Dread Scott essays

Dread Scott essays The Dred Scott case was the final blow to Abolitionists. It ended the notion of freedom for African Americans. What makes this case interesting is the role the justices play on the issue of slavery. In 1856, a slave, Dred Scott, sued his master, Doctor Emmerson. Scott claimed that Emmerson had taken him from Missouri into the Northwest. The Supreme Court finally processed the case in 1857 and Chief Justice Taney delivered the decision on March 6th. It declared three things. First, according to the constitution, Negroes are not citizens of the United States. (Daily Courier) Secondly, the Ordinance of 1857 had no independent legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on Negroes, not citizens by the constitution. Lastly, he also declared the Provision Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, so far as it is understood to exclude Negro slavery from and communicate freedom and citizenship to Negroes in the northern part of the country is unconstitutional. (Illinois State Register) Justice Catron stated that because the plaintiff was a Negro of African blood, he then had no rights as a citizen of Missouri to maintain a suit in the Circuit Court. (Tourolaw) This case gave hard blows to Abolitionists. Seven out of two judges reinforced what the south had been endorsing for many years, that slavery is beyond the limits of the Constitution and that it [slavery] is guaranteed by the constitutional compact. Southern papers mocked the Union and its abolitionist and praised the Supreme Courts ruling. It is apparent in here from one article, It appears that we, Secessionists, have been all the while not disturbing the law, not intruding novelties upon the country, not seeking to break up established principles, but that we have been simpl...

Free sample - Determinism. translation missing

Determinism. DeterminismFree will is the supposed ability of people to make choices freely from any kind of constraints. Will is usually paired with reason as one of two complementary activities of the human mind. The human will is considered the faculty of making choices and decisions, whereas reason is that of deliberation and argument. Determinism on the other hand is the concept that events within a given standard are bound by relations in such a way that any state of an object or event is, to some large extent, determined by prior states. Hence determinism is the name of a broader philosophical view that hypothesizes that every event, including decision, human behavior, and action is causally determined by previous events. In philosophical arguments, the concept of determinism in the domain of human action is often contrasted with free will. Determinists believe that the universe is entirely governed by causal laws resulting in only one possible state at any point in time. They normally assume that every event has a preceding cause in an endless causal sequence dating from the beginning of the universe. This therefore leads to the position that free will and determinism are logically incompatible, and thus the belief that people do not have free will. The principle of alternate possibilities states that, a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he had an alternate choice. So for someone to be justly praised for keeping his promise to another, he must have been capable of breaking that promise, even if not at all inclined or likely to do so. Conversely, if breaking the promise is genuinely impossible, perhaps due to strong hypnosis, then he warrants no moral praise for keeping it. The principle of Alternate Possibilities thus identifies the availability of alternative actions to the agent as a necessary condition of that agent bearing moral responsibility for his actual actions. Frankfurt’s counterexample infers that a person is not morally responsible for what he has done if he could not have done otherwise a point with which he takes issue. Our theoretical ability to do otherwise, therefore, does not necessarily make it possible for us to do otherwise. These counterexamples are significant because they suggest an alternative way to defend determinism and this it does by using examples of agents who are intuitively responsible for their behavior even though they lack the freedom to act otherwise. To understand Frankfurt’s arguments, it is important to know his conception of free will is based on a major distinction between first order and second order desires. First order desires also known as Highers include the desire to own a new car, to meet the president, or to smoke a cigarette. A second order desire is in essence a desire for a desire. So, for instance, you might have a first order desire to drink alcohol; and a second order desire that you desire not to drink alcohol. A second order desire might be or might not be a desire that its corresponding first order desire be effective. Frankfurt therefore bases freedom on two aspects. Firstly, there is the aspect that a person’s actions are free in so far as they stem from their desires; that is, if they had desired differently, they would have acted differently. According to Frankfurt this is just freedom of action. Also a person has freedom of will. This is the ability by a person to control their desires and bring their first order desires into line with the second order desires. This is in essence means that we do not have free will because our desires are cause by other happenings. Hence the truth of determinism is validated.