Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Media - Essay Example They target almost everyone. In the recent past, advertisers have tremendously shifted their focus to children. Eric Schlosser’s through his article tries to bring to our attention how today child advertising is in high note through the various tactics marketers and advertisers are using to get today children to always want and thus in that context demand for their products (Schlosser 356). Eric brings to our attention that advertisers know that if the children saw their advertisement and which are appealing to them, they will with no doubt nag their parent to get the products for them. Again, through the article, we find how advertisers have begun using catching songs and cartoon characters to attract children. Today’s young generation have changed tremendously through media especially through advertisements, as observed by Eric Schlosser’s essay, today even products that young children at their tender age, who are not allowed to access some products such as cig arettes, companies are still coming with ways of developing unique advertisements that are aimed at targeting the children. These companies intelligently achieve this by changing the packaging around these products and go a step further to ensure that they develop iconic symbols on these products so that the children will recognize them even in future. This, they do putting in mind that even though the children will not necessarily access this at young age they will with no doubt remember them from the same advertisements they saw years ago when they were still young. Clearly it is with no doubt that that media has more negatives than positives effects on today’s young people. As a matter of fact, it is in my opinion that media has a tremendously negatives effects on our young children (Johnson 2011). From the article â€Å"Television: The Plug-In Drug† by Marie Winn, we find that today, the television has invaded most family both in known and unknown territories. This is characterized with wake up, go to school, watch television and thereafter retire to bed and this is the pattern in many families today. Almost every family today has a television set on their household and this has led many families dynamic to suffer. Watching television has clearly become the norm in almost every family today and this is leading to loss of touch such the quality of sharing a meal together, going out on holiday and vacations (Winn 457). Television has unknowingly eliminated most of the individuality enjoyed aspect of families and has in turn managed to create a boring uniformity, which is experienced with all families that watches the television. Television also affects how today’s children communicate with other people in the society, it’s evident that a child who spend his/her all day indoors watching television will have difficulties in maintaining eye conducts, and even of great concern failure to maintain conversations and even trust the same people in the society. I strongly believe that in today’s world the media is changing our young people, the family as a whole and even culture and more so education. As observed from Marie Winn’s article, television is invading many families; it is interfering with our today’s culture and eroding most of the family’s rituals in a faster way. Today television denies the families an opportunity to share their daily experiences and in return build their

Annual Day Essay Example for Free

Annual Day Essay Field trips: Post office, Super market, Traffic Signal, Fire station, Horse stable, Plant nursery, etc. Goals: The goal of MapleBear schools is to establish an enthusiasm for learning and knowledge in young children that will serve as a foundation for future success in the education system and in life. In development of the MapleBear program, we have drawn on the best practices in early childhood teaching and learning. MapleBear recognizes that literacy in English is absolutely fundamental to a childs success in English medium schools. The MapleBear Methodology is based on the well established principle that children learn through experience and exploration. The program reinforces and builds on this positive attitude by offering varied stimulating and enjoyable experiences. The knowledge and skills that children acquire by the end of kindergarten, along with positive attitudes to learning that children develop in these early years form the basis of effective learning in later years of school. Aim: This year our aim is Accelerate Success. We have had a very strong growth year in 2010 and we are continuing to build momentum as we enter 2011. Our vertical segment focus is our children’s key elements en route to their success, Success as your child defines it. Our strategy is working, towards the need of our children resulting in their overall development . Our Facilitators will have a number of opportunities to learn more about our well proven curriculum and its execution. We will share with you our roadmaps, which will allow you to interact, involve and participate as parents. In the past year, we have achieved our mile stones and are setting much more aggressive mile stones for this year. We are open for ideas, suggestions feedback from you. We want to Initiate, Analyze and Implement. To do this, we need Innovation, freshness. Please partner with us in this journey to Accelerate your child’s Success.

