2017 Is the Year of Artificial Intelligence | Inc.com

Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago, I polled the business community for their top technology predictions for 2017 and within a couple hours, I had a few hundred emails in my inbox with some really great insights. Fascinatingly enough, the vast majority of these responses had something to do with the rise of Artificial Intelligence in our everyday business lives.

Yes, it appears that the robots are taking over, which seems like a scary thought. The mere mention of AI still conjures images of Will Smith in I, Robot, which totally does not bode well for humans...

...okay, well, maybe robots won't take over planet earth, but there is a big fear amongst many that they'll take over our jobs. Some folks are also becoming overwhelmed with the thought of AI being implemented into business and are afraid of not being technologically savvy enough to keep up.

So what does the future look like with human beings working alongside artificial intelligence beings?

Sales Will Become More Efficient

Big data has certainly optimized sales efforts by eliminating the need for an icy cold call. Using data technologies, companies can identify their top sales leads and focus their efforts on the folks most likely to buy their product (instead of wasting time on people who have no interest). According to recent findings by Forbes, 89 percent of marketers now use predictive analytics to improve their sales ROI.

For AI innovators, predictive marketing technology is awesome for sales, but could even be a whole lot more efficient. According to a recent study by Conversica, the vast majority of companies fail to follow up with 1/3 of their interested leads. This is where AI Assistants come in. These virtual beings are given a name, email address, and title and can do all the preliminary dirty work for sales teams, which involves reaching out to leads, following up, and having initial conversations with customers to gage interest. Then, when the lead is almost ready to buy, it is passed to a human.

This system ensures the 1/3 of qualified leads aren't falling through the cracks due to human error and because of this, AI will actually lead to:

The Creation of More Jobs

Since the AI Assistants are handling a huge bulk of the work, don't you think that using them might put many human salespeople out of a job? Alex Terry, CEO of Conversica, answers this question all the time.

"It's the same issue a lot of people had with replacing bank tellers with ATM machines," he says. What the general public may not know, is that by making banks more efficient by implementing ATMs in the 1990s, each branch had less overhead and were able to do more work--which lead to a higher return. While individual banks had less people working there, the increase in profit allowed banking companies to open more branches and hire more people to staff them.

This same scenario is being seen with AI.

"When sales teams become more efficient, they increase their ROI--which allows companies to have a greater marketing budget," says Terry, whose AI technology is being used by the likes of IBM and other Fortune 500 companies. "Therefore, they can hire more people."

All of this to say, folks, human beings aren't going anywhere. "AI was never meant to replace humans, but to work alongside them," Terry explains. "Humans and computers together is the most powerful combination."

You see, AI is not impeding human interaction, but rather it is enhancing it by connecting us with those we will have the most success with. And obviously, when we have more success, we are able to grow our businesses and offer a better life for ourselves and our families. So bring on the 'bots!

Read more:

2017 Is the Year of Artificial Intelligence | Inc.com

Artificial Intelligence | The Turing Test

Posted on by

The Turing Test Alan Turing and the Imitation Game

Alan Turing, in a 1951 paper, proposed a test called "The Imitation Game" that might finally settle the issue of machine intelligence. The first version of the game he explained involved no computer intelligence whatsoever. Imagine three rooms, each connected via computer screen and keyboard to the others. In one room sits a man, in the second a woman, and in the third sits a person - call him or her the "judge". The judge's job is to decide which of the two people talking to him through the computer is the man. The man will attempt to help the judge, offering whatever evidence he can (the computer terminals are used so that physical clues cannot be used) to prove his man-hood. The woman's job is to trick the judge, so she will attempt to deceive him, and counteract her opponent's claims, in hopes that the judge will erroneously identify her as the male.

What does any of this have to do with machine intelligence? Turing then proposed a modification of the game, in which instead of a man and a woman as contestants, there was a human, of either gender, and a computer at the other terminal. Now the judge's job is to decide which of the contestants is human, and which the machine. Turing proposed that if, under these conditions, a judge were less than 50% accurate, that is, if a judge is as likely to pick either human or computer, then the computer must be a passable simulation of a human being and hence, intelligent. The game has been recently modified so that there is only one contestant, and the judge's job is not to choose between two contestants, but simply to decide whether the single contestant is human or machine.

The dictionary.com entry on the Turing Test (click here) is short, but very clearly stated. A longer, but point-form review of the imitation game and its modifications written by Larry Hauser, click here (if link fails, click here for a local copy) is also available. Hauser's page may not contain enough detail to explain the test, but it is an excellent reference or study guide and contains some helpful diagrams for understanding the interplay of contestant and judge. The page also makes reference to John Searle's Chinese Room, a thought experiment developed as an attack on the Turing test and similar "behavioural" intelligence tests. We will discuss the Chinese Room in the next section. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Partly out of an attempt to pass Turing's test, and partly just for the fun of it, there arose, largely in the 1970s, a group of programs that tried to cross the first human-computer barrier: language. These programs, often fairly simple in design, employed small databases of (usually English) language combined with a series of rules for forming intelligent sentences. While most were woefully inadequate, some grew to tremendous popularity. Perhaps the most famous such program was Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA. Written in 1966 it was one of the first and remained for quite a while one of the most convincing. ELIZA simulates a Rogerian psychotherapist (the Rogerian therapist is empathic, but passive, asking leading questions, but doing very little talking. e.g. "Tell me more about that," or "How does that make you feel?") and does so quite convincingly, for a while. There is no hint of intelligence in ELIZA's code, it simply scans for keywords like "Mother" or "Depressed" and then asks suitable questions from a large database. Failing that, it generates something generic in an attempt to elicit further conversation. Most programs since have relied on similar principles of keyword matching, paired with basic knowledge of sentence structure. There is however, no better way to see what they are capable of than to try them yourself. We have compiled a set of links to some of the more famous attempts at NLP. Students are encouraged to interact with these programs in order to get a feeling for their strengths and weaknesses, but many of the pages provided here link to dozens of such programs, don't get lost among the artificial people.

Online Examples of NLP

A series of online demos (many are Java applets, so be sure you are using a Java-capable browser) of some of the more famous NLP programs.

Although Turing proposed his test in 1951, it was not until 40 years later, in 1991, that the test was first really implemented. Dr. Hugh Loebner, a professor very much interested in seeing AI succeed, pledged $100,000 to the first entrant that could pass the test. The 1991 contest had some serious problems though, (perhaps most notable was that the judges were all computer science specialists, and knew exactly what kind of questions might trip up a computer) and it was not until 1995 that the contest was re-opened. Since then, there has been an annual competition, which has yet to find a winner. While small prizes are given out to the most "human-like" computer, no program has had the 50% success Turing aimed for.

Validity of the Turing Test

Alan Turing's imitation game has fueled 40 years of controversy, with little sign of slowing. On one side of the argument, human-like interaction is seen as absolutely essential to human-like intelligence. A successful AI is worthless if its intelligence lies trapped in an unresponsive program. Some have even extended the Turing Test. Steven Harnad (see below) has proposed the "Total Turing Test", where instead of language, the machine must interact in all areas of human endeavor, and instead of a five minute conversation, the duration of the test is a lifetime. James Sennett has proposed a similar extension (if link fails, click here for a local copy) to the Turing Test that challenges AI to mimic not only human thought but also personhood as a whole. To illustrate his points, the author uses Star Trek: The Next Generation's character 'Data'.

Opponents of Turing's behavioural criterion of intelligence argue that it is either not sufficient, or perhaps not even relevant at all. What is important, they argue, is that the computer demonstrates cognitive ability, regardless of behaviour. It is not necessary that a program speak in order for it to be intelligent. There are humans that would fail the Turing test, and unintelligent computers that might pass. The test is neither necessary nor sufficient for intelligence, they argue. In hopes of illuminating the debate, we have assigned two papers that deal with the Turing Test from very different points of view. The first is a criticism of the test, the second comes to its defense.

Previous (Can Machines Think?) | Home | Next (The Chinese Room)

Go here to read the rest:

Artificial Intelligence | The Turing Test

Demystifying artificial intelligence What business leaders …

Posted on by

Artificial Intelligence still sounds more like science fiction than it does an IT investment, but it is increasingly real, and critical to the success of the Internet of Things.

In the last several years, interest in artificial intelligence (AI) has surged. Venture capital investments in companies developing and commercializing AI-related products and technology have exceeded $2 billion since 2011.1 Technology companies have invested billions more acquiring AI startups. Press coverage of the topic has been breathless, fueled by the huge investments and by pundits asserting that computers are starting to kill jobs, will soon be smarter than people, and could threaten the survival of humankind. Consider the following:

IBM has committed $1 billion to commercializing Watson, its cognitive computing platform.2

Google has made major investments in AIin recent years, including acquiring eight robotics companies and a machine-learning company.3

Facebook hired AI luminary Yann LeCun to create an AIlaboratory with the goal of bringing major advances in the field.4

Amid all the hype, there is significant commercial activity underway in the area of AIthat is affecting or will likely soon affect organizations in every sector. Business leaders should understand what AIreally is and where it is heading.

The first steps in demystifying AIare defining the term, outlining its history, and describing some of the core technologies underlying it.

The field of AIsuffers from both too few and too many definitions. Nils Nilsson, one of the founding researchers in the field, has written that AI may lack an agreed-upon definition. . . .11 A well-respected AI textbook, now in its third edition, offers eight definitions, and declines to prefer one over the other.12 For us, a useful definition of AIis the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. Examples include tasks such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making under uncertainty, learning, and translation between languages.13 Defining AI in terms of the tasks humans do, rather than how humans think, allows us to discuss its practical applications today, well before science arrives at a definitive understanding of the neurological mechanisms of intelligence.14 It is worth noting that the set of tasks that normally require human intelligence is subject to change as computer systems able to perform those tasks are invented and then widely diffused. Thus, the meaning of AI evolves over time, a phenomenon known as the AI effect, concisely stated as AI is whatever hasnt been done yet.15

AIis not a new idea. Indeed, the term itself dates from the 1950s. The history of the field is marked by periods of hype and high expectations alternating with periods of setback and disappointment, as a recent apt summation puts it.16 After articulating the bold goal of simulating human intelligence in the 1950s, researchers developed a range of demonstration programs through the 1960s and into the '70s that showed computers able to accomplish a number of tasks once thought to be solely the domain of human endeavor, such as proving theorems, solving calculus problems, responding to commands by planning and performing physical actionseven impersonating a psychotherapist and composing music. But simplistic algorithms, poor methods for handling uncertainty (a surprisingly ubiquitous fact of life), and limitations on computing power stymied attempts to tackle harder or more diverse problems. Amid disappointment with a lack of continued progress, AI fell out of fashion by the mid-1970s.

In the early 1980s, Japan launched a program to develop an advanced computer architecture that could advance the field of AI. Western anxiety about losing ground to Japan contributed to decisions to invest anew in AI. The 1980s saw the launch of commercial vendors of AI technology products, some of which had initial public offerings, such as Intellicorp, Symbolics,17 and Teknowledge.18 By the end of the 1980s, perhaps half of the Fortune 500 were developing or maintaining expert systems,an AI technology that models human expertise with a knowledge base of facts and rules.19High hopes for the potential of expert systems were eventually tempered as their limitations, including a glaring lack of common sense, the difficulty of capturing experts tacit knowledge, and the cost and complexity of building and maintaining large systems, became widely recognized. AI ran out of steam again.

In the 1990s, technical work on AI continued with a lower profile. Techniques such as neural networks and genetic algorithms received fresh attention, in part because they avoided some of the limitations of expert systems and partly because new algorithms made them more effective. The design of neural networks is inspired by the structure of the brain. Genetic algorithms aim to evolve solutions to problems by iteratively generating candidate solutions, culling the weakest, and introducing new solution variants by introducing random mutations.

By the late 2000s, a number of factors helped renew progress in AI, particularly in a few key technologies. We explain the factors most responsible for the recent progress below and then describe those technologies in more detail.

Moores Law. The relentless increase in computing power available at a given price and size, sometimes known as Moores Law after Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, has benefited all forms of computing, including the types AI researchers use. Advanced system designs that might have worked in principle were in practice off limits just a few years ago because they required computer power that was cost-prohibitive or just didnt exist. Today, the power necessary to implement these designs is readily available. A dramatic illustration: The current generation of microprocessors delivers 4 million times the performance of the first single-chip microprocessor introduced in 1971.20

Big data. Thanks in part to the Internet, social media, mobile devices, and low-cost sensors, the volume of data in the world is increasing rapidly.21 Growing understanding of the potential value of this data22 has led to the development of new techniques for managing and analyzing very large data sets.23 Big data has been a boon to the development of AI. The reason is that some AI techniques use statistical models for reasoning probabilistically about data such as images, text, or speech. These models can be improved, or trained, by exposing them to large sets of data, which are now more readily available than ever.24

The Internet and the cloud. Closely related to the big data phenomenon, the Internet and cloud computing can be credited with advances in AI for two reasons. First, they make available vast amounts of data and information to any Internet-connected computing device. This has helped propel work on AI approaches that require large data sets.25 Second, they have provided a way for humans to collaboratesometimes explicitly and at other times implicitlyin helping to train AI systems. For example, some researchers have used cloud-based crowdsourcing services like Mechanical Turk to enlist thousands of humans to describe digital images, enabling image classification algorithms to learn from these descriptions.26 Googles language translation project analyzes feedback and freely offerscontributions from its users to improve the quality of automated translation.27

New algorithms. An algorithm is a routine process for solving a program or performing a task. In recent years, new algorithms have been developed that dramatically improve the performance of machine learning, an important technology in its own right and an enabler of other technologies such as computer vision.28 (These technologies are described below.) The fact that machine learning algorithms are now available on an open-source basisis likely to foster further improvements as developers contribute enhancements to each others work.29

We distinguish between the field of AIand the technologies that emanate from the field. The popular press portrays AIas the advent of computers as smart asor smarter thanhumans. The individual technologies, by contrast, are getting better at performing specific tasks that only humans used to be able to do. We call these cognitive technologies (figure 1), and it is these that business and public sector leaders should focus their attention on. Below we describe some of the most important cognitive technologiesthose that are seeing wide adoption, making rapid progress, or receiving significant investment.

Computer vision refers to the ability of computers to identify objects, scenes, and activities in images. Computer vision technology uses sequences of imaging-processing operations and other techniques to decompose the task of analyzing images into manageable pieces. There are techniques for detecting the edges and textures of objects in an image, for instance. Classification techniques may be used to determine if the features identified in an image are likely to represent a kind of object already known to the system.30

Computer vision has diverse applications, including analyzing medical imaging to improve prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases;31 face recognition, used by Facebook to automatically identify people in photographs32 and in security and surveillance to spot suspects;33 and in shoppingconsumers can now use smartphones to photograph products and be presented with options for purchasing them.34

Machine vision, a related discipline, generally refers to vision applications in industrial automation, where computers recognize objects such as manufactured parts in a highly constrained factory environmentrather simpler than the goals of computer vision, which seeks to operate in unconstrained environments. While computer vision is an area of ongoing computer science research, machine vision is a solved problemthe subject not of research but of systems engineering.35 Because the range of applications for computer vision is expanding, startup companies working in this area have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital investment since 2011.36

Machine learning refers to the ability of computer systems to improve their performance by exposure to data without the need to follow explicitly programmed instructions. At its core, machine learning is the process of automatically discovering patterns in data. Once discovered, the pattern can be used to make predictions. For instance, presented with a database of information about credit card transactions, such as date, time, merchant, merchant location, price, and whether the transaction was legitimate or fraudulent, a machine learning system learns patterns that are predictive of fraud. The more transaction data it processes, the better its predictions are expected to become.

Applications of machine learning are very broad, with the potential to improve performance in nearly any activity that generates large amounts of data. Besides fraud screening, these include sales forecasting, inventory management, oil and gas exploration, and public health. Machine learning techniques often play a role in other cognitive technologies such as computer vision, which can train vision models on a large database of images to improve their ability to recognize classes of objects.37 Machine learning is one of the hottest areas in cognitive technologies today, having attracted around a billion dollars in venture capital investment between 2011 and mid-2014.38 Google is said to have invested some $400 million to acquire DeepMind, a machine learning company, in 2014.39

Natural language processing refers to the ability of computers to work with text the way humans do,for instance, extracting meaning from text or even generating text that is readable, stylistically natural, and grammatically correct. A natural language processing system doesnt understand text the way humans do, but it can manipulate text in sophisticated ways, such as automatically identifying all of the people and places mentioned in a document; identifying the main topic of a document; or extracting and tabulating the terms and conditions in a stack of human-readable contracts. None of these tasks is possible with traditional text processing software that operates on simple text matches and patterns. Consider a single hackneyed example that illustrates one of the challenges of natural language processing. The meaning of each word in the sentence Time flies like an arrow seems clear, until you encounter the sentence Fruit flies like a banana.Substituting fruit for time and banana for arrow changes the meaning of the words flies and like.40

Natural language processing, like computer vision, comprises multiple techniques that may be used together to achieve its goals. Language models are used to predict the probability distribution of language expressionsthe likelihood that a given string of characters or words is a valid part of a language, for instance. Feature selection may be used to identify the elements of a piece of text that may distinguish one kind of text from anothersay a spam email versus a legitimate one. Classification, powered by machine learning, would then operate on the extracted features to classify a message as spam or not.41

Because context is so important for understanding why time flies and fruit flies are so different, practical applications of natural language processing often address relative narrow domains such as analyzing customer feedback about a particular product or service,42 automating discovery in civil litigation or government investigations (e-discovery),43and automating writing of formulaic stories on topics such as corporate earnings or sports.44

Robotics, by integrating cognitive technologies such as computer vision and automated planning with tiny, high-performance sensors, actuators, and cleverly designed hardware, has given rise to a new generation of robots that can work alongside people and flexibly perform many different tasks in unpredictable environments.45 Examples include unmanned aerial vehicles,46 cobots that share jobs with humans on the factory floor,47 robotic vacuum cleaners,48and a slew of consumer products, from toys to home helpers.49

Speech recognition focuses on automatically and accurately transcribing human speech. The technology has to contend with some of the same challenges as natural language processing, in addition to the difficulties of coping with diverse accents, background noise, distinguishing between homophones (buy and by sound the same), and the need to work at the speed of natural speech. Speech recognition systems use some of the same techniques as natural language processing systems, plus others such as acoustic models that describe sounds and their probability of occurring in a given sequence in a given language.50 Applications include medical dictation, hands-free writing, voice control of computer systems, and telephone customer service applications. Dominos Pizza recently introduced a mobile app that allows customers to use natural speech to order, for instance.51

As noted, the cognitive technologies above are making rapid progress and attracting significant investment. Other cognitive technologies are relatively mature and can still be important components of enterprise software systems. These more mature cognitive technologies include optimization, which automates complex decisions and trade-offs about limited resources;52planning and scheduling, which entails devising a sequence of actions to meet goals and observe constraints;53 and rules-based systems, the technology underlying expert systems, which use databases of knowledge and rules to automate the process of making inferences about information.54

Organizations in every sector of the economy are already using cognitive technologies in diverse business functions.

