Sigmund Freud Essay Example for Free

Sigmund Freud Essay Consequently, Watson proposed that psychologist should confine themselves to studying behaviour, since only this was measurable by more than one person. For Watson the only way psychology could be taken seriously was to emulate the natural sciences and become objective. Watsons form of psychology was known as behaviourism. In 1913, Watson was working in the field of animal psychology and thought that the term animals could include humans. Watson was not interested in the mental processes. He saw no role for the mind and consciousness. Watson thought behaviour was observable and therefore scientific. The mind and its thought processes were abstract and unobservable and therefore unscientific. Behaviourism was defined by Watson as the study of the association between a stimulus and a response. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was a Russian physiologist studying the digestion of dogs, when he found that the laboratory dogs could be conditioned to salivate without food. This learnt behaviour was called classical conditioning. Behaviourism began with the study of animals and experiments were taking over from simply watching them in their natural environment. Thorndike (1911) was interested in human behaviour although he used animals for his experiments for ethical reasons. Thorndike used a puzzle box with a complicated set of pegs and pulleys and watched as the animals attempted to escape. Eventually though trial and error, the animal would manage to open the door and it was rewarded with food. So escaping from the box had become desirable. The animal would then be placed in the box again and after several repetitions the animal preformed the necessary response to open the door more quickly. Thorndike argued that the animal had learnt how to escape because of the reward. Thorndike called this the law of effect. If we like the consequences of our actions then the actions are likely to be repeated. This kind of learning was known as operant conditioning and was studied in more detail by B. F Skinner (1874-1949) Skinner reiterated Thorndikes law of effect in his experiments with rats. Skinners approach to psychology was scientific. His views came from Darwins theories of evolution. Skinner focused on the environment as a cause for human behaviour. He did not think people acted for moral reasons; he thought they reacted in response to their environment. A person might do a good thing not for moral reasons, but for the rewards received for the act. For Skinner the mental process is irrelevant. There is a key difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning involves involuntary or innate behaviour such as salivating and fear responses. They can be elicited, which means you can do something that produces an involuntary response. Operant conditioning involves voluntary behaviours. Voluntary behaviours are those behaviours that cannot be made to happen. This means that you cannot get these behaviours until someone carries them out. Watson did a study in 1920 and it is a widely used example of how we learn. Albert was conditioned to show a fear response to rats that he initially liked and showed no fear. Watson used a hammer struck on a metal bar to make a loud noise. Albert showed a natural fear response to the loud noise. (Unconditional response) The bar was struck while Albert petted the rat. Eventually, Albert associated the loud noise with the rat and showed the fear response upon seeing the rat. (Conditional response) Watson claimed that emotional responses are learnt through conditioning. He concluded that environment shapes our personality and genetics play no part in our behaviour characteristics. There are ethical criticisms of the little Albert study, however the main criticism seem to be that when the data was examined it showed that it was quite difficult to condition Albert and the fear did not last long. They had to repeat the pairing often to strengthen the association between the loud noise and the rat. Although, the study suggests that it was easy to condition Albert, the data suggest that it was not that easy and not that clear cut. Social learning theory assumes that personality differences result from differences in the learning experiences. This includes learning from observing others in addition to operant and classical conditioning. For example in language acquisition, a child learns to talk by imitating the adults. For social learning to occur, one individual must acquire a new behaviour from another individual (the model) with no reinforcement required. For example, monkeys in the wild are afraid of snakes and display this fear with screeching and jumping up and down. Captive monkeys reared in a laboratory do not have this fear. Mineka and Cook (1988) studied how rhesus monkeys can learn this response. When lab reared monkeys observed the agitated behaviour of wild monkeys in response to a snake, they modified their behaviour to match the model. The monkeys seem to have learnt to display fear by watching the behaviour of other individuals. Bandura, Ross and Ross, (1961) set out to investigate whether children learnt, through observation to display aggression. Children aged between 3 and 6 years of age were split into two groups. One group were exposed to a non-aggressive adult model. The other group were exposed to an adult model behaving aggressively, both physically and verbally to a blow up Bobo doll. The model punched, kicked and hit the doll with a mallet while the children observed this behaviour. The children were then taken to a room containing non-aggressive toys such as crayons, cars, a farm set and aggressive toys such as a dart gun a mallet and a Bobo doll. The children imitated the model with verbal and physical aggressive behaviour towards the Bobo doll. The findings demonstrated that observation and imitation could account for the learning of specific acts without reinforcement. Classical conditioning can explain some of the aspects of human behaviour, especially natural fear responses. Taste aversion, phobias and Gulf War Syndrome can be explained this way. Classical conditioning has a wide range of applications in behaviour therapy and has been successful in treating phobias. However, it cannot explain the attainment of entirely new behaviours and it cannot explain all of human learning especially the diversity of human personality and characteristics. It does not take into account that humans are capable of insight learning and the results are achieved through reasoning, with no trial and error are present. Operant Conditioning can explain how children learn the sounds of words from adults. Nevertheless, it does not explain how children correct grammar, as parents do not reinforce grammar (Slobin 1975) Bibliography Brain C. (2000) Approaches and Methods. Nelson and Thornes Ltd. UK Jarvis M. (et el) (2000) Angles on Psychology. Stanley and Thornes Ltd. UK Atkinson R.L. (et el) An Introduction to Psychology. (1981) Harcourt Brace College Publishers. USA (Word count 2052) Beverley Fielden Access Psychology

The Strategic Role of HR in a State Government Essay Example for Free

