Mr. Burns as Scrooge of Springfield

In the history of modern popular culture, in that respect have been few American satires as influential and successful as the enliven television show, The Simpsons. With Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and baby Maggie living in the every t ownship of Springfield, U.S.A., they find themselves in many situations common to most Americans, including being under the rule of ruthless corporate raiders handle Charles Montgomery destroy.As owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Mr. Burns displays both the characteristics of a classic egoist, though his satirical portrayal takes many of the attri merelyes and accentuates them to the point of ridiculousness. Mr. Burns shows absolutely no charitable tendencies, is concerned solely with m matchlessy and power, and c atomic number 18s little for anyone new(prenominal) than himself, which makes him anything but a relativist or utilitarian, but seems to make him more of an good egoist.Mr. Burns is a corporate raider, characterized on the sh ow as being over a century old, perpetrateting him amongst the original robber barons. The character himself is actually based on an amalgam of media magnate William Randolph Hearst and his fictional counterpart Charles Foster Kane, both characters that focused solely on their power and how to use and enhance it. In The Simpsons, almost every story concerning Mr. Burns includes his blatant disregard for anyone else other than himself and his own interests.One of the most obvious depictions of Burns ethics comes in the two-part episode called Who scenery Mr. Burns? In the episode, oil is discovered beneath Springfield Elementary School, and the school seems poised to get a windfall of money from the discovery. This provide part with the terribly dilapidated and underfunded school to make many improvements in every aspect of the curriculum. However, Mr. Burns discovers the oil and creates a slant drilling company that will draw the oil up from an angle, in the process destroying the Springfield Retirement Home and making the popular Moes Tavern uninhabitable for humans. In extension to alienating the school, destroying the retirement home, and putting Moes out of business, Mr. Burns also fails to remember the name of his decade-long employee, Homer Simpson.His selfishness and self-absorption have managed to anger just about everyone in town, though he is only concerned with making more money and becoming change surface more powerful. He finally reveals his grand scheme to his faithful accomplice Waylon Smithers, which is to build a giant device that will block out the sun in Springfield and require all the citizens in town to use electricity from his plant twenty-four hours a day. He even feels so good that he wants to appropriate candy from a baby.When his loyal assistant objects, Burns quickly fires him, never realizing that Smithers life desire was merely to work for Mr. Burns. Burns is blind to everything and everyone, and he finally succeeds at bl ocking out the sun, subject the anger of everyone in town. It is when he celebrates his victory he is shot by an un cognize assailant, who after a cliffhanger, is revealed to be baby Maggie Simpson as he attempts to steal her candy and subsequently shot by his own gun (Who Shot Mr. Burns?).While the over three-hundred episodes of The Simpsons have many instances of Mr. Burns making ethically self-styled decisions in the name of money and power, this episode remains one of the most famous and obvious causes of his selfishness. To Burns, nothing is as important as his business success, and this is the wizard factor dictating his ethics and his actions. Burns object lessonity bleeds into every aspect of his life outside of business, though to him there ar no other concerns than business.Morality and ethics are important to every aspect of human life, including in business, and many ethical theorists have sought to understand the extent of morality and the duty that individuals an d organizations have to other individuals and organizations. Though no laws of morality or ethics have been established, there are four core concepts presented by ethical theorists ethical relativism, which espouses that ethics is a question of individual picking and preference impartiality, which suggests that humans should treat each other as equals where none count more than others sympathy, which is the imaginative ability to put oneself in anothers shoes and moral sufficiency, which seeks to answer just how much moral decency is intellectably possible (Gibson 62-63).In business matters, these issues and the questions they pose are even great, as businesses have the potential to create great benefit for others, or do them great accidental injury, all the while trying to maximize profit and refrain success. Mr. Burns is far from an ethical relativist, for he shows no concern for the benefit of others. In fact, he takes joy out of creating misery for others, as long as their misery is profitable to him. He assumes responsibility for his actions without shame, and feels no remorse if anyone is hurt. After all, one of his greatest desires was to take candy from a baby, for no other reason than he could.In the essay, Thinking Ethically, the rootages attempt to apply various ethical approaches to moral issues in business, which could apply to Mr. Burns actions. One of the first and most widely known approaches is the utilitarian approach, which seeks to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals. The way to analyze the utilitarian approach is to identify the various course of action available, need who will be affected by each action and what benefits and harms will come from them, and choose the action that will produce the greatest benefits and least harm (Velasquez 64).Mr. Burns, if anything, purposefully contradicts this mode of action, as he derives pleasure in the misery of those he vanquishes in the name of greater profit and power, even if these people are innocent. Another ethical approach is the Rights Approach, which espouses that an action is moral as long as it falls within the moral rights of an individual, while the Fairness or jurist Approach which states that favoritism and discrimination are wrong.The Common Good Approach focuses on ensuring that social policies, social systems, institutions, and environments on which we depend are beneficial to all the Virtue Approach assumes that there are certain ideals towards which humans should strive, which provide for the full development of humanity (66). By approaching situations of ethical ambiguity with these theories, one has a better chance of choosing the correct mode of action. For Burns, all of these ethical approaches are not applicable, for he fails to ever consider how his actions may affect anyone else negatively.Or, when he does think about it, he gets pleasure in being able to impose his power to the point where he can bring misery to ot hers by his actions, as in his celebration after blotting out the sun despite the protests of everyone in the entire town, including his closest supporter Smithers.In Donelson Forsyths article, Judging the Morality of commercial enterprise Practices The Influence of Personal Moral Philosophies, he examines the ways business leaders approach ethical relativism and how it does not need to necessarily defeat the moral enterprise. However, to