Mahatma Gandhi Essay Example for Free

Mahatma Gandhi EssayAn companionship of mine is a highly paid professional lacking none of lifes luxuries. He plays the violin as a hobby and frequently plays in a familiar space, placing a jar in bet of him so that passers-by can contribute money to show their appreciation. Other musicians play in that space, but they transmit on if another musician is already on that point. His actions suggest, to me, that hes a struggling musician in need of financial assistance, but hes collecting dollar bills from hatful who may be less fortunate financially than he. Your thoughts on the ethics of this? NAME WITHHELD, NEW YORK The author this strikes you as convoluted has to do with your view of what this man is doing. You see his actions as a request for undeserved charity.He sees his actions as a performance that has potential value. And he is correct. Part of your argument is based on the premise that your acquaintance is occupying a common space that could better serve a less fo rtunate peer. That contention would leave sense if the guy were panhandling. scarce that is not what hes doing. Hes creating art for public consumption he is, by the strictest definition of the term, a professional musician. While not charging for this work, hes nonoperational saying, I believe my music has value and if you agree, pay me whatever amount you think is sightlyified.Hes not expecting people to give him money just because hes standing there. That people less wealthy than he is might be generating his revenue is irrelevant. If you go to a Metallica concert, you would puddle a hard time finding one person in the entire atomic number 18na whos richer than the isthmuss drummer. Does this mean Metallica should provide free tickets to every member of their audience who makes less money than they do? I suppose you could make the case that they should. But it wouldnt be a very unspoilt one.THE GRAPE THIEFA man goes to the supermarket and passes a table of fruit. His eye meets a luscious pack of seedless grapes. The man puts the grapes in a plastic bag and proceeds to eat one, before having them weighed to get a line the price. Is this an unethical act? Is it stealing? Why is stealing even unethical? MAYA AZOURI, TORONTO The first two separate of your question are not particularly meaningful. Is this stealing? Yes (the man took something he didnt pay for). Is it unethical? Yes (although the value of one grape is so minor that it impedes on the pull throughlihood of no one). The third survey of your query, however why is stealing unethical is intriguing.The answer seems so obvious that its almost never questioned, even though it might not be obvious at all. I approached this question by working though all the existing reasons people dont steal on a regular basis. The first is that its illegal we dont steal things because weve communally agreed that there is a justified, enforceable penalty for doing so. Another reason has to do with the influe nce of religion pretty a good deal whatever religious text you accept tautologically states that stealing is wrong because stealing is wrong.A third reason is tied to the design of our economic framework If people can just pilfer whatever they desire, zipper will have monetary value (in the example you cite, the man who harvests the grapes cant earn a living if those grapes can be freely taken by whoever wants them). But lets cargo hold going. Lets move into a Mad Max scenario If we lived in a lawless, secular, money-free society, would stealing still be wrong? It would. And this is because the alternative would make us nervous and unhappy. Part of this problem has to do with the philosophic concept of ownership. Can objects truly be owned by someone, or is this just a articulate we use to describe an unreal proviso? The more you think about that question, the more complicated it becomes.But it ultimately doesnt matter, because weve collectively decided to live as though owners hip isreal. We believe our possessions are extensions of ourselves. So if stealing were an acceptable practice if we lived in a world in which people just took whatever they wanted, simply because there was no clear argument for doing otherwise our lives would be consumed by anxiety. We would live in constant fear and spend all our energy protecting our possessions.Traveling would become impossible, because we couldnt go anywhere without bringing along everything we owned. People would be less motivated to create things, because they would have no way of stopping others from taking away those creations. Violence would increase exponentially. Though Im not sure if were ethically obligated to make the lives of others better, we are ethically obligated not to make the lives of others worse.And thats what stealing does it makes it impossible for other people to pursue their own happiness. It destabilizes society. In your supermarket example, the take aim of instability is so negligib le that theres no impact its almost as if that level of theft is built into our lives as a release valve from morality. But if you extrapolate the grape bandits actions outward and upward, it doesnt take long before