Immanuel Kant on law and justice Essay Example for Free

Immanuel Kant on law and justice Essay To be moral living human beings there must be a guiding action. This action varies depending on the degree of obligation: law, rule or maxim. A law should promote and protect the common good. Above all, a law must be just and reasonable to follow. A rule is a prescribed guide for conduct or action that indicates how we ought to act to behave in certain situations. Rules are not strictly legislated but are nevertheless obligatory guidelines for actions. A maxim is a general truth or rule of conduct. Immanuel Kants political teaching may be summarized in a phrase: republican government and international organization. In more characteristically Kantian terms, it is doctrine of the state based upon the law (Rechtsstaat) and of eternal peace. Indeed, in each of these formulations, both terms express the same idea: that of legal constitution or of peace through law. Rechtsstaat is a doctrine in continental European legal thinking, originally borrowed from German jurisprudence, which can be translated as a legal state, state of law, state of justice, state of rights or state based on justice and integrity. It is a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by the law, and is often tied to the Anglo-American concept of the rule of law, but differs from it in that it also places an emphasis on what is just (i. e. a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion or equity). In a Rechtsstaat, the power of the state is limited in order to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of authority. In a Rechtsstaat the citizens share legally-based civil liberties and they can use the courts. A country cannot be a liberal democracy without first being a Rechtsstaat. German writers usually place Immanuel Kants theories at the beginning of their accounts of the movement toward the Rechtsstaat. Kant’s approach is based on the supremacy of a country’s written constitution. This supremacy must create guarantees for implementation of his central idea: a permanent peaceful life as a basic condition for the happiness of its people and their prosperity. Kant proposed that constitutionalism and constitutional government ought to be sufficient to guarantee this happiness. Kant had thus formulated the main problem of constitutionalism: The constitution of a state is eventually based on the morals of its citizens, which, in its turn, is based on the goodness of this constitution. A Kantian justice system would thus solely focus on what was done, rather than on the character of the person who did it. No excuses regarding a criminals genome, upbringing, history of mental illness, or socioeconomic status can exonerate him from receiving punishment for the criminal act. The fact that a man was abused during his childhood does not justify his infliction of similar abuse on others later in life. Many duties are developed into laws because society has deemed them important for the protection of the individual. There are some laws that are written to safe guard the individual and others for the community. All laws must be written to uphold society which includes protecting the rights of all people in both the majority and minority consequently all laws must possess certain common traits. Immanuel Kant believed that all humans are born inherently bad and must try hard to be good. This model of thought is of immense help to understanding what actions Kant saw as necessary for the creation of justice within the real world, since, once again, every individuals worldview is based upon that individuals own set of experiences. â€Å"Pure reason is a perfect unity; and therefore, if the principle presented by it proves to be insufficient for the solution of even a single one of those questions to which the very nature of reason gives birth, we must reject it, as we could not be perfectly certain of its sufficiency in the case of the others†. (Critique of Pure Reason, 3) Kant on Contemporary Issues Contemporary Issue: A proposal by the government to legalize theft. According to Immanuel Kant’s theories and views he would try to oppose this law. The general definition of theft is the taking of another persons property without that persons permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. Immanuel Kant would consider this an immoral action on the individual’s part therefore resulting in punishment. When someone is punished for something it is because they did something abominable. Humans act not only on impulse as effected by laws of nature, but also out of conscience choice based on principles and these principles tell us how we ought to act. Our conscience as a capacity has a fundamental sense of value and personal responsibility. If theft were to be legalized, it would result in a never-ending chain of people committing evil actions to further their own need. People would become more selfish and greedy. Because Kant believes humans are born inherently bad we must strive every day to avoid temptation which we can only be redeemed by good behaviour and the grace of God. This would also go against Kant’s ideal justice system. â€Å"Nothing can escape our notice; for what reason produces from itself cannot lie concealed, but must be brought to the light by reason itself, as soon as we have discovered the common principle of the ideas we seek. † (Critique of Pure Reason, 5). Kants theory is his belief that it should always be possible, within our power, to do the right thing. Kant believes that rational humans are agents, they have plans, and they make deliberate choices. It is this fact about humans that Kant’s ethical theory seeks to enshrine and protect. Human agency should never be sacrificed for anything less valuable and everything is less valuable. Justice has a moral obligation to always do. The first duty of justice is to never treat people as mere means to one’s own ends. But treating a person as an end in themselves is to do more than respect this duty: it is also to assist them in achieving their morally lawful ends. For these reasons Immanuel Kant would not allow to legalize theft. Our government, justice duty and morality would all be altered if such a thing were to happen and that was Kant’s biggest fear that our humanity would be consumed by materialistic things. We need laws and peace in order for us, as people, to be rational human beings. Work Cited: Germany. Understandings of the Rule of Law Wikis Der Freien UniversitA ¤t Berlin. N. p. , n. d. Web. 21 Sept. 2013. Kant, Immanuel, J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, James Creed Meredith, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant, and Immanuel Kant. The Critique of Pure Reason. Chicago: Encyclop? dia Britannica, 1955. Print. Rauscher, Frederick, Rauscher,. Kants Social and Political Philosophy. Stanford University. Stanford University, 24 July 2007. Web. 21 Sept. 2013. Immanuel Kants Critique of Judgment. Immanuel Kants Critique of Judgment. N. p. , n. d. Web. 21 Sept. 2013.

