all quiet on the western front :: essays research papers

What was going through Remarques mind?Paul is caught in WWI flake to prove his loyalty to his country. Amidst the war, he struggles to find meaning in the new image he has become. In the beginning, their teacher persuades everyone in the class to enlist in the military to fight the glorious war. Thinking this is an honourable root word everyone meats even those who secretly fear the battlefield. However, they are forced into volunteering. Not enlisting is like move their back on their own country. To the teachers, schoolmasters, and older men, going to war is the best thing a man could do for his country. In reality, Paul and his friends do non want to kill or be killed. After Behm became Pauls first dead schoolmate, Paul viewed the older generation bitterly, particularly Kantorek, the teacher who convinced Paul and his classmates to join the military, feeling alone and betrayed in the world that they had left for him. Pauls generation felt empty and isolated from the rest of t he world due to the fact that they had never unfeignedly established any part of themselves in civilian life. In the story, Paul tells us that all the older soldiers are s guttered linked to their present lives. These older soldiers beat wives, children, jobs and interests to come back to. According to Baumer, all the younger soldiers have to come back to is their parents and maybe a girlfriend. The young soldiers have no jobs and no idea on what life beyond the war will be like for them. All the young soldiers know how to do is fight in the war. And that is what they do till they are injured, or killed. This war has totally ruined the lives of Baumer, his friends, and all the young German soldiers who fought in this war. At boot campy, Himmelstoss abused Paul and his friends, yet the curse entirely brought them closer together and developed a strong spirit amongst them. After a battle Paul was given leave and returned home only to find himself very distant from his family as a result of the war. He left in agony knowing that his youth was lost forever. Before travel to his unit, Paul spent a little while at a military camp where he viewed a Russian prisoner of war camp with severe starvation problems and again questioned the values that he had grown up with, compared to the values while fighting the war.

Kant Political Leader :: essays research papers

Kant held that nothing was good in itself except good will. In other words, no shamion, in and of itself, was either wrong or right. Only the motive of the actor lent the action its morality. If a person acted out of a vested interest (because of a possible consequence) then the act was non-moralit had no moral implications whatsoever. But, if a person acted because she thought she was doing the right thing, then she was acting out of good will and the act was a moral act.In Kants view, actions have true moral worth only when they spring from a recognition of a trade and a choice to discharge it. For example, using Kantian logic, an adman who avoided untruthful advertising because he was afraid of getting caught and fined would not necessarily be acting morally. However, if the advertiser recognized a duty to his constituents to tell the truth, and that is the reason he didnt lie, then the act would be a moral act.Kant defined good will as the uniquely human capacity to act conse nting to ones principles, not out of an expectation of potential consequences. In fact, Kant had learned through the writings of the Italian philosopher and gallant counselor, Niccolo Machiavelli, that basing decisions solely on likely consequences could excuse any action, even the most abhorrent. In his famous treatise, The Prince, Machiavelli had proposed that any action taken by a monarch butterfly should be based on an assessment of the best outcome for the monarch himself. Under this guideline (which is also known as egoism), actions such as gain could be excused if they are in the best interest of the person making the decision.Like other Enlightenment theorists, Kant believed that human beings were endowed with the ability to reason, and reasoning would logically lead to an understanding of how to construct moral rules to live by. Rational beings would, then, logically abide by the rules they set for themselves. In this, he was in accord with the social contractarians. Ru les arrived at in this manner would also become morally obligatory, and Kant saw obligation (or duty) as the overriding determinant of morality. He believed that we would recognize our duty when we saw it because we could reason, and reason would lead us logically to recognition.For Kant, there were two obvious types of duties perfect duties and imperfect duties.

Revisiting Childhood in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe :: Lion Witch and the Wardrobe Essays

Revisiting Childhood in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe When I was young, it was weighed down to understand the bigger picture. I knew not what I did I only acted. Aggressive action came spontaneously, and in rapid response to whatever situation befell me. I frequently fought and argued with my brothers. While we were good around other people, at home, my brothers and I were not pleasant to deal with. At the time, it was impossible for me to foretell the ramifications of my mother. It was not until oftentimes later before I realized the gift that my mom had managed to give my brothers and me in her remarkable grace under the pressures. She was taking on quadruple pre-teenaged boys on a hectic schedule, while juggling a part-time job and continuing college level education. I was no more than ten years gray when my mother began reading to us. It was a difficult enough undertaking, shuffling us between our fathers house and hers and the many extracurricular activ ities involved with bringing up four young men. Somehow, three or four days a week, she enticed us all to sit down before bedtime for the retelling of a classic story. We started out with the jump book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by author C. S. Lewis, titled The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. In this fairy tale, a magical lion returns to the mysterious land of Narnia in a quest to put an end to the evil reign of the wicked White Witch. The story simply captivated my younger brothers and me. The strange part was that it was never some the animals that talked, the fauns, unicorns, giants, dwarfs, wolves, centaurs, beavers, and birds. Truthfully, I did not remember much about a witch in the story, much less the existence of a lion. I did not ring any morals, messages, or even a plotline. What struck me most was part of the tale that engulfed the four siblings in the adventure of their lifetime. A few times a week, my brothers and I followed Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy into the enchanted wardrobe and through to the other side. As we circled around my mother in our living room, we were careful, just as Peter was, in climax the door.