The Customer Supply Chain Business Essay

The Customer Supply Chain Business Essay The report consists of a project entitled Pillsbury: Customer Driven Reengineering undertaken as a part of the course curriculum for the subject Business Process Reengineering (BPR). As a part of this project, after reading the case, a discussion took place between all the group members so as to clearly identify the problem definition. As a next step, discussion of the various issues faced by Pillsbury were discusses followed by the evaluation of the efforts undertaken by it. Competitive pressures, technology advances, and demanding consumer preferences were causing all companies in the food industry to reexamine their operations and attempt to eliminate waste and inefficiency throughout the food chain. The Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) effort was a multi-industry project, ECRs goals were to reduce costs and drive inventory levels down throughout the system, while simultaneously enhancing capabilities to meet the needs of diverse consumer market segments. Pillsbury executives were unsure whether their company was prepared for the new ECR environment. So, this report basically includes the entire experience involved in undertaking the planning of BPR at Pillsbury and the various phases it went through during the transition and the challenge faced by it i.e. whether to go for a continuous improvement program having a short term view or a redesign of processes which was more futuristic. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY To understand the practical implementation of BPR classroom concepts To understand the degree of complexity involved in planning BPR implementation To understand the importance of customer driven reengineering approach in order to adopt a pull strategy for the entire supply chain i.e. better matching Pillsburys purchasing, manufacturing, and distribution operations to consumers purchases To understand how to use the available resources in an optimum manner To understand the implications of a continuous improvement program Vs Redesign of processes. To understand the importance and criticality of various performance measures like ABC costing. COMPANY INTRODUCTION Pillsbury  is a brand name used by  Minneapolis-based  General Mills  and  Orrville, Ohio-based  J.M. Smucker Company. Historically, the  Pillsbury Company, also based in Minneapolis, was a rival company to General Mills and was one of the worlds largest producers of  grain  and other foodstuffs until it was bought-out by General Mills in 2001.  Antitrust  law required General Mills to sell off some of the products. General Mills kept the rights to refrigerated and frozen Pillsbury products, while dry  baking  products and frosting are now sold by Smucker under license. Leo Burnett  who created Pillsburys  Doughboy  and  Jolly Green Giant  considers them two of the agencys top five brand icons. ProdPack-Pillsbury-Cakemix-Small.jpg NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS Pillsbury once claimed to have the largest grain  mill  in the world at the  Pillsbury A Mill  overlooking  Saint Anthony Falls  on the  Mississippi River  in Minneapolis. The building had two of the most powerful direct-drive  waterwheels  ever built, each putting out 1200  horsepower  (900  kW). There are now plans to convert it into a loft-style apartment building. The Cunningham Group plans to convert six historic buildings to a mixed-use project varying from 6 to 27 floors in height. The project will include 895 units of housing and 175,000 square feet (16,300  m2) of commercial space, including the Pillsbury A Mill. HISTORY The company originated in 1869 when  Charles A. Pillsbury  bought a share in a Minneapolis flour mill. After the purchase of additional mills and the introduction of enhancements to the milling process, his firm was reorganized in 1872 as C.A. Pillsbury and Company. It was sold in 1889 to an English syndicate, which merged Pillsbury with other mills in their holdings to form Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company, Ltd., with Charles Pillsbury as managing director. The Pillsbury family regained ownership of the company in the 1920s, and it was incorporated as Pillsbury Flour Mills Company in 1935. In 1972 Pillsbury began purchasing  Burger King fast-food outlets, and it soon came to own the entire chain. Through the  Green Giant Company, acquired in 1979, it began marketing canned and frozen vegetables and frozen prepared foods. It also acquired Hà ¤agen-Dazs, maker of premium ice cream and frozen yogurt, in 1983. Pillsbury was owned by British company Grand Metropolitan, PLC (renamed Diageo PLC) from 1989 to 2001, when  General Mills  acquired most of Pillsburys assets (Burger King remained as a separate division of Diageo until 2002). The Hà ¤agen-Dazs brand was marketed through a joint licensing agreement with  Nestlà ©Ã‚  and General Mills. PRODUCTS The company manufactures a wide variety of consumer food products under the Pillsbury brand, including frozen biscuits and rolls, breakfast foods, cookie dough, cake mixes, and snack foodhttp://s3.amazonaws.com/gmi-digital-library/8b86b131-cccf-4292-b584-d216cf00fdd7.jpgBiscuitsBreads Grands! ® Cinnamon RollsCinnamon RollsBuffalo Chicken Crescent PuffsReady To Bake! ® Partner BrandsStrawberry Marshmallow Pie Biscuits, pies, flour, pizza crust, cookies, crescents, cinnamon rolls and various partner brands like Green Giant and Cascadian Farm. CASE INTRODUCTION Pillsbury entered Customer Driven