Mercutio In Romeo And Juliet

Mercutio In Romeo And Juliet In the play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has created several memorable characters, aside from the witty, humorous, and theatrical character of all time Mercutio. Mercutio is neither Capulet nor Montague, but is portrayed as a very close friend to Romeo. Yet Mercutio and Romeo both very dissimilar views on love and on life in general. This is clearly conveyed through Mercutios witty wordplay and language within the play. Primarily the prologue in Romeo and Juliet plays an important role in giving information on were the play is set and what it is about. Shakespeare begins with the most renowned line in literature two households emphasize the theme family, Montagues and Capulets both alike in dignity yet involves another theme power. The prologue also introduces fatalism to the audience as the word star-cross`d lovers suggests stars determining destiny and the words cross`d lovers foreshadow the death of the lovers. The juxtaposition of antithetical ideas in the prologue creates the effect of anticipation and suspense , Shakespeare uses antithesis such as Death ,love and life to summarise the key themes and to foretell and intensify that a tragedy will take place. Mercutio can represent a number of comparisons and contrasts to other characters by means of his quick wit and optimistic attitude. In Act 1 Scene1 the themes hate and conflict are extremely expressed through the characters Benvolio and Tybalt. The character Tybalt is seen as very vulgar and aggressive since he chooses to emphasise on the words hate and hell, he then goes onto say I hate, all Montagues suggests he is only interested in fighting the Montagues and everything he seems to say is negative and full of frustration and disgust. In addition Benvolio, one of Mercutios close friends is seen as the peace maker, unlike Tybalt he is determined to stop the fighting and keep the peace . While Benvolio is calm, sensible and reliable, Mercutio tends to be sarcastic that follows his emotions, but is still remembered as this distinctive dramatic character. Whats more, Prince Escalus the voice of authority appears onto scene and demands for the fight to stop. Shakespeare uses antithesis in the Princes speech you men, you beasts to show his reaction, furthermore the prince can be seen as a character with such emotion as he begins to use violent imagery and says quench the fire of your evil hate and throw your Mistemper`d weapons suggests he is a mediator, like Benvolio and would like to see the feuds in Verona to stop. The juxtaposition of antithetical ideas in the quote Disturb our streets again he proclaims your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace foreshadows the death of Mercutio and Tybalt. Later on in the Scene, the themes friendship, loyalty and love are expressed through Romeos unrequited love for Rosaline. When describing her physical beauty to Benvolio, Romeos descriptions are dreamy yet depressing. Shakespeare displays courtly love through the character Romeo and his infatuation for Rosaline when he begins to pine in despair out of her favour and then uses oxymorons O brawling love! O loving hate! to create a dramatic effect by swiftly switching two major themes together love and hatred , also creates confusion and gives an impression that he is self absorbed and immature. Throughout the scene Benvolio calls Romeo coz and this shows their extremely strong relationship also Benvolio is seen as a loyal and considerate friend when he continuously questions tell me in sadness ,the word sadness highlights the strong bond and respect between the two friends. On the other hand, Shakespeare presents the character of Romeo as over exaggerated and melancholy when Romeo use s hyperbolic language to convey his obsession with Rosaline he compares himself to a sick man in sadness, suggests his conceited mentality. In addition another very close yet different friend to Romeo is a character called Mercutio. Shakespeare chooses to include this humorous and spontaneous character after the audience has seen Romeo and his lovesickness, to create a dramatic effect by showing their opposing views on love. Mercutio, Benvolio and Romeo all sneak into the house of Capulets hoping that Romeo will enliven as Mercutio tells Romeo he must dance shows their close and friendly friendship. Romeo can be seen as depressing when he using a metaphor on the word soul while talking about Mercutios nimble soles referring to his own soul being stuck to the ground. Then Romeo expresses his confusion by saying is love a tender thing he goes onto create bestial imagery by describing love as rude , boisterous and