, I would like to present three explanations to clarify my point of view. People should first recognize that the typical characteristic of maturity is good financial management. Admittedly, financial pressure encountered by the people who first experience parenthood is tremendous, which impels them to perceive the value of money differently. Most married people thoroughly contemplate whether buying those goods would reduce the amount of money spent on raising a child instead of throwing their money around pursuing personal interests. Moreover, saving should also occupy an important part in financial plan, which allows people to guarantee their child's future regardless of any unexpected events. At this point, as for controlling financial problem, the people who have kid would be more highly evaluated than the people who are just able to sufficiently support for themselves.Therefore, the child existence accompanied with extra expenses attributes to build up characteristics of a grown-up person. Equally important, the advent of newborn child enhances the sense of responsibility among newly married...
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...Everything around us makes us the way we are. The tiniest thing can affect our personalities. Generally speaking, we are like clay figures that can be easily shaped by the lightest touch. However, there are millions of factors that made me the person I am today. Some losses, coupled with wins, taught me that life needs to go down so it can go up one day. While there are many things that made me the way I am today, my parents, love and loss are the biggest factors that influenced me. My parents weren’t tough on me, even though back then I didn’t think so. Now, when I look back, I see how much they trusted me and prayed for me to make the right decisions. Despite their worries, I proved myself as a responsible person. Because my parents were easy on me I developed a good judgement regarding issues that appeared in my way. I came from a small country in Eastern Europe, Latvia. Latvians are not the most warmed hearted people on this planet, we differ a lot from the American culture. There were never a lot of emotions involved in my family, in fact I don’t remember using “I love you” that much, but I never doubted my parents love for me. Today I’m still very reserved with saying out loud my feelings, but I really want to change myself for my own children one day. I am getting better and since I am so far from my parents, we actually have started to say that to each other more. Few years before I left to the United States two close people to me died, my father and grandmother. Both...
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...In recent decades, many researchers have studied the importance of group-level cognition. Indeed, to my mind, there is now convincing evidence that group activities improve the intelligence of individuals. In this essay, I shall examine how research in team-games and study-groups supports this view. To begin with, team-games clearly require individuals to perform a diverse range of rapid mental calculations. This is because, in a sporting context, players must predict and anticipate possible actions within tight time constraints. For example, a recent Cambridge study showed that soccer players can – within the span of seconds – calculate over a dozen different permutations that could result from a single soccer related action. Such predictive powers clearly improve players’ mental abilities and result from activities performed in a group context. Secondly, study-groups enable individuals to obtain information that they could not acquire in isolation. This is because peer feedback allows individuals to refine their understanding of concepts and to also learn new information from other members in the study-group. For example, a study by The British Institute for Learning found that, if individuals participated in study-groups, they had a far more objective and sophisticated understanding of a topic than learners who were not part of study-groups. Therefore, it is certainly the case that learning in a group improves an individual’s mental abilities. In conclusion, I strongly agree...
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...According to Hellriegel, D., & Slocum, J. W., Jr. (2011), the Seven Competencies are: ethics, self, diversity, across cultures, communication, teams and change. The ethics competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to incorporate values and principles that distinguish right from wrong when making decisions and choosing behaviors. The self competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to assess personal strengths and weaknesses, set and pursue professional and personal goals, balance work and personal life, and engage in new learning. The diversity competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to value unique individual, group, and organizational characteristics, embrace such characteristics as potential sources of strength, and appreciate the uniqueness of each. The across cultures competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to recognize and embrace similarities and differences among nations and cultures. The communication competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to use all the modes of transmitting, understanding, and receiving ideas, thoughts, and feelings—verbal, listening, nonverbal, and written—f or accurately transferring and exchanging information. The teams competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to develop, support, and lead groups to achieve goals. The change competency includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities to recognize and implement needed adaptations or entirely new transformations...
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...effectively. To bother to offer another person feedback about their work indicates both that you care enough about them to spend your time considering their situation and that their work is worthy of your attention. You are both affirming the worth of the person and offering them your views on something into which they have put some effort. Everyone has the capacity for giving useful feedback and some people use it to more effect than others. The skills of giving and receiving feedback can be developed if attention is given to some of the attributes of worthwhile feedback and how it can be given in ways which enhance its contribution to learning. Good and Bad Feedback Before looking in detail at useful feedback it is important to distinguish it from those types of feedback which can be unhelpful and sometimes positively harmful. We all know what it is like to be on the receiving end of bad feedback: we feel ‘got at’, ‘attacked’, ‘put down’, ‘damned’ and generally invalidated as a person. Some of the basic characteristics of bad feedback are that it is directed globally at the person; it is unhelpful, that is, it does not suggest what otherwise might be; it is ill-judged, it comes from the needs of the critic rather than the needs of the person receiving it; and it can provide a weight of destructive comment from which it is difficult for a person to surface: it is dehumanising. Useful feedback, on the other hand, affirms the worth of the person and gives support whilst offering...
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...nature of reality. When it comes to considering what is real when referring to metaphysics time has to be one of the biggest factors. This is including everything that we have already experienced, our emotions and ideas, all the way down to our dreams and hallucinations is what we consider to be reality. The physical world and the spiritual world are just as real as one is to the other. For one, they both are considers worlds but are just defined as two different types of world. I do believe that there is such thing as souls and souls surviving with and even without a human body. Life is predetermined already by faith from the time the person is conceived. Little do we realize it but everything is known by prior experiences. The basic knowledge is experience. Everything we know now is here and being taught because someone in the past had to go through the experiences and learn from it and then from there taught what they had learned. The lessons have simply just been passed down over the years. I do believe that with knowledge there is universal truth to it. The relationship between faith and reason go hand and hand. With those two things a person can truly find out the truth. Artificial intelligence can actually teach people a lot about knowledge from what they do know to what they don’t know. The more time changes the more advance technology will get and the more it will evolve further and further. For example, what can be done today was not even thought about in...
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