reengineering initiative expecting to achieve significant levels of cost reduction and efficiency. To its delight, it also discovered a new way to compete. Competitive pressures, technology advances, and demanding consumer preferences were causing all companies in the food industry to reexamine their operations and attempt to eliminate waste and inefficiency throughout the food chain. The Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) effort was a multi-industry project .ECRs goals were to reduce costs and drive inventory levels down throughout the system, while simultaneously enhancing capabilities to meet the needs of diverse consumer market segments. Pillsbury executives were unsure whether their company was prepared for the new ECR environment. The executives perceived that Pillsbury lacked several critical capabilities to win in this new environment. In 1991, Dan Crowley as Controller of Green Giant, had launched an activity-based cost (ABC) initiative to examine the groups high cost structure. The study revealed startling plant-to-plant variations in costs for essentially the same process, large dispersion of actual costs from the companys standard cost per case. In August 1993, Crowley and Slocumb took a BPR proposal to CEO, Paul Walshs, Strategy and Policy Group, which comprised the division presidents of Pillsburys major business units and the top functional department heads. The proposal identified a process which would complement Pillsburys existing strategic plan to achieve top quartile financial performance amongst its strategic peers. The case describes the various efforts undertaken by Pillsbury during this transition and the various phases of the reengineering problem detailing various activities undertaken in every phase. The major challenge faced has been a choice between redesign of processes or continuous improvement because the target set in the earlier stages seemed a bit too achievable in the later stages NEED FOR REENGINEERING Customers perceived Pillsbury as an average company, not the best, not the worst, and without much innovation. John Mann, Senior Vice President and General Sales Manager, and another newcomer to the Pillsbury senior management team, concurred with McWilliams assessment: We were viewed as a laid-back Midwestern company, one that found it difficult to create a sense of urgency.McWilliams felt that Pillsbury had to become a different company if it was to change the perception of customers. Pillsbury executives were unsure whether their company was prepared for the new ECR environment. The executives perceived that Pillsbury lacked several critical capabilities to win in this new environment. First, the company was still organized according to traditional functional lines: purchasing, operations, distribution, finance, and marketing and sales. This organization led to local excellence and optimization of the individual functions but not necessarily to the optimization of the entire value chain. Second, the companys financial measurements and performance measurement system reinforced local optimization. The food market had become fragmented and the majority decisions taken by the consumer were made in the retail environment diluting the effect of the brand image. Thus Pillsbury had another challenge to transform its arms length relationship with the retailers (transaction based) to relationship oriented. DRIVERS FOR BPR AT PILLSBURY Highly competitive environment. Pillsbury lacking the necessary capabilities to compete in such environment. Lack of optimization of the entire value chain. The need to transform the arms length relationship with the retailers. To have an Information system to enable fact based marketing To develop a customer driven supply chain i.e. transition from push to pull strategy of supply chain Eye opening results of activity based costings. The project team prepared the classic ABC whale curve which showed a few product lines producing all the profits, with the remaining SKUs either breaking-even or losing money. Based on the insights from the ABC analysis, Green Giant management closed about a half dozen plants and consolidated operations more efficiently in the remaining plants. Crowley then took on a broader finance role within Pillsbury as Operations Controller and extended the ABC analysis to many of the dough manufacturing plants. Pillsbury now had good insights about the cost drivers for its cost of goods sold. The weak link was developing comparable information for its warehouse, sales, marketing, and promotion expenses. It had no ability to trace these expenses to its customers so that it could produce individual customer PLs. Skepticism that TQM was delivering its promised benefits to the PL bottom line within a reasonable time frame. For example, an internal study compared companies known to have adopted TQM principles with a control sample of non- TQM companies. The study found no discernible difference in financial performance between the two sets of companies. PROCESS MAPPINGS VISION: Crowley and Slocumbs vision of a potential for 15% cost improvement (about $300 million) in a staid and mature food processing company was met with some understandable skepticism and disbelief. Despite that, Walsh and his management team provided to Crowley and Slocumb a modest budget and 90 days to develop a business case to determine whether a $300 million cost reduction was possible. Crowley was appointed to a new position, Vice President for Customer Driven Reengineering, and Slocumb became Vice President