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Sunday, March 3, 2019

Mr. Burns as Scrooge of Springfield

In the history of modern popular culture, there generate been few Ameri goat satires as influential and successful as the animated goggle box show, The Simpsons. With Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and baby Maggie living in the eachtown of capital of Illinois, U.S.A., they find themselves in umteen situations common to to the highest degree Ameri crowd outs, including being under the rule of ruthless embodied r serveers like Charles Montgomery ruin.As owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Mr. destroy displays all the characteristics of a classic egoist, though his satirical portrayal takes galore(postnominal) of the attri besideses and accentuates them to the point of ridiculousness. Mr. ruin shows absolutely no charitable tendencies, is have-to doe with completely with money and cater, and cargons little for anyone separate than himself, which makes him anything except a relativist or functional, but seems to make him more of an ethical egoist.Mr. destroy is a c orporate raider, characterized on the show as being over a century old, amazet him amongst the original robber barons. The character himself is actually based on an dental amalgam of media magnate William Randolph Hearst and his fictional counterpart Charles Foster Kane, both characters that foc utilise enti assert on their power and how to use and enhance it. In The Simpsons, almost every story concerning Mr. destroy includes his blatant disregard for anyone else other than himself and his own interests.One of the most obvious depictions of ruin ethics have it aways in the two-part episode called Who Shot Mr. Burns? In the episode, oil is discovered beneath Springfield Elementary School, and the domesticate seems poised to get a windfall of money from the discovery. This entrust rent the terribly dilapidated and underfunded school to make many improvements in every formula of the curriculum. However, Mr. Burns discovers the oil and creates a slant drilling familiarity tha t ordain draw the oil up from an angle, in the process destroying the Springfield Retirement Home and making the popular Moes Tavern uninhabitable for humans. In addition to alienating the school, destroying the retirement home, and putting Moes disclose of business, Mr. Burns also fails to remember the name of his decade-long employee, Homer Simpson.His selfishness and self-absorption have managed to indignation only(prenominal) if well-nigh everyone in town, though he is only concerned with making more money and becoming however more powerful. He finally reveals his grand scheme to his loyal assistant Waylon Smithers, which is to build a giant device that exit block out the sun in Springfield and require all the citizens in town to use electrical energy from his plant twenty- four-spot hours a day. He even feels so nice that he wants to steal glass over from a baby.When his loyal assistant objects, Burns quickly fires him, neer realizing that Smithers life desire was mer ely to work for Mr. Burns. Burns is blind to everything and everyone, and he finally succeeds at blocking out the sun, incur the anger of everyone in town. It is when he celebrates his victory he is shot by an unknown assailant, who after a cliffhanger, is revealed to be baby Maggie Simpson as he tackles to steal her commodedy and subsequently shot by his own ordnance (Who Shot Mr. Burns?).While the over three-hundred episodes of The Simpsons have many instances of Mr. Burns making ethically mindable decisions in the name of money and power, this episode be one of the most famous and obvious practices of his selfishness. To Burns, nought is as central as his business success, and this is the single factor dictating his ethics and his actions. Burns pietism bleeds into every aspect of his life outside of business, though to him there be no other concerns than business. theology and ethics be important to every aspect of human life, including in business, and many ethical t heorists have sought to represent the extent of righteousity and the duty that individuals and organizations have to other individuals and organizations. Though no laws of morality or ethics have been established, there are four core concepts presented by ethical theorists ethical relativism, which espouses that ethics is a question of individual choice and preference impartiality, which suggests that humans should treat each other as equals where none count more than others sympathy, which is the imaginative ability to put oneself in anothers shoes and moral sufficiency, which seeks to answer just how much moral decency is reasonably possible (Gibson 62-63).In business matters, these issues and the questions they pose are even greater, as businesses have the potential to create great gather for others, or do them great ill-use, all the bit trying to maximise profit and retain success. Mr. Burns is far from an ethical relativist, for he shows no concern