Augustus Ceasar essays

Augustus Ceasar essays Two of the most destructive problems facing the late Roman Republic were the instability and disunity caused by incessant civil wars. Rome's rapid expansion, after the Punic Wars, resulted in socioeconomic changes that permanently divided the state. Both aristocratic and plebeian parties sought total control of Rome and tried to destroy each other. Civil war was the continuation of party politics by other means. Consequently, the power of the military became supreme. Control of Rome's armies steadily shifted away from the legitimate government to the generals because the soldiers began to give their allegiance to their generals rather than to the civil authorities. On dismissal from military service, the legionnaires had no farms to return to, and they depended entirely on whatever land and money their generals could provide since the government was unwilling or unable to supply veterans with livelihoods. Thus, the generals became autonomous centers of power. The general who dominate d the strongest army ruled the state. Repeated power struggles of these military strongmen ignited more civil wars that further undermined the stability and unity of the late Roman Republic. Augustus saw how divisive to the Roman polity civil war was. He understood that control of the legions by the civil government was necessary for the establishment of peace and order throughout the Roman Empire. He wanted to reorganize and institute changes in the military to assure that it would not rise again in support of some triumphant general to challenge the legitimacy of the state. Since warfare within the Empire was eliminated, the role of the legions changed. Its main objectives consisted in protecting the borders from foreign foes and pacifying conquered lands through the gradual introduction of the Roman language, law, administration, and engineering. Augustus' priority was to reduce the number of the legions from 60 to 28, settling in the process more than 1...

ACT Reading vs SAT Reading Which Is Easier

ACT Reading vs SAT Reading Which Is Easier SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Which is the harder section, ACT Reading or SAT Reading? We will break down the differences between SAT and ACT Reading to help you decide which section is harder for you. You might be surprised which one is easier! Major Differences Between SAT Reading and ACT Reading In this section, I'll break down the most critical differences between SAT Reading and ACT Reading. One test is not inherently easier than the other - it all depends on your skills. Keep your own strengths and weaknesses in mind as you read through the following sections. #1: Breaking Down Long Passages The ACT doesn’t always give line numbers in the questions. For what we call â€Å"little picture, find the detail† questions, you have to skim the whole reading passage to find the answer, whereas SAT always gives line numbers. See an ACT example below: Via ACT's Preparing for the ACT guide. For this question, you have to sift through the passage to find the one line that mentions this very particular detail. If you don't have a good memory for small details, this can take time. In contrast, you can approach the SAT Critical Reading section by reading the questions first and then going back to parts of the passage using the line numbers. For the ACT, you will have to at least skim the entire passage, even if you read the questions first. Our advice? If you have a good memory for longer passages and small details, you will have an advantage on the ACT. If you are good at picking information out of a passage, you might do better on the SAT. #2: Timing Timing is a bigger challenge on the ACT, as the ACT asks more questions per minute.SAT Reading has 52 questions in 65 minutes, giving you 75 seconds per question. On the other hand, ACT Reading has 40 questions in 35 minutes, which gives you just 52 seconds per question.This may not seem like a major difference, but all those extra seconds really add up when you're struggling to answer all the questions in a section before time is called. Keep on your eyes on your watch! Our advice? If pacing and answer questions quickly is a problem for you, you may find the time constraints of the SAT Reading section more manageable. #3: Evidence-Support Questions Are you good at pinpointing specific areas in texts that support your answers to questions? If so, the SAT may be a better fit for you. Evidence-support questions are a big part of SAT Reading but don't appear on ACT Reading. These questions build off of the questions that come before them and ask you to cite specific lines or paragraphs as evidence for your answer to a previous question. Here’s an example of an evidence-support question (with the question to which it's referring): As you can see, these questions can be challenging because theyrequire higher-level thinking and strong reasoning skills. If you're stuck on the first question, you likely won't get the second one right either. Our advice? If you struggle with interconnected questions or having concrete reasons for selecting a certain answer, you may find the ACT easier since it's Reading section doesn't include these types of questions. So Which Test Should You Take? The best way to decide which reading section you’ll do best on is to take real practice tests. Score yourself, and find out which test you score higher on based on percentiles. Also, based on those practice tests, figure out your weaknesses. Are you struggling on SAT’s evidence-based