The Strategic Role of HR in a State Government Essay In a growing number of organizations human resources are now viewed as a source of competitive advantage (Human Links, 2007). For human resource to be competitive, it entails competencies that are â€Å"obtained through highly developed employee skills, distinctive organizational cultures, management processes and systems† (Human Links, 2007). The presence of these distinctive competencies marks most of the high-performance organizations. But the need for such organizations is not limited only to the private sector. Government organizations, particularly state and local governments, â€Å"are becoming increasingly accountable for results and the cost-effective use of taxpayer money spent on programs and services† (TechRepublic, 2007). Government organizations are like businesses; businesses that may not be run for profit but rather are organized to meet a social goal in an effective and efficient manner (Mathys, 2006). Such said, â€Å"Government organizations must be responsive, use their resources well, and provide good value to the user and account ­ability to the taxpayer† (Mathys, 2006).   It is in this context that strategic human resource management has become just as important in the public sector. Strategic human resource management has been defined as ‘linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation and flexibility’ (Human Links, 2007). The whole process of strategic human resource management includes the measurement of the impact of actions and decisions.   Pressures on governments around the world have contributed to the rising adoption of â€Å"performance management and measurement† – a focus on program and service outputs and outcomes, and on â€Å"managing for results† (TechRepublic, 2007). One method that has had significant demonstrated success to improve process efficiency, timeliness, and customer satisfaction in business is the balanced scorecard (Mathys, 2006). The Balanced Scorecard is a â€Å"performance measurement that seeks to combine strategic planning with performance measurement† (Rogers, 2007). Robert Kaplan and David Norton published works on the Balanced Scorecard in 1991 and considered four areas in assessing the effectiveness of an organization in meeting its vision and strategy. These four areas or â€Å"perspectives† include: Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes, and Learning and Growth. According to Mathys, Kaplan and Norton’s model explains that visions and strategies are translated into objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives that answer the questions in each of the four categories: Financial, the main question is: â€Å"To succeed financially, how should we appear to our shareholders?† Customer, the focus is: â€Å"To achieve our vision, how should we appear to our customers?† Internal business process focuses on the question: â€Å"To satisfy our shareholders and customers, what business processes must we excel at?† Learning and growth category focuses on answering the question: â€Å"To achieve our vision, how will we sustain our ability to change and improve?† Essentially, this framework â€Å"balances the value of strategic inputs (leading indicators) with financial outputs (lagging indicators) to enable an organization to improve the way it plans, measures and communicates success† (Strategic Management Partners, 2007). It is now being applied by hundreds of successful organizations, in the public and private sectors, to align people, strategy and performance (Strategic Management Partners, 2007). In 1999, the State of Illinois embarked on a strategic planning initiative (SPI) to initiate change using the balanced scorecard (BSC).   The initial goals were performance management and public accountability, which required viewing the Illinois public as a customer whose opinion of government performance was of paramount importance (Lang, 2007). The State of Illinois translated its goals and strategy into different measures of success Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes, Human Resources Systems Development (learning and growth). In this context, the Human Resources (HR) Department has a critical role in facilitating the whole process of instituting a comprehensive public governance system using this measurement system. People management is an important function of the HR Department and can play an important role in an organizations financial performance as well as the service it offers its customers (Yahoo! Answers, 2007). People management includes managing recruitment selection, turnover issues, employee benefits, and acting as an information resource in HR issues for the organization (Yahoo! Answers, 2007). First, it is important that the HR department views the state government as well as its constituency as its customer. The HR Department ensures that loyalty among employees towards the organization is intact and also that the final constituents or the general population of the state government therefore are benefited. Second, the HR department looks into the other departments within the state government and assesses their goals and strategies as well in contributing to the achievement of the primary goal of the state government. This can be viewed particularly on learning and growth concerns such as how the various capabilities of various employees can be built up and enhanced so they can very well respond to the goals of the organizations, among others. This entails for example employing a Training Needs Assessment (TNA) tool so that employee capabilities may be surveyed, consolidated and aptly tapped. Knowledge of employee skills, abilities and aptitude could save the organization from investing on capability building trainings that do not address the real needs of employees. Third, in terms of internal business process, the role of the HR Department is to â€Å"indicate how much each employee contributes to the organization such as revenue generated minus the cost of salary, benefits and training† (Yahoo! Answers, 2007). This basically looks into the productivity of the individual employee as well as the consolidated output of such individual productivity levels with which the HR Department also has that function to design a merit and rewards system to increase again such productivity. This is vital to keep the bureaucracy lean. Fourthly, in financial terms, the HR Department shall be able to perform a rationalized system of recruitment because it sees fit which employees to hire based on the scope of work and job specifications. Aside from recruitment, HR also could do regular employee performance evaluations so as to determine which employee has actually continually met the specifications of the job. Again, this saves the state government from unnecessary hiring of staff and checking of redundancy, among others, since the staffing needs of the organization has been streamlined. With the HR Department using these four perspectives, it helps the government administration to keep â€Å"track the value of activities (e.g. human resource development) which previously had not been audited effectively and had not been regarded as contributors to the bottom line (Strategic Management Partners, 2007). As in many private corporations, HR Departments of state governments shall have to use hard data in measuring performance. This can be done by linking â€Å"employee competencies with behavioral objectives to align job specifications, recruitment, promotion, appraisal, and reward systems† (Strategic Management Partners, 2007). A number of HR measures or benchmarks can be employed to check on performance and these include: â€Å"Applications per vacancy, Internal promotions, Hours training, Peer group reviewing, Cross-functional projects, Knowledge sharing, Employee turnover, Cost per hire, Employee satisfaction,† among others (Strategic Management Partners, 2007). The HR Department can also assist the various departments of the state government in targeting and developing milestones that keep its focus on the goals.   