for the benefit of oth ers. In fact, he takes joy out of creating tribulation for others, as long as their wretchedness is profitable to him. He assumes righteousness for his actions without shame, and feels no remorse if anyone is hurt. After all, one of his greatest desires was to take candy from a baby, for no other reason than he could.In the essay, Thinking Ethically, the authors attempt to apply various ethical get downes to moral issues in business, which could apply to Mr. Burns actions. One of the first and most widely known approaches is the utilitarian approach, which seeks to attain the greatest well-grounded for the greatest number of individuals. The way to analyze the utilitarian approach is to identify the various course of action available, ask who will be affected by each action and what benefits and harms will come from them, and choose the action that will produce the greatest benefits and least harm (Velasquez 64).Mr. Burns, if anything, purposefully contradicts this mode of acti on, as he derives pleasure in the misery of those he vanquishes in the name of greater profit and power, even if these pack are innocent. Another ethical approach is the Rights Approach, which espouses that an action is moral as long as it falls within the moral rights of an individual, while the justness or Justice Approach which states that favoritism and discrimination are wrong.The usual Good Approach focuses on ensuring that cordial policies, social systems, institutions, and environments on which we forecast are beneficial to all the Virtue Approach assumes that there are certain ideals towards which humans should strive, which provide for the full development of humanity (66). By approaching situations of ethical ambiguity with these theories, one has a better encounter of choosing the correct mode of action. For Burns, all of these ethical approaches are not applicable, for he fails to ever consider how his actions may affect anyone else negatively.Or, when he does thi nk about it, he gets pleasure in being able to impose his power to the point where he can bring misery to others through his actions, as in his celebration after blotting out the sun despite the protests of everyone in the entire town, including his closest supporter Smithers.In Donelson Forsyths article, Judging the Morality of problem Practices The Influence of Personal Moral Philosophies, he examines the ways business leading approach ethical relativism and how it does not need to necessarily defeat the moral enterp heave. However, to someone like Mr. Burns, ethics are nothing more than an afterthought, while the bottom line is the only thing that matters.While studies have suggested the impact of relativism and idealism on moral judgment and behavior depends on the nature of the social institution, individual differences in personal moral philosophy suggests that humans will most in all probability never reach the ideal of complete agreement, but can aim for a fuller underst anding of ones own and others reactions to various types of business practices (Forsyth 75). In the case of Burns, he only agrees and appreciates with those that share his views on profiteering and power, even though he remains unbelieving and suspicious of every threat and he considers virtually everybody a threat to his wealth and power.This is why, despite having more money than anyone in town and never being able to spend it all, all the instances when Mr. Burns is asked to contribute even a little of his money to tending someone else, he vehemently rejects the request. This has been seen many times in the show, from Homer asking for help with a sick dog to a girl scout trying to dish out Mr. Burns cookies only to have him release the hounds on her.Mr. Burns voraciousness and complete lack of charity display his true nature as an ethical egoist. In Peter vocalizers article, The Singer resultant to World Poverty, the author proposes that if people in affluent countries like the fall in States donated a small portion of their money that would normally be played out on luxury items, then the money can be used to help out poverty stricken peoples around the world.He uses examples of how this can be done, by citing the costs incurred by someone who bargain fors a new television merely to upgrade from an older one. He claims that if this money was donated to such charities as Unicef or Oxfam America that it would do a greater deal of good for the most possible people, thereby having the greatest utility value. By choosing to vitiate the television and not donate the money, Singer feels that a person is making a questionable moral decision, even though few in the situation actually feel this way.Singer uses a more provocative supposed(a) example of a man named wharf, who has an uninsurable classic car that he will sell to insure that he has money for his retirement. In the situation, bobsleigh is forced to make a decision as a evolve bears down on hi s car and a little boy Bob has a choice whether to save the boy or the car, but