questions? Then the ACT might be a better choice for you. Are you struggling with finishing the ACT Reading section in time? Then maybe the SAT will be a better fit for you. Another strategy is to think about which test you like more. Sure, a test is a test, but you’ll probably find you enjoy one more than the other, and you may study more effectively for the test you like better. Finally, think about the other sections if you can't decide. For example, you might take a practice test and figure out you are slightly better at ACT Reading. But if ACT Math is really hard for you, it could cancel out the benefits of being better at ACT Reading. What’s Next? Want a comprehensive guide to whether the ACT or SAT is easier? Read this detailed breakdown. In this post we recommended taking a practice ACT and practice SAT reading sections to figure out your strength. Check out our links to free ACT and SAT practice tests to get started! What about the writing and math sections? See our complete guide to ACT versus SAT to compare your overall strengths and weaknesses. If you’re going with the SAT, learn and review SAT vocab using the waterfall method. Also check out our tips for a perfect 800 on Critical Reading by our full scorer. Vocabulary is still important on the ACT. Find out the words you must know! Also get a step-by-step essay guide and strategies for a perfect 36 on ACT Reading. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Fan Crimes at Sporting Events Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Fan Crimes at Sporting Events - Research Paper Example This has been an ongoing problem for many years, despite efforts to curb the behavior, such as preventing many stadiums from selling alcohol on the premises. Criminal activities among fans at sporting games tend to focus around violence against other fans, but they also include vandalism, rioting behavior and other criminal acts. These acts are driven by the interaction of a number of different factors, including the fierce loyalty that many fans have towards their teams, the atmosphere present at a sporting event, the emotions that are associated with the outcome of the game, the size of the crowd and the presence of alcohol. These factors interact to produce a charged atmosphere, where it is easy for fans to take events or conversations out of context and to react in an extreme manner. Not all attendees of a sporting event are the same. They come to the event with different desires and for different reasons. Many are casual watchers, who enjoy viewing the game, are not overly conce rned about the outcome and who like the atmosphere that is present. However, some fans are more devoted to their team, and whether they win or lose is of significant consequence to these fans, and they can often feel cheated or disheartened if their team loses. This is particularly true if there was some aspect of the game that is contested, such as when it is not evident whether a move by the opposing team was legal. These are the fans. They have one team that they follow and consider to be their own. They will attend as many games, which their team is in as possible, and listen to information on the game on television or radio if attending is not possible. Many fans wear their team colors to games or team shirts in day-to-day life. Others will paint their faces or carry props associated with their team to the game . For fans, there is a lot at stake in any game, and regardless of the result, emotions will run high. A sporting event consists of two teams playing each other; one of which will win and the other will lose (except in the case of a draw, which is only possible in some sporting games). Whatever the outcome of the game is, some observers will be pleased with it and others will be upset. The sports event environment involves a strong clash of cultures as each team has its own fans that have their own distinct opinions, beliefs and desires. This can be especially prevalent where the two teams are from different states or different countries. Additionally, sports games have the ability to draw in large crowds of fans and the concentration of people can increase the opportunity for altercations or disputes to occur between the fans . The polarity between the sets of fans alone is often enough to cause disputes as there are occasional, although much rarer, reports of fan altercation outside of a sports event. For example, in some American cities, wearing a shirt of an opposing team will result in substantial heckling. In a sporting event, not only is thi s polarity present, but these fans are in a confined space for many hours with many other people, some of who they agree with, some that they do not. Alcohol is often seen as a playing a pivotal role in the behavior of fans at a sporting event. It is well known to decrease inhibitions and has been documented to result in an increase in aggressive behavior, an effect that is intensified when the fans are already frustrated , such as from a game that is not going well or from

Database Design and data security breeches Essay - 1