for Business Process Reengineering. The business case was to focus on cost and margin improvements in three major divisions: Pillsbury branded products, the Green Giant products, and the frozen pizza businesses. These businesses had $2.5 billion of sales in Fiscal Year 1994. Reengineering: Phase I The Pillsbury team selected a consulting firm to work with them to help build the business case. Three months of analysis led to identifying three core business processes that offered targets for improvement: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Customer Supply Chain à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Brand Management à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ New Product Commercialization The Customer Supply Chain (CSC) was decomposed into three sub-processes: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Total Customer Development à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Fast Flow Demand Replenishment à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Value Based Sourcing and Supply The team then proceeded to identify the opportunities for process improvement within each of the three CSC sub-processes. C:UsersdellDesktop9-c89015168d.jpg C:UsersdellDesktop10-19289f286e.jpg Value Based Sourcing And Supply The third CSC sub-process, Value Based Sourcing and Supply, focused on Pillsburys extremely complex system of vendors and sourcing arrangements for its more than $500 million of raw material purchases. Historically, Pillsbury had reduced its material costs by exerting price pressure on its suppliers. Further gains from such price pressure were considered limited. The project team believed that more flexible and robust ingredient specification would allow them to select more efficient vendors, and that additional gains could be realized by leveraging vendor resources and knowledge. To gain these benefits, however, vendors would have to become partners with Pillsbury in a total cost reduction process. Cost savings from Value Based Sourcing and Supply were estimated at about $40 million (around 8% of purchases), plus savings in working capital reduction of about $14million. Outputs of phase 1: A business plan that promised margin improvements through cost reductions and revenue enhancements of more than $100 million, plus reductions in working capital of about $25 million. Reengineering: Phase II Phase II was launched in January 1994 to determine whether the business case developed in Phase I was feasible and realistic. About 25 Pillsbury employees, supported by the external consultants, spent four months analyzing customer data bases on more than 100 top accounts, conducted in-depth interviews with key customers and suppliers, and mapping and assessing the state of all existing internal business processes in the customer supply chain. The study of internal processes revealed highly complex, time-consuming processes with dozens of handoffs, and multiple recycling of requests for decisions and resource authorizations. The customer interviews revealed that important food retailers, wholesalers, and brokers were moving aggressively forward with plans for category management. Category management promised to give retailers far more effective management capabilities over their store shelf space allocations, SKU rationalization, and demographic marketing plans. The Phase II studies confirmed the vision established at the end of Phase I (see Exhibit 17) that reengineering the customer supply chain could provide upwards of $100 million in benefits. About half would come from working more closely with customers-adopting a more focused customer segmentation strategy, targeted marketing using local demographic information on consumer purchasing behavior, and exploiting store-specific cost and profitability information to promote the most profitable mix of brands and SKUs for both Pillsbury and the local store. The other half would come from better managing Pillsburys entire supply chain-from growers and other key vendors, through manufacturing, transportation and distribution to warehouses and individual stores. It needed to take activity-based costing (ABC) down to retail store level PLs. The old financial model calculated standard costs per case and produced product line PLs. The new model will measure activity-based costs of entire processes and give Pillsbury customer PLs. Service based pricing: shifting its pricing focus so that it can charge more for special services that some of our customers may desire but that others do not want. It can define a base level of service that everyone receives, with an explicit statement of what that includes. Major change in measurement: performance measurements will need to be driven by customers and consumers expectations THE CHALLENGE In June 1994, the Pillsbury team had completed the customer analysis and was ready to move into redesign. Before the meeting to present the findings and recommendations to the Integration Committee, Slocumb expressed some concern about the current set of recommendations. The business case to achieve $100 million in cost savings and margin enhancements was then credible. But the target may be too reachable. People may obtain the $100 million in cost savings from local process improvements, not from the complete redesign of its high-level business processes that were described in Phase I. the target of $100 million had come to be the objective rather than the fundamental redesign of our Customer Supply Chain. If we get $100 million in benefits, thats