not both, and Bob chooses the car and lets the boy die. While this dramatic example seems to bring out the undesirable attributes of self-interest, Singer claims that the difference between Bob and those who can sacrifice to donate to overseas aid organizations but dont is that only Bob can save the child on the tracks, whereas there are hundreds of millions of people who can give $200 to overseas aid organization (Singer).By Singers logic, those that are not donating to these organizations are committing an act similar to the one performed by Bob. Mr. Burns would not only laugh at such a concept, but would relish the fact that anyone asking for help would be suffering. If in the same situation, he would most certainly save the car, and most likely praise Bob for saving his car, before figuring out a way to get the car from Bob for himself.Mr. Burns utilizes his power to cut down his will upon others, and only respects those who do the same. As, all humans are born with free will, the decision to be charitable or uncharitable rests within that freedom. The German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant contributed much to the Western discussion of ethics and free will, and his conception of freedom and virtue are reasoned by the critical distinction of the two modes of representation (the sensible and the intellectual) and the consequent demarcation line of the conceptions of the pure understanding and of the principles which flow from them (Kant).Kant attempts to distinguish between the empirical and wise conceptions of free will and how it influences virtue, questioning whether freedom is the in certified choices of free will or merely the practical reaction to circumstance and causality. To this end, Kantianism is highly dependent upon reason to figure out the proper decision concerning virtue, and his ethics rely on obligation to reason more than emotions or goals. Thus, t he Kantian approach to donation and charity would be the duty of those that have the means to donate. Burns would patently disagree. Most certainly, Mr. Burns is an ethical egoist.Ethical self-centeredness is a philosophic practice that encourages individuals to pursue their own self-interests. While it is idealistic to think of circumstances unknown masses with ones own hard get money, it is also nave to think that people should feel obligated to do so. A person who works hard to make money to buy fine things is entitled to those things. Just because a person is successful and can afford luxury items does not mean that they are obligated to help strangers because it serves some sort of utilitarian purpose. If anything, much of this altruism merely per fondleuates a cycle in which those who are poor become accustomed to the aid of those who are not. If they pursued their own self-interests, they would be better able to rise above their own struggles and create a successful world for themselves.Ethical egoism is not entirely without the concept of helping others, however it focuses not on people that an individual will never meet, but the people in his or her life and those that the person loves and touches personally. If ones family is in get at and one possesses the ability to give assistance, this is in the individuals surpass interest, as it will lead to happiness. However, for an extreme example like Mr. Burns, there is no one that he wishes to help, save for the occasional cute pet or his old stuffed teddy bear. Mr. Burns is a classic example of an ethical egoist, and no one should expect him to do anything for anyone other than himself. And, in the twenty years that The Simpsons have been on television, he has done nothing but loyally follow his ethical egoist values.Works CitedForsyth, Donelson R.. Judging the Morality of Business Practices The Influence of PersonalMoral Philosophies. Business Ethics People, Profits, and the Planet. Ed. Kevin Gibs on. New York McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2005. 67-76.Gibson, Kevin. The Theoretical screen background of Business Ethics. Business Ethics People, Profits,and the Planet. Ed. Kevin Gibson. New York McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2005. 61-63.Kant, Immanuel. The Critique Of Pure Reason. Ed. J. M. D. Meiklejohn. 1781. eserver.org. 4Apr 2008. http//philosophy.eserver.org/kant/critique-of-pure-reason.txt.Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Tomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. ThinkingEthically A Framework for Moral Decision Making. Business Ethics People, Profits, and the Planet. Ed. Kevin Gibson. New York McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2005. 64-67.Singer, Peter. The Singer Solution to World Poverty. The New York Times Magazine. 5 Sep1999 pp. 60-63. Utilitarian Philosophers. 4 Apr 2008. http//www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htmWho Shot Mr. Burns? The Simpsons. Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. twentieth Century Fox. 21May 1995.

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