Morality and Social Policy Questions

Morality and Social Policy Questions

Marriage and Same-sex Marriage

Legalizing same-sex marriage, will open door even for recognition of polygamy. Even though legal actions that recognize same-sex marriage may not be that bad, or may be seen to be moderately good, it should not be recognized because it might increase the possibilities of worse legal undertaking in the future, such as legalization of the polygamy. This is a psychological argument but not a logical one. Though same-sex marriage and polygamy may seem to be distinguishable, practically it is likely that most legal actors will eventually fail to distinguish them. Recognizing of same-sex marriage will open the flood gates of enactment of other gay rights. These legal actions will burden religious objectors and other institution that values structures that stands against the antigay and homosexuality.

With legalization of same-sex marriage: Employers will be obliged to hire homosexuals even where such employer condemn the sexuality orientation; private landlords will be obliged to rent their properties to same-sex, even if they do not agree with their religion believes. Though same-sex marriage may be legalized, it would still be hard for the people involved in it to feel free as a social group. Same-sex couples would experience hostile working environment, while gender oriented groups such as Boy Scouts may be obliged to gay masters, else they would be excluded from the government recognition and benefits if they restrict leaders to be heterosexuals. Allowing same-sex marriage might not be an offence to the society because licensing such couple does not hurt anyone else. Nevertheless legalizing same-sex marriage increases the possibility of allowing polygamy, which would be worse.

Legalization of same-sex marriage makes the legal structure more democratic. However, this recognition does not qualify it as a moral right; it is simply a government-provided benefit. This is only a benefit when the government fail consider marriage as need for the validity of sexual practices. It is legitimate for the law to be instrumental in expending the benefit. Giving same-sex partners equal marriage rights is not an overriding moral imperative, though it’s a definite plus to the government.

Terrorism and War in Relation to Islam

Terrorism is a tactic to drive behavioral change in an adversary. The salient strategic problem is to identify the cause of terrorism. It is always clear what terrorists are capable of doing, but very little is known of the reasons why they do what they do. Arguably, there are several causes. First, the fusing theological principle of Islam prescribes that true believers of Islam will receive their share of the spoils of battle and generous provisions. Militant Islam is funning its war against the United States and the Europe by exploiting the hopelessness of the portion of the radical Muslim based on the prevalent belief that Islam believers are deprived of their justified benefits from the wealth possessed by some Muslim nations’ natural resources, such as crude oil.

Secondly, a small group of the revolutionary Islamic Vanguard has been using Umma’s perception of oppression by the US and its allies to develop an ideology that is based on the global rebellion. Thirdly, the US strategy and policy have developed a credibility gap between the actions and words within the Muslim community. It is overly simplistic to assert that the poverty is a single cause of the global terrorism. However, it is a fact that a majority of the global Muslim lives in some of the poorest nations as measured by the per capita income, nevertheless, these nations happen to be homes of some of the globe’s richest people. Within the Islam community, Muhammad set out the example of sharing the community resources so as to have equality and provision for all.

The ummah have a sense of betrayal by their Muslim leaders as a result of the inequality. This has significantly contributed to the resentment and detestation towards the US and West. There is also feeling within the world Muslim that it’s being kept from uniting in a recreation of the caliphate. Considering that Muslim have been unable to establish a pan-Islamic government that would rule under the Sharia, they believe that the US is in a hidden ways attempting to oppress, control their resources and people.

World Hunger, Poverty, and Inequality

Currently, society cannot fight poverty and social exclusion without the analysis of the inequalities within the community. These inequalities may be in the forms of social or economic. The economic inequality is based on the disparities in the allocation and distribution of monetary resources within the society. It is this disparity that indicates the difference between the income levels for the rich and poor. To allow the comparisons for different sizes of households, standardized incomes that are determined by the household’s disposable income is divided by a standardized income. The information on the economic inequalities is used for the purpose of estimating the relative poverty since the distribution of resources tends to have a direct impact on the depth and extent of poverty. The economic inequalities influence the consumer behavior at individual and household levels, in terms of quality and quantity.

As a result of economic inequality some members of society cannot afford some basic goods and services, while the average fortunate one can afford. People with high control on economic resources are able to consume more goods and services. Social inequality comprises of a range of inequalities implying that different categories of people in a society have different social status. Social inequality is connected to the social exclusion since it restricts some members of the society from participating equally in the society. The visible form of exclusion is the unemployment, which has a direct influence on the economic inequalities.  However, the exclusion tends to cover a range of social issues ranging from gender, to ethnicity, and citizenship. Social exclusion remains a challenge to the global development and sustainability.

Care for the Environment

Information Limitation to Environmental Care

There are major investments that are underway to build effective regional and global monitoring systems. But these systems are inadequate of what is needed. The present supply of information required for effective management of environment is wanting. Advances in theories and compelling narratives that have been applied in attempt to understand social environment are limited by the availability of information that is required to care for the environment effectively.

To meet and confront challenges posed by environment mismanagement, a robust information system is needed to ensure a wide range of the data accessible from the past and present regarding the environmental challenges that cannot be taken for granted.

For proper care of the environment, the information systems need to encompass natural features as well as social features. The information should be able to detect the systematic changes. Though effective decision is made at global levels, the available information system is not efficient enough to transfer the global resolution to the regional levels and consequently to the grass-root where the actualization of the decision takes place. An effective information system should be designed in such a way that it can capture the local and regional environmental changes and scale them accurately to enhance the evaluation of environmental changes.

Qualities of a Good Society

A normative issue that arises whenever one seeks to evaluate the quality of a community is the relationship between bonds that exists in the allocation of resources and the communities.  Most observers readily accept that the inequalities among the society members as general attributes, however, this is neither desirable nor possible. For example, there are restrictions to the extent to which personal talents and beauty can be equalized, it should be understood that attainment of social equalities would not be always good. Even attaining merely equality of economic valuables, social status, and power is an elusive target and not conclusively an ideal goal. The idea of justice and equality is believed to grossly undermine the competence and efficiency, which no a progressive community can completely ignore.

Therefore, members of the society should be concerned with reducing the level of inequality and not with the idea of attaining equality as the end result.  A good society is able to reduce the inequality to a considerable extent beyond what is provided by the Rawisian rules of supporting increased inequality so far as the poor members of the society profit from the improved resources resulting from the increasing share of the rich even when the rich’s share has increased with a wider margin as compared to that of poor.  The applied formula allows an upper limit on how much the rich may add or the widening gap between the rich and the poor.  Considering that the control of economic resources (economic power) is correlated with the political influence, the increasing inequality and social injustice must be expected to undermine not only the societal relationship but also the political elements of the society. Therefore, it follows that an ideal society would not only work for a generous minimum for everyone in the society, but would also work to cap inequalities by slowing down the increases in the shares of the total resources gained by the rich.