Pleasure versus Virtue Ethics in The Light of Aristotelians and the Utilitarianism of John Stuart Mills and Jeremy Bentham

The question of the end of morality is certainly as old as moral speculation itself. It is this question that prompted Aristotle speculating on moral or character virtue. Moral question is properly a human question since only human beings are expected to act in a given way and are subject to praise and reward or blame and punishment. We should remember that also God and angels are expected to act in a given way, but that would, strictly speaking, be the subject of moral theology and revelation, since without revelation depending only on reason, we cannot examine the acts of God and angels in order to determine how they should act. In short, it is only human beings who can be judged to act morally or immorally if we depend only on human reason, without the support of revelation. In the whole work, Stuart Mills and Jeremy Bentham stick on happiness, though each differ in approaches. Consequentialists are after the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by advocating on the struggle to that which may make man happy and avoid evil by all means. Aristotle on his side is on eudaimonism, where man is found to be happy but moral happy. Happiness for Aristotle should be reasonable, morally good and means should be maintained. This research is analytical by nature, where both qualitative and analytical methods have been implemented throughout the work. The work has been successful though some challenges could not be avoided. Finally, in doing or acting, man should observe virtue; and this is always doing good and avoiding evil.  

Synthesis, Characterization and Potential Applications of Nitrogen Containing Compounds and Coordination Polymers

In the present work, biologically important esters, hydrazides, thiocarbamates, 1,2,4-triazole-3-thiones and Schiff bases have been prepared and characterized by FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy and SXRD analysis. The prepared derivatives were evaluated for their inhibitory potential against carbonic anhydrase II. Furthermore, to check the cytotoxicity, these derivatives were tested against human breast adenocarcinoma. The experimental results were validated by molecular docking and dynamic simulations of the potent compounds in the active pockets of enzymes. Important binding relations of potent compounds with the important residues in the dynamic sites of the carbonic anhydrase enzyme were disclosed. Moreover, the supramolecular assembly of the 4bs2 compound was analyzed by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. These studies rendered a more clear understanding for the demonstration of novel molecular mechanisms involved in the CA II inhibition by the synthesized compound. The single crystal data for the compounds 2d, 2bs1 and 2bs2 showed that they did not have any π-π or C-H…π interactions while the compound 4bs2 has C-H... π and C-Cl... π interactions that play a vital role. In another study, different types of coordination polymers containing two-dimensional isostructural monometallic structures, metal hexacyanometalates and metal pentacyanometalates were synthesized and characterized. A novel synthetic method to improve the surface concentration of cyanide-based systems involving a pentacyanoferrate containing polymer as a precursor has been adopted. Given the improvement of electrocatalytic activity obtained with the aforementioned system, herein, electrocatalytic activities of a new series of cobalt pentacyanoferrate, Co3[Fe(CN)5L]2, L = pyridine (py), 4-pyridinecarbonitrile (4PC), imidazole (imid), hexamethylenetetramine (HMT),) have been studied in detail to explore the consequence of a N-donor ligand to the structure and, thus, to the electrocatalytic performance. Chronoamperometry studies showed that the said systems exhibit a catalytic current density of 1 mA.cm-2 at overpotentials (η) ranging between 470 – 525 mV, which is lower than that of the previously studied cobalt hexacyanoferrates. Detailed electrochemical analysis including long-term electrolysis has been presented in the current study to evaluate the performances of the catalysts.