Database Design and data security breeches - Essay Example The information with de-identified status can be given to the researcher. This is the information that gives details about a particular group off patients but cannot be narrowed to a specific patient. Such information is exempted from the HIPAA regulations since it is in a general format (Wilson, 2010). Such information do not have any hint of that links the information to a particular patient, such as contacts, names, job number, geographical information, official documents, account number, e-mail and medical record number. The current rules and regulation governing health information is HIPAA. This stands for health insurance portability and accountability act. The laws were put in place in the year 1996 by the congress. The rules are meant to give the mandate to transfer and link health insurance coverage and reduce heath information abuse and fraud. It also give rules on the confidentiality and protection of health information. Giving access to the restricted areas has to involve some consultations first with the senior administrators. Later the researcher is given access using MySQL 5.1 version which can access different databases. The privileges to be accorded to the academic researcher include being allowed to be a member of the data reader so that he or she can access the data easily. The database system should only avail the information needed by the researcher. Other information should be kept private. The SQL statement used should be able to sort the data according to the limited privileges. Such statements include GRANT PRIVILEGE_NAME option. Creation of restricted views of the data are to be created using SQL. The statement retrieves the information that can be accessed by any user. The user name specifies the type of information that is being given. For this case, the user can read and modify (Andrews, 2012). The department of health of Utah had their system accessed and personal information stolen. This is where a hacker made the figures

The Mbuti Culture Essay Example for Free

The Mbuti Culture Essay The Mbuti Culture The way a culture makes their living impacts many aspects of cultural behaviors and has been a very effective way to organize thoughts and studies about different cultures. For most of human history people have lived a foraging or in other terms, hunting and gathering type of lifestyle. It has been said that foraging is the oldest form of human society and it was dated all the way back to the Paleolithic period, which was at least a million years ago (Nowak Laird, 2010). The Mbuti are Bantu speaking foragers, who live in small, independent communities within the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There actual location is found in the southern part of the Ituri Forest (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). Mbuti people have a nomadic lifestyle within a certain territory and live in a subsistence economy, meaning they only produce what they need to survive (Nowak Laird, 2010). They make their living by hunting and gathering, and this has had a big impact on their kinship, political organization, and their beliefs and values. The Mbuti culture has also had to overcome many changes throughout the past seventy years. Among foragers such as the Mbuti, there’s an endless movement of goods through kinship ties and residential closeness that have a positive impact on people’s obligations to one another. The responsibility to share and the traveling lifestyle prevent the buildup of individual wealth. No one person owns or has control over the resources and there are no differences in wealth among individuals (Nowak Laird, 2010). However, individuals do have rights over the natural beehives or termite mounds which they have located and marked (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). The Mbuti culture has certain beliefs and customs regarding marriage. When people from the Mbuti culture marry, it involves the payment of bridewealth or either the exchange of sisters or other close female relatives. The bridewealth was usually paid with iron implements or bark clothing, but today it’s paid in cash. Nowadays, exchanged marriages are the most common in bridewealth and they account for nearly half of the marriages in some bands. A rightfully married couple most of the time lives  virilocally, which leads to the band structure of partilineally related men and their wives and children. Families are involved in clans with each specific clan having certain names and totemic animals that are avoided by members (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). â€Å"Actual band composition is, however, more composite, with uxorilocal residence, and band fission and fusion† (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006, p.3). Aside from kinship, the political organization is another feature that is greatly impacted by the primary mode of subsistence. It has been said that, the main difference between our society and the Mbuti’s society is that, ours is based on discrete or â€Å"separated individuals†, while theirs is a single corporate group (Ground, 1983). Within each band, there is a spokesperson called the kapita. Until recently, the kapita’s role was limited to liaison work with horticultural villagers and regional administrators. The kapita handled things such as tax collections, census taking, and administrative demands. If those demands were not in-fact handled, the kapita was called into the local administrative office. Oddly enough, the kapita authority was recognized by other band members, through recognition of his sufferings on behalf of the community. Conflicts within the band were handled usually by face-to-face interactions, especially when it had to deal with labor, food, material culture, and bridewealth (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). Decisions that needed to be made concerning the entire band such as camp movement or certain hunting grounds are made in the course of