In banking, automated fraud detection systems use machine learning to identify behavior patterns that could indicate fraudulent payment activity, speech recognition technology to automate customer service telephone interactions, and voice recognition technology to verify the identity of callers.55

In health care, automatic speech recognition for transcribing notes dictated by physicians is used in around half of UShospitals, and its use is growing rapidly.56 Computer vision systems automate the analysis of mammograms and other medical images.57 IBMs Watson uses natural language processing to read and understand a vast medical literature, hypothesis generation techniques to automate diagnosis, and machine learning to improve its accuracy.58

In life sciences, machine learning systems are being used to predict cause-and-effect relationships from biological data59 and the activities of compounds,60helping pharmaceutical companies identify promising drugs.61

In media and entertainment, a number of companies are using data analytics and natural language generation technology to automatically draft articles and other narrative material about data-focused topics such as corporate earnings or sports game summaries.62

Oil and gas producers use machine learning in a wide range of applications, from locating mineral deposits63 to diagnosing mechanical problems with drilling equipment.64

The public sector is adopting cognitive technologies for a variety of purposes including surveillance, compliance and fraud detection, and automation. The state of Georgia, for instance, employs a system combining automated handwriting recognition with crowdsourced human assistance to digitize financial disclosure and campaign contribution forms.65

Retailers use machine learning to automatically discover attractive cross-sell offers and effective promotions.66

Technology companies are using cognitive technologies such as computer vision and machine learning to enhance products or create entirely new product categories, such as the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner67 or the Nest intelligent thermostat.68

As the examples above show, the potential business benefits of cognitive technologies are much broader than cost savings that may be implied by the term automation. They include:

The impact of cognitive technologies on business should grow significantly over the next five years. This is due to two factors. First, the performance of these technologies has improved substantially in recent years, and we can expect continuing R&D efforts to extend this progress. Second, billions of dollars have been invested to commercialize these technologies. Many companies are working to tailor and package cognitive technologies for a range of sectors and business functions, making them easier to buy and easier to deploy. While not all of these vendors will thrive, their activities should collectively drive the market forward. Together, improvements in performance and commercialization are expanding the range of applications for cognitive technologies and will likely continue to do so over the next several years (figure 2).

Examples of the strides made by cognitive technologies are easy to find. The accuracy of Googles voice recognition technology, for instance, improved from 84 percent in 2012 to 98 percent less than two years later, according to one assessment.69 Computer vision has progressed rapidly as well. A standard benchmark used by computer vision researchers has shown a fourfold improvement in image classification accuracy from 2010 to 2014.70 Facebook reported in a peer-reviewed paper that its DeepFace technology can now recognize faces with 97 percent accuracy.71 IBM was able to double the precision of Watsons answers in the few years leading up to its famous Jeopardy! victory in 2011.72 The company now reports its technology is 2,400 percent smarter today than on the day of that triumph.73

As performance improves, the applicability of a technology broadens. For instance, when voice recognition systems required painstaking training and could only work well with controlled vocabularies, they found application in specialized areas such as medical dictation but did not gain wide adoption. Today, tens of millions of Web searches are performed by voice every month.74 Computer vision systems used to be confined to industrial automation applications but now, as weve seen, are used in surveillance, security, and numerous consumer applications. IBM is now seeking to apply Watson to a broad range of domains outside of game-playing, from medical diagnostics to research to financial advice to call center automation.75

Not all cognitive technologies are seeing such rapid improvement. Machine translation has progressed, but at a slower pace. One benchmark found a 13 percent improvement in the accuracy of Arabic to English translations between 2009 and 2012, for instance.76 Even if these technologies are imperfect, they can be good enough to have a big impact on the work organizations do. Professional translators regularly rely on machine translation, for instance, to improve their efficiency, automating routine translation tasks so they can focus on the challenging ones.77

From 2011 through May 2014, over $2 billion dollars in venture capital funds have flowed to companies building products and services based on cognitive technologies.78 During this same period, over 100 companies merged or were acquired, some by technology giants such as Amazon, Apple, IBM, Facebook, and Google.79 All of this investment has nurtured a diverse landscape of companies that are commercializing cognitive technologies.

This is not the place for providing a detailed analysis of the vendor landscape. Rather, we want to illustrate the diversity of offerings, since this is an indicator of dynamism that may help propel and develop the market. The following list of cognitive technology vendor categories, while neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive, gives a sense of this.

Data management and analytical tools that employ cognitive technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning. These tools use natural language processing technology to help extract insights from unstructured text or machine learning to help analysts uncover insights from large datasets. Examples in this category include Context Relevant, Palantir Technologies, and Skytree.

Cognitive technology components that can be embedded into applications or business processes to add features or improve effectiveness. Wise.io, for instance, offers a set of modules that aim to improve processes such as customer support, marketing, and sales with machine-learning models that predict which customers are most likely to churn or which sales leads are most likely to convert to customers.80Nuance provides speech recognition technology that developers can use to speech-enable mobile applications.81

Point solutions. A sign of the maturation of some cognitive technologies is that they are increasingly embedded in solutions to specific business problems. These solutions are designed to work better than solutions in their existing categories and require little expertise in cognitive technologies. Popular application areas include advertising,82 marketing and sales automation,83 and forecasting and planning.84

Platforms. Platforms are intended to provide a foundation for building highly customized business solutions. They may offer a suite of capabilities including data management, tools for machine learning, natural language processing, knowledge representation and reasoning, and a framework for integrating these pieces with custom software. Some of the vendors mentioned above can serve as platforms of sorts. IBM is offering Watson as a cloud-based platform.85

If current trends in performance and commercialization continue, we can expect the applications of cognitive technologies to broaden and adoption to grow. The billions of investment dollars that have flowed to hundredsof companies building products based on machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, or robotics suggests that many new applications are on their way to market. We also see ample opportunity for organizations to take advantage of cognitive technologies to automate business processes and enhance their products and services.86

Cognitive technologies will likely become pervasive in the years ahead. Technological progress and commercialization should expand the impact of cognitive technologies on organizations over the next three to five years and beyond. A growing number of organizations will likely find compelling uses for these technologies; leading organizations may find innovative applications that dramatically improve their performance or create new capabilities, enhancing their competitive position. IT organizations can start today, developing awareness of these technologies, evaluating opportunities to pilot them, and presenting leaders in their organizations with options for creating value with them. Senior business and public sector leaders should reflect on how cognitive technologies will affect their sector and their own organization and how these technologies can foster innovation and improve operating performance.

Read more on cognitive technologies in Cognitive technologies: The real opportunities for business."

Deloitte Consulting LLPs Enterprise Science offering employs data science, cognitive technologies such as machine learning, and advanced algorithms to create high-value solutions for clients. Services include cognitive automation, which uses cognitive technologies such as natural language processing to automate knowledge-intensive processes; cognitive engagement, which applies machine learning and advanced analytics to make customer interactions dramatically more personalized, relevant, and profitable; and cognitive insight, which employs data science and machine learning to detect critical patterns, make high-quality predictions, and support business performance. For more information about the Enterprise Science offering, contact Plamen Petrov (ppetrov@deloitte.com) or Rajeev Ronanki (rronanki@deloitte.com).

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions ofMark Cotteleerof Deloitte Services LP;Plamen Petrov,Rajeev Ronanki, andDavid Steierof Deloitte Consulting LLP; andShankar Lakshman,Laveen Jethani, andDivya Ravichandranof Deloitte Support Services IndiaPvt Ltd.

Continued here:

Demystifying artificial intelligence What business leaders ...

What Are Nootropics? A Guide to Nootropic Supplements

Posted on by

Nootropics are a class of cognitive enhancing supplements that are used to improve concentration and boost memory power. Nootropics are often used to increase attention spans, help individuals focus and as studying aids.

You will occasionally see Nootropics referred to as smart drugs as they are associated with increased intelligence, motivation, and mental energy.

However, unlike smart drugs which can often cause negative side effects with long-term use, nootropics must be safe, neuroprotective and pose a very low risk of side effects when used appropriate.

Many nootropics share similar mechanisms of action by enhancing increased communication between neurons, helping to balance neurotransmitter levels or by promoting brain cell health. They may help improve energy metabolism in your neurons, support neuroplasticity, or even stimulate the growth of new neurons and synapses.

What are Nootropics and how do they really work? Which are the best nootropics to use if you are a new user?

This article will provide a basic guide to nootropics and give you an overview of how to use these supplements to enhance your mental capabilities.

FREE TRIAL

Optimind

32 Capsules

Read Description

FREE SAMPLE PACK

71 Ratings | Source: Shopper Approved

Nootropics are broadly any type of neuro enhancing drug or natural supplement with very low prevalence of side effects. The actual definition of what makes a supplement a nootropic is somewhat of a loose concept.

The original description comes from Belgian pharmacologists S. Giurgea and V. Skondia who invented the first Nootropic a compound known as Piracetam in 1963.

They established the classification of Nootropics to refer to cognitive boosting substances with extremely low toxicity that can be taken for long-term use.

This highlights the fact that Piracetam and other Nootropics are able to improve brain functions without any of the negative side effects associated with brain stimulants.

Piracetam (known also by the name Nootropil) is one of the best known Nootropics and makes up part of the Racetam family along with Aniracetam, Phenylpiracetam, Pramiracetam, Oxiracetam, Nefiracetam, Coluracetam and Nebracetam. These are all synthetic compounds that have been created in the lab, but there are also a number of effective herbal and natural nootropic supplements.

For example, fish oil, grape seed extract, bacopa monnieri, yerba mate and even licorice are all natural nootropics. (Click here to see a full Nootropics List of supplements that are available.) You will often find these supplements combined together in a Nootropic Stack to further enhance their effectiveness.

What exactly do Nootropics do? Like smart drugs, Nootropics will not instantaneously give you a higher IQ or a better intellect. But they may boost your brain functions by increasing the production and signalling of various neurotransmitters.

Your brain is essentially a network of billions of neurons connected by synapses. These neurons communicate and work together through chemicals known as neurotransmitters. When neurotransmitters are able to send signals more efficiently, you experience improved concentration, better memory, mood elevation, increased processing ability for mental work, and longer attention spans.

With continued supplementation of certain nootropics, you can improve the synaptic plasticity of neurons, causing long lasting improvement to the health and functioning of your brain.

Other nootropics show effects of vasodilation which means they increase the blood flow to your brain. This supplies your brain with more oxygen, nutrients, and glucose the primary energy source used by the brain during long periods of focus.

The brain requires an immense amount of energy to perform its function, sustain consciousness and to pay attention to your external environment. Even though the brain is only 2% of your bodyweight, it constitutes 20% of your energy expenditure.

Performing mental exercises, learning new things, concentrating on your work and staying alert during the day all burn a lot of energy. By raising bloodflow and oxygenation, you can immediately experience greater capacity for memory and focus.

Supplements that can improve the energy supply to your brain cells (like Acetyl L-Carnitine, Caffeine, Creatine, Ginkgo Biloba, or Vinpocetine) can all enhance focus, mental energy and clarity. This type of nootropic is especially favored among students for studying as their effects are felt immediately.

Nootropics can also show signs of neuro-preservation and neuro-protection. These compounds directly affect the levels of brain chemicals associated with slowing down the aging process. Some nootropics could in an increase in the production of Nerve Growth Factor and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor to stimulate the growth of neurons and neurites while slowing down the rate of damage as well.

Over time, this could potentially slow down signs of aging like loss of memory and even counter the development of disorders like Alzheimers disease.

SHOP NOW

Brain Booster Pack

Adrafinil, Sulbutiamine, Alpha GPC and Noopept

Read Description

$99.99

Below is a list of some of the most popular and best nootropics that are available today. Each supplement with have its own unique mechanism of action that is distinct from other nootropics.

You can either select the supplement that best matches your needs or goals, or you can combine several nootropic compounds together in what is known as a stack. A stack simply involves any pairing of substances that enhance and complement each other when taken simultaneously.

Most of the pre-packaged brain boosters available will stack together several different herbal or synthetic nootropics like those listed below, but you can also buy the bulk raw powder and mix your own capsules to design a formula that is right for you.

Racetam: As mentioned previously, racetams are a class of nootropics including the widely used Piracetam, Aniracetam, Pramiracetam, and Oxiracetam.

They all share a similar chemical structure with a Pyrrolidone nucleus. Racetams work by dramatically increasing levels of neurotransmitters and other chemicals required for proper brain function like glutamate and acetylcholine.

They have been tested to improve cognitive function, prevent damage to brain cells from alcohol consumption and other factors, and to increase the communication between the two hemispheres of the brain.

Choline: Choline is frequently found in a nootropic stack with racetams like Piracetam and Aniracetam. Taking choline supplements will cause greater production of the acetylcholine neurotransmitter in the brain.

Since Racetams result in increased uptake and demand for acetylcholine, stacking choline with this nootropic will further enhance your results. Studies have shown that choline supplementation can improve performance on memory tests as well as social behavior. Choline also plays a key role in the production of phospholipids that are incorporated into brain cell membranes.

Pyritinol: Pyritinol has anti-oxidant effects for supporting the long-term health of the brain. But its primary benefit is aiding glucose uptake for periods of extended mental strain. If you are studying or working for a long period of time, your brain will start to diminish its glucose (sugar) stores which are the primary way that the brain derives its energy.

Psychological studies have shown that continuing to refuel your brain with glucose will improve concentration and cognitive ability during extended periods of mental work. Supplementing Pyritinol aids further in glucose uptake so that your mental energy levels are higher.

FREE SAMPLE

Alpha Brain Instant

30 Day Supply

Read Description

FREE SAMPLE PACK

12 Ratings | Source: Onnit

Vinpocetine: Vinpocetine has been shown as one of the most effective nootropics for improving brain blood flow. After taking Vinpocetine, the blood vessels dilate and are able to circulate more blood to the brain.

This causes a number of immediately noticeable effects such as concentration boosting, better mental agility, and higher energy levels and motivation.

There are many more nootropics available out there and different ones can assist you in improving your brain in various different ways. For a full Nootropics List, keep reading this website and check out our many Nootropic reviews.

Which nootropic supplement you pick is largely a matter of personal preference. You might want to check out the pre-made nootropic products like Alpha Brain or you might prefer to design your own stack by purchasing ingredients like Piracetam powder.

The health and capabilities of your brain are one of the most important determining factors in a happy and successful life, so whatever you pick you can rest assured that you are making a smart investment.

SHOP NOW

Memory Booster Pack

Huperzine A, Ginkgo Biloba, Magnesium Threonate and Aniracetam

Read Description

$69.99

See the rest here:

What Are Nootropics? A Guide to Nootropic Supplements

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Overview

Posted on by

Alternative medicine is a term that describes medical treatments that are used instead of traditional (mainstream) therapies. Some people also refer to it as integrative, or complementary medicine.

About 40% of adults in the United States say they use some form of alternative medicine. But exactly what types of therapies are considered alternative? The definition changes as doctors test and move more of them into the mainstream.

Expand Your Comfort Zone

By Elizabeth Kuster Initially, the title of this article was "Break Out Of Your Comfort Zone." But then I talked with bestselling author and fear expert Rhonda Britten, founder of the Fearless Living Institute, and she schooled me. "I'm not interested in people getting rid of their comfort zones," she told me. "In fact, you want to have the largest comfort zone possible -- because the larger it is, the more masterful you feel in more areas of your life. When you have a large comfort zone, you can...

Read the Expand Your Comfort Zone article > >

This article examines some popular alternative medical treatments and their potential risks and benefits.

This is a traditional Chinese medicine technique that uses needles to stimulate specific points around the body. The person who performs this therapy (an acupuncturist) sticks thin, sterile needles into your skin. The goal is to help your bodys natural healing process kick in. Studies show that acupuncture can be effective in treating a number of conditions, like neck and back pain, nausea, anxiety, depression, insomnia, infertility, and more.

This practice focuses on the bodys structure -- mainly the spine --and how it functions. A trained professional called a chiropractor uses different techniques to adjust (manipulate) your spine or other parts of your body so that theyre in proper form, or alignment.

The goal of chiropractic medicine is to ease pain, improve body function, and help your body to heal itself naturally.

Much of the research around it has focused on low back pain. But studies show chiropractic can also be helpful for a number of other ailments, like headaches, neck pain, joint problems in your upper and lower body, and disorders caused by whiplash.

These focus on the energy fields many people believe exist in and around the body. Included in this category are:

Magnetic Field Therapy. This uses magnetic or electrical fields to treat a number of musculoskeletal problems. Studies show that it can work for osteoarthritis and other pain conditions. Its also been found to help fractures heal faster. Magnetic field therapy may not be safe if youre pregnant, have an implanted cardiac device, use an insulin pump, or take a drug given by patch.

More:

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Overview

Build automation – Wikipedia

Posted on by

Build automation is the process of automating the creation of a software build and the associated processes including: compiling computer source code into binary code, packaging binary code, and running automated tests.

Historically, build automation was accomplished through makefiles. Today, there are two general categories of tools:[1]

Depending on the level of automation the following classification is possible:

A software list for each can be found in list of build automation software.

Build automation utilities allow the automation of simple, repeatable tasks. When using the tool, it will calculate how to reach the goal by executing tasks in the correct, specific order and running each task. The two ways build tools differ are task orient vs. product-oriented. Task oriented tools describe the dependency of networks in terms of a specific set task and product-oriented tools describe things in terms of the products they generate.[2]

Although build servers existed long before continuous integration servers, they are general synonymous with continuous integration servers, however a build server may also be incorporated into an ARA tool or ALM tool.

Server types

Automation is achieved through the use of a compile farm for either Distributed compilation or the execution of the utility step.[3] The distributed build process must have machine intelligence to understand the source code dependencies to execute the distributed build.

Build automation is considered the first step in moving toward implementing a culture of Continuous Delivery and DevOps. Build automation combined with Continuous Integration, deployment, application release automation, and many other processes help move an organization forward in establishing software delivery best practices.[4]

The advantages of build automation to software development projects include

View post:

Build automation - Wikipedia

Ethical Egoism – Education

Posted on by

James Rachels

Ethical Egoism

Ethical egoism is the idea that people have moral obligations only to themselves and that they ought to pursue their own ends exclusively. An ethical egoist would say that one has no duty to help others in need unless doing so happens to coincide with one's own needs. Because ethical egoism prescribes actions, it is distinct from psychological egoism (discussed in the previous selection by Joel Feinberg), which is a descriptive claim about the nature of people's motivations.

Rachels provides several arguments both for and against ethical egoism. The first argument for ethical egoism is that we actually harm other people by looking out for their interests. For example, we may misinterpret their interests and bungle attempts at help, or we may intrude on other people's lives in ways that they dislike, or we may degrade others by offering them handouts. But this justification of egoism is premised upon the value of the general welfare precisely the thing that ethical egoism denies is important. Rather than claiming that only one's own interests matter, this argument states that paying attention to one's own interests is the most effective means to furthering the interests of everyone. It is thus an empirical claim about the best way to benefit people generally, not a normative claim about whose interests ought to count. A second argument for ethical egoism is that altruistic ethics (i.e., those that require one to help others even without benefit to oneself) requires one to sacrifice oneself for the benefit of others, and that were one to follow altruistic ethics one would have nothing to give one's projects, goals, and relationships. But those things are precisely what make life valuable; thus, altruistic ethics denies the importance of the very things that are valuable. Rachels dismisses this argument quickly because it is a false dichotomy; having obligations to others does not entail that one give up all of one's projects.

The final (and most powerful) argument for ethical egoism is that egoism is what underlies our common-sense morality. For example, the reason there are proscriptions against lying and stealing and obligations to help the needy is that we all benefit from those rules. There are two problems with this argument. First, it only provides general rules; thus, even though it might generally behoove us to tell the truth (in order to gain people's trust), it does not proscribe lying when it is in fact advantageous to do so. Second, just because acting for the good of others is to one's advantage, it does not follow that that is the only reason doing so is good.

Ultimately Rachels finds ethical egoism implausible; he concludes this on the basis of an argument concerning morally relevant differences. There is a general moral principle that requires us to treat likes alike, which Rachels articulates as follows:

We can justify treating people differently only if we can show that there is some factual difference between them that is relevant to justifying the

difference in treatment.

For example, the reason why racism is wrong is that racists seek to treat people differently despite there being no morally difference between races. In fact, racist stereotypes (e.g., that black people are lazy or that Jewish people are greedy) are often used to provide morally relevant reasons to treat people differently on the basis of race. Ethical egoism runs afoul of this principle, for it demands that one assign oneself greater moral importance than every other person, despite there being no factual difference that justifies assigning oneself greater importance. Thus, Rachels concludes that ethical egoism is mistaken.

See the article here:

Ethical Egoism - Education

Consequentialism – Wikipedia

Posted on by

Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence. In an extreme form, the idea of consequentialism is commonly encapsulated in the saying, "the end justifies the means",[1] meaning that if a goal is morally important enough, any method of achieving it is acceptable.[2]

Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological ethics (or deontology), in that deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central, derives the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct from the character of the behaviour itself rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is also contrasted with virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics which treats morality like science: advancing socially over the course of many lifetimes, such that any moral criterion is subject to revision. Consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods.

Some argue that consequentialist and deontological theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, T. M. Scanlon advances the idea that human rights, which are commonly considered a "deontological" concept, can only be justified with reference to the consequences of having those rights.[3] Similarly, Robert Nozick argues for a theory that is mostly consequentialist, but incorporates inviolable "side-constraints" which restrict the sort of actions agents are permitted to do.[3]

It is the business of the benevolent man to seek to promote what is beneficial to the world and to eliminate what is harmful, and to provide a model for the world. What benefits he will carry out; what does not benefit men he will leave alone.[5]

Mozi, Mozi (5th century BC) Part I

Mohist consequentialism, also known as state consequentialism,[6] is an ethical theory which evaluates the moral worth of an action based on how much it contributes to the welfare of a state.[6] According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mohist consequentialism, dating back to the 5th century BCE, is the "world's earliest form of consequentialism, a remarkably sophisticated version based on a plurality of intrinsic goods taken as constitutive of human welfare."[7] Unlike utilitarianism, which views utility as the sole moral good, "the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are... order, material wealth, and increase in population".[8] During Mozi's era, war and famines were common, and population growth was seen as a moral necessity for a harmonious society. The "material wealth" of Mohist consequentialism refers to basic needs like shelter and clothing, and the "order" of Mohist consequentialism refers to Mozi's stance against warfare and violence, which he viewed as pointless and a threat to social stability.[9]Stanford sinologist David Shepherd Nivison, in the The Cambridge History of Ancient China, writes that the moral goods of Mohism "are interrelated: more basic wealth, then more reproduction; more people, then more production and wealth... if people have plenty, they would be good, filial, kind, and so on unproblematically."[8] The Mohists believed that morality is based on "promoting the benefit of all under heaven and eliminating harm to all under heaven." In contrast to Jeremy Bentham's views, state consequentialism is not utilitarian because it is not hedonistic or individualistic. The importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain.[4] The term state consequentialism has also been applied to the political philosophy of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi.[10]

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think...

Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) Ch I, p 1

In summary, Jeremy Bentham states that people are driven by their interests and their fears, but their interests take precedence over their fears, and their interests are carried out in accordance with how people view the consequences that might be involved with their interests. "Happiness" on this account is defined as the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. Historically, hedonistic utilitarianism is the paradigmatic example of a consequentialist moral theory. This form of utilitarianism holds that what matters is the aggregate happiness; the happiness of everyone and not the happiness of any particular person. John Stuart Mill, in his exposition of hedonistic utilitarianism, proposed a hierarchy of pleasures, meaning that the pursuit of certain kinds of pleasure is more highly valued than the pursuit of other pleasures.[11] However, some contemporary utilitarians, such as Peter Singer, are concerned with maximizing the satisfaction of preferences, hence "preference utilitarianism". Other contemporary forms of utilitarianism mirror the forms of consequentialism outlined below.

Ethical egoism can be understood as a consequentialist theory according to which the consequences for the individual agent are taken to matter more than any other result. Thus, egoism will prescribe actions that may be beneficial, detrimental, or neutral to the welfare of others. Some, like Henry Sidgwick, argue that a certain degree of egoism promotes the general welfare of society for two reasons: because individuals know how to please themselves best, and because if everyone were an austere altruist then general welfare would inevitably decrease.[12]

Ethical altruism can be seen as a consequentialist ethic which prescribes that an individual take actions that have the best consequences for everyone except for himself.[13] This was advocated by Auguste Comte, who coined the term "altruism," and whose ethics can be summed up in the phrase "Live for others".[14]

In general, consequentialist theories focus on actions. However, this need not be the case. Rule consequentialism is a theory that is sometimes seen as an attempt to reconcile deontology and consequentialismand in some cases, this is stated as a criticism of rule consequentialism.[15] Like deontology, rule consequentialism holds that moral behavior involves following certain rules. However, rule consequentialism chooses rules based on the consequences that the selection of those rules have. Rule consequentialism exists in the forms of rule utilitarianism and rule egoism.

Various theorists are split as to whether the rules are the only determinant of moral behavior or not. For example, Robert Nozick holds that a certain set of minimal rules, which he calls "side-constraints", are necessary to ensure appropriate actions.[3] There are also differences as to how absolute these moral rules are. Thus, while Nozick's side-constraints are absolute restrictions on behavior, Amartya Sen proposes a theory that recognizes the importance of certain rules, but these rules are not absolute.[3] That is, they may be violated if strict adherence to the rule would lead to much more undesirable consequences.

One of the most common objections to rule-consequentialism is that it is incoherent, because it is based on the consequentialist principle that what we should be concerned with is maximizing the good, but then it tells us not to act to maximize the good, but to follow rules (even in cases where we know that breaking the rule could produce better results).

Brad Hooker avoided this objection by not basing his form of rule-consequentialism on the ideal of maximizing the good. He writes:

the best argument for rule-consequentialism is not that it derives from an overarching commitment to maximise the good. The best argument for rule-consequentialism is that it does a better job than its rivals of matching and tying together our moral convictions, as well as offering us help with our moral disagreements and uncertainties[16]

Derek Parfit described Brad Hooker's book on rule-consequentialism Ideal Code, Real World as the "best statement and defence, so far, of one of the most important moral theories."[17]

The two-level approach involves engaging in critical reasoning and considering all the possible ramifications of one's actions before making an ethical decision, but reverting to generally reliable moral rules when one is not in a position to stand back and examine the dilemma as a whole. In practice, this equates to adhering to rule consequentialism when one can only reason on an intuitive level, and to act consequentialism when in a position to stand back and reason on a more critical level.[citation needed]

This position can be described as a reconciliation between act consequentialism in which the morality of an action is determined by that action's effects and rule consequentialism in which moral behavior is derived from following rules that lead to positive outcomes.[citation needed]

The two-level approach to consequentialism is most often associated with R. M. Hare and Peter Singer.[citation needed]

Another consequentialist version is motive consequentialism which looks at whether the state of affairs that results from the motive to choose an action is better or at least as good as each of the alternative state of affairs that would have resulted from alternative actions. This version gives relevance to the motive of an act and links it to its consequences. An act can therefore not be wrong if the decision to act was based on a right motive. A possible inference is, that one can not be blamed for mistaken judgements if the motivation was to do good.[18]

Most consequentialist theories focus on promoting some sort of good consequences. However, Negative utilitarianism lays out a consequentialist theory that focuses solely on minimizing bad consequences.

One major difference between these two approaches is the agent's responsibility. Positive consequentialism demands that we bring about good states of affairs, whereas negative consequentialism requires that we avoid bad ones. Stronger versions of negative consequentialism will require active intervention to prevent bad and ameliorate existing harm. In weaker versions, simple forbearance from acts tending to harm others is sufficient.

Often "negative" consequentialist theories assert that reducing suffering is more important than increasing pleasure. Karl Popper, for example, claimed "from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure...". (While Popper is not a consequentialist per se, this is taken as a classic statement of negative utilitarianism.) When considering a theory of justice, negative consequentialists may use a statewide or global-reaching principle: the reduction of suffering (for the disadvantaged) is more valuable than increased pleasure (for the affluent or luxurious).

Teleological ethics (Greek telos, "end"; logos, "science") is an ethical theory that holds that the ends or consequences of an act determine whether an act is good or evil. Teleological theories are often discussed in opposition to deontological ethical theories, which hold that acts themselves are inherently good or evil, regardless of the consequences of acts.[citation needed]

Teleological theories differ on the nature of the end that actions ought to promote. Eudaemonist theories (Greek eudaimonia, "happiness") hold that the goal of ethics consists in some function or activity appropriate to man as a human being, and thus tend to emphasize the cultivation of virtue or excellence in the agent as the end of all action. These could be the classical virtuescourage, temperance, justice, and wisdomthat promoted the Greek ideal of man as the "rational animal", or the theological virtuesfaith, hope, and lovethat distinguished the Christian ideal of man as a being created in the image of God.[citation needed]

Utilitarian-type theories hold that the end consists in an experience or feeling produced by the action. Hedonism, for example, teaches that this feeling is pleasureeither one's own, as in egoism (the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes), or everyone's, as in universalistic hedonism, or utilitarianism (the 19th-century English philosophers Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick), with its formula of the "greatest pleasure of the greatest number."[citation needed]

Other utilitarian-type views include the claims that the end of action is survival and growth, as in evolutionary ethics (the 19th-century English philosopher Herbert Spencer); the experience of power, as in despotism; satisfaction and adjustment, as in pragmatism (20th-century American philosophers Ralph Barton Perry and John Dewey); and freedom, as in existentialism (the 20th-century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre).[citation needed]

The chief problem for eudaemonist theories is to show that leading a life of virtue will also be attended by happinessby the winning of the goods regarded as the chief end of action. That Job should suffer and Socrates and Jesus die while the wicked prosper, then seems unjust. Eudaemonists generally reply that the universe is moral and that, in Socrates' words, "No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death," or, in Jesus' words, "But he who endures to the end will be saved." (Matt 10:22).

Utilitarian theories, on the other hand, must answer the charge that ends do not justify the means. The problem arises in these theories because they tend to separate the achieved ends from the action by which these ends were produced. One implication of utilitarianism is that one's intention in performing an act may include all of its foreseen consequences. The goodness of the intention then reflects the balance of the good and evil of these consequences, with no limits imposed upon it by the nature of the act itselfeven if it be, say, the breaking of a promise or the execution of an innocent man. Utilitarianism, in answering this charge, must show either that what is apparently immoral is not really so or that, if it really is so, then closer examination of the consequences will bring this fact to light. Ideal utilitarianism (G.E. Moore and Hastings Rashdall) tries to meet the difficulty by advocating a plurality of ends and including among them the attainment of virtue itself, which, as John Stuart Mill affirmed, "may be felt a good in itself, and desired as such with as great intensity as any other good."[citation needed]

Since pure consequentialism holds that an action is to be judged solely by its result, most consequentialist theories hold that a deliberate action is no different from a deliberate decision not to act. This contrasts with the "acts and omissions doctrine", which is upheld by some medical ethicists and some religions: it asserts there is a significant moral distinction between acts and deliberate non-actions which lead to the same outcome. This contrast is brought out in issues such as voluntary euthanasia.

One important characteristic of many normative moral theories such as consequentialism is the ability to produce practical moral judgements. At the very least, any moral theory needs to define the standpoint from which the goodness of the consequences are to be determined. What is primarily at stake here is the responsibility of the agent.[citation needed]

One common tactic among consequentialists, particularly those committed to an altruistic (selfless) account of consequentialism, is to employ an ideal, neutral observer from which moral judgements can be made. John Rawls, a critic of utilitarianism, argues that utilitarianism, in common with other forms of consequentialism, relies on the perspective of such an ideal observer.[3] The particular characteristics of this ideal observer can vary from an omniscient observer, who would grasp all the consequences of any action, to an ideally informed observer, who knows as much as could reasonably be expected, but not necessarily all the circumstances or all the possible consequences. Consequentialist theories that adopt this paradigm hold that right action is the action that will bring about the best consequences from this ideal observer's perspective.[citation needed]

In practice, it is very difficult, and at times arguably impossible, to adopt the point of view of an ideal observer. Individual moral agents do not know everything about their particular situations, and thus do not know all the possible consequences of their potential actions. For this reason, some theorists have argued that consequentialist theories can only require agents to choose the best action in line with what they know about the situation.[19] However, if this approach is navely adopted, then moral agents who, for example, recklessly fail to reflect on their situation, and act in a way that brings about terrible results, could be said to be acting in a morally justifiable way. Acting in a situation without first informing oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. As a result, it could be argued that there is a moral imperative for an agent to inform himself as much as possible about a situation before judging the appropriate course of action. This imperative, of course, is derived from consequential thinking: a better-informed agent is able to bring about better consequences.[citation needed]

Moral action always has consequences for certain people or things. Varieties of consequentialism can be differentiated by the beneficiary of the good consequences. That is, one might ask "Consequences for whom?"

A fundamental distinction can be drawn between theories which require that agents act for ends perhaps disconnected from their own interests and drives, and theories which permit that agents act for ends in which they have some personal interest or motivation. These are called "agent-neutral" and "agent-focused" theories respectively.

Agent-neutral consequentialism ignores the specific value a state of affairs has for any particular agent. Thus, in an agent-neutral theory, an actor's personal goals do not count any more than anyone else's goals in evaluating what action the actor should take. Agent-focused consequentialism, on the other hand, focuses on the particular needs of the moral agent. Thus, in an agent-focused account, such as one that Peter Railton outlines, the agent might be concerned with the general welfare, but the agent is more concerned with the immediate welfare of herself and her friends and family.[3]

These two approaches could be reconciled by acknowledging the tension between an agent's interests as an individual and as a member of various groups, and seeking to somehow optimize among all of these interests.[citation needed] For example, it may be meaningful to speak of an action as being good for someone as an individual, but bad for them as a citizen of their town.