pricks like a thorn gives us his mix yet positive views on love . Nevertheless Mercutios attitude towards love, contrast as he advises Romeo to retaliate back to love by prick love for pricking and beat love down shows he has a negative overview on love. The words prick and beat also show how frustrated he is and that he doesnt want his infatuation to ruin their friendship, we begin to see a diverse side that conveys he is kind and caring. Mercutio begins to mock Romeo with witty wordplay and sceptics when Romeo talks about having had a dream; Mercutio delivers a nonsensical speech on Queen Mab being the fairies midwife who rides a chariot made of an empty hazelnut suggests that all desires and fantasies are corruptive and futile .Shakespeare juxtaposes certain words together with antithetical ideas ,giving a reflection on Mercutio by the use of vivid images of opposing lawyers and lovers , soldiers and fairies also refers to some opposing themes in the play such as love and hatred. Moreover the misogynistic view in the speech about Queen Mab riding over soldiers neck and violent vivid imagery of cutting foreign throats foreshadows death and fighting by giving a negative vision that the whole concept of dreamers and being in love is dangerous as well as substantial. Through the Queen Mab speech Mercutio degrades women, yet captivates the audience in talking nonsense creates humour. In Act 2 scene1, the theme of true love is conveyed when Romeo has seen beloved Juliet he climbs onto the Capulets wall, whilst Mercutio and Benvolio call out for Romeo, Mercutio mocks Romeos infatuation for Rosaline shouting Madman , lover and refers to Venus the roman goddess of love. Then Mercutio uses the theme of petrachan love to describe Rosalines high forehead and scarlet lip to tease Romeo. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony as we as readers know its not Rosaline, Romeo loves. However Benvolio has a lot of concern for Romeo as he says if he will hear it will anger him; Mercutio on the other hand thinks it cannot anger him signifies Mercutio is a better friend as he tells the truth to benefit Romeo. Shakespeare uses satirical irony when expressing the theme of loyalty between Mercutio and Romeo. He describes Rosaline as a pale Hard-hearted wench and then uses imagery to describe Romeo as dead and stabbed , but due to love not hatred creates another dramatic effect of the role of Mercutio. Mercutios interaction with Romeo grows strong as he clearly states Romeo isnt strong enough to encounter Tybalt at a duel he then begins to mock Tybalts fashionable fighting by calling him the prince of cats tells us he is brave to protect Romeo. Mercutio also uses rhetorical language when insulting Romeo on groaning for love? conveys his cynical belief on love. Shakepeare has also displayed the character of Mercutio as both outrageous and fascinating when he mocks the nurses weight, comparing it to a sail! and calls her ancient tells us Shakespeare has done this to create wittiness and also to drive the entire play forward. Plus Mercutio and Romeos rapid interchange, indicates Romeo is quick to understand Mercutios witty wordplay. Furthermore the character Benvolio is displayed as blood and patient, when he tries to stop Mercutio to scape a brawl Mercutio begins to aggravate Benvolio in saying he will quarrel with a man for cracking nuts suggests Benvolio isnt quick to comprehend Mercutios clever wordplay. Mercutio also likes creating a scene when Benvolio tells Tybalt and Mercutio to reason coldly of their grievances , Mercutio seems to not care in saying let them gaze ,his own arrogance is leading to the tragedy of his death. When Tybalt insists in fighting with Romeo , Shakespeare uses dramatic irony in portraying the character of Romeo to be an innocent , love puppy who talks about loving the Capulets name as his own foreshadows the relationship of Romeo and Juliet. Ultimately the scene changes from bawdy comedy to dramatic tragedy when the role of the comic foil in the play comes to an end. Mercutio uses a metaphor and visual imagery when provoking Tybalt in comparing him to a good king of cats who has Nine lives represents his loyalty towards Romeo. Shakespeare dramatises Mercutios death as it hides his feelings over humour creating theatrical tension, Mercutio uses powerful language in cursing the two feuding families a plague on both of your houses he then goes onto using repetition whilst being sarcastic Ay , ay ,a scratch signifies his strong and brave personality all to protect Romeos Honour. By killing of the character of Mercutio, the character of Romeo changes from a romantic archetypal petrachan lover to a villian who kills Tybalt.

