An Analysis of Moll Flanders Essay -- Moll Flanders Essays

An Analysis of Moll Flanders    The novel is about the realistic experiences of a woman in the underworld of 18th century London. She is anonymous, Moll Flanders being a pseudonym which she adopts when she needs an alternative identity for her criminal life.    She has no family, having been abandoned by her own mother - a transported felon, and her upbringing, education, social position and material well - being are all constantly precarious.    She lives in a hostile, urban world, which allows for no weakness. Social position and wealth are the dominant factors for survival. She has neither and her life is a struggle to achieve both. She is clever and persevering, always alert to opportunity and she survives and becomes rich, although after a life fraught with difficulty, much of it of her own making.    Defoe's novel gives us a clear sense of daily life and the anxieties attendant on economic and social uncertainty and he displays a clear understanding of female specifics, in a criminal world. Defoe himself was an 'outsider'. A Londoner who often had to live by his wits, pursued by creditors and spending time in Newgate prison for debt. His own honesty was at times rather dubious.    He writes accurate social history in a fictional form. The social details in 'Moll Flanders' are very accurate, even those set in Virginia and the novel is also politically and economically structured.    The themes of the novel, in part, are transgression, repentance and redemption, which are to be expected, given Defoe's Dissenting background. Moll's fortunes do not prosper in the 'Babylon' of London, but in Virginia, in the 'New' world. Perhaps Defoe was suggesting, like hi... ...ly innocent, despite her adventures and her chosen lifestyle as a master criminal. Defoe shows us the two sides of her character in constant opposition. On the one hand, she can be thrifty, cold and efficient and on the other, reckless, excited and bold. She is never dull. Again, Defoe makes no moral judgement, but leaves the reader to make his own.    The novel is structured so that we see a series of parodies of tragic situations, which often become almost bizarre in their comic absurdity. Moll sometimes behaves insensitively, or even in a completely callous way, but Defoe's heroine is never contemptible, eagerly thrusting from one experience to the next. The novel has a deep intensity of experience. Moll's emotions, too are mixed and unstable, but she always recognises and articulates them, even if she does not show complete understanding of them.