The goals of the state government must be cascaded to every department with the help of the HR Department. In the end, some of the following questions may serve to measure the four perspectives: Customer/Constituency. What services have been delivered to the constituents in order to secure their welfare and how do these relate to people’s expectations towards the state government? Learning and Growth. Have the skills and competencies of officers and staff have been upgraded and in what manner? Internal Business Processes. What desirable levels of effectiveness and efficiency have been achieved in serving the constituents? Financial Resources. What revenue generating options have been tapped and which government services have already been provided at a reasonable price? In all these, the role of HR should be to facilitate rather than dictate the targets and outcomes. Keeping the measurements simple allows it to be more understandable and adaptable. If it is not seen to be fully integrated with the business imperatives of the Chief Executive it will not be given the attention it deserves by operational managers (Strategic Management Partners, 2007). List of References Chaturvedi, Siddharth. October 2007. Strategic Human Resource Management. Retrieved October 2007 from http://www.humanlinks.com/manres/articles/shrm/htm. Lang, Sandra S.   January 2007. The CPA Journal. â€Å"Balanced Scorecard and Government Entities Moving Forward at the Illinois Department of Transportation. Retrieved October 2007 from http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2004/604/essentials/p48.htm. Mathys, Nicholas. February 2006. Managing for Performance Results Series 2006. â€Å"Using the Balanced Scorecard: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Postal Service and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.† Retrieved October 2007 from http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/MathysReport.pdf Rogers, Martha. June 2007. â€Å"Balanced Score Card Usage in Local Government Audit Shops.† Retrieved October 2007 from http://www.governmentauditors.org/content/view/311/123/. Strategic Management Partners. January 2007. Briefing Papers: Using the HR Balanced Scorecard. Retrieved October 2007 from http://www.consult-smp.com/archives/2005/02/using_the_hr_ba_html. TechRepublic. October 2007. Whitepapers: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Improve State and Local Government Performance. Retrieved October 2007 from http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/webcast.aspx. Yahoo! Answers. October 2007. What is Balanced Score Card in HR?. Retrieved   October 2007 from http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070927202545AAwkQix.

Stakeholders Involved And Related Ethical Issues Information Technology Essay

Stakeholders Involved And Related Ethical Issues Information Technology Essay We also had on a local well known blog attacks and insults of a ferocity which would never have been gratuitously made in a face to face situation. We tend to feel more unconstrained on the net and often seem to revel in the support which fellow bloggers of the same thoughts tend to give us in an immediate thread response. Examine this situation in the context of the assignment specification especially from the defamation and virtual privacy invasion point of view. Introduction Unethical behavior over the internet is becoming more common. Ranging from private discrete stalking termed cyber-stalking to public defamation, it is becoming increasingly imperative to analyze the ethical issues at stake in these situations. For a personal gain, the stalker makes use of the internet to harass and defame his victim by publicly posting private sensitive information about his victim or spreading false rumors. Facts about Online Stalking Due to the spreading of the Internet across all institutions worldwide, it has become much easier for stalking to take place. Every person probably has personal data available on the Internet, either being on a personal web page or profile; or else being available to search for in government, institutes and organizations databases. Online stalking is much easier than traditional physical stalking due to various reasons: The person being stalked would probably not be aware of such a fact until the stalker initiates contact with the victim Cyber stalking can be done from the comfort of the stalkers home, or from anonymous locations such as a public internet cafà © or an office environment (1). The most crucial fact is that it is done remotely and not by confronting the actual victim. The ferocity and malicious intent would probably be greater as the aggressor feels more unconstrained on the net than in a face to face confrontation. Several online technologies can be used to stalk online (cyber-stalking). For a stalker to research about the victim, traditional search engine as well as profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can be used. To make direct contact with the victim, the stalker may make use of Instant Messaging (IM) services, online forums, and chat rooms. Alternatively the stalker may try to elicit a response from the victim by using techniques such as publishing defamatory statements about the victim in public places such as a web site, message boards, or a fake blog run in the victims name (2). Cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying is much more aggressive than if done face to face. The term cyber-bullying is more commonly associated when teenagers are involved in stalking and bullying online, while cyber-stalking is used for stalking involving adults. Dr. Bamford in (3) explains that the anonymity of the stalker greatly reduces traditional social and contextual attitudes such as tone of voice used and relevant body language. Anonymity can be achieved either by submitting comments in public places such as forums without an ID to trace back to the poster, or else using an alias with the aim of masking the aggressors identity. Without these attitudes, social norms and constraints are neglected, and further like-minded people might participate with the stalker in harassing the victim. Anonymity can also be easily achieved by using an anonymous remailer service (4). This would be specialized software aiming to achieve anonymity in the sending of emails. It strips the originating address from an email message and forwards it to its intended destination. All header information that might be used to track the sender is removed. According to U.S. statistics in 2007 (5), the majority of stalking victims are female at 78%. On the other hand, the majority of stalkers are male at 87%. Victims of stalking can range from a single person to whole organizations. A previous failed relationship can be a motivator for harassing a single person for emotional gain, while possible financial gain is a motivator for harassing groups or an organization. It is to the stalkers advantage however if the victim is singled out, making stalking on a single person more common than harassing a group of people. The main motives of stalking, as identified in (1), are: Stalking an ex-partner of a sexual relationship even after the relationship comes to an end. This can be due to a certain party not willing to accept that the relationship is over. Stalking however also takes place during a relationship. In a research by Tjaden and Thoennes in (6), it was concluded that nearly 60% of females are stalked by their male partner, while 30% of males are stalked by their female partner. Stalking with the aim of vengeance on the victim. This type is the most dangerous as the stalker is probably premeditating a violent attack on the victim due to a previous grudge. It is to be noted that the majority of this type of stalker are male. Stalking due to mental illnesses, ranging from delusional stalkers suffering from depressions to harasser stalkers suffering from a certain attention-seeking personality disorder. After obtaining the necessary vital information, in most cases the stalker