I Wish to Provide Students with a Thirst for Knowledge Essay -- Teachi

I Wish to Provide Students with a Thirst for Knowledge The different philosophies on education are complex yet necessary for implementation of some type of educational structure in the classroom. The utilization of a variety of methods seems to be the most effective alternative to not only be an effective teacher, but also maintain an adherence to discipline and create an effective learning environment. The idea of linear seating is too confining for the students and doesn’t allow for much freedom of movement either for the teacher or the students. Therefore, â€Å"pod† or â€Å"group† seating could be implemented. This arrangement would allow for more individualized attention. Group learning has its place in the classroom, but allowing individuals to grow and learn at their own pace is not without merit as well. Reference information, magazines, books, and colorful yet informative bulletin boards should fill the room. Information relevant to what we are studying and perhaps what the students think of a particular subject or idea would enhance the learning environment. As the classroom facilitator, an effective approach to discipline would perhaps be to allow the students to expand and/or design their own disciplinary procedures. If they are allowed to prescribe the penalties they must pay for inappropriate behavior, they might be more likely to embrace these penalties rather than rebel against teacher/school policies. The teacher should still be the center of instructional guidance, disseminating knowledge to the students. A teacher who takes it one step further, and becomes a facilitator rather than a dictator, however, allows the students to think for themselves, and design effective solutions and results (progres... ...nge!† Are they right? Possibly so, but the changes necessary do not entail throwing out old methods, merely amending them into viable instructional practices by which our children gain a fuller, more robust education. The role of an educator in this implementation is easily stated: â€Å"Learn to be an effective facilitator, guiding the students along the path to discovery, while still maintaining a degree of control in the classroom.† Continuous learning can be achieved in many ways: continuing education seminars performed during faculty-senate days, professional development classes taught by leading educators in one’s particular field, periodicals, magazines, and participating in a Master’s program of study. Change is a constant, therefore, teachers must be readily adaptable to whatever changes are necessary to ensure their students have a well-rounded education.

Grendel By John Gardner Essay -- essays research papers

Grendel lives in a dark and gruesome underground cave with his mother and dozens of cold, unmoving creatures. He is very curious and, in his early years, finds a way to escape this terrible place and enter the world. Every night he wanders outside his cave, exploring the land around him. One night, he gets trapped in a tree. A band of human beings led by King Hrothgar approaches and, after some hesitation, attacks Grendel. They close in for the kill, but Grendel's mother arrives just in time to save him. Years after his encounter with Grendel, Hrothgar's power and influence grow until he rules an immense territory. He builds a glorious meadhall, the greatest in the land, and names it Herot. He builds roads to connect his kingdom and hires an immensely gifted Harper to play at special occasions. Grendel is fascinated by the Harper's music and tries to join the humans, but he is attacked by the frightened guards and must flee. Feeling lonely and rejected, he visits an ancient dragon that lives within the kingdom. The dragon speaks for some time, and his wicked, tired cynicism infects Grendel. He puts a charm on the young monster, making him impervious to human blades. After this, Grendel becomes a creature of pure destruction. At the onset of each subsequent spring, Grendel carries out several raids on Hrothgar's meadhall. He is very careful about this, leaving just enough men behind to rebuild and grow for the next spring. Several years after he builds his meadhall, Hrothgar ...

Steven Hawking :: essays papers

Steven Hawking Steven William Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. He was always interested in science and how things worked. From about the age of 20, he was awarded a first class honors degree in Natural Sciences. After receiving his degree, Steven went to Cambridge, to do research on Cosmology. After receiving his Ph.D., he left the Institute of Astronomy and since then he has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. In the late 1960's, Steven proved that if general relativity is true and the Universe is expanding, a irregularity must have occurred at the birth of the Universe. In 1974, he first recognized a truly remarkable property of black holes, objects from which nothing was supposed to be able to escape. By taking into account quantum mechanics, he was able to show that black holes can radiate energy as particles are created in their vicinity. Dr. Hawking has also worked on the basic laws that govern the universe. With Rodger Penrose, he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have had a beginning in the "Big Bang", and an end in black holes. These results indicated it was necessary to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, the other great scientific development of the first half of the 20th century. One consequence of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but it should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. Another speculation is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time. This would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science. While studying at Oxford, Steven noticed that he was becoming rather clumsy during his first year. When he returned home one Christmas 1962, his mother persuaded him to go to the doctor. In 1963, he was diagnosed with ALS (Ameliotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or best known as the lou Gehrig's disease).This disease is progressive and slowly affects the nerves supplying all the muscles in the body. Dr. Hawking has several books, but his most prestigious feat may be "a Brief History of Time", which was published in 1988. When asked recently about his disability and other questions surrounding it he replied: "People are fascinated by the contrast between my very limited physical powers, and the vast nature of the universe I deal with. I'm the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct.