Many consequentialist theories may seem primarily concerned with human beings and their relationships with other human beings. However, some philosophers argue that we should not limit our ethical consideration to the interests of human beings alone. Jeremy Bentham, who is regarded as the founder of utilitarianism, argues that animals can experience pleasure and pain, thus demanding that 'non-human animals' should be a serious object of moral concern.[20] More recently, Peter Singer has argued that it is unreasonable that we do not give equal consideration to the interests of animals as to those of human beings when we choose the way we are to treat them.[21] Such equal consideration does not necessarily imply identical treatment of humans and non-humans, any more than it necessarily implies identical treatment of all humans.

One way to divide various consequentialisms is by the types of consequences that are taken to matter most, that is, which consequences count as good states of affairs. According to utilitarianism, a good action is one that results in an increase in pleasure, and the best action is one that results in the most pleasure for the greatest number. Closely related is eudaimonic consequentialism, according to which a full, flourishing life, which may or may not be the same as enjoying a great deal of pleasure, is the ultimate aim. Similarly, one might adopt an aesthetic consequentialism, in which the ultimate aim is to produce beauty. However, one might fix on non-psychological goods as the relevant effect. Thus, one might pursue an increase in material equality or political liberty instead of something like the more ephemeral "pleasure". Other theories adopt a package of several goods, all to be promoted equally.

Consequentialism can also be contrasted with aretaic moral theories such as virtue ethics. Whereas consequentialist theories posit that consequences of action should be the primary focus of our thinking about ethics, virtue ethics insists that it is the character rather than the consequences of actions that should be the focal point. Some virtue ethicists hold that consequentialist theories totally disregard the development and importance of moral character. For example, Philippa Foot argues that consequences in themselves have no ethical content, unless it has been provided by a virtue such as benevolence.[3]

However, consequentialism and virtue ethics need not be entirely antagonistic. Philosopher Iain King has developed an approach which reconciles the two schools.[22] Other consequentialists consider effects on the character of people involved in an action when assessing consequence. Similarly, a consequentialist theory may aim at the maximization of a particular virtue or set of virtues. Finally, following Foot's lead, one might adopt a sort of consequentialism that argues that virtuous activity ultimately produces the best consequences.[citation needed][clarification needed]

The ultimate end is a concept in the moral philosophy of Max Weber, in which individuals act in a faithful, rather than rational, manner.[citation needed]

We must be clear about the fact that all ethically oriented conduct may be guided by one of two fundamentally differing and irreconcilably opposed maxims: conduct can be oriented to an "ethic of ultimate ends" or to an "ethic of responsibility." This is not to say that an ethic of ultimate ends is identical with irresponsibility, or that an ethic of responsibility is identical with unprincipled opportunism. Naturally, nobody says that. However, there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of ultimate endsthat, is in religious terms, "the Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord"and conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account of the foreseeable results of one's action.

Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation, 1918

The term "consequentialism" was coined by[citation needed]G. E. M. Anscombe in her essay "Modern Moral Philosophy" in 1958, to describe what she saw as the central error of certain moral theories, such as those propounded by Mill and Sidgwick.[23]

The phrase and concept of "The end justifies the means" are at least as old as the first century BC. Ovid wrote in his Heroides that Exitus acta probat "The result justifies the deed".

G. E. M. Anscombe objects to consequentialism on the grounds that it does not provide ethical guidance in what one ought to do because there is no distinction between consequences that are foreseen and those that are intended.[23][full citation needed]

Bernard Williams has argued that consequentialism is alienating because it requires moral agents to put too much distance between themselves and their own projects and commitments. Williams argues that consequentialism requires moral agents to take a strictly impersonal view of all actions, since it is only the consequences, and not who produces them, that are said to matter. Williams argues that this demands too much of moral agentssince (he claims) consequentialism demands that they be willing to sacrifice any and all personal projects and commitments in any given circumstance in order to pursue the most beneficent course of action possible. He argues further that consequentialism fails to make sense of intuitions that it can matter whether or not someone is personally the author of a particular consequence. For example, that participating in a crime can matter, even if the crime would have been committed anyway, or would even have been worse, without the agent's participation.[24]

Some consequentialistsmost notably Peter Railtonhave attempted to develop a form of consequentialism that acknowledges and avoids the objections raised by Williams. Railton argues that Williams's criticisms can be avoided by adopting a form of consequentialism in which moral decisions are to be determined by the sort of life that they express. On his account, the agent should choose the sort of life that will, on the whole, produce the best overall effects.[3]

View original post here:

Consequentialism - Wikipedia

Ethical Egoism – Carnegie Mellon University

Posted on by

Robert Cavalier Philosophy Department Carnegie Mellon

Part I History of Ethics

Preface: The Life of Socrates Section 1: Greek Moral Philosophy Section 2: Hellenistic and Roman Ethics Section 3: Early Christian Ethics Section 4: Modern Moral Philosophy Section 5: 20th Century Analytic Moral Philosophy

Part II Concepts and Problems

Preface: Meta-ethics, Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics Section 1: Ethical Relativism Section 2: Ethical Egoism Section 3: Utilitarian Theories Section 4: Deontological Theories Section 5: Virtue Ethics Section 6: Liberal Rights and Communitarian Theories Section 7: Ethics of Care Section 8: Case-based Moral Reasoning Section 9: Moral Pluralism

Part III Applied Ethics

Preface: The Field of Applied Ethics Section 1: The Topic of Euthanasia Multimedia Module: A Right to Die? The Dax Cowart Case Section 2: The Topic of Abortion Multimedia Module: The Issue of Abortion in America Postscript: Conflict Resolution

As a metaethical theory of motivation, psychological egoism asserts the descriptive claim that all of our actions can be reduced to self-interest: "Whenever people do something, it is only because they think something desirable for themselves will result from it." The claim is descriptive and thus open to counterexamples, and it is broad, stating a reductionistic thesis regarding all of our actions. (Contrast psychological egoism with the psychological state of sympathy, where 'the weal and woe of the other becomes the motive for our action'.)

It is interesting to note that while egoism rests on the principles of human psychology, a number of studies in the psychology of moral development seem to suggest that 'egoism' is in fact only a first stage in actual moral development.

See excerpts from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Egoism.

Go here to read the rest:

Ethical Egoism - Carnegie Mellon University

Essay about Ethical Egoism – 1656 Words – StudyMode

Posted on by

Ethical egoism is the normative theory that the promotion of one's own good is in accordance with morality. In the strong version, it is held that it is always moral to promote one's own good, and it is never moral not to promote it. In the weak version, it is said that although it is always moral to promote one's own good, it is not necessarily never moral to not. That is, there may be conditions in which the avoidance of personal interest may be a moral action.

In an imaginary construction of a world inhabited by a single being, it is possible that the pursuit of morality is the same as the pursuit of self-interest in that what is good for the agent is the same as what is in the agent's interests. Arguably, there could never arise an occasion when the agent ought not to pursue self-interest in favor of another morality, unless he produces an alternative ethical system in which he ought to renounce his values in favor of an imaginary self, or, other entity such as the universe, or the agent's God. Opponents of ethical egoism may claim, however, that although it is possible for this Robinson Crusoe type creature to lament previous choices as not conducive to self-interest (enjoying the pleasures of swimming all day, and not spending necessary time producing food), the mistake is not a moral mistake but a mistake of identifying self-interest. Presumably this lonely creature will begin to comprehend the distinctions between short, and long-term interests, and, that short-term pains can be countered by long-term gains.

In addition, opponents argue that even in a world inhabited by a single being, duties would still apply; (Kantian) duties are those actions that reason dictates ought to be pursued regardless of any gain, or loss to self or others. Further, the deontologist asserts the application of yet another moral sphere which ought to be pursued, namely, that of impartial duties. The problem with complicating the creature's world with impartial duties, however, is in defining an impartial task in a purely subjective world. Impartiality, the ethical egoist may retort, could only exist where there are competing selves: otherwise, the attempt to be impartial in judging one's actions is a redundant exercise. (However, the Cartesian rationalist could retort that need not be so, that a sentient being should act rationally, and reason will disclose what are the proper actions he should follow.)

If we move away from the imaginary construct of a single being's world, ethical egoism comes under fire from more pertinent arguments. In complying with ethical egoism, the individual aims at her own greatest good. Ignoring a definition of the good for the present, it may justly be argued that pursuing one's own greatest good can conflict with another's pursuit, thus creating a situation of conflict. In a typical example, a young person may see his greatest good in murdering his rich uncle to inherit his millions. It is the rich uncle's greatest good to continue enjoying his money, as he sees fit. According to detractors, conflict is an inherent problem of ethical egoism, and the model seemingly does not possess a conflict resolution system. With the additional premise of living in society, ethical egoism has much to respond to: obviously there are situations when two people's greatest goods the subjectively perceived working of their own self-interest will conflict, and, a solution to such dilemmas is a necessary element of any theory attempting to provide an ethical system.

The ethical egoist contends that her theory, in fact, has resolutions to the conflict. The first resolution proceeds from a state of nature examination. If, in the wilderness, two people simultaneously come across the only source of drinkable water a potential dilemma arises if both make a simultaneous claim to it. With no recourse to arbitration they must either accept an equal share of the water, which would comply with rational egoism. (In other...

Read more:

Essay about Ethical Egoism - 1656 Words - StudyMode

Moral nihilism – Wikipedia

Posted on by

This article is about the meta-ethical position. For a more general discussion of amoralism, see Amorality.

Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong. Moral nihilists consider morality to be constructed, a complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economical advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise without universal or even relative truth in any sense.[1]

Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which does allow for actions to be right or wrong relative to a particular culture or individual, and moral universalism, which holds actions to be right or wrong in the same way for everyone everywhere. Insofar as only true statements can be known, moral nihilism implies moral skepticism.

According to Sinnott-Armstrong (2006a), the basic thesis of moral nihilism is that "nothing is morally wrong" (3.4). There are, however, several forms that this thesis can take (see Sinnott-Armstrong, 2006b, pp.3237 and Russ Shafer-Landau, 2003, pp.813). There are two important forms of moral nihilism: error theory and expressivism[1] p.292.

One form of moral nihilism is expressivism. Expressivism denies the principle that our moral judgments try and fail to describe the moral features, because expressivists believe when someone says something is immoral they are not saying it is right or wrong. Expressivists are not trying to speak the truth when making moral judgments; they are simply trying to express their feelings. "We are not making an effort to describe the way the world is. We are not trying to report on the moral features possessed by various actions, motives, or policies. Instead, we are venting our emotions, commanding others to act in certain ways, or revealing a plan of action. When we condemn torture, for instance, we are expressing our opposition to it, indicating our disgust at it, publicizing our reluctance to perform it, and strongly encouraging others not to go in for it. We can do all of these things without trying to say anything that is true."[1] p.293.

This makes expressivism a form of non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivism in ethics is the view that moral statements lack truth-value and do not assert genuine propositions. This involves a rejection of the cognitivist claim, shared by other moral philosophies, that moral statements seek to "describe some feature of the world" (Garner 1967, 219-220). This position on its own is logically compatible with realism about moral values themselves. That is, one could reasonably hold that there are objective moral values but that we cannot know them and that our moral language does not seek to refer to them. This would amount to an endorsement of a type of moral skepticism, rather than nihilism.

Typically, however, the rejection of the cognitivist thesis is combined with the thesis that there are, in fact, no moral facts (van Roojen, 2004). But if moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, non-cognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible (Garner 1967, 219-220).

Not all forms of non-cognitivism are forms of moral nihilism, however: notably, the universal prescriptivism of R.M. Hare is a non-cognitivist form of moral universalism, which holds that judgements about morality may be correct or not in a consistent, universal way, but do not attempt to describe features of reality and so are not, strictly speaking, truth-apt.

Error theory is built on three principles:

Thus, we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken. Hence the error. These three principles lead to the conclusion that there is no moral knowledge. Knowledge requires truth. If there is no moral truth, there can be no moral knowledge. Thus moral values are purely chimerical.[1]

Error theorists combine the cognitivist thesis that moral language consists of truth-apt statements with the nihilist thesis that there are no moral facts. Like moral nihilism itself, however, error theory comes in more than one form: Global falsity and Presupposition failure.

The first, which one might call the global falsity form of error theory, claims that moral beliefs and assertions are false in that they claim that certain moral facts exist that in fact do not exist. J. L. Mackie (1977) argues for this form of moral nihilism. Mackie argues that moral assertions are only true if there are moral properties that are intrinsically motivating, but there is good reason to believe that there are no such intrinsically motivating properties (see the argument from queerness and motivational internalism).

The second form, which one might call the presupposition failure form of error theory, claims that moral beliefs and assertions are not true because they are neither true nor false. This is not a form of non-cognitivism, for moral assertions are still thought to be truth-apt. Rather, this form of moral nihilism claims that moral beliefs and assertions presuppose the existence of moral facts that do not exist. This is analogous to presupposition failure in cases of non-moral assertions. Take, for example, the claim that the present king of France is bald. Some argue[who?] that this claim is truth-apt in that it has the logical form of an assertion, but it is neither true nor false because it presupposes that there is currently a king of France, but there is not. The claim suffers from "presupposition failure." Richard Joyce (2001) argues for this form of moral nihilism under the name "fictionalism."

The philosophy of Niccol Machiavelli is sometimes presented as a model of moral nihilism, but this is at best ambiguous. His book Il Principe (The Prince) praised many acts of violence and deception, which shocked a European tradition that throughout the Middle Ages had inculcated moral lessons in its political philosophies. Machiavelli does say that the Prince must override traditional moral rules in favor of power-maintaining reasons of State, but he also says, particularly in his other works, that the successful ruler should be guided by Pagan rather than Christian virtues. Hence, Machiavelli presents an alternative to the ethical theories of his day, rather than an all-out rejection of all morality.

Closer to being an example of moral nihilism is Thrasymachus, as portrayed in Plato's Republic. Thrasymachus argues, for example, that rules of justice are structured to benefit those who are able to dominate political and social institutions. Thrasymachus can, however, be interpreted as offering a revisionary account of justice, rather than a total rejection of morality and normative discourse.

Glover has cited realist views of amoralism held by early Athenians, and in some ethical positions affirmed by Joseph Stalin.[2]

Criticisms of moral nihilism come primarily from moral realists,[citation needed] who argue that there are positive moral truths. Still, criticisms do arise out of the other anti-realist camps (i.e. subjectivists and relativists). Not only that, but each school of moral nihilism has its own criticisms of one another (e.g. the non-cognitivists' critique of error theory for accepting the semantic thesis of moral realism).[citation needed]

Still other detractors deny that the basis of moral objectivity need be metaphysical. The moral naturalist, though a form of moral realist, agrees with the nihilists' critique of metaphysical justifications for right and wrong. Moral naturalists prefer to define "morality" in terms of observables, some even appealing to a science of morality.[citation needed]

See original here:

Moral nihilism - Wikipedia

Nietzsches Analysis of Nihilism | The World Is On Fire

Posted on by

by Vered Arnon

In the notebook(1) excerpts published as The Will to Power Nietzsche describes nihilism as ambiguous in that it can be symptomatic of either strength or weakness. Nietzsche claims that nihilism is a necessary step in the transition to a revaluation of all values. Passive nihilism is characterised by a weak will, and active nihilism by a strong will. Nietzsche emphasises that nihilism is merely a means to an end, and not an end in itself.

Nihilism, according to Nietzsche, is the most extreme form of pessimism. Put simply, it is the belief that everything is meaningless, but this oversimplifies the concept. Nihilism is a transitional stage that accompanies human development. It arises from weariness. When people feel alienated from values, and have lost the foundation of their value system but have not replaced it with anything, then they become nihilists. They become disappointed with the egoistic nature of truth and morality and so on, but at the same time recognise that what is egoistic is necessary. The notion of free will seems contradictory. Values, though originating from the ego, have been placed in a sphere so far outside and above that they are untouchable. Any attempt to really figure out the truth or posit a true reality has become impossible, thus the world appears meaningless and valueless. The nihilist realises that all criteria by which the real world have been measured are categories that refer to a fictitious, constructed world. This sense of alienation results in exhaustion.

Nihilism would be a good sign, Nietzsche writes in his notebooks. It is a necessary transitional phase, cleansing and clearing away outdated value systems so that something new can rise in their place. He writes about two different forms of nihilism, active nihilism and passive nihilism. Passive nihilism is more the traditional belief that all is meaningless, while active nihilism goes beyond judgement to deed, and destroys values where they seem apparent. Passive nihilism signifies the end of an era, while active nihilism ushers in something new. Nietzsche considers nihilism not as an end, but as a means ultimately to the revaluation of values. He stresses repeatedly that nihilism is a transitional stage.

Passive nihilism is symptomatic of decreased, declined, receded power of the spirit(2). One recognises that all external values are empty and have no true authority. This renders the internal values, the conscience, meaningless as well, resulting in the loss of personal authority. All authority gone, the spirit in hopelessness and with a sense of fatalism strives to rid itself of all responsibility. All trust in society is gone, and the will is weakened. Aims, motives, and goals are gone. The spirit wants something to depend on, but has absolutely nothing that isnt arbitrary. Disintegration of the structured system of values leads one to seek escape in anything that still maintains an outward semblance of authority. These things are hollow escapes though, what Nietzsche calls self-narcotization. The spirit attempts to escape, or at least forget about the emptiness. The weakened will strives to intoxicate itself in resignation, generalisations, petty things, debauchery and fanaticism. The will is weak and seeks escape rather than action. But any attempt to escape nihilism without revaluating values only makes the problem more acute.