exposes it publicly to defame his victim. Such public places include chat rooms and more commonly community areas such as online profiles and forums. The stalker may assume the identity of the victim by posting inflammatory and probably fictitious information in the name of the victim to elicit a response from the community (5). This type of action, termed Masquerading, is discussed later on. There are several defamatory actions that are viewed as illegal and prosecuted, some of which, as mentioned in (4), include the sending of malicious and threatening private messages over the Internet to the intended victim, libel at the intended victim, as well as the publication of messages in public places such as on a web site that show malicious intent to commit acts of hate-motivated violence. Cyber bullying is common in adolescent teens. In a survey carried out in (7), it was reported that 43% of U.S. teens have experienced some form of cyber-bullying in the previous year. This may be due to a lack of knowledge about the reason and the ways to protect private information. The internet and virtual communication environments in general, provide a perfect medium for a cyber bully to defame the victim constantly, even after school hours. In June 2003, a twelve-year old Japanese girl ended up killing her classmate after the latter defamed her on the Internet by the posting of certain messages (3). An example of group bullying is what happened to Canadian boy David Knight (3), who was a victim of a hate campaign when school mates built an online web site entitled Hate David Knight. The website contained defamatory pictures and abuse towards the victim. The group also encouraged the global online community to join their hate campaign. Another form of cyber attacks that is common amongst teens is Masquerading (3). This term refers to either when the stalker/attacker poses as somebody else who is close to the victim, or as the victim itself. In the first case, one can make use of the victims closest friend mobile phone to send harassing messages in the name of the friend, for example. In this way, the harasser remains anonymous while at the same time confusing the victim. In the second form of Masquerading, the stalker may obtain the victims login details for personal places such as personal blog, webpage or Facebook profile. This exchange of passwords amongst teens is very common, as it is considered a sign of true friendship and trust (3). The stalker would then proceed to defame the victim by posing as the victim himself/herself, producing a creditable and real scenario for fellow online friends to witness. Suicides due to Cyber-Stalking and Cyber-Bullying The effects of cyber-stalking on the victim can be quite damaging. We analyze two such cases where victims ended up committing suicide after being stalked or harassed over the Internet. The first case is the suicide of Megan Meier, a thirteen-year-old teenager that committed suicide on 17th October 2006 after being cyber-bullied on MySpace, a popular social networking website (8). A fake profile was set up on MySpace in the name of a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans who wanted to befriend Megan. On the day of the suicide, Megan and Josh had an argument online. Some other participants also joined in and in no time, there were messages and bulletins being sent to friends and schoolmates containing false accusations about Megan about her physique and sexual tendencies. This led to Megans suicide. From this case we can see how dangerous such a situation can be over the Internet, where like-minded people join with the stalker and behave unethically and inappropriately to the detriment of the victim. The second suicide case took place in Abu Dhabi when Emma Jones, a British teacher killed herself (9) after being defamed on the social networking site Facebook. The responsible harasser was her ex-boyfriend, who posted naked photos of Emma on Facebook. Allegedly he had obtained the photos illegally from Emmas computer. This public defamation coupled with the fact that she was working in an Islamic country that is very restrictive on such issues contributed to Emmas suicide. Stakeholders Involved and Related Ethical Issues At first glance, the stakeholders in cyber-stalking are mainly the stalker and the victim. However, it may not always be that clear to identify all stakeholders. The victims near family can become a stakeholder due to the victims possible actions, such as suicide, after being the victim of a privacy invasion or of public defamation. The controlling authorities of mediums that aided the stalker in retrieving sensitive information about the victim are also stakeholders. This however cannot be stated conclusively as legislations vary across various jurisdictions. In a certain jurisdiction, an action may be considered legal while in others it may not. In a case study of internet stalking (10), a twenty-year old girl named Amy Boyer from New Hampshire was murdered in October 1999. The murderer, Liam Youens, used to stalk her on the internet by searching for her personal information. Using search engine tools that are readily available to everyone, he was able to go through online databases and learn where his victim lived, worked and other personal details. He then set up two web sites, one of which publicly exposed all of Amys private details he managed to get hold of. On the other site he explicitly described his plan of murdering Amy. In this case, Amys immediate family members are stakeholders as they have to suffer her loss. The involvement of organizational entities as potential stakeholders is subject to ethical dilemmas. For example, the ISPs hosting the web sites might have a responsibility of monitoring the contents it hosts to avoid such cases. Also, the users reading the web sites might have an ethical obligation of informing the relevant authorities and assist the victims. We can therefore conclude that it is not always a clear-cut answer when identifying the involved stakeholders. They vary according to the case as well as what we judge as ethically right or wrong. In the case where the stalker is still an adolescent, the parents and teachers are also stakeholders as they are responsible for the development and education of the person in question. When they however see the deficiencies of laws and technology to deal with such issues, they realize they are quite powerless to avoid such a situation. As regards laws related to cyber-bullying, they are ambiguous and poorly put into practice (3). One reason for this is the lack of technical expertise and resources on the parts of the authorities such as the police, which would make it difficult to actually enforce the laws. The authorities would not have a clear understanding of a certain situation if necessary education and training has not been provided beforehand to deal with such situations. If we are to ethically analyze the shareholders in various situations concerning the internet, we first have to know who supposedly is in control of a situation and who has to take responsibility (11). Internet infrastructure companies such as Cisco and Oracle are considered as shareholders by some as they provide the internet network. However although these companies may provide the backbone structure, they would have limited interest in the content on their infrastructure. One can direct the blame on the ISPs, however these host limited content. Most newsgroups and chat rooms are nowadays hosted independently not by ISPs, and are not always easy to trace. It can be argued that a paradigm shift of Internet content has occurred from locally to globally (11). Whereas previously we had specialist ISPs hosting and providing all the content, we