men’s gatherings in what they call the tele. The opinions that came from the elderly and more experienced individuals were respected th e most. Sometimes the aged women were allowed to join in on the discussions, but the younger women had to listen quietly from their families homes. Usually when conflicts arose, one of the disputants moved to another camp to calm down. If the conflicts resulted in injury, the matter was submitted to the local village’s court (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). Another aspect of the Mbuti culture, that the primary mode of subsistence impacts is their religious beliefs and values. For the Mbuti people, their physical environment is clearly all accommodating, their food is fresh in hand every day, and they don’t have marked seasons so in return, they live day to day rather than thinking about the past and future. Their attention is on the present moment as well as the present space. They do not worry about what  isn’t here and now and that goes the same for time and space as well. Like for instance, if the hunting and gathering isn’t good near the camp, they would just simply move the camp. This method helped to restore the habitual â€Å"goodness† for the â€Å"here† and the â€Å"nowà ¢â‚¬  (Turnbull, 1985). â€Å"Even the visual aspect of the Mbuti world has a profound effect on their thinking† (Turnbull, 1985, p.9). They see the forest clearings to be cavernous, their houses are sphere shaped, and their concept of space is also spherical. They believe that each hunting camp and house is its own sphere surrounding the greatest sphere of all, the forest. All in all, every Mbuti is in the center of his own sphere that moves with him through time and space; he is always equally adapted to everything that is around, at any given moment (Turnbull, 1985). The Mbuti people believe that forest animals are an important source of food; however, some of them could cause awful diseases and other hardship if they were eaten imprecisely. For example, they felt that pregnant women and babies were vulnerable to certain animals and these animals were called kuweri. It was stated, that about eighty percent of the sixty mammals were avoided for that particular reason for at least a part of the life -cycle (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). Mbuti were famous for their dancing and singing; this was performed for amusement as well as the essential part of the rites of passage. Some examples were circumcision, girls’ puberty, marriages, and funerals. There were also known for communicating with the dead ancestors, who supposedly caused the living to sing and dance. The different kinds of songs were associated with different types of activities such as net fishing, elephant hunting, and honey collecting (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). One ritual that the Mbuti often practiced was the Ritual Performance of the Molimo Made’ and Molimo Mangbo. This particular ritual involved the use of a trumpet that was made out of wood and was secretly hidden in a tree, deep into the forest. â€Å"The ritual itself involves both dance and song for the trumpet (referred to as â€Å"the animal of the of the forest†) as well as for all other participants† (Turnbull, 1985, p.12). Singing and dancing takes place every night that the ritual lasts and the appearance of the trumpet is unpredictable. The Molimo Made’ might only last one night, but it seldom ever went past three or four nights and the trumpet would usually make at least one appearance per night (Turnbull, 1985). â€Å"This ritual is intended  to â€Å"cure† noise-or akami- and the trumpet appears in the form of the elephant in direct response to such akami† (Turnbull, 1985, p.12). On the other hand, the Molimo Mangbo continues for about a month or so, and the trumpet only appears when there’s ekimi (Turnbull, 1985). â€Å"This is the molimo that cures death itself, by â€Å"making it good†, a process that demands the total ekimi it brings, with the trumpet appearing as the leopard† (Turnbull, 1985, p.12). In both cases, a young Mbuti member goes off into the woods to find the trumpets hiding spot after dark. There isn’t anything special about how t hey go retrieve it, but the youth are all boys and are close to the marrying age. When the boys do in-fact find the trumpet, there is a certain ceremony that one boy must perform because the trumpet isn’t sacred all by itself (Turnbull, 1985). â€Å"Like any Mbuti ritual paraphernalia, it is not sacred merely for what it achieves† (Turnbull, 1985, p.12). If the trumpet just so happens to be rotten or is becoming too short, it is left there to rot without ceremony. Each time that the trumpet is taken down from a tree, the young boys inspect it and test the sound (Turnbull, 1985). When the trumpet arrives at the camp, the ritual will differ according to whether or not it is of greater or lesser molimo. If it’s lesser, the trumpet will circle the camp numerous times sounding shrilly just as if a herd of elephants were surrounding the camp. Then the young boys will all put one hand on the trumpet and run head first into the camp. They go right through the central place and attack the house that’s on the opposite side. Sometimes they might would run directly into it and beat on it with their fists or tear off some of the leaves, or they might even uproot the sticks that were used to make the foundation. After that, they run back through the central place and attack the house that was closest to where they came out of the forest. This is repeated and