Active nihilism is symptomatic of an increased power of the spirit. The will is strengthened and rebellious. This is the form of nihilism that does not stop at judgement, but goes on in action to be destructive towards the remaining vestiges of empty value systems. The strength of the will is tested by whether or not it can recognise all value systems as empty and meaningless, yet admit that these lies arise out of us and serve a purpose. This denial of a truthful world, Nietzsche says, may be a divine way of thinking. The active nihilist recognises that simplification and lies are necessary for life. The value of values becomes their emptiness. Where rationality and reason have clearly failed, the nihilist embraces irrationality and freedom from logic. The will now has an opportunity to assert its strength and power to deny all authority and deny goals and faith to deny the constraints of existence. Nietzsche describes this state as both destructive and ironic.

Active nihilism obviously is not an end, however. It merely opens the stage for the beginning of a revaluation of values. It opens the stage for the will to take power and assert itself. Nihilism is the precursor to revaluation, it does not replace values, it only tears them away. It functions as an essential transition, and must be understood as a means and not an end.

1 This paper is an analysis of notebook passages in an attempt to piece together and summarise Nietzsches ideas on a very small specific topic (His notebook entries often deal with nihilism, morality, pessimism, etc all at once. I am attempting to put together coherently what his views are on nihilism, sorting it out from the rest and leaving the rest alone). For the ease of reading, I will not employ internal citation. All of these ideas and propositions belong to Nietzsche alone, and come from Book One: European Nihilism from The Will To Power, translated and edited by Walter Kaufmann in 1967. 2 Spirit refers to a persons will. Nietzsche does not posit the existence of souls. This word is not used in a religious sense.

More:

Nietzsches Analysis of Nihilism | The World Is On Fire

Hedonism – New World Encyclopedia

Posted on by

Hedonism (Greek: hdon ( from Ancient Greek) "pleasure" +ism) is a philosophical position that takes the pursuit of pleasure as the primary motivating element of life, based upon a view that "pleasure is good." The concept of pleasure is, however, understood and approached in a variety of ways, and hedonism is classified accordingly.

The three basic types of philosophical hedonism are psychological hedonism, which holds that the tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain is an essential attribute of human nature; evaluative or ethical hedonism, which sets up certain ethical or moral ends as desirable because attaining them will result in happiness; and reflective, or normative hedonism, which seeks to define value in terms of pleasure. The ancient Greek philosophers Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus (341 270 B.C.E.) and their followers developed ethical theories centered on the good life (the ideal life, the life most worth living, eudaimonia, happiness) and the role of pleasure of achieving it. During the Middle Ages, hedonism was rejected as incompatible with Christian ideals, but Renaissance philosophers revived it on the grounds that God intended man to be happy. Nineteenth-century British philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham established the ethical theory of Utilitarianism with a hedonistic orientation, holding that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.

There are many philosophical forms of hedonism, but they can be distinguished into three basic types: psychological hedonism; evaluative, or ethical hedonism; and reflective, or rationalizing hedonism. Psychological hedonism holds that it is an essential aspect of human nature to seek pleasure and avoid pain; human beings cannot act in any other way. A human being will always act in a way that, to his understanding, will produce what he perceives as the greatest pleasure, or protect him from undesirable pain. Psychological hedonism is either based on observation of human behavior, or necessitated by a definition of desire. Psychological hedonism is often a form of egoism, preoccupied with pleasure of the individual subject, but it can also be concerned with the pleasure of society or humanity as a whole. Altruistic versions of psychological hedonism involve deep-seated convictions, cultural or religious beliefs which motivate a person to act for the benefit of family or society, or the expectation of an afterlife. Problems of psychological hedonism include the definitions of desire and pleasure. Is desire tied to the satisfaction of physical sensations or does it extend to mental and rational conceptions of pleasure? Are all positive experiences, even minor and mundane ones, psychological motivations?

Evaluative hedonism is an attempt to set up certain ends or goals as desirable, and to persuade others that these goals ought to be pursued, and that achieving them will result in pleasure. Evaluative hedonism is sometimes used to support or justify an existing system of moral values. Many altruistic and utilitarian moral systems are of this type, because they encourage the individual to sacrifice or restrict immediate sensual gratification in favor of a more rational gratification, such as the satisfaction of serving others, or the maintenance of an egalitarian society where every individual receives certain benefits. Evaluative hedonism raises the problem of deciding exactly what ends are desirable, and why.

Reflective, normative, or rationalizing hedonism, seeks to define value in terms of pleasure. Even the most complex human pursuits are attributed to the desire to maximize pleasure, and it is that desire which makes them rational. Objections to determining value based on pleasure include the fact that there is no common state or property found in all experiences of pleasure, which could be used to establish an objective measurement. Not all experiences of pleasure could be considered valuable, particularly if they arise from criminal activity or weakness of character, or cause harm to others. Another objection is that there are many other types of valuable experiences besides the immediate experience of pleasure, such as being a good parent, creating a work of art or choosing to act with integrity, which, though they could be said to produce some kind of altruistic pleasure, are very difficult to categorize and quantify. Normative hedonism determines value solely according to the pleasure experienced, without regard for the future pleasure or pain resulting from a particular action.

Among the ancient Greek philosophers, discussion of ethical theory often centered on the good life (the ideal life, the life most worth living, eudaimonia, happiness) and the role of pleasure of achieving it. Various expressions of the concept that pleasure is the good were developed by philosophers such as Democritus, Aristippus, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus and their followers, and vigorously disagreed with by their opponents. Aristippus (fifth century B.C.E.) and the Cyrenaic school maintained that the greatest good was the pleasure of the moment and advocated a life of sensual pleasure, on the grounds that all living creatures pursue pleasure and avoid pain. This position reflected a skepticism that only the sensations of the moment could be known, and that concern with the past or the future only caused uncertainty and anxiety and should be avoided.

Ancient Greeks looked to the natural world and agreed that every organism was motivated to act for its own good, but differed as to whether that good was pleasure. Democritus (c. 460 c. 370 B.C.E.) is reported to have held that the supreme good was a pleasant state of tranquility of mind (euthumia), and that particular pleasures or pains should be chosen according to how they contributed to that tranquility. In the Protagoras, Socrates (470 -399 B.C.E.) presented a version of Democritean hedonism which included a method for calculating relative pleasures and pains. Socrates argued that an agents own good was not immediate pleasure, and that it was necessary to differentiate between pleasures that promoted good, and harmful pleasures. In his later dialogues, Plato (c. 428 -347 B.C.E.) agreed that while the good life was pleasant, the goodness consisted in rationality and the pleasantness was an adjunct.

Aristotle challenged the definition of pleasure as a process of remedying a natural deficiency in the organism (satisfying hunger, thirst, desire), declaring instead that pleasure occurs when a natural potentiality for thought or perception is realized in perfect conditions. Every kind of actualization has its own pleasure; the pleasure of thought, the pleasure of art, the bodily pleasures. Eudaimonia (the ideal state of existence) consists of the optimal realization of mans capacity for thought and rational choice; it would naturally be characterized by the greatest degree of pleasure.

Epicurus (341 270 B.C.E.) and his school distinguished two types of pleasure: the pleasure that supplying the deficiency of an organism (such as hunger or desire) and the pleasure experienced when the organism is in a stable state, free from all pain or disturbance. He gave supremacy to the latter type, and emphasized the reduction of desire over the immediate acquisition of pleasure. Epicurus claimed that the highest pleasure consists of a simple, moderate life spent with friends and in philosophical discussion, and discouraged overindulgence of any kind because it would ultimately lead to some kind of pain or instability.

We recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we judge every good. (Epicurus, "Letter to Menoeceus")

Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages denounced Epicurean hedonism as inconsistent with the Christian aims of avoiding sin, obeying the will of God, cultivating virtues such as charity and faith, and seeking a reward in the afterlife for sacrifice and suffering on earth. During the Renaissance, philosophers such as Erasmus (1465 1536) revived hedonism on the grounds that it was Gods wish for human beings to be happy and experience pleasure. In describing the ideal society of his Utopia (1516), Thomas More said that "the chief part of a person's happiness consists of pleasure." More argued that God created man to be happy, and uses the desire for pleasure to motivate moral behavior. More made a distinction between pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind, and urged the pursuit of natural pleasures rather than those produced by artificial luxuries.

During the eighteenth century, Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747) and David Hume (1711-1776) systematically examined the role of pleasure and happiness in morality and society; their theories were precursors to utilitarianism.

The nineteenth-century British philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham established fundamental principles of hedonism through their ethical theory of Utilitarianism. Utilitarian value stands as a precursor to hedonistic values in that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. All actions are to be judged on the basis of how much pleasure they produce in relation to the amount of pain that results from them. Since utilitarianism was dealing with public policy, it was necessary to develop a hedonistic calculus to assign a ratio of pleasure to pain for any given action or policy. Though consistent in their pursuit of the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people, Bentham and Mill differed in the methods by which they measured happiness.

Jeremy Bentham and his followers argued a quantitative approach. Bentham believed that the value of a pleasure could be understood by multiplying its intensity by its duration. Not only the number of pleasures, but their intensity and duration had to be taken into account. Benthams quantitative theory identified six dimensions of value in a pleasure or pain: intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, and purity (Bentham 1789, ch. 4).

John Stuart Mill argued for a qualitative approach. Mill believed that there are different levels of pleasure, and that pleasure of a higher quality has more value than pleasure of a lower quality. Mill suggested that simpler beings (he often referenced pigs) have easier access to the simpler pleasures; since they are not aware of other aspects of life, they can simply indulge themselves without thinking. More elaborate beings think more about other matters and hence lessen the time they spend on the enjoyment of simple pleasures. Critics of the qualitative approach found several problems with it. They pointed out that 'pleasures' do not necessarily share common traits, other than the fact that they can be seen as "pleasurable." The definition of 'pleasant' is subjective and differs among individuals, so the 'qualities' of pleasures are difficult to study objectively and in terms of universal absolutes. Another objection is that quality is not an intrinsic attribute of pleasure; the quality of pleasure is judged either its quantity and intensity or by some non-hedonistic value (such as altruism or the capacity to elevate the mind).

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. (Bentham 1789)

Christian Hedonism is a term coined in 1986 for a theological movement originally conceived by a pastor, Dr. John Piper, in his book, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. The tenets of this philosophy are that humans were created by (the Christian) God with the priority purpose of lavishly enjoying God through knowing, worshiping, and serving Him. This philosophy recommends pursuing one's own happiness in God as the ultimate in human pleasure. Similar to the Epicurean view, the highest pleasure is regarded as something long-term and found not in indulgence but in a life devoted to God. Serious questions have been raised within the Christian community as to whether Christian Hedonism displaces "love God" with "enjoy God" as the greatest and foremost commandment.

A typical apologetic for Christian Hedonism is that if you are to love something truly, then you must truly enjoy it. It could be summed up in this statement: "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him."

More recently, the term Christian Hedonism has been used by the French philosopher Michel Onfray to qualify the various heretic movements from Middle-Age to Montaigne.

In common usage, the word hedonism is often associated with self-indulgence and having a very loose or liberal view of the morality of sex. Most forms of hedonism actually concentrate on spiritual or intellectual goals, or the pursuit of general well-being.

All links retrieved February 13, 2014.

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

See the original post:

Hedonism - New World Encyclopedia

Quotes About Atheism (1444 quotes)

Posted on by

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. Its us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor? Alan Moore, Watchmen

The rest is here:

Quotes About Atheism (1444 quotes)

Second Amendment – National Constitution Center

Posted on by

The Second Amendment

Modern debates about the Second Amendment have focused on whether it protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms, or a right that can be exercised only through militia organizations like the National Guard. This question, however, was not even raised until long after the Bill of Rights was adopted.

Many in the Founding generation believed that governments are prone to use soldiers to oppress the people. English history suggested that this risk could be controlled by permitting the government to raise armies (consisting of full-time paid troops) only when needed to fight foreign adversaries. For other purposes, such as responding to sudden invasions or other emergencies, the government could rely on a militia that consisted of ordinary civilians who supplied their own weapons and received some part-time, unpaid military training.

The onset of war does not always allow time to raise and train an army, and the Revolutionary War showed that militia forces could not be relied on for national defense. The Constitutional Convention therefore decided that the federal government should have almost unfettered authority to establish peacetime standing armies and to regulate the militia.

This massive shift of power from the states to the federal government generated one of the chief objections to the proposed Constitution. Anti-Federalists argued that the proposed Constitution would take from the states their principal means of defense against federal usurpation. The Federalists responded that fears of federal oppression were overblown, in part because the American people were armed and would be almost impossible to subdue through military force.

Implicit in the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two shared assumptions. First, that the proposed new Constitution gave the federal government almost total legal authority over the army and militia. Second, that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry. They disagreed only about whether an armed populace could adequately deter federal oppression.

The Second Amendment conceded nothing to the Anti-Federalists desire to sharply curtail the military power of the federal government, which would have required substantial changes in the original Constitution. Yet the Amendment was easily accepted because of widespread agreement that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, any more than it should have the power to abridge the freedom of speech or prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Much has changed since 1791. The traditional militia fell into desuetude, and state-based militia organizations were eventually incorporated into the federal military structure. The nations military establishment has become enormously more powerful than eighteenth century armies. We still hear political rhetoric about federal tyranny, but most Americans do not fear the nations armed forces and virtually no one thinks that an armed populace could defeat those forces in battle. Furthermore, eighteenth century civilians routinely kept at home the very same weapons they would need if called to serve in the militia, while modern soldiers are equipped with weapons that differ significantly from those generally thought appropriate for civilian uses. Civilians no longer expect to use their household weapons for militia duty, although they still keep and bear arms to defend against common criminals (as well as for hunting and other forms of recreation).

The law has also changed. While states in the Founding era regulated gunsblacks were often prohibited from possessing firearms and militia weapons were frequently registered on government rollsgun laws today are more extensive and controversial. Another important legal development was the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Amendment originally applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit. Although there is substantial evidence that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to protect the right of individuals to keep and bear arms from infringement by the states, the Supreme Court rejected this interpretation in United States v. Cruikshank (1876).

Until recently, the judiciary treated the Second Amendment almost as a dead letter. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), however, the Supreme Court invalidated a federal law that forbade nearly all civilians from possessing handguns in the nations capital. A 54 majority ruled that the language and history of the Second Amendment showed that it protects a private right of individuals to have arms for their own defense, not a right of the states to maintain a militia.

The dissenters disagreed. They concluded that the Second Amendment protects a nominally individual right, though one that protects only the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. They also argued that even if the Second Amendment did protect an individual right to have arms for self-defense, it should be interpreted to allow the government to ban handguns in high-crime urban areas.

Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), the Court struck down a similar handgun ban at the state level, again by a 54 vote. Four Justices relied on judicial precedents under the Fourteenth Amendments Due Process Clause. Justice Thomas rejected those precedents in favor of reliance on the Privileges or Immunities Clause, but all five members of the majority concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state infringement of the same individual right that is protected from federal infringement by the Second Amendment.

Notwithstanding the lengthy opinions in Heller and McDonald, they technically ruled only that government may not ban the possession of handguns by civilians in their homes. Heller tentatively suggested a list of presumptively lawful regulations, including bans on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, bans on carrying firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, laws restricting the commercial sale of arms, bans on the concealed carry of firearms, and bans on weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Many issues remain open, and the lower courts have disagreed with one another about some of them, including important questions involving restrictions on carrying weapons in public.

The right to keep and bear arms is a lot like the right to freedom of speech. In each case, the Constitution expressly protects a liberty that needs to be insulated from the ordinary political process.

Gun control is as much a part of the Second Amendment as the right to keep and bear arms. The text of the amendment, which refers to a well regulated Militia, suggests as much.

Not a Second Class Right: The Second Amendment Today by Nelson Lund

The right to keep and bear arms is a lot like the right to freedom of speech. In each case, the Constitution expressly protects a liberty that needs to be insulated from the ordinary political process. Neither right, however, is absolute. The First Amendment, for example, has never protected perjury, fraud, or countless other crimes that are committed through the use of speech. Similarly, no reasonable person could believe that violent criminals should have unrestricted access to guns, or that any individual should possess a nuclear weapon.

Inevitably, courts must draw lines, allowing government to carry out its duty to preserve an orderly society, without unduly infringing the legitimate interests of individuals in expressing their thoughts and protecting themselves from criminal violence. This is not a precise science or one that will ever be free from controversy.

One judicial approach, however, should be unequivocally rejected. During the nineteenth century, courts routinely refused to invalidate restrictions on free speech that struck the judges as reasonable. This meant that speech got virtually no judicial protection. Government suppression of speech can usually be thought to serve some reasonable purpose, such as reducing social discord or promoting healthy morals. Similarly, most gun control laws can be viewed as efforts to save lives and prevent crime, which are perfectly reasonable goals. If thats enough to justify infringements on individual liberty, neither constitutional guarantee means much of anything.

During the twentieth century, the Supreme Court finally started taking the First Amendment seriously. Today, individual freedom is generally protected unless the government can make a strong case that it has a real need to suppress speech or expressive conduct, and that its regulations are tailored to that need. The legal doctrines have become quite complex, and there is room for disagreement about many of the Courts specific decisions. Taken as a whole, however, this body of case law shows what the Court can do when it appreciates the value of an individual right enshrined in the Constitution.