certainly a worthy goal, but it will not redefine the organization. We have a choice whether to be a company with a $25 stock price, or take the actions that will take us to a $50 stock price., Tom Debrowski, Senior Vice President of Operations and Chairman of the Integration Committee DECISION Pillsbury should be re-designing the organization around customer and consumer values to create a new and sustainable competitive advantage. It should strive to be the best in providing the freshest product at the lowest cost to retailers along with unique consumer insights from its superior information systems. It can achieve the $100 million without redefining the way they do business. But to achieve the $300 million, it will have to become a very different supply organization. It will have to get the supply chain to a high level of competitive fitness by getting cost savings that will make it more efficient than its competitors, and, then generating growth through its value-added consumer insights, getting the right product to the shelf at the right time at low cost to the retailers. The largest barrier for achieving this level of competitive fitness is introducing and managing change. Multi-skilled, multi-functional teams, including finance, need to be working with our customers. SOLUTION To achieve the $300 million improvements, Pillsbury needed to approach the organization with a completely open mind, to think the unthinkable. It will force it to think completely out of the box if they are going to achieve benefits of that magnitude. They need to stop managing individual functional departments, and begin to manage core operating processes. With the old model, the manufacturer, the distributor, and the retailer each attempts to optimize its own operations. The new way, through reengineering, should enable them to optimally source raw materials, convert to finished goods, distribute to trade customers, and sell to consumers in ways that minimize total system cost. By determining who can do each process in the chain most efficiently, it can let that process get done only once, at the most efficient site. That way it can eliminate waste from the system. REENGINEERING EVALUATION The success needs the following. The Analysis, Design and Prototype yielded the pain areas and laid out the broad road maps. But implementation needs the following to be successful Senior management must drive reengineering initiatives with a well-articulated vision that is appropriate for the situation. IT is an undervalued asset that can be tapped through reengineering to transform a company from a make-and-sell-oriented enterprise to a sense-and-respond-oriented enterprise. Successful implementation of reengineering projects requires the involvement and participation of the companys managers and employees. Consultants and outsourcing are important for various aspects of a reengineering project, but they are insufficient without the buy-in from managers and professionals in the organization. Business process can be streamlined or reengineered, but to change the long-term economic picture, a transformation initiative needs to encompass the reevaluation of communication systems and the sharing of intellectual assets. The organization should have a clear target in mind, whether it is to incorporate a continuous improvement philosophy or a complete redesign of processes. AFTER EFFECTS OF REENGINEERING EFFORTS During the last three years, the entire strategic direction of the company has changed. Selling off the flour mills was an epochal event. It was a major cultural shock to many people inside and outside the organization who thought of Pillsbury as a vertically-integrated flour manufacturing company. They have demonstrated that they can become a consumer-based company that is prepared to get out of operations that do not add value. An integration of the entire value chain was the target driven by the customers leading to a pull based strategy. Information systems were to enhance the communication capabilities to incorporate fact based marketing. Major cultural change was seen with the relationship with the customers transforming from merely an arms length relationship Major improvements in expenses and profitability were expected rendering Pillsbury with the capabilities required in such competitive environment. CONCLUSION The problems initially faced by Pillsbury required a complete redesign of the processes and not merely a continuous improvement effort. Thus the decision taken by the management to extend the target to $300 million was a correct decision if a long term view was to be considered. The major changes that were to incorporated as a result of this BPR effort were necessary for Pills burry to have the necessary capabilities to compete in the highly fragmented and competitive market. The reengineering effort was well planned in various phases describing the various considerations of each phase starting with the development of a business case followed by its feasibility analysis. The areas chosen for improvement were Customer Supply Chain Brand Management New Product Commercialization These areas provided great opportunity for integration of the entire value chain and to transform into a pull based value chain with the customer as the major driver. The efforts undertaken have led to great motivation amongst all the stakeholders and they believe that Pillsbury is not a laid back organization anymore. Their customers are enthusiastic about shifting from changing the way they do business together and are willing to endorse new relationships, such as service-based pricing. LEARNINGS The importance of manufacturer-retailer relationship in this highly fragmented market. The difference in continuous improvement efforts and redesign of processes How to approach a BPR problem in a systematic way demarcating the tasks to be done in a particular order in various phases. The importance of techniques like ABC Costing and the utilization of the revelations such techniques make

