Wired to do the Right and Wrong Things Essays

Wired to do the Right and Wrong Things Essays Wired to do the Right and Wrong Things Essay Wired to do the Right and Wrong Things Essay People from across different cultures and ethnicity vary in their interpretation of morality. In most instances the line that separates right and wrong is blurred when it comes to making judgments and decisions regarding special ethical and moral dilemmas. A person may pick one side of the problem and justify the decision with rigorous logic while another may pick the other with equal discursive weight. Thus it is easy to say that the concept of right and wrong seems to depend more on circumstances, context and race- or upbringing than it is a universal feature of the human species. Rebecca Saxe highlights this observation by saying that Americans would prefer to uphold notions of justice and fair play while a native from Papua New Guinea on the other side of the world would lean more towards collective responsibility when respondents were faced with the question whether it is justified to steal another man’s train ticket (47). But is this apparent disparity in ideas descripti ve of how are mind really works with respect to the idea doing the right and wrong things? Is there such a thing as a universal rubric of human morality that transcends ethnic differences?The ongoing debates on nurture and nature in its simplest function involve multiple perspectives and fields of study. Most people are of the belief that a person decides which is right or wrong based on how and where he was raised. Indeed, it won’t be hard to find someone who thinks that an individual acts in a certain way precisely because of his biographical profile and context. The clichà © is that a criminal becomes one because he came from a broken home, suffered an abusive father, mixed with the wrong group during childhood and so on. Even worse, people perfunctorily judge other people because of their culture, religion, gender and race as the basis for explaining and justifying why the Middle Eastern Muslim must be avoided at all costs or that Asians are to be dealt with at double th e arm’s length so to speak (Dawkins 34). In other words, the idea of nurture affecting our morality has gained popular stasis that it becomes almost natural to think in terms of closely knit cultural groups and not universally as a species.However, such assertions on the power of nurture that trumps any other form of natural physiological and neural schematics of the human mind cannot be more wide of the mark. Marc Hauser, in his seminal and ground breaking study on morality in his book Moral Minds, believes that we have evolved a universal moral intuition- that we are wired to think in a particular way (12). Our sense of morality may differ in the way it is enunciated and pronounced in various languages but its essence remains largely uniform for peoples around the world.   No matter what your mom says about your Korean neighbour being selfish, isolated and mean, the moral rubric between the two are the same in the neurological and biological level.It is fair say that it d oes not seem to explain why societies practice and adhere to varying formulas and codes of behaviour. Likewise, the idea proposed by Hauser, much as it is revolutionary, is quite counter-intuitive for the simple fact that individuals are quite able in coming up with a range of explanations for their decisions usually deliberative and rational. Thus an educated man with a doctorate degree on Philosophy and Ethics could come up with certain complex ideas while the uninitiated undergraduate could only slur out a few incoherent sentences (21).   Yet despite the level of complexity of one’s explanations and discourse inevitably the answers tend to be similar. The only key feature is the way individuals are able to express their ideas which is more or a less a function of language than anything else.Hauser posits that humans are endowed with the same moral instinct. The worldwide survey of the answers to the Trolley problem spread and collected from across samples of different co untries in the internet indicates an unmistakeable shared idea of morality. The statistics demonstrate that the answers tend towards saving the life of many at the price of another’s life. Such results underscore an existing fixed parameter imbedded in our minds that have developed through the process of evolution. It also suggests that our actions are merely the consequence of an inescapable, almost deterministic form of human nature. However, precisely because of the element of ‘nurture’, these universal precepts of morality are fine tuned â€Å"with nurture entering the picture to set the parameters and guide us toward the acquisition of particular moral systems† (21), In other words, we learn the rules of the society we belong to in time using our moral instincts. In such a way we can still determine what is right and wrong independent of the social dogma inasmuch as we are still able reject the tenets of a dogma if it assails our moral instincts as pa lpably wrong.Besides Hauser’s study on cognitive science, other psychological and neurological experiments show that our minds were built with an existing complete set of moral codes that can actually be even physically located in our brain (Bloom 6-7). Studies done on infants and toddlers, and on the brain activities of healthy young and adult men and women, buttress the claim that when the human being is stripped off of its socio-cultural, political and educational underpinnings, what is left is a primordial moral mind that knows how to pick what is good and bad, nice or mean and ultimately right and wrong. There are special triggers in our brain that activate in a predictable manner when stimulated with preset scenarios, situations or problems. Stated differently, there is a tangible part of the brain which does all the moral calculations even without the extraneous elements of society and culture. This belies any claim that nurture is the main reason behind our decisions simply because there are just parts of our mind that were built to decide moral issues the way it has been decided throughout the entire evolutionary time.The significance of the studies done by Hauser and other cognitive scientists about our moral minds is not confined alone in areas where the answers to such questions merely satisfy our craving for intelligent debates but it goes straight at the heart of humanity’s greatest failing and that is bias and prejudgment based on culture, religion, ethnicity, gender and the like. The news we receive in media and in print are festooned with a lot of instances where the existence of a universal moral rubric- the shared idea of right and wrong, is beset with serious doubts and skepticism. Take for instance the labels we put on people with a different religion, most specifically that with fanatics who resort to terrorism. If it were true that we all share the same moral mind then how come some people are wont to all the wrong things w hile the rest keep on doing the right actions.Richard Dawkins, a famous evolutionary biologist, in his book The God Delusion implies that we give too much credit towards religion and culture for our sense of morality when in truth such moral instincts preceded any form of religion a thousand of years prior (36). It would be harmful if not utterly dangerous to say that our ideas of right and wrong based on our social upbringing and especially religion is the proper benchmark from where everything else should be measured. The fact is, we all share the same biological makeup including that part of our brain which determines and acts on moral issues. The nurture factor only shapes this in minute details as it manifests clearly in present societies from different parts of the world; but our sense of right and wrong remains fixed and are to a large degree inescapable and determinable the way Mother Nature intends it to be.