The Second Amendment also raises issues about which reasonable people can disagree. But if the Supreme Court takes this provision of the Constitution as seriously as it now takes the First Amendment, which it should do, there will be some easy issues as well.

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) is one example. The right of the people protected by the Second Amendment is an individual right, just like the right[s] of the people protected by the First and Fourth Amendments. The Constitution does not say that the Second Amendment protects a right of the states or a right of the militia, and nobody offered such an interpretation during the Founding era. Abundant historical evidence indicates that the Second Amendment was meant to leave citizens with the ability to defend themselves against unlawful violence. Such threats might come from usurpers of governmental power, but they might also come from criminals whom the government is unwilling or unable to control.

McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) was also an easy case under the Courts precedents. Most other provisions of the Bill of Rights had already been applied to the states because they are deeply rooted in this Nations history and tradition. The right to keep and bear arms clearly meets this test.

The text of the Constitution expressly guarantees the right to bear arms, not just the right to keep them. The courts should invalidate regulations that prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying weapons in public, where the vast majority of violent crimes occur. First Amendment rights are not confined to the home, and neither are those protected by the Second Amendment.

Nor should the government be allowed to create burdensome bureaucratic obstacles designed to frustrate the exercise of Second Amendment rights. The courts are vigilant in preventing government from evading the First Amendment through regulations that indirectly abridge free speech rights by making them difficult to exercise. Courts should exercise the same vigilance in protecting Second Amendment rights.

Some other regulations that may appear innocuous should be struck down because they are little more than political stunts. Popular bans on so-called assault rifles, for example, define this class of guns in terms of cosmetic features, leaving functionally identical semi-automatic rifles to circulate freely. This is unconstitutional for the same reason that it would violate the First Amendment to ban words that have a French etymology, or to require that French fries be called freedom fries.

In most American states, including many with large urban population centers, responsible adults have easy access to ordinary firearms, and they are permitted to carry them in public. Experience has shown that these policies do not lead to increased levels of violence. Criminals pay no more attention to gun control regulations than they do to laws against murder, rape, and robbery. Armed citizens, however, prevent countless crimes and have saved many lives. Whats more, the most vulnerable peopleincluding women, the elderly, and those who live in high crime neighborhoodsare among the greatest beneficiaries of the Second Amendment. If the courts require the remaining jurisdictions to stop infringing on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms, their citizens will be more free and probably safer as well.

The Reasonable Right to Bear Arms by Adam Winkler

Gun control is as much a part of the Second Amendment as the right to keep and bear arms. The text of the amendment, which refers to a well regulated Militia, suggests as much. As the Supreme Court correctly noted in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the militia of the founding era was the body of ordinary citizens capable of taking up arms to defend the nation. While the Founders sought to protect the citizenry from being disarmed entirely, they did not wish to prevent government from adopting reasonable regulations of guns and gun owners.

Although Americans today often think that gun control is a modern invention, the Founding era had laws regulating the armed citizenry. There were laws designed to ensure an effective militia, such as laws requiring armed citizens to appear at mandatory musters where their guns would be inspected. Governments also compiled registries of civilian-owned guns appropriate for militia service, sometimes conducting door-to-door surveys. The Founders had broad bans on gun possession by people deemed untrustworthy, including slaves and loyalists. The Founders even had laws requiring people to have guns appropriate for militia service.

The wide range of Founding-era laws suggests that the Founders understood gun rights quite differently from many people today. The right to keep and bear arms was not a libertarian license for anyone to have any kind of ordinary firearm, anywhere they wanted. Nor did the Second Amendment protect a right to revolt against a tyrannical government. The Second Amendment was about ensuring public safety, and nothing in its language was thought to prevent what would be seen today as quite burdensome forms of regulation.

The Founding-era laws indicate why the First Amendment is not a good analogy to the Second. While there have always been laws restricting perjury and fraud by the spoken word, such speech was not thought to be part of the freedom of speech. The Second Amendment, by contrast, unambiguously recognizes that the armed citizenry must be regulatedand regulated well. This language most closely aligns with the Fourth Amendment, which protects a right to privacy but also recognizes the authority of the government to conduct reasonable searches and seizures.

The principle that reasonable regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment has been affirmed throughout American history. Ever since the first cases challenging gun controls for violating the Second Amendment or similar provisions in state constitutions, courts have repeatedly held that reasonable gun lawsthose that dont completely deny access to guns by law-abiding peopleare constitutionally permissible. For 150 years, this was the settled law of the landuntil Heller.

Heller, however, rejected the principle of reasonableness only in name, not in practice. The decision insisted that many types of gun control laws are presumptively lawful, including bans on possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, bans on concealed carry, bans on dangerous and unusual weapons, restrictions on guns in sensitive places like schools and government buildings, and commercial sale restrictions. Nearly all gun control laws today fit within these exceptions. Importantly, these exceptions for modern-day gun laws unheard of in the Founding era also show that lawmakers are not limited to the types of gun control in place at the time of the Second Amendments ratification.

In the years since Heller, the federal courts have upheld the overwhelming majority of gun control laws challenged under the Second Amendment. Bans on assault weapons have been consistently upheld, as have restrictions on gun magazines that hold more than a minimum number of rounds of ammunition. Bans on guns in national parks, post offices, bars, and college campuses also survived. These decisions make clear that lawmakers have wide leeway to restrict guns to promote public safety so long as the basic right of law-abiding people to have a gun for self-defense is preserved.

Perhaps the biggest open question after Heller is whether the Second Amendment protects a right to carry guns in public. While every state allows public carry, some states restrict that right to people who can show a special reason to have a gun on the street. To the extent these laws give local law enforcement unfettered discretion over who can carry, they are problematic. At the same time, however, many constitutional rights are far more limited in public than in the home. Parades can be required to have a permit, the police have broader powers to search pedestrians and motorists than private homes, and sexual intimacy in public places can be completely prohibited.

The Supreme Court may yet decide that more stringent limits on gun control are required under the Second Amendment. Such a decision, however, would be contrary to the text, history, and tradition of the right to keep and bear arms.

Here is the original post:

Second Amendment - National Constitution Center

First Amendment – National Constitution Center

Posted on by

Clauses of the First Amendment

The Establishment Clause

Americas early settlers came from a variety of religious backgrounds: Puritans predominated in New England; Anglicans predominated in the South; Quakers and Lutherans flocked especially to Pennsylvania; Roman Catholics settled mostly in Maryland; Presbyterians were most numerous in the middle colonies; and there were Jewish congregations in five cities.

During colonial times, the Church of England was established by law in all of the southern colonies, while localized Puritan (or Congregationalist) establishments held sway in most New England states. In those colonies, clergy were appointed and disciplined by colonial authorities and colonists were required to pay religious taxes and (often) to attend church services. Dissenters were often punished for preaching without a license or refusing to pay taxes to a church they disagreed with. Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and much of New York had no established church.

After Independence, there was widespread agreement that there should be no nationally established church. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, principally authored by James Madison, reflects this consensus. The language of the Establishment Clause itself applies only to the federal government (Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion). All states disestablished religion by 1833, and in the 1940s the Supreme Court held that disestablishment applies to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Virtually all jurists agree that it would violate the Establishment Clause for the government to compel attendance or financial support of a religious institution as such, for the government to interfere with a religious organizations selection of clergy or religious doctrine; for religious organizations or figures acting in a religious capacity to exercise governmental power; or for the government to extend benefits to some religious entities and not others without adequate secular justification. Beyond that, the meaning of the Amendment is often hotly contested, and Establishment cases in the Supreme Court often lead to 5-4 splits.

The Lemon Test

In 1971, the Supreme Court surveyed its previous Establishment Clause cases and identified three factors that identify when a government practice violates the Establishment Clause: First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive entanglement with religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). In the years since Lemon, the test has been much criticized and the Court often decides Establishment Clause cases without reference to it. Yet the Justices have not overruled the Lemon test, meaning the lower courts remain obliged to use it. In some specific areas of controversy, however, the Court has adopted specific, more targeted tests to replace Lemon.

The vast majority of Establishment Clause cases have fallen in four areas: monetary aid to religious education or other social welfare activities conducted by religious institutions; government-sponsored prayer; accommodation of religious dissenters from generally-applicable laws; and government owned or sponsored religious symbols.

Aid to religious institutions

Scholars have long debated between two opposing interpretations of the Establishment Clause as it applies to government funding: (1) that the government must be neutral between religious and non-religious institutions that provide education or other social services; or (2) that no taxpayer funds should be given to religious institutions if they might be used to communicate religious doctrine. Initially, the Court tended toward the first interpretation, in the 1970s and 1980s the Court shifted to the second interpretation, and more recently the Court has decisively moved back to the first idea.

After two early decisions upholding state statutes allowing students who attend private religious schools to receive transportation, Everson v. Board of Education (1947), and textbook subsidies available to all elementary and secondary students, Board of Education v. Allen (1968), the Court attempted for about fifteen years to draw increasingly sharp lines against the use of tax-funded assistance for the religious aspects of education. At one point the Court even forbade public school teaching specialists from going on the premises of religious schools to provide remedial assistance. Aguilar v. Felton (1985). More recently, the Court has upheld programs that provide aid to educational or social programs on a neutral basis only as a result of the genuine and independent choices of private individuals. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002). Indeed, the Court has held that it is unconstitutional under free speech or free exercise principles to exclude otherwise eligible recipients from government assistance solely because their activity is religious in nature. Rosenberger v. University of Virginia (1995).

Government-sponsored prayer

The Courts best-known Establishment Clause decisions held it unconstitutional for public schools to lead schoolchildren in prayer or Bible reading, even on an ostensibly voluntary basis. Engel v. Vitale (1962); Abington School District v. Schempp (1963). Although these decisions were highly controversial among the public (less so among scholars), the Court has not backed down. Instead it has extended the prohibition to prayers at graduation ceremonies, Lee v. Weisman (1992), and football games, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000).

In less coercive settings involving adults, the Court has generally allowed government-sponsored prayer. In Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the Court upheld legislative prayer, specifically because it was steeped in history. More recently, the Court approved an opening prayer or statement at town council meetings, where the Town represented that it would accept any prayers of any faith. Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014).

Accommodation of religion

Hundreds of federal, state, and local laws exempt or accommodate religious believers or institutions from otherwise neutral, generally-applicable laws for whom compliance would conflict with religiously motivated conduct. Examples include military draft exemptions, kosher or halal meals for prisoners, medical neglect exemptions for parents who do not believe in medical treatment for their ill children, exemptions from some anti-discrimination laws for religious entities, military headgear requirements, and exemptions for the sacramental use of certain drugs. The Supreme Court has addressed very few of these exemptions. While the Court held that a state sales tax exemption limited to religious publications was unconstitutional in Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock (1989), it unanimously upheld the exemption of religious organizations from prohibitions on employment discrimination for ministers. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C. (2012).

Two federal laws, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), provide broad-based statutory accommodations for religious practice when it conflicts with federal and certain state and local laws. A unanimous Court upheld this approach for prisoners against a claim that granting religious accommodations violates the Establishment Clause, reasoning that RLUIPA alleviates exceptional government-created burdens on private religious exercise in prisons. Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005).

The Court in Cutter left open the question whether such a regime applied to land use is constitutional and it also left open the possibility that even some applications in prisons may be unconstitutional if they are not even-handed among religions or impose too extreme a burden on non-believers. The Courts recent 5-4 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), holding that RFRA exempts for-profit employers from paying for insurance coverage of contraceptive drugs that they believe are abortion-inducing, has reinvigorated the debate over such laws.

Government-sponsored religious symbols

The cases involving governmental displays of religious symbolssuch as Ten Commandment displays in public school classrooms, courthouses, or public parks; nativity scenes in courthouses and shopping districts; or crosses on public landhave generated much debate. The most prominent approach in more recent cases is called the endorsement test; it asks whether a reasonable observer acquainted with the full context would regard the display as the government endorsing religion and, therefore, sending a message of disenfranchisement to other believers and non-believers.

The Courts decisions in this arena are often closely divided. They also illustrate that the Court has declined to take a rigid, absolutist view of the separation of church and state. In Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), the Court allowed display of a nativity scene surrounded by other holiday decorations in the heart of a shopping district, stating that it engenders a friendly community spirit of good will in keeping with the season. But in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union (1989), a different majority of Justices held that the display of a nativity scene by itself at the top of the grand stairway in a courthouse violated the Establishment Clause because it was indisputably religiousindeed sectarian. In McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union (2005), the Court held that a prominent display of the Ten Commandments at the county courthouse, which was preceded by an officials description of the Ten Commandments as the embodiment of ethics in Christ, was a religious display that was unconstitutional. The same day, it upheld a Ten Commandments monument, which was donated by a secular organization dedicated to reducing juvenile delinquency and surrounded by other monuments on the spacious statehouse grounds. Van Orden v. Perry (2005). Only one Justice was in the majority in both cases.

More broadly, the Establishment Clause provides a legal framework for resolving disagreements about the public role of religion in our increasingly pluralistic republic.

An accurate recounting of history is necessary to appreciate the need for disestablishment and a separation between church and state.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion is one of the most misunderstood in the Constitution.

The Establishment Clause: A Check on Religious Tyranny by Marci A. Hamilton

An accurate recounting of history is necessary to appreciate the need for disestablishment and a separation between church and state. The religiosity of the generation that framed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (of which the First Amendment is the first as a result of historical accident, not the preference for religious liberty over any other right) has been overstated. In reality, many of the Framers and the most influential men of that generation rarely attended church, were often Deist rather than Christian, and had a healthy understanding of the potential for religious tyranny. This latter concern is to be expected as European history was awash with executions of religious heretics: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim. Three of the most influential men in the Framing era provide valuable insights into the mindset at the time: Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and John Adams. Franklin saw a pattern:

If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here [England] and in New England.

Benjamin Franklin, Letter to the London Packet (June 3, 1772).

The father of the Constitution and primary drafter of the First Amendment, James Madison, in his most important document on the topic, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments (1785), stated:

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. . . . What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people.

Two years later, John Adams described the states as having been derived from reason, not religious belief:

It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. . . .Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Vol. 4, 292-93 (Charles C. Little & James Brown, eds., 1851).

Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are examples of early discord. In Massachusetts, the Congregationalist establishment enforced taxation on all believers and expelled or even put to death dissenters. Baptist clergy became the first in the United States to advocate for a separation of church and state and an absolute right to believe what one chooses. Baptist pastor John Leland was an eloquent and forceful proponent of the freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state. For him, America was not a Christian nation, but rather should recognize the equality of all believers, whether Jews, Turks, Pagans [or] Christians. Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. He proposed an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution in 1794 because of the evils . . . occasioned in the world by religious establishments, and to keep up the proper distinction between religion and politics."

Pennsylvania, dubbed the Holy Experiment by founder William Penn, was politically controlled by Quakers, who advocated tolerance of all believers and the mutual co-existence of differing faiths, but who made their Christianity a prerequisite for public office, only permitted Christians to vote, and forbade work on the Sabbath. Even so, the Quakers set in motion a principle that became a mainstay in religious liberty jurisprudence: the government may not coerce citizens to believe what they are unwilling to believe. If one looks carefully into the history of the United States religious experiment, one also uncovers a widely-shared view that too much liberty, or licentiousness, is as bad as no liberty. According to historian John Philip Reid, those in the eighteenth century had as great a duty to oppose licentiousness as to defend liberty.

Establishment Clause Doctrine

The Establishment Clause has yielded a wide array of doctrines (legal theories articulated by courts), each of which is largely distinct from the others, some of which are described in Professor McConnells and my joint contribution on the Establishment Clause. The reason for this proliferation of distinct doctrines is that the Establishment Clause is rooted in a concept of separating the power of church and state. These are the two most authoritative forces of human existence, and drawing a boundary line between them is not easy. The further complication is that the exercise of power is fluid, which leads both state and church to alter their positions to gain power either one over the other or as a union in opposition to the general public or particular minorities.

The separation of church and state does not mean that there is an impermeable wall between the two, but rather that the Framers fundamentally understood that the union of power between church and state would lead inevitably to tyranny. The established churches of Europe were well-known to the Founding era and the Framers and undoubtedly contributed to James Madisons inclusion of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment, and its ratification. The following are some of the most important principles.

The Government May Not Delegate Governing Authority to Religious Entities

The Court has been sensitive to incipient establishments of religion. A Massachusetts law delegated authority to churches and schools to determine who could receive a liquor license within 500 feet of their buildings. The Supreme Court struck down the law, because it delegated to churches zoning power, which belongs to state and local government, not private entities. Larkin v. Grendels Den, Inc. (1982). According to the Court: The law substitutes the unilateral and absolute power of a church for the reasoned decision making of a public legislative body . . . on issues with significant economic and political implications. The challenged statute thus enmeshes churches in the processes of government and creates the danger of [p]olitical fragmentation and divisiveness along religious lines.

In another scenario, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt to define political boundaries solely according to religion. In Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet (1994), the state of New York designated the neighborhood boundaries of Satmar Hasidim Orthodox Jews in Kiryas Joel Village as a public school district to itself. Thus, the boundary was determined solely by religious identity, in part because the community did not want their children to be exposed to children outside the faith. The Court invalidated the school district because political boundaries identified solely by reference to religion violate the Establishment Clause.

There Is No Such Thing as Church Autonomy Although There Is a Doctrine that Forbids the Courts from Determining What Religious Organizations Believe

In recent years, religious litigants have asserted a right to church autonomythat churches should not be subject to governmental regulationin a wide variety of cases, and in particular in cases involving the sexual abuse of children by clergy. The phrase, however, is misleading. The Supreme Court has never interpreted the First Amendment to confer on religious organizations a right to autonomy from the law. In fact, in the case in which they have most recently demanded such a right, arguing religious ministers should be exempt from laws prohibiting employment discrimination, the Court majority did not embrace the theory, not even using the term once. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C. (2012).