individual exchangeable Mr. Burns, ethics are nothing more than an afterthought, while the bottom line is the only thing that matters.While studies have suggested the impact of relativism and idealism on moral judgment and behavior depends on the nature of the social institution, individual divergencys in personal moral philosophy suggests that humans will most likely never reach the ideal of sleep together agreement, but can aim for a fuller understanding of ones own and others responses to various types of business practices (Forsyth 75). In the case of Burns, he only agrees and appreciates with those that share his views on profiteering and power, even though he remains skeptical and suspicious of every threat and he considers around everybody a threat to his wealth and power.This is why, despite having more money than anyone in town and never being able to spend it all, all the instances when Mr. Burns is asked to apply even a little of his money to help soulfulness else, he vehemently rejects the request. This has been seen many times in the show, from Homer asking for help with a sick dog to a girl scout trying to sell Mr. Burns cookies only to have him release the hounds on her.Mr. Burns greed and complete lack of charity display his true nature as an ethical egoist. In Peter Singers article, The Singer Solution to World Poverty, the author proposes that if people in affluent countries like the United States donated a small portion of their money that would normally be spent on luxury items, consequently th e money can be used to help out poverty stricken peoples around the world.He uses examples of how this can be done, by citing the costs incurred by someone who buys a new television merely to upgrade from an older one. He claims that if this money was donated to such charities as Unicef or Oxfam America that it would do a greater deal of good for the most possible people, thereby having the greatest utility value. By choosing to buy the television and not donate the money, Singer feels that a person is making a questionable moral decision, even though few in the situation actually feel this way.Singer uses a more provocative sibyllic example of a man named Bob, who has an uninsurable classic car that he will sell to insure that he has money for his retirement. In the situation, Bob is constrained to make a decision as a train bears down on his car and a little boy Bob has a choice whether to save the boy or the car, but not both, and Bob chooses the car and lets the boy die. While this dramatic example seems to highlight the undesirable attributes of self-interest, Singer claims that the difference between Bob and those who can afford to donate to overseas aid organizations but dont is that only Bob can save the child on the tracks, whereas there are hundreds of millions of people who can give $200 to overseas aid organization (Singer).By Singers logic, those that are not donating to these organizations are committing an act comparable to the one performed by Bob. Mr. Burns would not only laugh at such a concept, but would relish the fact that anyone asking for help would be suffering. If in the same situation, he would most certainly save the car, and most likely praise Bob for saving his car, before figuring out a way to get the car from Bob for himself.Mr. Burns utilizes his power to inflict his will upon others, and only respects those who do the same. As, all humans are natural with free will, the decision to be charitable or uncharitable rests within that freedom. The German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant contributed much to the Western discussion of ethics and free will, and his concept of freedom and virtue are reasoned by the critical distinction of the two modes of representation (the sensible and the intellectual) and the consequent limitation of the conceptions of the pure understanding and of the principles which flow rate from them (Kant).Kant attempts to distinguish between the empirical and rational conceptions of free will and how it influences virtue, questioning whether freedom is the independent choices of free will or merely the practical reaction to circumstance and causality. To this end, Kantianism is highly dependent upon reason to figure out the proper decision concerning virtue, and his ethics rely on obligation to reason more than emotions or goals. Thus, the Kantian approach to donation and charity would be the duty of those that have the means to donate. Burns would patently disagree. Most cert ainly, Mr. Burns is an ethical egoist.Ethical egoism is a philosophical practice that encourages individuals to pursue their own self-interests. While it is idealistic to think of support unknown masses with ones own hard acquire money, it is also nave to think that people should feel obligated to do so. A person who works hard to make money to buy delicately things is entitled to those things. Just because a person is successful and can afford luxury items does not mean that they are obligated to help strangers because it serves some class of utilitarian purpose. If anything, much of this altruism merely perpetuates a cycle in which those who are poor become accustomed to the aid of those who are not. If they pursued their own self-interests, they would be better able to rise above their own struggles and create a successful world for themselves.Ethical egoism is not entirely without the concept of helping others, however it focuses not on people that an individual will never m eet, but the people in his or her life and those that the person loves and touches personally. If ones family is in trouble and one possesses the ability to give assistance, this is in the individuals best interest, as it will lead to happiness. However, for an extreme example like Mr. Burns, there is no one that he wishes to help, save for the occasional cute pet or his old stuffed teddy bear. Mr. Burns is a classic example of an ethical egoist, and no one should expect him to do anything for anyone other than himself. And, in the twenty years that The Simpsons have been on television, he has done nothing but loyally follow his ethical egoist values.Works CitedForsyth, Donelson R.. Judging the Morality of stock Practices The Influence of PersonalMoral Philosophies. Business Ethics People, Profits, and the Planet. Ed. Kevin Gibson. pertly York McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2005. 67-76.Gibson, Kevin. The Theoretical Backdrop of Business Ethics. Business Ethics People, Profits,and the Pla net. Ed. Kevin Gibson. New York McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2005. 61-63.Kant, Immanuel. The Critique Of Pure Reason. Ed. J. M. D. Meiklejohn. 1781. eserver.org. 4Apr 2008. http//philosophy.eserver.org/kant/critique-of-pure-reason.txt.Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Tomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. ThinkingEthically A Framework for Moral Decision Making. Business Ethics People, Profits, and the Planet. Ed. Kevin Gibson. New York McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2005. 64-67.Singer, Peter. The Singer Solution to World Poverty. The New York Times Magazine. 5 Sep1999 pp. 60-63. Utilitarian Philosophers. 4 Apr 2008. http//www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htmWho Shot Mr. Burns? The Simpsons. Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. 20th Century Fox. 21May 1995.