Do Children Have False Memories

Citing relevant research, state and explain your opinion of the reliability of the testimony of a 5 year old child who accuses an adult of serious sexual abuse. It’s very easy to look at children’s testimony from a psychologist or a researcher’s perspective, but how would we respond if we were faced with a situation where a 5 year old child is accusing an adult of serious sexual abuse?Would we be quick to dismiss the strong accusation or would we examine the possibility of this event. In this essay evidence for and against the reliability of children’s testimony is evaluated, especially considering a delicate matter such as sexual abuse. It will start by outlining what developmental and cognitive psychologists have discovered to date about children’s memory capacity and how it differs from that of adults; then the focus will shift to literature on sexual abuse.Memory or remembering operates like any other aspect of development studied, its developme nt is gradual, and this goes to say that children without doubt, don’t possess the same ability to remember as adults. The digit span for memory seems to increase with age, so for example a child of 3yrs will remember about 2 words and a child of 4 will remember 3 words from a presented list of word, and these are likely to be the last words (recency effect( Meadows,1986).There are three areas of memory that seem to show improvement in children as we progress through development: basic capacity, the amount of information that can be remembered in STM, children will develop strategies that will help transfer information into LTM and finally they will also have greater world knowledge; which means a greater context allowing for the integration of new information, therefore new memories. (Meadows, 1986) There are many reasons why children show these deficits in memory.One of them is because they lack meta-cognition, basic beliefs and knowledge about memory, its dynamics, which i s fundamental for understanding how information is learned. Children clearly don’t possess this meta-cognitive awareness to monitor past experiences and performance to update resource allocation strategies. (Castel, Humphreys, Lee, Balota and McCabe, 2011) This previous paragraphs were to convey the fact that children do have distinct abilities compared to adults, this tells us that their recall for witnessed events might lack in accuracy.When we ask a child to give testimony for witnessing an event we are asking them to access their autobiographical memory, which includes a sketchy version of personal memories and experiences, diluted from all unnecessary details. This type of memory is highly subject to biases in attempting to maintain continuity and it often doesn’t follow the temporal frame. Can children accurately recall events that they experience in the past accurately or do they often develop false memories of events that never took place? Some studies show tha t children as young as 5 can remember events quite well even after a period of delay preceding recall. Flin, Boon, Knox and Bull (1992) gave children a talk on how to keep their feet clean, while the talk was happening an assistant staged tripping over and knocking over a side carousel. Recall was taken the day after the talk and 5 months later, similar to court proceedings. There was no relation found between age and amount of information recalled the following day, children age 6 recalled 17/ 26 items and adults recalled 18/26 items. However Flinn et al found that 5 months later 6 yr olds recall had decreased by 40 %.This study shows that children can remember quite well, however those memories are not fully stored in LTM . This event however isn’t a real life event neither is it of distressing nature like most events children are called to testify for in court cases. This could justify the high recall even for the younger children. Research by Goodman, Hirschman, Hepps and Rudy (1991); Peterson and Whalen (2001) and many more agree that children can actually remember stressful events very well and without doubt sexual abuse of any kind is a stressful enough situation which victims should remember well.Children can give accurate testimony following sexual victimisation, supported by evidence from allegations and high rate of omission errors instead of reporting unsupported events, (Birdrose & Goodman, 2000) More interestingly research has shown that children can easily develop false memories, known as memories of events that never took place (Loftus, 2004). A good example was -the Mc Martin trial . In this controversial trial a school teacher was accused of ritually abusing children.The charges against the teacher were eventually dropped, as some of the children recalled very ambiguous events, such as being taken on an helicopter to a far away farm to witness a horse while it was beaten. It is believed that they were suggestively interviewed and then developed enough details to make these become real memories. (Schreiber et al, 2006). Prevalence information can strongly influence children’s recall, it seems that children start by considering whether the event is plausible, then proceed to develop thoughts and images about the events, which at that point become mistaken for real memories.In an experiment Otgaar, Candel, Merckelbach and Wade (2009) exposed children age 7-8 and age 11-12 to a description of a real past experience and also that of a false past experience. The real experience was the child’s first day at school; the false one was a description of being abducted by an UFO, prevalence was given by giving them an article about the commonality of UFO abductions. The results showed that children again remembered accurately the real event, this is consistent with (Flin et al, 1992. ; some even were convinced they had been abducted, some even reported things not present in the story; such as being transported by a beam of blue light, clearly indicating formation of a false memory. 