The courts are forbidden, however, from getting involved in determining what a religious organization believes, how it organizes itself internally, or who it chooses to be ministers of the faith. Therefore, if the dispute brought to a court can only be resolved by a judge or jury settling an intra-church, ecclesiastical dispute, the dispute is beyond judicial consideration. This is a corollary to the absolute right to believe what one chooses; it is not a right to be above the laws that apply to everyone else. There is extraordinary slippage in legal briefs in numerous cases where the entity is arguing for autonomy, but what they really mean is freedom from the law, per se. For the Court and basic common sense, these are arguments for placing religion above the law, and in violation of the Establishment Clause. They are also fundamentally at odds with the common sense of the Framing generation that understood so well the evils of religious tyranny.

The Establishment Clause: Co-Guarantor of Religious Freedom by Michael McConnell

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion is one of the most misunderstood in the Constitution. Unlike most of the Constitution, it refers to a legal arrangement, the establishment of religion, which has not existed in the United States in almost two centuries. We understand what freedom of speech is, we know what private property" is, and we know what searches and seizures are, but most of us have no familiarity with what an establishment of religion would be.

The Church by Law Established in Britain was a church under control of the government. The monarch was (and is) the supreme head of the established church and chooses its leadership; Parliament enacted its Articles of Faith; the state composed or directed the content of its prayers and liturgy; clergy had to take an oath of allegiance to the king or queen; and not surprisingly, the established church was used to inculcate the idea that British subjects had a religious as well as a civic obligation to obey royal authority. The established church was a bit like a government-controlled press: it was a means by which the government could mold public opinion.

British subjects (including Americans in eight of the colonies) were legally required to attend and financially support the established church, ministers were licensed or selected by the government, and the content of church services was partially dictated by the state.

The establishment of religion was bad for liberty and it was bad for religion, too. It was opposed by a coalition of the most fervently evangelical religious sects in America (especially the Baptists), who thought the hand of government was poisonous to genuine religion, joined by the enlightenment and often deist elite (like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin), who thought church and state should be separate, and by the leadership of minority religions, who worried that government involvement would disadvantage them. Accordingly, there was virtually no opposition to abolishing establishment of religion at the national level. Establishments survived for a while in a few states, but the last state (Massachusetts) ended its establishment in 1833.

The abolition of establishment of religion entails a number of obvious and uncontroversial elements. Individuals may not be required to contribute to, attend, or participate in religious activities. These must be voluntary. The government may not control the doctrine, liturgy, or personnel of religious organizations. These must be free of state control. Other issues are harder.

For a few decades between the late 1960s and the early 1990s, the Supreme Court attempted to forbid states to provide tax subsidies to schools that teach religious doctrine along with ordinary secular subjects. Most of these schools were Roman Catholic. This effort was largely based on a misinterpretation of history, egged on by residual anti-Catholicism. The Justices said that neutral aid to schools is just like a 1785 effort to force Virginians to contribute to the church of their choice. The analogy, however, made little sense: there is all the difference in the world between funding churches because they inculcate religion and funding schools because they provide education. In fact, the history of the early republic shows that states (and later the federal government, during Reconstruction) funded education by subsidizing all schools on a nondiscriminatory basis, and no one ever suggested this violated the non-establishment principle. By 2002, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the Supreme Court returned to this original idea, allowing the government to fund schools on a neutral basis so long as the choice of religious schools was left to voluntary choice. Not only was ruling this true to history, it also best serves the ideal of religious freedom, making it possible for families to choose the type of education they want for their children.

It is sometimes suggested that laws making special accommodations for people whose religious beliefs are at odds with government policy violate the Establishment Clause, on the theory that these accommodations privilege or advance religion. This is a recently-minted idea, and not a sensible one. In all cases of accommodation, the religion involved is dissenting from prevailing policy, which means, by definition, that the religion is not dominating society. The idea that making exceptions for the benefit of people whose beliefs conflict with the majority somehow establishes religion is a plain distortion of the words. And the Supreme Court has unanimously held that religious accommodations are permissible so long as they lift a governmental obstacle to the exercise of religion, take account of costs to others, and do not favor one faith over another. Nonetheless, when religions take unpopular stances on hot-button issues (for example, regarding abortion-inducing contraceptives or same-sex marriage), critics are quick to assert that it violates the Constitution to accommodate their differences, no matter how little support that position has in history or Supreme Court precedent.

The fundamental error is to think that the Establishment Clause is designed to reduce the role of religion in American life. A better understanding is captured in this statement by Justice William O. Douglas of the Supreme Court: this country sponsor[s] an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma. Zorach v. Clauson (1952).

The Free Exercise Clause

Many settlers from Europe braved the hardships of immigration to the American colonies to escape religious persecution in their home countries and to secure the freedom to worship according to their own conscience and conviction. Although the colonists often understood freedom of religion more narrowly than we do today, support for protection of some conception of religious freedom was broad and deep. By the time of Independence and the construction of a new Constitution, freedom of religion was among the most widely recognized inalienable rights, protected in some fashion by state bills of rights and judicial decisions. James Madison, for example, the principal author of the First Amendment, eloquently expressed his support for such a provision in Virginia: It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.

Although the original Constitution contained only a prohibition of religious tests for federal office (Article VI, Clause 3), the Free Exercise Clause was added as part of the First Amendment in 1791. In drafting the Clause, Congress considered several formulations, but ultimately settled on protecting the free exercise of religion. This phrase makes plain the protection of actions as well as beliefs, but only those in some way connected to religion.

From the beginning, courts in the United States have struggled to find a balance between the religious liberty of believers, who often claim the right to be excused or exempted from laws that interfere with their religious practices, and the interests of society reflected in those very laws. Early state court decisions went both ways on this central question.

The Supreme Court first addressed the question in a series of cases involving nineteenth-century laws aimed at suppressing the practice of polygamy by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons. The Court unanimously rejected free exercise challenges to these laws, holding that the Free Exercise Clause protects beliefs but not conduct. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Reynolds v. United States (1878). What followed was perhaps the most extreme government assault on religious freedom in American history. Hundreds of church leaders were jailed, rank-and-file Mormons were deprived of their right to vote, and Congress dissolved the LDS Church and expropriated most of its property, until the church finally agreed to abandon polygamy.

The belief-action distinction ignored the Free Exercise Clauses obvious protection of religious practice, but spoke to the concern that allowing believers to disobey laws that bind everyone else would undermine the value of a government of laws applied to all. Doing so, Reynolds warned, would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.

Reynolds influenced the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause well into the twentieth century. In 1940, for example, the Court extended the Clausewhich by its terms constrains only the federal governmentto limit state laws and other state actions that burden religious exercise. Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940). Though it recognized that governments may not unduly infringe religious exercise, the Court reiterated that [c]onduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society, citing Reynolds as authority. Similarly, the Court held in 1961 that the Free Exercise Clause did not exempt an orthodox Jewish merchant from Sunday closing laws, again citing Reynolds.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Court shifted, strengthening protection for religious conduct by construing the Free Exercise Clause to protect a right of religious believers to exemption from generally applicable laws which burden religious exercise. The Court held that the government may not enforce even a religiously-neutral law that applies generally to all or most of society unless the public interest in enforcement is compelling. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972). Yoder thus held that Amish families could not be punished for refusing to send their children to school beyond the age of 14.

Although the language of this compelling-interest test suggested powerful protections for religion, these were never fully realized. The cases in which the Supreme Court denied exemptions outnumbered those in which it granted them. Aside from Yoder, the Court exempted believers from availability for work requirements, which denied unemployment benefits to workers terminated for prioritizing religious practices over job requirements. But it denied exemptions to believers and religious organizations which found their religious practices burdened by conditions for federal tax exemption, military uniform regulations, federal minimum wage laws, state prison regulations, state sales taxes, federal administration of public lands, and mandatory taxation and other requirements of the Social Security system. In all of these cases the Court found, often controversially, either that the governments interest in enforcement was compelling, or that the law in question did not constitute a legally-recognizable burden on religious practice.

In 1990, the Supreme Court changed course yet again, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes). Employment Division v. Smith (1990). Though it did not return to the belief-action distinction, the Court echoed Reynolds concern that religious exemptions permit a person, by virtue of his beliefs, to become a law unto himself, contradicting both constitutional tradition and common sense. Any exceptions to religiously-neutral and generally-applicable laws, therefore, must come from the political process. Smith went on to hold that the Free Exercise Clause does not protect the sacramental use of peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, by members of the Native American Church.

Smith proved to be controversial. In 1993, overwhelming majorities in Congress voted to reinstate the pre-Smith compelling-interest test by statute with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). RFRA authorizes courts to exempt a person from any law that imposes a substantial burden on sincere religious beliefs or actions, unless the government can show that the law is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. Almost half of the states have passed similar lawsstate RFRAsapplicable to their own laws. In 1997 the Supreme Court held that Congress had constitutional authority only to apply RFRA to federal laws, and not to state or local laws. Congress then enacted a narrower law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which applies the compelling-interest test to state laws affecting prisoners and land use. RFRA and RLUIPA have afforded exemptions in a wide range of federal and state contextsfrom kosher and halal diets for prisoners, to relief from zoning and landmark regulations on churches and ministries, to exemptions from jury service.

Although some exemption claims brought under these religious freedom statutes have been relatively uncontroversialthe Supreme Court unanimously protected the right of a tiny religious sect to use a hallucinogenic drug prohibited by federal law and the right of a Muslim prisoner to wear a half-inch beard prohibited by state prison rulessome touch on highly contested moral questions. For example, the Court by a 5-4 vote excused a commercial family-owned corporation from complying with the contraception mandate, a regulation which required the corporations health insurance plan to cover what its owners believe are abortion-inducing drugs. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. (2014). In the wake of Hobby Lobby and the Courts subsequent determination that states may not deny gays and lesbians the right to civil marriage, state RFRAs have become a flashpoint in conflicts over whether commercial vendors with religious objections may refuse their products and services to same-sex weddings.

Besides RFRA and other exemption statutes, the Free Exercise Clause itself, even after Smith, continues to provide protection for believers against burdens on religious exercise from laws that target religious practices, or that disadvantage religion in discretionary, case-by-case decision making. In Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993), for example, the Court unanimously struck down a local ordinance against the unnecessary killing of animals in a ritual or ceremonya law that was drawn to apply only to a small and unpopular religious sect whose worship includes animal sacrifice.

The Court recently recognized that the Free Exercise Clause (along with the Establishment Clause) required a religious exemption from a neutral and general federal antidiscrimination law that interfered with a churchs freedom to select its own ministers. The Court distinguished Smith on the ground that it involved government regulation of only outward physical acts, while this case concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. E.E.O.C. (2012).

It remains unclear whether Lukumi and Hosanna-Tabor are narrow exceptions to Smiths general presumption against religious exemptions, or foreshadow yet another shift towards a more exemption-friendly free exercise doctrine.

At the time the United States adopted the First Amendment to the Constitution, other nations routinely imposed disabilities on religious minorities within their borders, depriving them of legal rights, making it difficult or impossible to practice their faith, and often enabling violent persecution.

One of this nations deepest commitments is to the full, equal, and free exercise of religion a right that protects not only believers, but unbelievers as well.

Religious Liberty Is Equal Liberty by Frederick Gedicks

At the time the United States adopted the First Amendment to the Constitution, other nations routinely imposed disabilities on religious minorities within their borders, depriving them of legal rights, making it difficult or impossible to practice their faith, and often enabling violent persecution. The Free Exercise Clause was thus an exceptional political achievement, imposing a constitutional norm of civic equality by prohibiting the federal government from interfering with all religious exerciseregardless of affiliation.

Only a few years before the First Amendment was ratified, James Madison wrote that all people naturally retain equal title to the free exercise of Religion according to the dictates of conscience without the governments subjecting some to peculiar burdens or granting to others peculiar exemptions. A Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments (1785). As Madison suggested, at the time the Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified, the guarantee of religious free exercise was understood to protect against government discrimination or abuse on the basis of religion, but not to require favorable government treatment of believers. In particular, there is little evidence that the Founders understood the Free Exercise Clause to mandate religious exemptions that would excuse believers from complying with neutral and general laws that constrain the rest of society.

The Supreme Court has historically left the question of religious exemptions to Congress and the state legislatures. The first judicially-ordered exemptions arose in the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Supreme Court held the Free Exercise Clause required religious exemptions for Amish families who objected to sending their children to high school, and for employees who were denied unemployment benefits when they lost their jobs for refusing to work on their Sabbath. This doctrine of judicially-ordered exemptions, however, was an historical aberration. In Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the Court considered a claim by members of a Native American religion who lost their jobs as drug counselors for using an illegal drug in a religious ritual. The Court abandoned its new doctrine of religious exemptions, ruling that the Free Exercise Clause did not grant believers a right to exemptions from religiously neutral, generally applicable laws, though legislatures were free to grant such exemptions if they wished. This relegation of exemptions to the political process in most circumstances returned the Free Exercise Clause to its historical baseline. Notwithstanding the narrow ministerial exception recognized in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Church & School v. EEOC (2012), the Court has repeatedly affirmed Smith and the century of precedent cited in that case, and has shown no inclination to overturn its basic principle that neutral and general laws should apply equally to all, regardless of religious belief or unbelief.

The growth of social welfare entitlements and religious diversity in the United States has underscored the wisdom of the Smith rule. Exempting believers from social welfare laws may give them a competitive advantage, and also may harm those whom the law was designed to protect or benefit.

For example, the Court refused to exempt an Amish employer from paying Social Security taxes for his employees, reasoning that doing so would impose the employers religious faith on the employees by reducing their social security benefits regardless of whether they shared their employers religious objection to government entitlement programs. United States v. Lee (1982). Similarly, the Court refused to exempt a religious employer from federal minimum wage laws, because doing so would give the employer an advantage over competitors and depress the wages of all employees in local labor markets. Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985).

Read the full discussion here.

The Court seems poised to adopt this third-party burden principle in decisions interpreting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as well. Five Justices in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), expressly stated that RFRA exemptions imposing significant costs on others are not allowed. The majority opinion likewise acknowledged that courts must take adequate account of third-party burdens before ordering a RFRA exemption.

The growth of religious diversity makes a religious exemption regime doubly impractical. The vast range of religious beliefs and practices in the United States means that there is a potential religious objector to almost any law the government might enact. If religious objectors were presumptively entitled to exemption from any burdensome law, religious exemptions would threaten to swallow the rule of law, which presupposes its equal application to everyone. As the Court observed in Lee, a religiously diverse social welfare state cannot shield every person . . . from all the burdens incident to exercising every aspect of the right to practice religious beliefs.

Even under the equal-liberty regime contemplated by the Founders and restored by Smith, government remains subject to important constraints that protect religious liberty. Religious gerrymanders, or laws that single out particular religions for burdens not imposed on other religions or on comparable secular conduct, must satisfy strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah (1993); Sherbert v. Verner (1963). Under RFRA and the related Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), the federal government and often the state governments are prohibited from burdening religious exercise without adequate justification. Holt v. Hobbs (2015); Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal (2005). And, like judicially-ordered exemptions, legislative exemptions that impose material costs on others in order to protect believers free exercise interests may be invalid under the Establishment Clause, which protects believers and unbelievers alike from bearing the burdens of practicing someone elses religion. Estate of Thornton v. Caldor (1985).

If exemptions are to be afforded to those whose religious practices are burdened by neutral and general laws, they should generally not be granted by courts, but by the politically accountable branches of the federal and state governments. These branches are better situated to weigh and balance the competing interests of believers and others in a complex and religiously-diverse society.

Free Exercise: A Vital Protection for Diversity and Freedom by Michael McConnell

One of this nations deepest commitments is to the full, equal, and free exercise of religion a right that protects not only believers, but unbelievers as well. The government cannot use its authority to forbid Americans to conduct their lives in accordance with their religious beliefs or to require them to engage in actions contrary to religious conscience even when the vast majority of their countrymen regard those beliefs as backward, mistaken, or even immoral.

Unfortunately, in the last few years and especially since the Supreme Courts decision requiring states to recognize same-sex marriage this consensus in favor of tolerance has been slipping. All too often, we hear demands that religious people and religious institutions such as colleges or adoption agencies must join the state in recognizing same-sex marriages (or performing abortions or supplying contraceptives, or whatever the issues happen to be), or lose their right to operate.

That has not been the American way. When this country severed its ties with the British Empire, one thing that went with it was the established church. To an unprecedented degree, the young United States not only tolerated but actively welcomed people of all faiths. For example, despite his annoyance with the Quakers for their refusal to support the revolutionary war effort, Washington wrote to a Quaker Society to express his wish and desire, that the laws may always be as extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard for the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit. Letter to the Annual Meeting of Quakers (1789).

What would it mean to have a regime of free exercise of religion? No one knew; there had been no such thing before. It quickly became clear that it was not enough just to cease persecution or discrimination against religious minorities. Just two years after the ink was dry on the First Amendment, the leader of the Jewish community in Philadelphia went to court and asked, under authority of his states free exercise clause, to be excused from complying with a subpoena to appear in court on his day of sabbath. He did not ask that the state cease to do official business on Saturday, but he did ask the court to make an exception an accommodation that would enable him to be faithful to the Jewish law.

This would become the central interpretive question under the Free Exercise Clause: Does it give Americans whose religions conflict with government practices the right to ask for special accommodation, assuming an accommodation can be made without great harm to the public interest or the rights of others?

Read the full discussion here.