moved on to an era where the content is provided by the general end users. Examples of this are personal blogs and Twitter feeds. ISPs cannot be relieved of all the blame though. Even though one cannot expect them to pre-check content posted by their users, they should be willingly able to help should they receive a complaint or notification about particular content they are hosting or malicious users making use of their ISP services. Roger Darlington in (11) suggests that we first should understand what the word ethics means and represents in the context of the Internet before we can conclude who is a stakeholder or not. To have a better understanding of who is responsible for what on the Internet, he suggests that: We should accept that the Internet is not a value-free zone. We should act in a civilized manner as in the end it is us (the end users) who shape the Internet when providing content and services. Our actions on the Internet should be consistent with what we do in the real life. We should comply with laws when making use of the Internet in the same way as we do practically. The author suggests that we do not invent a new set of laws and values for the Internet; instead we apply the laws we are used to in the physical world for issues including discrimination, pornography and copyrights to name a few. We should be aware that the Internet is used by people from different cultures, religions and ethnicity. Where possible we should thus try to accommodate as much of the Internet society as possible. We should be responsive and accept feedback from the Internet user community. Ethical Issues One should make a discrepancy between what is legal and what is ethical. An action might be considered legal yet unethical. There is no law stopping a divorced man from setting up an online profile pretending to be a middle-aged woman who wants to befriend his ex-wife. Most people however would consider this behavior unethical. Although ethics are only moral guidelines and are not imposed on us like law is, they are more worldwide in judging if an action is right or wrong. As we already mentioned, various jurisdictions have inconsistent laws about similar issues concerning private information. In some countries, it may be legal to accumulate personal data on its citizens and store them in a public repository, while this practice might be illegal in other countries wishing to protect the citizens privacy. Ethical dilemmas arise in such a case. A stalker citizen living in a country that protects privacy can use a paid service that operates in a country where there is no privacy protection to obtain information about his victim that lives in the stalkers country. The service is not illegal as it operates from a different country, however such action borders on whether it is ethical or not. It is difficult to deal with such ethical issues due to a lack of technological understanding from certain authority parties. Political parties demanding that there should be more control on hosted content such as newsgroups and chat rooms would most of the time have limited knowledge about how these are hosted. Also they ignore the fact that it is a near impossible scenario to monitor and control all the information exchange that takes place. Even when laws are not in place, a responsible party such as a web hosting company should have a moral responsibility to control the content it hosts. For example, if a company hosts a web site about how to make or detonate a bomb, it should not walk away claiming to not be responsible if such information is made use of by members of the public for malicious purposes. Roger Darlington in (11) proposes some useful solutions to prevent ethical problems on the internet such as cyber stalking and cyber bullying. Laws should be modernized to reflect changing times and to make them in context with the use of the Internet. They should take into account new crimes that are not possible in the physical world such as grooming of under-age girls in chat rooms as well as cyber stalking to name a few. Such actions should be punished by crime fighters who are specifically technically trained for such high tech situations. These fighters should possess all necessary resources to tackle such cyber criminals. As already mentioned, most of cyber stalking and bullying takes place in open online communities, where the harasser can defame and expose his victim in front of a large audience. Due to this fact, these spectators witnessing such unethical behavior should be morally obliged to take action and help the victim. In the United Kingdom, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) runs a hotline where Internet users can confidentially report such criminal behavior or contents. These foundations would be equipped with knowledge and techniques how to deal with such situations by judging the legality of the cases and identifying the culprits. If the content is deemed illegal and is hosted within the foundations jurisdiction area, they can issue a notice to the relevant ISP hosting the material to take action by removing the content (11). Maltese Law In 2002, the Data Protection Act (12) was amended in Malta to protect private data from getting into the hands of cyber-stalkers, cyber-bullies, harassers, and all those with a malicious intent to defame or invade the privacy of a victim. The document contains a number of clause articles that help protect private data. The seventh Article ensures that when data is processed, it is processed fairly and lawfully. The data collected should be specific and used for explicitly stated legitimate purposes. This clause protects the subject from revealing more data than is necessary or required. Article nine of the document clearly states that the subject must give consent before such data provided can be processed. The subject also has the right to revoke his/her consent to sensitive data processing providing legitimate grounds for the revocation. This is specified in Article 11. Cyber-stalkers wishing to learn personal information about a subject can illegitimately pose as a third-party company that makes use of this sensitive data for marketing purposes. Article 10 of the Data Protection Act specifically protects the subject from such third-parties by having the choice not to disclose his information with such parties. Article twelve focuses specifically on Sensitive Personal Data, and states that the processing of sensitive data can only take place if the subject gives consent or else has made this sensitive data public. This latter case is one which stalkers profit from, as they make use of already publicized data to defame an individual without any needed consent from the subject in question. They would not have obtained the information illegally as it would be publicly available, for example on the victims Facebook profile. One can easily view pictures of the victim and read personal information such as locality and workplace if the victim has not adjusted his/her privacy settings accordingly. Only in extreme cases, such as if a subject is being investigated or is an issue for national security, public security or the defense should secrecy restrictions be temporarily lifted. This is stated in Article 23. The Data Protection Act also prevents third parties with possible malicious intentions from processing and accessing personal data. In fact, Article 25 specifies which persons are authorized to process data. In the previous section, we discussed whether it is ethical if a stalker citizen living in a country that protects privacy can use a paid service that operates in a country where there is no privacy protection to obtain information about his victim that lives in the stalkers country. Article 27 deals specifically