Charbel Lattouf

1.) Define the term “Moral Maturity”

Moral is referred to from dictionary.com as “the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong”. Maturity from dictionary.com meaning ” the state of being mature or fully developed”. If we put those 2 words together we get Moral Maturity. Moral maturity is the decisions that individual people make depending on their understanding of right and wrong an their understanding of the situation that is being put before them. Our decisions will change through age and be more mature as we grow because when we are older we will have a better understanding of the way the world works and functions. For example if we walk past an old lady lying on the streets because of drug intake or alcohol, do we help the elderly lady and try and get her off the streets and take her to her home or call police for help, or would we just keep walking and have nothing to do with her. This is where our conscience and Moral Maturity kick in.Our understanding of Moral Maturity will have an impact on the decisions we make. If you don’t understand what Moral Maturity is or want to improve your Moral Maturity there is many theories that have been made to help such as Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning.

2.) Read the following article:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/knife-arrest-cop-pelted/2008/03/24/1206206967590.html

Discuss the reasons why the 25 year old man mentioned in the article would be regarded as having a lack of ‘moral maturity’.

The 25 year old man mentioned in the article definitely had a lack of Moral Maturity due to a number of reasons. His descions  made a negative impact on the people and the community, evidence of this is bystanders who were pelting the officer with bottles and can of paint . The second wrong decision that that the 25 year old made was not realising his offence and ran away from the officer and jumped over a fence. 3rd when the man got caught he again resisted arrest and disrespected the officer by spitting in his face.These are just half of the offences that this man had committed. His negative affect on the community showed, with residents still throwing objects at the officer and causing a broken leg. So definitely the 25 year old man has to have a look at himself and his decisions that he made that day. He will have alot of time to do that in jail.

3.) Identify the differences between ‘morality’ and ‘immorality’.

Morality means conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/morality. Immorality means immoral quality, character, or conduct; wickedness; evilness. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immorality.As the definitions point out the difference between Moral and Immoral is Moral is behaving in the right conduct and Immoral is behaving in the wrong conduct.

4.) Watch the following clip and describe the reasons why Governor Spitzer’s actions would be regarded as ‘immoral’.

 Click on the link below to watch video

 http://us.i1.yimg.com/cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/player/media/swf/FLVVideoSolo.swf

Governor Spitzer was a well loved politician by all people, well know to be a family man and father to 3 children 17,13,14. He was named crusader of the year in 2002 for his crackdown in wall street. He had a very good record amongst many people. But his involvement with a prostitute club named the emperor’s club ruined his clean reputation, he was  a client of this organization for 1 night and payed over 4,500 dollars for the service. This is claimed to be immoral because of his involvement in a sex scandal which is the 1 of the exact meanings of immoral.