every time they make sure to cross the central place and if anything should be in the way, it was destroyed (Turnbull, 1985). The Mbuti people, who were in the houses that were being attacked, tried to plead with the young boys to go away, but neither the people who were barricaded in their homes nor the young boys would make direct references as to why the akami had brought out the molimo made’. The Mbuti people knew everything was over when they heard the boys singing as they took the trumpet away after its final attack. The song that the boys sang was a rather aggressive, defiant and  potentially destructive sound, like the elephants would make. When the boys got back to the hidden place to put the trumpet back into the tree, they would make a shrill trumpeting sound into the instrument. If it was a molimo mangbo, the trumpet would again circle the camp, kind of like before, but growling and coughing sounds would be made, like a leopard (Turnbull, 1985). â€Å"It occasionally breaks into song as the singer echoes the sound of all those gathered around the central fire, the kumamolimo. Sometimes this is all the youths will do, refusing to enter the camp at all† (Turnbull, 1985, p.14). If this was to happen, then the kumamolimo knew that it was in-fact their fault, because they didn’t sing and dance well enough. This would be repeated every night until the singing and dancing around the central place was sufficient enough to entice the greatest dancer and singer of all (Turnbull, 1985). When the trumpet did decide to enter the camp, it was welcomed because it brought ekimi rather than akami. The trumpet may stay all night or it may only decide to stay for a few minutes, but that depends on how well everyone sings and dances. â€Å"There is always a sense of sadness when the trumpet finally leaves as suddenly as it came, for it brings to the camp a degree and quality of ekimi that, the Mbuti say, mere humans can never achieve by themselves† (Turnbull, 1985, p.15). At the end of the festival, when the curing is complete, the dancing becomes more intensive and makes it more communal rather than individual, with very specific uniqueness to the occasion. Within the final week of the festival, an old woman joins the group of men and she also brings a number of nubile girls. The girls take over the men’s position of singing and dancing until the tribute is paid. Then one night the woman will dance around slowly through the fire, scattering the burning logs to every side. â€Å"After that, the men jump to their feet and kick the logs back into the center, dancing around as if in a communal act of regeneration, clearly imitating the act of copulation as the fire springs back to life† (Turnbul l, 1985, p.15). It has been stated that this would happen several times and then the old woman triumphs. An old man would slowly stamp through the ember, putting out every last one until the fire that fed the molimo was indeed gone. The trumpet sounds for the last time and this time, it leads the singing. This camp remains very special until the camp decides to move. It’s special because it has been transformed by the molimo mangbo (Turnbull,  1985). Needless to say, the Mbuti Molimo Ritual is a major ritual in Mbuti life. The molimo is associated with the death after a successful kill has been made and could also take place at the time of a crisis such as a poor hunting season. Mbuti’s current situation is very different now then back in the day. The profitable meat trade began in the nineteen-fifties and intensified in the nineteen-seventies and has inspired market-oriented hunting for the Mbuti. The Mbuti had links to the outside economy only indirectly with their villager patrons before the development of the meat trade. The meat trade aloud traders from outside of the forest to visit Mbuti camps and do face-to-face transactions with the hunters and this avoided the traditional kpara relationship. â€Å"The kpara relationship has declined as it’s economic basis of meat and labor has lost its former importance† (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006, p.4). In the nineteen-eighties, the gold dust mines opened and this caused the immigration to progress. The Mbuti population has increased by as much as forty percent during this same time period. Deforestation and degradation of resources was caused by the sudden increase in population (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). The Mbuti have become more involved in the market economy and they have had to start paying government taxes. â€Å"Most Mbuti men in the Teturi area now pay half the tax paid by villagers, and hold their own national identity cards. In addition to tax collectors, there are soldiers and civil servants demanding meat and labor from Mbutis† (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006, p.5). The main reason that the sedentarization plan failed is because of the flight of Mbutis from officials and government agents back in the nineteen-seventies. To say the least, the Mbuti are gradually becoming incorporated with the Zaire/Congo state through the ways of taxation, elections, national identity cards, and participation in other national events (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). In conclusion, the Mbuti are Bantu speaking foragers, who live in small, independent communities within the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There actual location is found in the southern part of the Ituri Forest (The Mbuti of northern congo, 2006). Mbuti people have a nomadic lifestyle within a certain territory and live in a subsistence economy, meaning they only produce what they need to survive (Nowak Laird, 2010). They make their living by hunting and gathering,  and this has had a big impact on their kinship, political organization, and their beliefs and values. The Mbuti culture has also had to overcome throughout the past seventy years as well. References Ground, P.L.B., Berger, P.L. (1983, April 10). Western complaints. New York Times, pp. A. 13. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/424621445?accountid=32521 Nowak, B.S., Laird, P.F. (2010). Cultural Anthropology. Retrieved from http://content.ashford.edu/AUANT101.10.2 The Mbuti of northern Congo. (2006). In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Retrieved from http://credoreference.com/entry/cuphg/i_iv_7_the_mbuti_of_northern_congo Turnbull, C.M. (1985, Autumn). Processional Ritual among the Mbuti Pygmies. The Drama Review: TDR, 17(3), 6-17. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1145649

Pauls Case :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The film Pauls Case is by Lemont Johnson but is written by Willa Cather. Its about Paul, a sensitive high school student, felt very frustrated with his home life and his family's expectations that he would grow up to work in a factory or the steel mills as his father and most of his neighbors did. He was not close to anyone in his family and had no neighborhood or school friends. Instead, he spent his evenings ushering at the symphony hall or backstage at a local theater. Paul dreamed of living the life of the performers he saw. He was without discipline and without direction. He had problems at school and was surly when called before a school committee. Eventually he was pulled out of school and sent to work by his father. He devised a scheme to steal money from his employer and then ran away to New York City where he stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, living for a few days the life of his dreams. When he realized that he would have to return home and accept his puni shment he killed himself. Paul felt like his father, his uncaring teachers and classmates weren’t worthy of his company.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Paul has entered the theater through the backstage door and the actors are coming off stage and walking up the steps to the dressing rooms. The first shot is of Paul looking up at the actors and talking to them. The camera shot is a bird eye view of Paul looking up at the actors. He looks up to the actors and feels they are better then everyone. They are the best of the best and Paul wants to be like them. Then the scene switches to an ants view of the actors. This symbolizes the fact, that they are high class and they are looking down at Paul. The next scene is again a bird’s eye view of Paul looking up at the actors and then another ant’s view of the actors looking down at Paul. This shows how Paul viewed the actors, he thought they were the highest class and he wanted to be just like them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In this scene Paul has just entered the hotel after stealing the money and running away to New York. There is a long shot of the inside of the hotel and Paul has just walked through the door and is walking closer to the camera.

Life and career Essay

Singer’s parents were Viennese Jews who escaped the German annexation of Austria and fled to Australia in 1938. His grandparents were less fortunate; they were taken by the Nazis to Lodz, and were never heard of again. [1] Singer’s father imported tea and coffee, while his mother practised medicine. He attended Scotch College. After leaving school, Singer studied law, history and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, gaining his degree in 1967. He received an MA for a thesis entitled Why should I be moral? n 1969. He was awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, obtaining a B. Phil in 1971 with a thesis on civil disobedience, supervised by R. M. Hare, and subsequently published as a book in 1973. [2] After spending two years as a Radcliffe lecturer at University College, Oxford, he was visiting professor at New York University for 16 months. He returned to Melbourne in 1977, where he has spent most of his career, apart from many visiting positions internationally, and until his move to Princeton in 1999. Animal LiberationPublished in 1975, Animal Liberation[3] was a major formative influence on the animal liberation movement. Although Singer rejects rights as a moral ideal independent from his utilitarianism based on interests, he accepts rights as derived from utilitarian principles, particularly the principle of minimizing suffering. [4] Singer allows that animal rights are not exactly the same as human rights, writing in Animal Liberation that â€Å"there are obviously important differences between human and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have. [5] So, for example an animal does not have the right to a good education as this is meaningless to him, just as a male human does not have the right to an abortion. But he is no more skeptical of animal rights than of the rights of women, beginning his book by defending just such a comparison against Mary Wollstonecraft’s 18th-century critic Thomas Taylor, who argued that if Wollstonecraft’s reasoning in defense of women’s rights were correct, then â€Å"brutes† would have rights too. Taylor thought he had produced a reductio ad absurdum of Wollstonecraft’s view; Singer regards it