with such a case, whereby the transfer of sensitive data to a third country is subject to it having adequate levels of protection for this data. So if this third country does not protect the data as resiliently as the citizens country, then the third country would have no right in requesting for such information. Ethical Analysis: Consequentialist Theory A consequentialist ethical theory is a theory that focuses on the overall general consequences arising from an action. This type of ethical theory judges the rightness or wrongness of an action by analyzing the consequences of such an action. In fact it can be defined as a general normative theory that bases the moral evaluation of acts, rules, institutions, etc. solely on the goodness of their consequences, where the standard of goodness employed is a standard of non-moral goodness. (13) Utilitarianism is an example of a consequentialist ethical theory. In Utilitarianism, an action is considered ethically right if it results in the best consequences. Jeremy Bentham, an ancient philosopher and advocate of utilitarianism, defines a right action as that action is best that produces the greatest good for the greatest number (14).   However it is not always clear how a quantitative measurement of right or wrong due to an action can be defined. Also it is difficult to compare utilities as they are subject to individual interpretations. One can argue that harm done to a man and a tree should be treated equally as bad, while others argue that harm done to a human is more wrong than harming a tree. The utilitarian theory does not state that no wrong consequences can result from an action. It is only concerned with the greater good, so if a small minority of people suffers great harm while the vast majority enjoys a small benefit, the overall action is considered as ethically right. Apart from being concerned with the consequences from an action, Utilitarianism can also be applied to laws and rules. This type, called Rule Utilitarianism is concerned with the consequences from a rule. A rule is considered good if it satisfies the majority of the people. Applying this ethical theory to the concept of cyber-stalking and harassment over the Internet, we must decide if an action is morally right or wrong by analyzing the consequences it has on the respective shareholders. The amendment and enforcement of legislation against cyber-stalking is ethically right in a consequentialist view. It harms the minority that go against it, however the majority of the Internet society benefit from having a safer environment. The same argument can be applied to the already-mentioned ethical issue about whether ISPs should monitor the contents they host and act if a complaint is received. By controlling the content they host, ISPs would be punishing those who post malicious messages or information by banning them from posting for example. The greater good is ensured though, as the Internet society as well as the potential victims of such harassers would have a safer future experience on the Internet. Ethical Analysis: Duty Theory A duty ethical theory, or Deontology, is rather different from Consequentialism. In Deontology, an action is right if it satisfies a principle or moral rule, without any concern for the overall consequences. It is the acts that determine if something is ethically right or wrong, not the consequences as in Consequentialism. Morality is determined according to rationally recognizing ones duties towards others (15). Same as in Consequentialism, Deontology can also be branched into two types: a set of ethical theories concerning actions and another set concerning the rules (15). Both sets of ethical theories however state that the good comes from our own ability to carry out our moral obligations. Kantianism, or Kantian Ethics, is an example of a deontological ethical theory which falls under the deontological set of theories concerning rules. Kant states that for one to act morally right, he needs to act according to his duty, which must be good in itself. The motives of the action ultimately determine if an action is ethically right or wrong. In cyber-stalking, the stakeholders must act according to what their duty is. Taking the ISP ethical issue, the ISP must always seek to satisfy and protect his clients, providing that what they are posting on the Internet is morally correct. We discussed many cases where the stalker or harasser hides behind anonymity to attack the victim. It is the duty of the stalker to respect the victim over the Internet and act in a consistent way as he would when face-to-face with the victim. Failing to do so will result in unethical behavior according to Kantianism. All stakeholders must perform their duty to behave ethically correct. We shall take into example the already discussed case where a citizen makes use of a detective service operating in a third country to discover information about another person living in his country. Law makers and law enforcers in both countries should act ethically and perform their duty in protecting their citizens, by amending specific laws which protect a persons privacy even online. In this scenario, it would become illegal to obtain such information using this service, thus it will be the citizen requesting information who is behaving unethically. In the Amy Boyer case, the general public who read the websites set up by Liam Youens had the duty to inform the relevant authorities such as the ISP hosting the websites. According to the Kantianism view, the complaint by these users to the relevant authorities is the correct ethical action to perform. Conclusion Cyber-stalking and online harassment is a major issue that is ever increasing as more people make use of online facilities to disclose private information. Whether disclosing the data involuntary, by filling forms with sensitive data that ends up being shared with third-parties, or voluntary by posting it on personal profiles such as Facebook and MySpace, it is becoming increasingly likely and easier to stalk a person by obtaining all necessary personal information. Such stalking often has devastating effects on the victim. We discussed several cases where acts of stalking or defamation over the Internet ended up with the victim committing suicide. In most cases, this would be because of the public humiliation suffered by the victim when the harasser and similarly-minded people behave unethically over the Internet. We showed that such people feel more unconstrained when attacking from a safe and anonymous environment than when facing the victim in the physical world. Legislations need to be devised to minimize such cases as much as possible. Locally, the Data Protection Act is one such legal document that protects sensitive data of the citizens. The problem however lies with inconsistencies between various jurisdictions in accepting and implementing such legislations. Only when a set of unambiguous and consistent rules is devised can all the relevant stakeholders in such cyber-stalking issues know what the right course of action to behave ethically is. To help us in our moral and ethical judgment and how we should act in cyber-stalking issues, we discussed and contrasted the two major theories of ethics of conduct: Consequentialism and Deontology. While Consequentialism states that the right action is the one that produces the most intrinsic good for the majority of the stakeholders, Deontology states that the right action is to perform ones duty in the circumstances. For both ethical theories, we focused on Utilitarianism and Kantianism respectively as a practical example. For each, we evaluated how the stakeholders should act when faced with the ethical issues and cases that were discussed.

