Synthesizing the Texts Ethics Synthesizing the Texts

Orwell LeGuin Chaucer Locke Ethics

Locke “Political Liberty”: absence of coercion/force against another Pure liberty is always possible so long as men don’t initiate force against each other In a free society government’s role is limited: it can 1) negotiate peaceful solutions to disputes and 2) punish criminals and foreign invaders who initiate force against its citizens Only two ways the government can fail to respect the liberty of its citizens: by initiating force, and by failing to adequately protect its citizens from the initiation of force. These are “objective laws” of justice. Beyond that, liberty is achieved not by the government but by the people, who respect the rights of all men to do exactly as they please. Right of liberty NOT absolute; can only be justified on underlying ethical basis

Locke: What the Government Cannot Do It can’t possibly have absolutely arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people It cannot give itself a power to rule by sudden, arbitrary decrees. It is bound to dispense justice and decide the rights of the subject by published standing laws, and known authorized judges. It can’t take from any man any part of his property without his consent. What men enter into societies with governments for is the •preservation of their property; so it would be a gross absurdity to have a government that deprived them of that very property! It cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. It was delegated to them from the people, and they aren’t free to pass it on to others.

LeGuin 3 different theories of reading: Parable about exploitation. Society’s prosperity might depend on some faraway child in the basement: there is bland acceptance of that reality Challenge to the utilitarian mind-set Omelas is just different pieces of one person’s psychology, a person living in the busy modern world; that person’s idealism and moral sensitivity is the child in the basement General belief: a human being is not a means to an end. Slavery is using a human as an object; it’s wrong even if it might produce a large good. But, do we live according to that moral imperative? Life is filled with tragic trade-offs. Consequentialism: greatest good for greatest # of people Some people are not willing to live according to those contracts. They walk away from prosperity. They would rather work toward some inner purity. The rest of us live with the trade-offs. The story reminds us of the inner numbing this creates. The people who stay in Omelas aren’t bad; they just find it easier and easier to live with the misery they depend upon.

Orwell: “Shooting an Elephant” Set in a town in southern Burma (Myanmar) during the colonial period. During Orwell's experiences in the colony, Burma was a province of India, itself a British colony. Prior to British intervention it was a sovereign kingdom After three wars between British forces and the Burmese, beginning with the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824-26, followed by the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, the country fell under British control after its defeat in the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885 Burma was subsumed under the administration of British India, becoming a province of that colony in 1886

“Shooting an Elephant” Essay format: brief, non-fiction text Purpose: describe, clarify, analyze a particular subject Narrator is working as a police officer in Burma Orwell? Autobiographical? Elephant is aggressive (symbolic– the “white elephant” of Buddhism) It has killed but it’s resting when the narrator encounters it Sorrowful Elephant dies a painful death Narrator is reluctant, remorseful: “As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant – it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery – and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided.”

“Shooting an Elephant”: symbolism and irony “It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act.” Elephant looked “no more dangerous than a cow.” Symbol of colonialism: practice of acquiring political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically Anti-imperialist essay Imperialism is evil: both conqueror and conquered are destroyed Imperialism: extending country's power through diplomacy or military force Narrator is armed but his will is not his own

Orwell And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

Questions Check your course page! Due via Turnitin.com on September 23 at 11:59 p.m. DON’T FORGET: HARD COPY OF ETHICS ESSAY DUE TUESDAY IN CLASS!!! READ 1984 OVER THE WEEKEND (IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY)