PART ADo the right thing – Deontology”According to the Oxford Dictionary, greed by definition is “intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.” Today, many people argue that greed is bad since it wrecks human morals and some argue it’s a great thing for mankind since it motivates individuals. I personally believe greed is a good thing, of course depending on how you use your greedy attitude and there is such a good thing as good greed. As we’ve seen in the videos, Gordon Gekko stated “Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” He is absolutely correct, without greed we wouldn’t have the technology, materials and lifestyle we have today! Without greed, a society will have no reason to achieve higher or for the better and there will be no need for change since we don’t desire anything. History has shown that the economic benefits or greed promotes a societies needs to survive and abandonment of such ideals has only lead to vulnerability of such societies in falling into poverty and unstable environment. Greed can and does motivate societies, individuals, communities and governments.
Duty for Kant is the underlying role of morality. Our duty and intentions combine to form our will, and the only one thing in the world that is good is a good will. To act according to duty means we are acting according to principals, not according to the final outcome of our actions. Principals is another important factor in this theory, our actions must be congruent with principals that can be made universal. To be universal, the maxim must apply to absolutely everyone, everywhere, and anytime.
Another stipulation in Kant’s theory is that we should never treat a person solely as a means to our own ends. It is morally wrong to use someone solely to enhance our own self-interest.Kant’s first formulation of his Categorical Imperative says: “Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” and only if the maxim passes through all four steps can it be said to be moral. Kant would have been against Gekko’s speech and would have said it’s immoral because there only people that were benefiting from Teldar Paper were shareholders and so it’s high likely that the maxim of greed being good will be conceivable in the world ruled by the universal law by Kant’s categorical imperative “ME, ME, ME! – Egoism”On egoism – It is all about him, he boast about his accomplishments and achievements, how he was responsible for earning people millions of dollars on the deals that he made. This also come forward in part where he say that he is a liberator of companies and not a destroyer. Gekko’s speech reflects more on psychological egoism where humans are always motivated by self-interest. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so.
Gekko proclaims greed is good and this view is commonly attributed to Adam Smith’s famous invisible hand; but by means of this “invisible hand” the selfish person’s actions actually result in an end that is not just his own gain or security. Individual self-interest (possibly greed) in a free market leads to the wealth of society as a whole – the nation.Fair’s Fair-Distributive Justice Gekko says that Teldar Paper had 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand and while he examined what they were doing but still couldn’t figure it out, makes him think that they did not deserve to benefit from it and that the money should rather be distributed back to shareholders than to minority holders. PART B Summarize the opinion you expressed in Assignment 4My opinion for Assignment 4My opinion was completely compatible on Assignment 2 as I said that I think this is not moral for Whitey Basson to earn so much money.
There’s a lack of equality in society and it’s a major issue in our country and around the world. We learned recently from our political parties that many of the social problems in our county causes by lack of equality amongst the poor and rich people so this does not solve the problem.My opinion in assignment 4 and what is being said in Gekko speech are totally incompatible I believe that greed sometimes drives people to do unethical, immoral, and illegal things in the pursuit of more money. It has no useful purpose except to become rich and to continue getting wealthier.