Still No Equality for Women in Sports Essays -- Argumentative Persuasi

Still No Equality for Women in Sports Throughout the history of women in sports, women had to ?merge? then ?submerge? with male dominated sports organizations and structures in order to participate. The Olympic Games is a key example of women have to merge and submerge with a male dominated organization. The first modern Olympics, held in 1896, did not allow women participants. And when women were allowed to participate, in 1900, it was in only three sports and out of the 1,225 athletes, only nineteen were women. The Olympics have allowed women to ?merge?, thus enabling women to participate in the games and rise to the level that they compete at today, however women are still ?submerged? within the dominant male sport structure, as can be seen with the present imbalance of men?s and women?s events and the significantly higher number of male athletes than females. Though equal participation of male and female athletes needs to be further developed, the mere idea of female participation in organized ?male? sports is social ly and culturally significant by empowering women and breaking barriers that hinder women in all aspects of life. Women have always been regarded as the "weaker" sex and the role of the woman was always to be submissive, passive and obedient to men. With sports, women hardly had a role at all until the twentieth century. Using the Olympics as an example, female athletes were not even considered at the onset of the modern games, and when they were allowed to compete in the second games in the 1900s, their presence was not taken seriously, only nineteen women competed, and only in three sporting events: golf, archery, and tennis. However, the "merging" of women into the Olympic games has come a long way, as can... .... This problem is not one that can easily be solved. Until everyone, including women, unlearns the stereotypes, which hinder women all around the world, something as simple as women playing sports will not fully be embraced or accepted. The merging of female athletes into male sporting arenas has been a milestone in illustrating women's capabilities, but we are still only partway there. As is illustrated through the submerging of women in the Olympics, women are still not social equals to men. Countries that restrict women to the extreme still thrive and refuse to allow women to pursue sports because of the cultural beliefs, and even in democratic societies women are still not regarded as equal to men. Until the idea of equality is truly accepted by society, women's sports will always be submerged, not only on the playing field, but in the entire realm of life. Still No Equality for Women in Sports Essays -- Argumentative Persuasi Still No Equality for Women in Sports Throughout the history of women in sports, women had to ?merge? then ?submerge? with male dominated sports organizations and structures in order to participate. The Olympic Games is a key example of women have to merge and submerge with a male dominated organization. The first modern Olympics, held in 1896, did not allow women participants. And when women were allowed to participate, in 1900, it was in only three sports and out of the 1,225 athletes, only nineteen were women. The Olympics have allowed women to ?merge?, thus enabling women to participate in the games and rise to the level that they compete at today, however women are still ?submerged? within the dominant male sport structure, as can be seen with the present imbalance of men?s and women?s events and the significantly higher number of male athletes than females. Though equal participation of male and female athletes needs to be further developed, the mere idea of female participation in organized ?male? sports is social ly and culturally significant by empowering women and breaking barriers that hinder women in all aspects of life. Women have always been regarded as the "weaker" sex and the role of the woman was always to be submissive, passive and obedient to men. With sports, women hardly had a role at all until the twentieth century. Using the Olympics as an example, female athletes were not even considered at the onset of the modern games, and when they were allowed to compete in the second games in the 1900s, their presence was not taken seriously, only nineteen women competed, and only in three sporting events: golf, archery, and tennis. However, the "merging" of women into the Olympic games has come a long way, as can... .... This problem is not one that can easily be solved. Until everyone, including women, unlearns the stereotypes, which hinder women all around the world, something as simple as women playing sports will not fully be embraced or accepted. The merging of female athletes into male sporting arenas has been a milestone in illustrating women's capabilities, but we are still only partway there. As is illustrated through the submerging of women in the Olympics, women are still not social equals to men. Countries that restrict women to the extreme still thrive and refuse to allow women to pursue sports because of the cultural beliefs, and even in democratic societies women are still not regarded as equal to men. Until the idea of equality is truly accepted by society, women's sports will always be submerged, not only on the playing field, but in the entire realm of life.

Tony Kytes the Arch Deceiver and Spiv in Love :: Arch deceiver Spiv Essays Kytes

Tony Kytes' the Arch Deceiver and Spiv in Love The Arch Deceiver is set in the 1980's as well as Spiv in love. During the 1980's men had all power, control and respect. Men controlled the world and women. In these times women relied on men for survival. But later on in the century women became more independent and worked and could live for themselves without having to lean on the shoulder of a man, due to this they also earned more respect from men. It was also harder for men to win women's hearts, as women didn't feel it was a must to be committed to someone. Women also began to have almost an equal amount of power. This led to women's expectations rising. Tony Kytes seems to fall in love with three different women and cannot help himself. He is looking for commitment and marriage but cannot decide what he is going to do about it. He cannot decide what woman to go for. He has no morals or logic. He is a very sly and cunning young man and a very good liar and knows that he has all the power but is not quite in control of everything. He constantly lies throughout the story; for example, 'You didn't really mean what you said to them'. 'Not a word of'. This is when he asked Milly to marry his last and lied about his meaning what he said. His confrontations with each woman results in putting him in a worse situation than what he was in before as he lies to them all the time. Although he has bad attributes he is also a loving man and does actually want commitment and marriage but just deals with the situation in the wrong way. The women in Tony Kytes know that the men are in control and they get what they want. This is usual for them as their fathers own them and will give them away if he wishes. It is also recognisable that the women in Arch Deceiver want commitment so badly that hey are prepared to go to any lengths for commitment from a man. The women in Tony Kytes really love men. They treat men very well and would do anything for commitment. They are very truthful to the men and upfront about their feelings. They all want courtship and would compete between themselves to achieve commitment from the men. On the other hand, they are not as good as it seems. The women are hard to please, as they are always demanding for things such as commitment and favours so on.