I am Vietnamese :: first person narrative essay

I sit in solemn silence, wondering if I should even bother with this essay. I am not the ideal Vietnamese child; I am nothing special.Since I was born, English has been my primary language. It is the language I think in, the only language I can express my true emotions. I am an American-born Vietnamese child, proud of my heritage, yet forever attempting to grasp it. I merely know this: my morals and values, instilled in me by Vietnamese tradition make me who I am today. That is why I write, not to win, but to express my pride in my Vietnamese roots. I am Vietnamese. Sometimes, it is hard for me to believe. My grasp of the language is childish at best, and at times, I feel inadequate. It is something that I am ashamed of, yet something I hope to rectify in the future. But I know I am Vietnamese. The ability to overcome hardship, to face fear and succeed is in my blood. As our people have always found light in every bad situation, I was raised to do the same. My ability to speak and write may not be up to par with other Vietnamese children but my heart and spirit will forever be 100% Vietnamese. My parents are the best. They have never ceased to amaze me. I grew up in Allen Parkway, alongside hundreds of other Vietnamese families. My parents worked long hours at their jobs to try and provide for my sisters and me. My mother is a seamstress, working 60-hour weeks. My father is a fisherman. He is gone for a weeks at a time, doing hard physical labor. Whenever I look into his eyes, I begin to cry. I see a man that could have been so much more. He was among the top students in his class. His teachers told him he was destined for greater things. Yet there he stands, in front of my own eyes, a waste of a man. We never had the father and son relationship I have always craved, but my love for him and my mother transcends comprehension. I wish I could say that I had a great upbringing, but I can't. My parents tried their best, but they were hardly ever around. My sisters and I raised ourselves. Among the three of us, the cooking, cleaning and household chores were divided.

Describe the main strengths and weaknesses of Utilitarianism Essay

Strengths * Utilitarianism is simple. It doesn’t have a lot of complex rules, but instead the individual can decide would be the ‘best’, by how it affects others. * It is flexible: no law or principle is unchallengeable. * It allows for circumstance, so you can decide what is the best thing to do given the current circumstance. * It ties in with the Christian ethic of unconditional love, as preached by Jesus. * If someone believes that both lying and breaking promises are acts that are intrinsically wrong, utilitarianism provides a principled way in which they can choose which moral rule to break if forced to make a choice between them. * The emphasis on impartiality, unselfishness and altruism is to be commended. * There is no need to consider precedents as absolute – just because one action worked for someone does not mean that it must be enforced again, when it may not work for someone else. * It is also attractive to secular thinkers, because it makes no grand claims to the supernatural or metaphysical. It appeals to tangible results – the consequences of an action will be perceived. Weaknesses * What do we mean by happiness? What makes us happy? It is hard to define happiness as it varies with person to person. * Should happiness always be pursued? What if we can only be happy if we achieve it in a ‘bad’ way? Like if a murderer is only happy if he kills someone. * How can we say that happiness from one pleasure is greater than from another? There is no way to tell if a genius is any more happy than someone not so clever. * Humans do not always treat each other equal. We care more about the people close to us and would give them more consideration in an ethical dilemma. Some would claim that utilitarians are simply idealistic and unrealistic because they do not accurately evaluate human behaviour and just assume we are all perfect, caring equally for everyone. * It is impossible to be certain about a consequence, which is a general problem with teleological ethics. * It is very difficult to measure pleasure given by any outcome. It will take a great deal of time, thought and study, considering effects on both people and the situation. * Can we compare one person’s happiness to another person’s happiness? * If only the total happiness counts, imagine these two situations: [A] 80% population live very well and are very happy because the other 20% are their slaves. [B] There are no slaves and everyone is happy but not as happy as the 80% in situation A. The total and average happiness in both situations is the same, therefore to a utilitarian there is no difference between the two, and both are equally morally right, but slavery is considered wrong. * Is Act Utilitarianism too demanding? Someone buys a TV for à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½500, which would make them happy; but they could