70% of younger children remembered being abducted. We cannot totally conclude that children’s memory for bizarre events is always false; however we can say that they can easily develop false memories for implausible events, this is more noticeable in younger child This still isn’t sufficient to answer the question of the reliability of a 5 yr old accusing an adult of abuse.Research suggests that children place an important emphasis on script like representations, basically representations of how events are connected in a stereotypical way, based on prior knowledge of everyday activities, they may use this scripts to fill in details of events even when they are not part of the story, ( Mc Shane 1991). When a child is required to provide eye-witness accounts of what happened during an episode, even when it’s not as severe as sexual abuse, they need to be able to separate that instance from th at in which they are questioned, things they have maybe seen and when they had spoken about it for the first time. Lloyd, Doydum and Newcombe, 2009), psychologist fear they are unable to do this. There is a great influence of prior knowledge on free recall, cued recall, recognition memory and source memory; sometimes children may rely on gist to make conclusions. Odegard, Cooper, Lampinen, Reyna and Brainard (2009) carried out an experiment where children attended 4 thematic birthday parties of fictional characters and were later interviewed regarding the events that took place, some which were generic and some which were specific to the theme of the party.When interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol, older children did better than the younger ones at providing both thematic and generic events for the parties, this could be explained by the fact that they possess knowledge of the script of parties and they used this to reconstr uct what happened; however this also led them to make more thematic source errors. It was also found that 45% of 5-6 year olds reported events that didn’t happen or mixed them up between the parties they attended.This is consistent with the previous study in that younger children made more mistakes; Nonetheless this cannot tell us how can a five year old wrongly accuse someone of something they have never heard of or even seen, they don’t posses schemas for these neither do they know whether it’s good or bad. Or how can they develop a false memory of an act of sexual abuse unless they had experienced it. Leander, Christianson and Granhag (2007) examined the eyewitness of 8 children between the ages of 3-10, who had been sexually abused by an unfamiliar perpetrator who was the same in all cases.They focused on the amount and type of information remembered and denial of the assault. The documentation of children’s testimony was found to be consistent with t he confession of the perpetrator, picture evidence, medical examination and police evidence. They found that most children reported things that preceded the abuse and that only 21. 5% of what they reported was of the sexual act, the remaining was neutral information. They youngest child age 3 didn’t say much about both post and pre-abuse factors and only mentioned one fact of sexual nature.The rate of denial and reluctance to report the act was high especially amongst younger children. In this case it was easier to believe that the abuse occurred because there were multiple victims, and enough evidence to give credibility to the children’s testimony. We can imagine that a five year old would not come to an adult saying’ I have been sexually abused’, they probably never eared those terms neither do they know the meaning. This is to say that testimony of abused children may be disconnected often not including any sexual facts, but we shouldn’t be too quick to discard it.Hershkowits and Lanes (2007) found that younger children who don’t understand the concept of abuse are better able to disclose information as they are unlikely to have feelings of guilt and don’t understand the severity of abuse in society. Over the years there has been extensive work on interviewing techniques, Psychologists have developed interviewing techniques to effectively extrapolate information from children, therefore interviewing the child can reveal whether testimony is true or false. Children’s description of real events differs from that of false events.In Hershkowitz (1999) children describing events that really happened provided longer and richer responses to open-ended prompts rather than focused ones. Children who are providing implausible accounts tend to rely of the suggestions of the interviewer and elaborate on them. The study also showed that younger children were more likely to recall implausible false events compared to older ones, so maybe false memories are not only created on the basis of event plausibility; perhaps if a 5 year old was giving a false account of abuse they would exhibit such characteristics.Holcomb and Jacquin (2007) mock sexual abuse trial revealed that the defendant was more likely to be found guilty when a by stander witness was present, unlike when a victim-witness was present; however jurors were more likely to believe young children. Research also shows that children find