as a sound logical implication. Taylor’s modus tollens is Singer’s modus ponens. In Animal Liberation, Singer argues against what he calls speciesism: discrimination on the grounds that a being belongs to a certain species. He holds the interests of all beings capable of suffering to be worthy of equal consideration, and that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their having wings or fur is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color. In particular, he argues that while animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely retarded humans show equally diminished mental capacity, and intelligence therefore does not provide a basis for providing nonhuman animals any less consideration than such retarded humans. Singer does not specifically contend that we ought not use animals for food insofar as they are raised and killed in a way that actively avoids the inflicting of pain, but as such farms are few and far between, he concludes that the most practical solution is to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. Singer also condemns most vivisection, though he believes animal experiments may be acceptable if the benefit (in terms of improved medical treatment, etc. ) outweighs the harm done to the animals used. [6] Due to the subjectivity of the term â€Å"benefit†, controversy exists about this and other utilitarian views. But he is clear enough that humans of comparable sentience should also be candidates for any animal experimentation that passes the benefit test. So a monkey and a human infant would be equally available for the experiment, from a moral point of view, other things being equal. If performing the experiment on the infant isn’t justifiable, then Singer believes that the experiment shouldn’t happen at all — instead, the researchers should pursue their goals using computer simulations or other methods. Applied ethics His most comprehensive work, Practical Ethics,[7] analyzes in detail why and how beings’ interests should be weighed. His principle of equality encompasses all beings with interests, and it requires equal consideration of those interests, whatever the species. The principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment. All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing marginal utility is a factor, favoring, for instance, a starving person’s interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry. Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one’s abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm personal relationships, in being free to pursue one’s projects without interference, â€Å"and many others†. The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for â€Å"suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness†; mice as well as human beings have this interest, but stones and trees do not. He holds that a being’s interests should always be weighed according to that being’s concrete properties, and not according to its belonging to some abstract group such as a species, or a set of possible beings, or an early stage of something with an as yet unactualized potential. He favors a ‘journey’ model of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a life journey’s goals. So taking a life is less wrong at the beginning, when no goals have been set, and at the end, when the goals have either been met or are unlikely to be accomplished. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire, explains why persons who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable, and accounts for why it is wrong to bring a miserable life into existence. Although sentience puts a being within the sphere of equal consideration of interests, only a personal interest in continuing to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures. For instance, one has an interest in food, but not in the pleasures of the palate that might distinguish eating steak from eating tofu, because nutrition is instrumental to many goals in one’s life journey, whereas the desire for meat is not and is therefore trumped by the interest of animals in avoiding the miseries of factory farming. In order to avoid bias towards human interests, he requires the idea of an impartial standpoint from which to compare interests. This is an elaboration of the familiar idea of putting oneself in the other’s shoes, adjusted for beings with paws or flippers. He has wavered about whether the precise aim is the total amount of satisfied interests, or instead the most satisfied interests among those beings who already exist prior to the decision one is making. Both have liabilities. The total view, for instance, seems to lead to Derek Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion[8] — that is, it seems to imply that it’s morally better to have an enormous population with lives barely worth living rather than a smaller population with much happier lives. The prior-existence view, on the other hand, seems questionably indifferent to the harm or benefit one can do to those who are brought into existence by one’s decisions. The second edition of Practical Ethics disavows the first edition’s suggestion that the total and prior-existence views should be combined in such a way that the total view applies to sentient beings who are not self-conscious and the prior-existence view applies to those who are. This would mean that rats and human infants are replaceable — their painless death is permissible as long as they are replaced — whereas human adults and other persons in Singer’s expanded sense, including great