Flowering Dogwood Care and Identification

Flowering Dogwood Care and Identification Flowering Dogwood grows 20 to 35 feet tall and spreads 25 to 30 feet. It can be trained with one central trunk or as a multi-trunked tree. The flowers consist of four bracts below the small head of yellow flowers. The bracts may be pink or red depending on cultivar but the species color is white. Fall leaf color on most sun grown plants will be red to maroon. The bright red fruits are often eaten by birds. Fall leaf color of Dogwood is more vivid in USDA hardiness zones: 5 through 8A. Specifics: Scientific name: Cornus floridaPronunciation: KOR-nus FLOR-ih-duhCommon name(s): Flowering DogwoodFamily: CornaceaeUSDA hardiness zones:: 5 through 9AOrigin: Native to North AmericaUses: Wide tree lawns; medium-sized tree lawns; near a deck or patio; screen; shade tree; narrow tree lawns; specimenAvailability: Generally available in many areas within its hardiness range. Popular Cultivars: Several of the cultivars listed are not readily available. Pink-flowering cultivars grow poorly in USDA hardiness zones 8 and 9. ‘Apple Blossom’ - pink bracts; ‘Cherokee Chief’ - red bracts; ‘Cherokee Princess’ - white bracts; ‘Cloud 9’ - white bracts, flowers young; ‘Fastigiata’ - upright growth while young, spreading with age; ‘First Lady’ - leaves variegated with yellow turning red and maroon in the fall; ‘Gigantea’ - bracts six inches from tip of one bract to tip of opposite bract. More Cultivars: Magnifica - bracts rounded, four-inch-diameter pairs of bracts; Multibracteata - double flowers; New Hampshire - flower buds cold hardy; Pendula - weeping or drooping branches; Plena - double flowers; var. rubra - pink bracts; Springtime - bracts white, large, blooms at an early age; Sunset - supposedly resistant to anthracnose; Sweetwater Red - bracts red; Weavers White - large white flowers, adapted to the south; Welchii - leaves variegated with yellow and red. Description: Height: 20 to 30 feetSpread: 25 to 30 feetCrown uniformity: Symmetrical canopy with a regular (or smooth) outline, and individuals have more or less identical crown formsCrown shape: roundCrown density: moderate Trunk and Branches: Trunk/bark/branches: Droop as the tree grows, and will require pruning for vehicular or pedestrian clearance beneath the canopy; routinely grown with, or trainable to be grown with, multiple trunks; not particularly showy; tree wants to grow with several trunks but can be trained to grow with a single trunk.Pruning requirement: Needs little pruning to develop a strong structureBreakage: resistantCurrent year twig color: greenCurrent year twig thickness: medium Foliage: Leaf arrangement: opposite/suboppositeLeaf type: simpleLeaf margin: entireLeaf shape: ovateLeaf venation: bowed; pinnateLeaf type and persistence: deciduousLeaf blade length: 4 to 8 inches; 2 to 4 inchesLeaf color: greenFall color: redFall characteristic: showy Flowers: Flower color: Bracts are white, actual flower is yellowFlower characteristics: Spring flowering; very showyThe showy flowers are, in fact, bracts that subtend a boss of 20 to 30 real flowers each of which are less than one-quarter inch in size. The actual flowers of Cornus florida are not white. Culture: Light requirement: Tree grows in part shade/part sun; tree grows in the shade; tree grows in full sunSoil tolerances: clay; loam; sand; slightly alkaline; acidic; well-drained.Drought tolerance: moderateAerosol salt tolerance: lowSoil salt tolerance: poor In Depth: Dogwood branches on the lower half of the crown grow horizontally, those in the upper half are more upright. In time, this can lend a strikingly horizontal impact to the landscape, particularly if some branches are thinned to open up the crown. Lower branches left on the trunk will droop to the ground, creating a wonderful landscape feature. Dogwood is not suited for parking lot planting but can be grown in a wide street median, if provided with less than full-day sun and irrigation. Dogwood is a standard tree in many gardens where it is used by the patio for light shade, in the shrub border to add spring and fall color or as a specimen in the lawn or groundcover bed. It can be grown in sun or shade but shaded trees will be less dense, grow more quickly and taller, have poor fall color, and less flowers. Trees prefer part shade (preferably in the afternoon) in the southern end of its range. Many nurseries grow the trees in full sun, but they are irrigated regularly. Flowering Dogwood prefers a deep, rich, well-drained, sandy or clay soil and has a moderately long life. It is not recommended in the New Orleans area and other heavy, wet soils unless it is grown on a raised bed to keep roots on the dry side. The roots will rot in soils without adequate drainage.