also spend the money saving 1000 lives in Africa. Some Act utilitarians would argue that, yes, we should send most of our money overseas, since that would create the most happiness for the most people, but is that too demanding? * The refusal to acknowledge intrinsically wrong acts: a judge might convict an innocent man in order to prevent a riot that would ensue if he were not convicted – a utilitarian would argue that this is permissible because more people would be made unhappy by the lack of a conviction and the riot; but is it intrinsically wrong to imprison or execute an innocent man? * Act utilitarians might accuse Rule utilitarians of being legalistic: what’s the point, they could say, of following a rule when it is clear that the consequences will decrease happiness? In their view, past experience can only give guidelines, not rules. * Rule utilitarianism may just be act utilitarianism in disguise: all the rules are focussed around the maximisation of happiness. Rule utilitarians believe that the best way to maximise happiness is to maximise happiness with every act- but this is just act utilitarianism. * Human rights, justices, and other such values may not have any place in a utilitarian ethical system if the wishes of the majority override them. * Christians, Muslims, and others of religious faith would argue that god decides what is rights, and what is the best outcome; it is not four humans to try to calculate. * Utilitarianism ignores ‘meaning well’ – benevolent motives. * Utilitarianism â€Å"seems to require more of a human that many are capable of providing† * Just as there are no absolutes for determining acts which are intrinsically wrong, there is also no way to define what is universally good. * There must be sufficient account taken of the minority view – the majority are not always right, even though the satisfaction of their wishes might create the most happiness.

Reasons Why Cloning is Unethical Essay

From the day that ‘Dolly the sheep’ made it to the headline news, the controversy regarding her existence has never ceased. It is quite amazing, how the issues surrounding a sheep could create such a great divide on public opinion, stir up much debate in scientific halls, and whose implications caused a dilemma that reached a magnitude which needed a presidential decision. Needless to say, the debate did not concern agriculture or animal rights, but on how she came to be — by cloning. Contrary to popular belief, these clinical ventures though, were not done by sheer sense of adventurism, or by simple acts of human arrogance of ‘playing God’. Instead, this breakthrough in the field of biotechnology, along with other related cases, was carried out with the legitimate purpose of propagating livestock that carry desirable traits. Breeders can easily then raise farm animals that have the preferred traits and thus increase productivity and yield. Also, lab research for the noble intention of developing drugs, require numerous testing on animals before it can finally be declared effective and safe for human use. Cloning would allow them to produce test-animals that display similar or identical characteristics and thus help validate results. There are several other reasons why cloning is held by many scientists as an essential means for improving human condition. However, such so-called conditions had now been raised to the point of fulfilling needs other than physical necessities. Man’s many woes and flaws in life such as the pain of losing a loved one or childless couples having to bear the unfulfilled desire of loving and rearing their own children, are just a few of the many disadvantages that confronts finite man. Today through science, man is longing to challenge and ‘correct’ these impossible odds. Would cloning be the answer? II. Man’s Contemporary Alternative: Merits of Cloning-to Produce-Children Distinguished British philosopher Mary Warnock, expressed her support in favour of utilizing the technology of cloning to produce children. She believes that there is nothing wrong with this procedure and thereby there should be no question on the ethical soundness of such an endeavour (Connor, 2002). Together with the rest of those who agree with her, they believe that cloning offers an excellent solution for the following problems: A. To Help Sterile Parent/s Obtain Biologically Related Children Individuals or parents who long to have their own offspring, but are hindered by sterility or some other reason — the only presented solution so far have been adoption. There are different reasons why some had found this unsatisfactory. With cloning, a sterile man can now have the opportunity of producing a child that bears his own characteristics. The need to find a sperm donor is eliminated, and consequently eliminates the possibility of their child acquiring and passing on undesirable traits to future generation outside the couple. Such a method also opens for an attractive possibility not only for sterile couples but for homosexual couples and individuals who desire to raise a child of their own but do not want the entanglements of a marriage union. B. Pass-on a Genetic Disease Individuals or parents who carry defective genes such as a genetic disease can now hope to eliminate passing the disease to the following generations. Cloning would assure the parents of being able to raise children who will not be troubled by the heritable disorder. C. Pain of Losing a Loved One The grief of losing a loved one can now be alleviated by cloning the dying or dead