Drug Enforcement :: essays research papers fc

What we Prohibit We Cannot Control: Restriction Before Education?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is a definite problem regarding the laws that enforce drug use in the United States today. Think about this question. Why are some of the most injurious, addictive, and mind altering substances in the world--tobacco and alcohol--legal, while other drugs are illegal that potentially cause no harm and have very little abuse?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The United States has declared 178 substances illegal. These substances are believed to be so dangerous that they are controlled at the highest level for medical use or forbidden outright, even for medical research. Remarkably many of these substances are not physically harmful and have never caused a death. Every year, legal drug use results in about fifteen percent of all hospital admissions, with one hundred thirty six billion dollars in medical costs. It seems odd, then, to make such a big distinction between legal and illegal drugs regarding the law.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A startling fact, Congressman Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, proposed legislation that would impose the death penalty for people caught carrying as little as two ounces of marijuana. He excused his own past marijuana use by explaining that pot smoking â€Å"was a sign that we were alive and in graduate school in that era.† Prison sentences for being caught with a large amount of marijuana are ten years, mandatory minimum, with no parole allowed. A prison sentence for murder six point three years. That is the average served, with parole allowed. The average sentence for a first time, non-violent drug offender is longer than for rape, child molestation, bank robbery, or manslaughter.(Gahlinger 2) This is an appalling statistic. The government is enforcing harsher punishment on a marijuana smoker compared to a murderer!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The government is filling prisons with drug offenders that will not learn anything while there. Most likely when their term in prison is over they will go back to the same thing that they were doing before they went in to the system. Billions of tax payer dollars are keeping these drug offenders behind bars when a drug treatment program could be helping them to correct current addictive behavior and how to curtail their thoughts and actions to a more positive lifestyle. While the government puts one drug offender away another one is ready to step up to the plate and replace him or her. This is a never ending cycle. â€Å"Why do we not speak of ski abuse or a chain saw problem?

Proposing a Solution: Bullying Essay

Bullying among American elementary, middle and high school students is a growing problem. Bullying has been defined many ways, by many people. One definition is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power. (stopbullying.org). Bullying is a very negative act and honestly needs to be stopped. This essay will provide my solution for the growing bullying problem in our schools. Over the years, bullying has become more and more of a problem. More children are becoming victims of this often tragic problem today than ever before. Honestly, anyone can become a victim of bullying but there has been a rise in bullying among LGTB, lesbian-gay-transgendered-bi-sexual, students, as well as children who are considered to be of special needs. (Bullying statistics). There are many causes for bullying, which in order to be able to handle and fix the problem, must be dealt with before a solution can take effect. These causes may include: poverty, problems or abuse within the home, a feeling of power from age or body size, provocative or â€Å"annoying† victims, and a need to feel better about themselves as a person. (Cheever, Jenny). Bullying, especially in schools is a serious problem that occurs almost on a daily basis. Bullying can happen anywhere and at any time. In schools it can happen on the playground, the cafeteria, hallways, buses and even in the classroom. Bullying is serious and can lead to many often tragic problems. Sadly, bullying happens more than people really want to believe. According to studies shown on Bullying Statistics.org, at least 60% of middle school children say they have been bullied, only 16% of their teachers actually believe students are bullied, and 160,000 students who have been or are bullied stay at home each day because of bullying. (Bullying statistics.org). Bullying is becoming more and more extreme. More students are taking drastic measures because they feel they have no one to turn to. According to the center for disease control, suicide is the third leading cause of death among school aged children today. (Bullying statistics.org). In fact, according to several studies, 20% of high school students have seriously considered suicide in the last year as an option alternate to being bullied, almost 7% have actually attempted it, and suicide results in about 4,400 deaths per year among young people. (Burns, Tim). The need for bullying to be stopped is strong, and the only way this can be achieved is if parents, students, and educators as a whole begin working together. Students can help solve the bullying problem by banding together and reporting any incidents of bullying they see, including kids who seem like outcasts into their friendship circles, also using the acronym â€Å"steer clear†: Stick up for one another, Travel in a group, Empathize, Explore your choices, Resist using fists, Calm down, Leave, Enlist the help of others, Assert yourself, and Report incidents could help tremendously. Parents can help by: talking to their children, keeping lines of communication between themselves, their kids and the schools open, developing a personal safety plan and empowering their kids to openly talk about bullying with teachers and administrators. Schools can ultimately eradicate bullying by: promoting tolerance within the school and community, create anti-bullying policies in both the classroom and the school, teach students how to handle bullying the right way, and what I believe to be the most important solution; teaching students and teachers alike the importance of stopping and reporting bullying immediately. (Thinkquest.org). Bullying is extremely negative and honestly needs to be stopped as soon as possible, I think if we all band together and do what we can to implement these solutions we can end this problem immediately.