Global Ethics and Social Responsibility

Global Ethics and Social Responsibility While conducting work in any type of business setting there is always ethical and social responsibilities that we all must face at one time or another. From big business to small local own businesses, it is important that knowing the right from wrong is very important. This would include training for both management and staff. Companies have a more extensive ethical and social responsibility training programs when their business expands to other countries.The relationship with the partner nation is so important, the company hold their personnel to more strict standards as compared to their home nation. Corporate or Business ethics is the study and examination of moral and social responsibility in relation to business practices and decision-making in business (Dictionary. com's). To put the definition to test, let’s examine the memorable Gulf Oil Spill. The world waited for BP Oil Corps’ reactions and responds to the oil spill in t he Gulf. BP Public Relations survey the situation, waited for more facts and then after the some of the smoke cleared made a statement as early as possible.The first items that BP addresses were the safety of the crew on the platform, the platform and then the pipe beneath the platform. As time passed, BP later address the lost income of local fisherman, restaurants, hotels and other local small businesses that depended on the Gulf that supplied fresh seafood and tourist to their beautiful shores yearly. Income lost due to oil showing up on the shores and affecting local wildlife, decreased the business for most coastal towns. BP had a plan for clean up, they hired the same out of work people due to the Gulf Spill to help clean up the Gulf shore line.How is this global ethics? BP is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas â €Å"supermajors†. It is vertically-integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, including in biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind power.BP has operations in over 80 countries produces around 3. 8  million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 22,400 service stations worldwide. Its largest division is BP America, which is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the United States and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. As at 31 December 2010 BP had total proven commercial reserves of 18. 07  billion barrels of oil equivalent. The name â€Å"BP† derives from the initials of one of the company's former legal names, British Petroleum. BP's track record of corporate social responsibility has been mixed.The company has been involved in a number of major environmental and safety inci dents and received criticism for its political influence. However, in 1997 it became the first major oil company to publicly acknowledge the need to take steps against climate change, and in that year established a company-wide target to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. BP currently invests over $1  billion per year in the development of renewable energy sources, and has committed to spend $8  billion on renewable in the 2005 to 2015 period].BP's primary listing is on the London Stock Exchange and it is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index (wikipedia. org). Even though BP exercise Global Business ethics and social responsibility were they mandated to? Maybe on cleanup of the beaches and there may have been some punitive cost but that would have all been regulative but not from the men and women that run BP. Even though there are laws to regulate environmental and human rights violations but there are no global law for ethical business or social responsibility. Organizati ons are left to police themselves.There have been some organizations like the Carnegie Council, the World Economic Forum and Business Ethics (The Magazine) that has been leading the way to openly set forth standards for businesses, big and small to be accountable. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has drafted a pledged which was developed into The Global Business Oath. In January of 2010, WEF was feature in Business Ethics Magazine: Over the past year they drafted a set of principles – the Global Business Oath – and they’ve been testing the content and implementation ever since. And now it’s ready for pledging.While some might consider the proposal by the young global leaders a bit naive, the bigger question is how many older, more experienced, business leaders will be signing on. Will Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, attempt to get JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to take the Oath? How about Deutsche Bank’s Josef Akermann? More than 200 leaders have already pledged to lead their organizations according to these principles, according to the WEF, and over the course of 2010 â€Å"the YGL Oath Task Force will be looking to expand the reach and impact of the oath. (Conner, Business Ethics Magazine). The oath is below. As a business leader I recognize that †¢ The enterprise I lead must serve the greater good by bringing together people and resources to create value that no single individual can create alone, †¢ My decisions can have far-reaching consequences that affect the wellbeing of individuals inside and outside my enterprise, today and tomorrow, †¢ As I reconcile the interests of different constituencies, I will face choices that are not easy for me and others.So I promise that 1. I will manage my enterprise diligently and in good faith and will not let personal considerations and compensation supersede the long-term interest of my enterprise and society at large, 2. I will understand and uphold, both in letter and spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise, 3. I will respect and protect the human rights and dignity of all people who are affected by my enterprise and will oppose all forms of discrimination and exploitation, 4.I will respect and protect the right of future generations to enjoy a clean and resourceful planet, 5. I will not engage in nor tolerate bribery or any other form of corruption, 6. I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly to each of the constituencies that are affected by it, 7. I will actively engage in efforts to finding solutions to critical social and environmental issues that are central to my enterprise, and 8. I will invest in my own professional development as well as the development of other managers under my supervision.In exercising my professional duties according to these principles I recognize that my behavior must set an example of integrity and res ponsible conduct. This pledge I make freely and upon my honor. I Pledge While conducting work in any type of business setting there is always ethical and social responsibilities that we all must face at one time or another. Companies have a more extensive ethical and social responsibility training programs when their business expands to other countries. The relationship with the partner nation is so important.There is some training that you can only get from other mistakes and some mistakes we can prevent by just being sensitive to others needs and wants. Cited Page business ethics. (n. d. ). Dictionary. com's 21st Century Lexicon. Retrieved December 07, 2011, from Dictionary. com website: http://dictionary. reference. com/browse/business ethics BP p. l. c (LSE:  BP, NYSE:  BP) wikipedia. org. last modified on 5 December 2011 at 15:21. , from wikipedia. org website: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/BP World Economic Forum: Will Many Take The Global Business Oath? By Conner, Michae l, 26 January 2010 from Business Ethics Magazine

Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy - 1234 Words

In Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes does and experiment with wax to try to prove that things actually exist in this world. This essay is going to prove how we can tell that things actually exist and what can perceive the wax. Rene Descartes starts off with a description of the wax so he can prove to us the changes that will happen throughout his experiment. â€Å"Let us take, for instance, this piece of wax. It has been taken quite recently from the honeycomb; it has not yet lost all the honey flavor. It retains some of the scent of the flowers from which it was collected. Its color, shape, and size are manifest. It is hard and cold; it is easy to touch. If you rap on it with your†¦show more content†¦He then tells us his final perspective on how he perceives the wax. â€Å"It remains then for me to concede that I do not grasp what this wax is through the imagination; rather, I perceive it through the mind alone.† (Descartes, 22) He ends his argument on how he perceives the wax with telling us that it is not our imagination that grasps all of the perceptions of the wax, but the mind that does it. Rene Descartes just proved to us that our imagination is not able to grasp all of the perceptions of the wax but the mind is. After proving that theory he suddenly starts to doubt his proof. â€Å"But meanwhile I marvel a t how prone my mind is to errors.† (Descartes, 22) He states that his mind is prone to making errors. For example; â€Å"For we say we see the wax itself, if it is present, and not that we judge it to be present from its color or shape.† (Descartes, 22) He thinks a mistake our minds make is when we judge that it is wax by just looking at it and not paying any attention to any of the forms. For this reason he is claiming that he still is not sure that the mind can actually perceive the wax due to it making mistakes. Back to what Rene Descartes said earlier about the imagination not being able to grasp all of what we need to perceive about the wax. He told us the imagination was unable to grasp it all but nowShow MoreRelatedMeditations On First Philosophy By Rene Descartes Essay839 Words   |  4 PagesPrà ©ciso of Meditations on First Philosophy Through his series of books, Meditations on First Philosophy, Renà © Descartes enlightens his philosophical ideas about knowledge in which we should discard all belief we aren’t absolute certain about and establishes what we know for sure. In the introduction he clarifying the main ideas of each of the 6 books and using to them build up to his belief. Starting with the First Meditations, he discusses about doubt. He believed that there are no real foundationsRead MoreThe Meditations On First Philosophy By Rene Descartes916 Words   |  4 Pages The Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes is a thorough analysis about doubt. Descartes describes his method of doubt to determine whether he can truly know something. One of his major arguments is the proof of the existence of God. In this paper, I will attempt to unravel the flaws in Descartes proof that God exists. In the meditations, Descartes evaluates whether or not everything we know is a reality or a dream. Descartes claims that we can only be sure that our beliefs are trueRead MoreMeditations On First Philosophy By Rene Descartes1062 Words   |  5 PagesIn Meditations on First Philosophy, Renà © Descartes philosophies made a substantial advancement in enabling us to understand the world around us by querying many of the Aristotelian doctrines that are still being discussed in philosophy today. He attempts to answer the question; can you fully trust your senses? Descartes uses methodological doubt, which is a process of being skeptical about truths of someone’s belief to revoke from his senses. In Meditation One: Concerning Those Things That Can BeRead MoreRene Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy1758 Words   |  8 PagesPerhaps the most startling conclusion reached by Renà © Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy is his proposed disconnection between the Mind and Body. Striving to separate the spiritual from the corporeal to enable scientific examination of the earthly without interference from the divine, Descartes conceives that the two basic human substances, Mind and Body, are distinct and therefore able to exist separate of one another in his [in]famous claim of substance dualism. His conclusions rest uponRead MoreEssay on Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes1561 Words   |  7 Pages In his work, Meditations on First Philosophy, Renà © Descartes writes to rid pre-conceptions, and disprove all belief in thoughts that are not certain, accepting only what can be known for sure. In his Meditation VI: Of the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between the Mind and Body of Man, he discusses his belief that the mind and body are two separate substances, claiming that the nonmaterial mind and the material body, while being ontologically distinct substances, causallyRead MoreRene Descartes s Meditation On First Philosophy802 Words   |  4 PagesRenà © Descartes objective in Meditation on First Philosophy is to construct philosophy as a solid methodical study and discipline alike the sciences. To do so he must first suspend belief in all things doubtful and from their go about verifying the true concepts of the world. In meditation II he verifies that he is a thinking thing and finds that the certainty of the cogito â€Å"I think therefore I am† lies in the distinct perception of what he affirms. From this he generates a general rule of evidenceRead More Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy Essay1946 Words   |  8 PagesRene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy Rene Descartes’ third meditation from his book Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes’ reasoning and proofs of God’s existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God’s existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthfulRead MoreEssay on Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy2121 Words   |  9 Pages  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Descartes believes that knowledge comes from within the mind. This is a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. While seeking true knowledge, Descartes writes his Six Meditations. In these meditations, Descartes tries to develop a strong foundation, which all knowledge can be built upon. In the First Meditation, Descartes begins developing this founda tion through the method of doubt. He casts doubt upon all his previous beliefs, including â€Å"mattersRead MoreAnalysis Of Rene Descartes s Meditations On First Philosophy 1399 Words   |  6 PagesPhilosophy Essay 1 Rene Descartes was born in in La Haye, France, in 1596 and he studied at La Fleche Jesuit College and University of Poitiers. Descartes also lived in Germany, Holland and Sweden. He then worked in the army as a private councillor and then as a court philosopher. Descartes book ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’ was first published in 1641. The edition used to write this essay was edited by John Cottingham and was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1996. Descartes wasRead MoreAnalysis Of Rene Descartes s Meditations On First Philosophy1066 Words   |  5 Pageswhat is reality? Among these writers were Renà ¨ Descartes and George Berkeley, who respectively argued that everything perceived must be real due to God being unable to deceive, and that the physical world only exists in one’s mind. In my view, it is not certain that the physical world is real, but one should act as if it is. Renà ¨ Descartes, in Meditations on First Philosophy, wrote each section after successive â€Å"meditations.† In Descartes’s first meditation, he claims it is unable to be proven whether