apes, are not replaceable. The second edition dispenses with the requirement of replacement and the consequent high population numbers for sentient beings. It asserts that preference-satisfaction utilitarianism, incorporating the ‘journey’ model, applies without invoking the first edition’s suggestion about the total view. But the details are fuzzy and Singer admits that he is â€Å"not entirely satisfied† with his treatment of choices that involve bringing beings into existence. Ethical conduct is justifiable by reasons that go beyond prudence to â€Å"something bigger than the individual,† addressing a larger audience. Singer thinks this going-beyond identifies moral reasons as â€Å"somehow universal†, specifically in the injunction to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’, interpreted by him as demanding that one give the same weight to the interests of others as one gives to one’s own interests. This universalizing step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare, is crucial and sets him apart from moral theorists from Hobbes to David Gauthier, who regard that step as flatly irrational. Universalization leads directly to utilitarianism, Singer argues, on the strength of the thought that my own interests cannot count for more than the interests of others. Taking these into account, one must weigh them up and adopt the course of action that is most likely to maximize the interests of those affected; utilitarianism has been arrived at. Singer’s universalizing step applies to interests without reference to who has them, whereas a Kantian’s applies to the judgments of rational agents (in Kant’s kingdom of ends, or Rawls’s Original Position, etc. ). Singer regards Kantian universalization as unjust to animals. It’s their capacity for suffering/happiness that matters morally, not their deficiency with respect to rational judgment. As for the Hobbesians, Singer attempts a response in the final chapter of Practical Ethics, arguing that self-interested reasons support adoption of the moral point of view, such as ‘the paradox of hedonism’, which counsels that happiness is best found by not looking for it, and the need most people feel to relate to something larger than their own concerns. Abortion, euthanasia and infanticide Consistent with his general ethical theory, Singer holds that the right to physical integrity is grounded in a being’s ability to suffer, and the right to life is grounded in, among other things, the ability to plan and anticipate one’s future. Since the unborn, infants and severely disabled people lack the latter (but not the former) ability, he states that abortion, painless infanticide and euthanasia can be justified in certain special circumstances, for instance in the case of severely disabled infants whose life would cause suffering both to themselves and to their parents. In his view the central argument against abortion is It is wrong to kill an innocent human being; a human fetus is an innocent human being; therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus. He challenges the second premise, on the grounds that its reference to human beings is ambiguous as between human beings in the zoological sense and persons as rational and self-conscious. There is no sanctity of human life that confers moral protection on human beings in the zoological sense. Until the capacity for pain develops after â€Å"18 weeks of gestation†, abortion terminates an existence that has no intrinsic value (as opposed to the value it might have in virtue of being valued by the parents or others). As it develops the features of a person, it has moral protections that are comparable to those that should be extended to nonhuman life as well. He also rejects a backup argument against abortion that appeals to potential: It is wrong to kill a potential human being; a human fetus is a potential human being; therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus. The second premise is more plausible, but its first premise is less plausible, and Singer denies that what is potentially an X should have the same value or moral rights as what is already an X. Against those who stress the continuity of our existence from conception to adulthood, he poses the example of an embryo in a dish on a laboratory bench, which he calls Mary. Now if it divides into two identical embryos, there is no way to answer the question whether Mary dies, or continues to exist, or is replaced by Jane and Susan. These are absurd questions, he thinks, and their absurdity casts doubt on the view that the embryo is a human being in the morally significant sense. Singer classifies euthanasia as voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary. (For possible similar historical definitions of euthanasia see Karl Binding, Alfred Hoche and Werner Catel. ) Given his consequentialist approach, the difference between active and passive euthanasia is not morally significant, for the required act/omission doctrine is untenable; killing and letting die are on a moral par when their consequences are the same. Voluntary euthanasia, undertaken with the consent of the subject, is supported by the autonomy of persons and their freedom to waive their rights, especially against a legal background such as the guidelines developed by the courts in the Netherlands. Non-voluntary euthanasia at the beginning or end of life’s journey, when the capacity to reason about what is at stake is undeveloped or lost, is justified when swift and painless killing is the only alternative to suffering for the subject.