significant person. Since cloning involves the passing on of exact physical characteristics, producing a cloned individual would invariably cause ‘replication’ of the deceased loved one or relative. Those who are left, will be comforted by ‘seeing’ their dead spouse, child or relative ‘live again’ on the cloned individual. Although, there would be major differences in experiences which would make it entirely impossible to make an exact copy of an individual in all aspects, cloning would bring a connection of the lost loved one with the grieving members. D. Society’s Desire to Have Individuals with Superior Abilities or Qualities Cloning brings families and societies to have super-human individuals by cloning outstanding athletes, musicians, men and women renowned for their beauty, or geniuses. By replicating these individuals, it is presumed that these superior qualities are determined by certain genetic make-up and thus, will be passed on through cloning. III. Reasons for Argument Cloning violates the ethics of human experimentation on the following grounds: A. Concern on Safety Of utmost concern when cloning humans is the high risk involved. As of the moment, the cloning procedure being done in experimenting mammals has shown how unsafe it is to be even applied in humans. Many embryos got wasted as it took 277 attempts before finally producing Dolly the sheep (Gawler, 2000). Barely just being six years old later, Dolly became severely ill and had to be submitted for euthanasia. Careful examination revealed that her chromosomes had shown premature signs of aging (â€Å"Cloning†). The possibility of creating inborn abnormalities or congenital defects caused by the procedure should even bring parents with a hereditary disease not to employ cloning. While it could hold promise of not passing on genetic diseases to their child, the latter is also vulnerable for congenital malformation. Also, since several donor eggs and substitute mothers are needed before achieving success, this places risks on several women. Experiments on animals had shown that there is high occurrence of premature abortion on cloned fetuses. If done on humans, continous abortion could lead to greater possibility of maternal death. B. The Issue of Consent Cloning also undermines the right of the cloned individual. In contrast to the risks that could bring to surrogate mother or the gene donor, the risks posed at the cloned individual do not have the individual’s consent. Most often, the right to exercise freedom is often called by those who promote it. This is often based on the ‘freedom to reproduce’. This means that the constitution protects individuals or parents to freely choose whether they are to have children or not (Eisenstadt v. Baird, 1972). However, in exercising that right, it overrides the freedom of choice on the cloned individual. True, reproductive freedom permits anybody to decide whether to have a child or not without hindrances by the government. It does not however, in any way, allow anyone to do it by whatever means and in complete disregard for the welfare of others. C. Possible Exploitation of Women Since cloning requires numerous tests before any attempts could become fruitful, large quantity of donor eggs will be needed. Getting the egg would subject the woman donor of hormonal treatment that gives high health risks. Furthermore, what would most likely happen is that these women donors would be offered a substantial amount of money, and thus could lure poor women to compromise their health in exchange for financial gain (Council on Bioethics, 2002). IV. Conclusion More often, the concern for safety is limited on the aspect of limiting or perfecting the procedure. It does not consider the possible undesirable effects it would have — after it is accomplished. This perspective of safety does not take consideration on the unexpected effects it would have on the individual, family involved and society in general. The relationships between members of those with cloned children would greatly be altered compared to conventional family set-up. Would the cloned individual of a father be his child or twin? Obviously, cloning will rearrange how family relations will be treated. Before any attempts to cloning-to-produce children be done, would be parent/s should give grave concern on the potential psychological effects this would have on the one being cloned. What also needs special consideration is it’s the social impact caused by confusion. Cloning might open for unnecessary expensive legal battles, over custody as to who really are the child’s parents. Each individual who has a part of the cloned child might fight to claim for custody over the child. Given that such asexual means to produce children is not strange, faulty or imperfect, there is serious error on the purpose by which it longs for implementation. It places more significance on the one which will be cloned by replicating the person, rather than the cloned child. Human experience has revealed that man has the tendency to abuse, and therefore such technology can be used for vain reasons. Cloning somehow claims to provide solutions for man’s problems, the solution however, creates more problems. Given the demerits of the cause, it would far benefit society to keep from toying with strange methods. Works Cited: 1. Connor, S. (2002). Warnock: ‘No ethical reason to ban cloning’. The Independent. Retrieved 20 Nov. 2008 2. Gawler, DM. Human cloning: Scientific, ethical and regulatory issues. [Electronic Version] Retrieved 20 Nov. 2008