it difficult to discuss having been sexually abused; many will go through phases of secrecy, helplessness and retraction (Summit, 1983). If a child manages to disclose it, we should assume that there should be a degree of truthfulness if not why go through with it.Sometimes their testimony is characterised by retractions, which throw investigations into chaos and have two meanings: repairing a false allegation or preventing the consequences when it’s true. In a recent court trial Steven Barker, t he step father of Peter Connelly also known a ‘Baby P’ was accused of sexually abusing his 2 yr old sister. The girl disclosed this information to her step mother at the age of 4, the delay might suggest that some details of the could be omitted.The child was subject to very hard questioning and although the jury were divided due to her denial of the act on several accounts, it was proven that she was a victim. Coming to a conclusion isn’t as easy as it could seem and this gives just a brief insight to what jurors are often faced with in court trials that involve young victims of sexual abuse. The most important thing is that the ability to remember of a five yr old should never be taken for granted especially for something as severe as sexual abuse.The evidence shows that can remember stressful events, even with delay, but majority don’t report sexual details, are prone to suggestibility, and can develop false memories. None the less it’s very impr obable that a child, who has never seen nor eared of sexual abuse and hasn’t been fed with the wrong information by parents or even through suggestive interview would confess of having been a victim of sexual abuse. It is better to acknowledge children’s testimony and weight up the evidence. REFERENCES Bidrose, S. & Goodman, G. S. (2000).Testimony and evidence: A scientific case study of memory for child sexual abuse. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14,  197-213. Castel, A. D. , Humphreys, K. L. , Lee, S. S. , Galvan, A. , Balota, D. A. , & McCabe, D. P. (2011). The development of memory efficiency and value-directed remembering across the life span: A cross-sectional study of memory and selectivity. Developmental Psychology,  47(6), 1553-1564. Flin, R, Boon, J. , Knox, A. And Bull, r. (1992) The effect of a five month delay on children’s and adults, eyewitness memory.British Journal of Psychology, 83 Goodman, G. S. , Hirschman, J. E. , Hepps, D. H. , &Rudy, L . (1991). Children’s memory for stressful l events. Merril Palmer Quarterly, 37, 109–158. Hershkowitz, I. , Lanes, O. , & Lamb, M. E. (2007). Exploring the disclosure of child sexual abuse with alleged victims and their parents. Child Abuse & Neglect,  31(2), 111-123. Hershkowitz, I. (1999). The dynamics of interviews involving plausible and implausible allegations of child sexual abuse. Applied Developmental Science,  3(2), 86-91. Holcomb, M.J. , & Jacquin, K. M. (2007). Juror perceptions of child eyewitness testimony in a sexual abuse trial. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse,  16(2), 79-95. Loftus, E. F. (2004). Memories of things unseen. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13,145–147. Lloyd, M. E. , Doydum, A. O. , & Newcombe, N. S. (2009). Memory binding in early childhood: Evidence for a retrieval deficit. Child Development,  80(5), 1321-1328. Leander, L. , Christianson, S. , & Granhag, P. (2007). A sexual abuse case study children's memories a nd reports.Psychiatry, Psychology And Law,  14(1), 120-129. Meadows, S. (1986). Understanding Child Development. London: Century Hutchinson Ltd. McShane, J. (1991). Cognitive development: . An information processing approach. Cambridge, MA, US: Basil Bruckwell. Otgaar, H. , Candel, I. , Merckelbach, H. , ; Wade, K. A. (2009). Abducted by a UFO: Prevalence information affects young children's false memories for an implausible event. Applied Cognitive Psychology,  23(1), 115-125. Odegard, T. N. , Cooper, C. M. , Lampinen, J. M. , Reyna, V. F. , & Brainerd, C. J. (2009).Children's eyewitness memory for multiple real-life events. Child Development,  80(6), 1877-1890. R. C. Summitt,† The child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome†, Child abuse and Neglect, Vol 7, 2, P. 177-193. Schreiber, N. , Bellah, L. D. , Martinez, Y. , McLaurin, K. A. , Strok, R. , Garven, S. , et al. (2006). Suggestive interviewing in the McMartin Preschool and Kelly Michaels daycare abuse cases: c ase study. Social Influence, 1, 16–47. Tully, B. (2002). The evaluation of retractions in sexual abuse cases. Child Abuse Review,  11(2), 94-102. doi:10. 1002/car. 728

eBay: The Global Strategy

Pierre Omidyar, a computer programmer, developed the platform of eBay and introduced it to the World Wide Web in 1995. (Daniels, Radebaugh, & Sullivan, 2007) Omidyar’s goals and objectives in designing the interface of eBay was grounded on his idea of opening the industry of market auctions to wider populations of buyers and sellers that link up through the Internet. Moreover, his idea of an online marketplace for buyers and sellers was based upon his vision of equal competition among sellers, eliminating the discrepancies on how sellers are competing in the real market structure for the purpose of attracting the attention of buyers and overpowering their competitors. For Omidyar, eBay balances the playing field for all sellers and provides equal opportunities of purchase for the buyers. (Gopalkrishnan & Gupta, N. D. ) Although Omidyar was able to eliminate the competition within the virtual sphere of eBay, eBay Inc. was experiencing the surge of competition from other