In the early years, some religious claimants won and some lost. The Mormon Church lost in a big way, in the first such case to reach the United States Supreme Court. Reynolds v. United States (1878). In 1963, the Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment does require the government to make accommodations for religious exercise, subject as always to limitations based on the public interest and the rights of others. Sherbert v. Verner (1963). In 1990, the Court shifted to the opposite view, in a case involving the sacramental use of peyote by members of the Native American Church. Employment Division v. Smith (1990).

Today we have a patchwork of rules. When the federal government is involved, legislation called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act grants us the right to seek appropriate accommodation when our religious practices conflict with government policy. About half the states have similar rules, and a similar rule protects prisoners like the Muslim prisoner who recently won the right to wear a half-inch beard in accordance with Islamic law, by a 9-0 vote in the Supreme Court. Holt v. Hobbs (2015).

The range of claims has been as diverse as the religious demography of the country. A small Brazilian sect won the right to use a hallucinogenic drug in worship ceremonies; Amish farmers have won exceptions from traffic rules; Muslim soldiers have been given special accommodation when fasting for Ramadan; Orthodox Jewish boys won the right to wear their skullcaps when playing high school basketball; a Jehovahs Witness won the right to unemployment compensation after he quit rather than working to produce tank turrets; a Mormon acting student won the right to refuse roles involving nudity or profanity; and in the most controversial recent case, a family-owned business with religious objections to paying for abortion-inducing drugs persuaded the Supreme Court that the government should make those contraceptives available without forcing them to be involved.

In all these cases, courts or agencies came to the conclusion that religious exercise could be accommodated with little or no harm to the public interest or to others. As Justice Sandra Day OConnor (joined by liberal lions Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun) wrote: courts have been quite capable of applying our free exercise jurisprudence to strike sensible balances between religious liberty and competing state interests. Employment Division v. Smith (1989) (concurring opinion).

At a time when the Supreme Courts same-sex marriage decision has allowed many millions of Americans to live their lives in accordance with their own identity, it would be tragic if we turned our backs on the right to live in accordance with our religious conviction, which is also part of who we are. A robust protection for free exercise of religion is not only part of the American tradition, it is vital to our protection for diversity and freedom.

Freedom of Speech and the Press

Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. What does this mean today? Generally speaking, it means that the government may not jail, fine, or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in exceptional circumstances.

Although the First Amendment says Congress, the Supreme Court has held that speakers are protected against all government agencies and officials: federal, state, and local, and legislative, executive, or judicial. The First Amendment does not protect speakers, however, against private individuals or organizations, such as private employers, private colleges, or private landowners. The First Amendment restrains only the government.

The Supreme Court has interpreted speech and press broadly as covering not only talking, writing, and printing, but also broadcasting, using the Internet, and other forms of expression. The freedom of speech also applies to symbolic expression, such as displaying flags, burning flags, wearing armbands, burning crosses, and the like.

The Supreme Court has held that restrictions on speech because of its contentthat is, when the government targets the speakers messagegenerally violate the First Amendment. Laws that prohibit people from criticizing a war, opposing abortion, or advocating high taxes are examples of unconstitutional content-based restrictions. Such laws are thought to be especially problematic because they distort public debate and contradict a basic principle of self-governance: that the government cannot be trusted to decide what ideas or information the people should be allowed to hear.

There are generally three situations in which the government can constitutionally restrict speech under a less demanding standard.

See the original post:

First Amendment - National Constitution Center

the-stem-cell-center.com – Stem Cell Rejuvenation Center

Posted on by

Located in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, we are the originalStem Cell Rejuvenation Center.We havebeenperformingstem cell therapies for over 10years and all of ourprocedures are done on site atour clinic herein Phoenix. Itis our top priority to provide you a safe, clean,sterile and friendly environment.Our Treatment Center is located just 8 minutes from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and many hotels provide shuttle service to and from our clinic making it ideal for out-of-town visitors. We provide stem cell therapy for a variety of conditions byusing our revolutionarytechnology and treatments to isolate and reinfuse stem cells from a patient's own adipose stroma or fat (also called the Stromal Vascular Fraction (SVF)). We combine the best of technology, nature, and medicine to help improve the quality of our patients' lives. Stem cell therapy is offered to those who are qualified candidates and whom desire treatment.

We are aStem Cell Therapy and Treatment Center, founded in the U.S.A., and performing all therapies within the United States. Neither our patients nor the stem cells that we harvest are transported outside the United States. We use less than minimally manipulated technology to provide Autologous Stem Cell and PRP therapies originally initiated during the 1990's.

To see if you are a candidate, please fill-out this form and provide as much detail as possible.

Our Integrative staff and Physicians use a variety of modalities including Anti-aging and Eclectic medicine. These approaches are usedto treat many injuries and conditions. Below are some links toa journal database maintained by theNIH thatrelate to current research on stem cells and particular conditions......

Degenerative and Debilitating Conditions:

Autoimmune Conditions:

Viral Conditions:

Musculoskeletal Injuries:

Cosmetic and Dermatological:

Please note that although we have supplied links to the research journals above on the use of stem cells for specific conditions, we are not saying that any of these studies would relate to your particular condition, nor that it would even be an effective treatment. Our Autologous Stem Cell Therapy is not an FDA approved treatment for any condition. We provide stem cell therapy (less than manipulated) as a service and as a practice of medicine only. We do not use collagenase in our clinic. Please see the bottom of the FAQ page for more information. Thesejournal articlesare for educational purposes only and are not intended to be used to sell or promote our therapy.

Here is the original post:

the-stem-cell-center.com - Stem Cell Rejuvenation Center

Best Small Islands of Coastal North Carolina To Live

Posted on by

For those of you interested in finding your Coastal North Carolina best places to live on the ocean, the barrier islands are some of the most beautiful places youll ever experience.

Unlike their cousins to the south, Coastal North Carolina barrier islands, commonly referred to as the Outer Banks, are long, thin stretches of land just off the coast. For the past few weeks we have been talking about the best small island living along the coast of South Carolina.

Weve looked at the popular best small islands of:

Weve also looked at other CoastalSouth Carolina best places to live small cities and towns:

This week were heading north up the Carolina eastern coastline. To look at the best small islands of Coastal North Carolina to live.

One author referredto the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a thin arm of sand nudging its way into the Atlantic.

Think remote white sandy beaches where small towns and villages are few and far between.

Imagine beaches coexisting with wildlife preserves and all manner of natural beauty.

Only then can you have an idea of why these small islands off Coastal North Carolina are so popular.

Life on the best small island of Coastal North Carolina is laid back. And this attracts people looking to get away from the daily grind. Those wanting to slow down and reconnect with themselves and their surroundings.

Needless to say the Coastal North Carolina Outer Banks are a big tourist attraction. And these small islands are inundated with visitors for part of the year.

Local residents typically find work in the tourism industry, real estate, fishing, education and government agencies like the National Park Service.

All you beach lovers .Wow the Coastal North Carolina beaches are amazing!!!

Its not uncommon for people to have a variety of jobs to tide them over until the tourists come back.

Although there are restaurants and shops, residents often have to go to the mainland for various services and amenities.

And more than the tourism, perhaps one of the biggest downsides to living in Coastal North Carolina is you have to evacuate the islands in the event of a really strong storm.

Nevertheless, the Coastal North Carolina Outer Banks remain popular.

And the people that have settled down here wouldnt live anywhere else.

So what do the best small islands of Coastal North Carolina have to offer you?

Bald Head Island NC sits south of another Coastal North Carolina best place to live. Wilmington NC just a few miles off coast near the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

Bald Head Island NC is a private resort community of a little less than 165 people and is only accessible via ferry.

Mostly a wildlife reserve. The island has golf courses, historic lighthouses, creeks and maritime forests.

Oh and forget about cars because the only thing with four wheels you can travel in are golf carts.

Housing is more expensive with a median home sales price of around $850,344.

Youll find a fully stocked grocery store as well as police and fire departments. But Bald Head Island NC residents must go to the mainland for most medical services.

Ocracoke Island NC, population almost 948, is one of the more remote barrier islands on Coastal North Carolina. Accessible only by a 45 minute ferry ride or plane.

Once mostly dominated by fishing, the village of Okracoke NC is mostly all about tourism.

And is a prime destination for summer vacationers because of its award winning beaches.

Tourism has brought development including hotels and restaurants but services like hospitals you can expect to go to the mainland.

The median home value is around $364,673.

You can get to another popular island location, Hatteras Island NC by car, boat or plane.

People generally think of historic lighthouses, amazing beaches and tourism when they think of Hatteras.

Surprisingly, it is home to roughly 4000 people spread out among several quaint village communities like Rodanth, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras.

The median home value for Hatteras Island North Carolina is about $400,000.

Stay tuned next week as we explore more about North Carolina Coastal living.

Have a good one and well see you again next week!

Discover More North Carolina and South Carolina Best Places To Live

Robert Bencivenga is a professional site locator and location analyst for major corporations. Robert researches the growth of NC and SC to find the Best Places to Retire or Relocate that are still affordable.

Robert Does Not Sell Real Estate! 2005-2014 Places of Value Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Join Us In The North Carolina And South Carolina Best Places To Live Conversation

See the article here:

Best Small Islands of Coastal North Carolina To Live

The Beaches – Wikipedia

Posted on by

The Beaches (also known as "The Beach") is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is so named because of its four beaches situated on Lake Ontario. It is located east of downtown within the "Old" City of Toronto. The approximate boundaries of the neighbourhood are from Victoria Park Avenue on the east to Kingston Road on the north, to Coxwell Avenue on the west, south to Lake Ontario.[1] The Beaches is part of the east-central district of Toronto.

The commercial district of Queen Street East lies at the heart of The Beaches community. It is characterized by a large number of independent speciality stores. The stores along Queen are known to change tenants quite often causing the streetscape to change from year to year, sometimes drastically. The side streets are mostly lined with semi-detached and large-scale Victorian, Edwardian and new-style houses. There are also low-rise apartment buildings and a few row-houses. Controversy has risen in recent years over new development in the neighbourhood that is changing the traditional aesthetic, with denser housing causing some residents to protect the traditional cottage-like appearance of the homes with heritage designations for some streets. There is an extensive park system along the Waterfront (with Kew Gardens being the only one that extends up to Queen Street) as well as a parks that follow a ravine (partially buried) that bisects the neighbourhood from North to South at Glen Manor Road. Kingston Road is a four-lane road along the northern section of the neighbourhood. Woodbine Avenue is a five-lane road originating from Lake Shore Boulevard at the Lake Ontario shoreline, running north. It is primarily residential.

The beach itself is a single uninterrupted stretch of sandy shoreline bounded by the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant (locally known as the water works)[citation needed] to the east and Woodbine Park (a small peninsula in Lake Ontario) to the west. A long boardwalk runs along most of its length with a portion of the Martin Goodman Trail bike path running parallel. Although it is continuous, there are four names which correspond each to approximately one quarter of the length of the beach (from east to west): Balmy Beach, Scarboro Beach, Kew Beach and Woodbine Beach. Woodbine Beach and Kew-Balmy Beach are Blue Flag certified for cleanliness and are suitable for swimming.[2]

In the 2006 Canadian census The Beach was covered by census tracts 0020.00, 0021.00, 0022.00, 0023.00, and 0024.00. According to that census, the neighbourhood has 20,416 residents, a 7.8% increase from the 2001 census. Average income is $67,536, well above the average for Toronto. The Beaches is known as being a great place to raise a family with very little crime as well as many parks and schools.

Ashbridge's Bay is a small body of water that was once part of the marsh that lay east of Toronto Islands and Toronto Harbour. The bay is named for the Ashbridge family that once lived nearby on a farm. Infill to form the Port Lands and building of the water treatment plant shrunk the size of the bay to the area between the Port Lands and Woodbine Beach.[3] The current bay is surrounded by marinas, the treatment plant and a small tree lined section along Lake Shore Boulevard East such that the original natural shoreline has disappeared completely.

The name of the community is the subject of a long-standing dispute. Some long-time local residents assert that "The Beach" is the proper historical name for the area, whereas others are of the view that "The Beaches" is the more universally recognized neighbourhood name, particularly by non-residents. All government levels refer to the riding, or the ward in the case of the municipal government, as Beaches-East York.[4]

The dispute over the area's name reached a fever pitch in 1985, when the City of Toronto installed 14 street signs designating the neighbourhood as "The Beaches". The resulting controversy resulted in the eventual removal of the signs, although the municipal government continues to officially designate the area as "The Beaches".[1] In early 2006 the local Beaches Business Improvement Area voted to place "The Beach" on signs slated to appear on new lampposts over the summer, but local outcry caused them to rescind that decision.[5] The Beaches Business Improvement Area board subsequently held a poll (online, in person and by ballot) in April 2006 to determine whether the new street signs would be designated "The Beach" or "The Beaches", and 58% of participants selected "The Beach" as the name to appear on the signs.

In fact, the two names have been used to refer to the area since the first homes were built in the 19th century. In his book, Accidental City: The Transformation of Toronto, Robert Fulford, himself a former resident, wrote: "the historical argument for 'the Beaches' as a name turns out to be at least as strong as the historical argument for 'the Beach'". "Pluralists" hold that since the area had four distinct beach areas, using the singular term is illogical. Those preferring the singular term "Beach" hold that the term has historically referred to the area as the four distinct beach areas merged.[5]

Historically, there are or were a number of institutions that used the term "Beach" in the singular, including the original Beach telephone exchange (1903 - 1920s), the Beach Hebrew Institute (1920), the Beach Theatre (1919 to the 1960s), and the Beach Streetcar (19231948). The singular form has also been adopted by the local historical society, which is called The Beach and East York Historical Society (from 1974).[6] There are also numerous examples of early local institutions that use the plural form "Beaches", such as the Beaches Library (1915), the Beaches Presbyterian Church (1926), the Beaches Branch of the Canadian Legion and a local war monument in Kew Beach erected post WWII by the "Beaches Business Men's Association".[7]

In May 2009, the City of Toronto started the installation of "The Beach" signs along Queen Street.[8]

Despite the naming controversy, most Torontonians recognize either name as referring to this particular neighbourhood, even though there are several other beaches located elsewhere in the city.

The neighbourhood is located to the East of Toronto's downtown, from Coxwell east to Victoria Park. The lakefront is divided into four sections; Woodbine Beach to the west, Kew Beach and Scarboro Beach in the centre, and Balmy Beach to the east. It is four beaches which give the neighbourhood its name and defining principal characteristic. Until Lake Shore Boulevard was extended to Woodbine Avenue in the 1950s, Woodbine Beach was not a bathing beach, but rather a desolate wooded area known as The Cut. And Woodbine Avenue was the western boundary of the neighbourhood. While the official City northern boundary ends at Kingston Road, the area to the north has become known as the 'Upper Beaches' according to real estate marketers. The area bounded by Queen Street, Woodbine and Kingston Road is nicknamed the 'Beach Triangle'.

Originally a heavily wooded area dotted with private homes and swampland, the current shoreline and the Kew Gardens private park grounds were appropriated by the Toronto Harbour Commission in the early 1900s. The current beach was artificially enlarged and made continuous in 1930 with the use of wooden groynes. The public boardwalk and facilities were officially opened to the public in 1932.

The beach is diminishing as the sand is continuously pushed by lake currents from east to west. Historically, the sand was, and to a lesser degree still is, replaced by new sand generated by the erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs to the east. This source of sand has been diminished by municipal efforts to reduce erosion of the bluffs, and groynes constructed of rocks have been used to stabilise the shoreline.

The Beaches community is served by several locally distributed newspapers including the Beach Metro Community News and the Beach-Riverdale Mirror (run by the Metroland subsidiary of the Toronto Star) and the "Beaches Living" magazine. A free publication called "Your Ward News" has also been distributed throughout the area in 2015 which has aroused controversy over anti-Semitic content. [9]

Streetcars heading to and from downtown Toronto run east-west along Queen Street East (route 501) as well as along Kingston Road (routes 502 and 503) and Gerrard Street East (route 506), and a bus line runs north-south along Woodbine Avenue to Woodbine subway station (route 92). Another north-south bus line snakes its way along several side streets before making its way to the Main Street subway station (route 64). A third bus line runs north-south down Coxwell Avenue from Coxwell subway station and then turns east travelling the entire length of Kingston Road as far as Victoria Park Avenue (only from 7PM-5AM on weekday evenings, and 24hrs on weekends) (route 22A).

In the early 1900s, the neighbourhood was the site of several amusement parks - Victoria Park, Munro Park, and Scarboro Beach Park. Today, their namesakes remain as streets.

Kew Gardens (Toronto) is a medium-sized park in the neighbourhood running from Queen Street to Lake Ontario, and includes a bandstand for concerts. Every July, the neighbourhood celebrates the Beaches International Jazz Festival, drawing thousands to the area. However, now most of the performances occur at Woodbine Beach Park.

Another notable site in the area is the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant, which has been featured in several television programs, as well as in the films "Half Baked", "In the Mouth of Madness", "Four Brothers" and "Undercover Brother", and in Michael Ondaatje's novel In the Skin of a Lion.

The Beaches contains a number of heritage buildings that are either designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, or listed in the City of Toronto's inventory of heritage buildings, including:

The following public schools are technically outside of The Beaches area, but due to their close proximity to the neighbourhood serve many Beaches residents:

The following Catholic school is technically outside of The Beaches area, but serves many Beaches residents:

Originally posted here:

The Beaches - Wikipedia

Atlas Shrugged Quotes by Ayn Rand – goodreads.com

Posted on by

The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

See original here:

Atlas Shrugged Quotes by Ayn Rand - goodreads.com