virtual commercial establishments that were designed under the same framework of eBay’s market auction. In addition, eBay, as a business organization, needed to cope with the challenges of the globalization, thus, the development of strong and stable globalization strategy for eBay as supported by its core competency and its configured and coordinated value chain. (Daniels, Radebaugh, & Sullivan, 2007) The core competencies of eBay constitute the unique platform or design of eBay as an online marketplace that sets it apart from other virtual business organizations establishing its competitive advantage in terms of services or offerings, eBay’s valuing of establishing trust among its clients and assuring the safety and security of being involved in online auctions facilitated by the organization, the value or significance that eBay grants market efficiency, and one of the primary goals of eBay to establish partnerships with other organizations to foster network benefits and productivity. Daniels, Radebaugh, & Sullivan, 2007) These core competencies have established some of the strategies that eBay has implemented over the years in order to obtain competitive advantage and fulfill the goals and objectives of the organization. Perhaps the most successful strategy which has helped sustain the growth and development of eBay was its opening of services of an online open market for everyone who needs to tie up with the platform of eBay in order to sell or buy goods or products from different parts of the world. This has widened the client base of eBay, realizing one of its core competencies, that is its uniqueness in being able to establish a marketplace that is open to all despite the distance. (Gopalkrishnan & Gupta, N. D. ) In addition, according to a report released by eBay in 2006 in order to discuss its global strategies for continued growth and development of the business, through its acquisitions of other organizations, such as PayPal (eBay, 2009a), and its development of other virtual services that assist in the facilitation of services provided by eBay. Some of these services include Skype which is a communication tool that buyers and sellers around the world may use to communicate. eBay has also realized that in order to uphold its core competency of market efficiency, it needed to implement a multi-branding strategy to capture a larger market population. This was accomplished through its development of Shopping. om and other Marketplaces such as eBay stores, ProStores, and such. (eBay, 2009b) Reviewing the value chain configuration and coordination of eBay, the decision to structure this particular system was motivated by the platform of eBay considering what drives the business – that is, the buyers and the sellers – and the processes that facilitate business practices and operations. Apparently, the value chain model of eBay constitutes five tiers of factors or features, starting from the legal aspect of the business, to its management of finances, the human capital of the organization, the technical department of the organization which keeps eBay up and running online, and most importantly, the process and operations involved in running eBay. This process starts with marketing, to the transfer of information from sellers to buyers, the process of auctioning products of goods, the payment, and the review of accountability and reliability of eBay and sellers to provide for the needs and demands of buyers. Schmidl, 2006) The configuration and coordination of eBay’s value chain was based on the logical analysis of how eBay will commence operations, especially since the organization is run by the buyers and sellers who are involved in the process of keeping organizational operations. The analysis of eBay’s value chain establishes the fact that it is vir tual and not real since the process of marketing up until peer reviews is completed online. From marketing eBay, to the transfer of information and facilitation of communication between buyers and sellers, the auction and payment process, until the peer reviews regarding accountability and reliability of eBay and sellers, is done through online tools and applications that constitute the platform of eBay. Perhaps this is one of the many reasons why the particular process identified as eBay’s value chain adds value and advantage to eBay, since it is able to provide services virtually to global networks without offering problems and difficulties to buyers and sellers. The analysis of eBay’s core competencies, strategies, and its value chain proves that they are no different from what eBay has implemented ten years ago. Until today, the strategies employed by eBay are based on its mission of providing an online open market for everyone – to buyers and sellers – eliminating competition and the challenges that constitute to the establishment of concrete business establishments that operate in the same manner. eBay has made it easy for individuals to operate a business and purchase specific goods or products. However, eBay has to continue in developing its platform if it hopes to grow in the following years, based on the threats and challenges posed by some issues that eBay clearly needs to addressed as mentioned by Daniels, Radebaugh, and Sullivan (2007). These challenges suggests that eBay should be able to raise its cultural sensitivity, addressing the problem of language barriers, the implementation of legal laws and policies to regulate overall eBay operations, and its modification of its virtual value chain, applying concepts of real value chain in order to address the digital divide.