МИНИСТЕРСТВООБРАЗОВАНИЯРЕСПУБЛИКИ
БЕЛАРУСЬ
Учреждение образования “Гомельский государственный 
университет имени Франциска Скорины”

Кафедра теории и практики английского языка 

Богатикова Л.И. 

 
Практическое пособие 
по устной речи для студентов IV курса
специальности “Английский язык”
(Тема: “Добро и зло”)

Гомель, 2009

В авторской редакции 

Автор-составитель: Богатикова Л.И., доцент, к.п.н.

Рецензенты: Жилина И.К., доцент, к.п.н.,
                      Мэри Брукс, директор Института 
                      английского языка при Восточно-                                               
                      Вашингтонском университете

Рекомендовано к изданию научно-методическим советом Учреждения образования “Гомельский государственный университет имени Франциска Скорины”.

Данное пособие предназначено для студентов 1У курса факультетов иностранных языков специальности “английский язык” и предполагает развитие навыков и умений устной речи по теме “Добро и зло” и является дополнением к теме “Преступление и наказание”.

                            Богатикова Л.И. 
                           Учреждение образования “Гомельский 
                           государственный университет имени       
                          Франциска Скорины 

Введение 

  Данное практическое пособие предназначено для студентов 1У курса специальности “английский язык”.
  Целью данного пособия является развитие навыков и умений в устной речи и систематизация знаний в рамках темы “Добро и зло”.
  Пособие содержит текстовый материал по данной теме, упражнения на развитие лексических навыков и расширение словарного запаса студентов; предтекстовые и послетекстовые упражнения, направленные на обеспечение понимания и толкования текста, определение отношения читателя к проблемам, затрагиваемым в данных текстах и предназначенных для дальнейшего обсуждения; а также упражнения на развитие навыков и умений в говорении и, в целом, коммуникативной компетенции речевого взаимодействия в дискуссиях и диспутах.
  Материалом для обсуждения являются различные проблемные вопросы, утверждения, цитаты, пословицы и т.д. Обсуждение последних способствует не только более полному осмыслению этих проблем, но и критическому подходу к ним.
  Творческие упражнения для коллективного обсуждения сопровождаются не только речевыми клише, которые студенты должны использовать, но также описанием всей процедуры дискуссии. 

                        Vice and Virtue

Discussion point

I. Different culture seem to provide different models of moral virtue, and there may be several, some conflicting, within a given culture. For instance, the ancient Greeks had a place for the virtue of pride (an appropriate sense of one’s honor), while medieval Christian monks thought humility more important. 

- How do you differentiate between vice and virtue?
- What do modern thinkers/ you recognize a virtue of?

II. Read the definition of the words “vice” and “virtue” and answer the following questions:

vice – 1) (U) criminal activities that involve sex or drugs; 
 2) a bad habit; 3) a bad or immoral quality in someone’s character;
virtue – 1) (U) moral goodness of character and behavior; 
 2) a particular good quality in someone’s character; 
 3) (C,U) an advantage that makes something better or more useful than something else. 
- What criminal activities, bad habits and immoral qualities can be called ‘vice’?
- What good qualities are considered to be virtuous?
- What qualities do you most admire in people?
- What characteristics most annoy you in people?

Vocabulary Development 

III. Are the following  descriptions of people positive or negative?

a) She’ll always give you what you need.
b) She’s got a very high opinion of herself.
c) I never know whether to believe him.
d) He eats like a pig.
e) He says what he means, and he means what he says.
f) He’s always trying to pick a fight.
g) She won’t let her husband out of her sight.
h) He wouldn’t give you yesterday’s newspaper.
i) You can always depend on him.
j) Once she’s made up her mind, she won’t change it.

IV. Match one of the sentences in ex. III with a vice 
or virtue listed below. Write in the adjective. 

Vices                                    Virtues
aggression     aggressive      sincerity
pride                                     reliability
obstinacy                              generosity
meanness
greed
jealousy
deceit

V. Match these definitions to the following words:
1) stingy, 2) sensible, 3) rash, 4) generosity, 
5) mild, 6) moderation, 7) prodigal, 8) cowardice,
 9) irascible, 10) self-indulgent, 11) aversion, 
12) irresponsible, 13) compassion, 14) honesty, 
15) negligence, 16) lazy, 17) prudent, 
18) foolhardy, 19) consistent, 20) deficiency.
 
a) formal control of your behaviour, so that you keep your actions, feelings, habits, etc. within reasonable or sensible limits;
b) a strong dislike of something or someone;
c) the failure to do something that you are responsible for in a careful enough way, so that something bad happens or may happen;
d) becoming angry easily;
e) not willing to spend money or share something even though you have enough;
f) not too severe or serious; not strong-tasting or hot-tasting;
g) a strong feeling of sympathy for someone who is suffering;
h) allowing yourself to have or enjoy something that you do not need;
i) willingness to give money, time, etc. to help someone, or something you do that shows this;
j) doing things that are careless without thinking about the possible results;
k) formal tending to waste what you have, especially money;
l) done too quickly without thinking carefully first, or, behaving in this way;
m) showing good judgement, reasonable; 
n) a lack of courage;
o) sensible and careful especially by avoiding risks that are not necessary;
p) uprightness of disposition and conduct; straightforwardness; the quality opposed to lying, cheating or stealing;
q) to say the same thing or follow the same 
principles as something else; always happening in the same way or having the same attitudes, quality;
r) a lack of something that is needed; a condition of not being good enough;
s) taking risks that are not necessary;
t) not liking and not doing work or physical activity; moving slowly. 

VI. Fill in the gaps with the words given below. 

1) Early modern thinkers recognize… of industriousness, which tend to be expressed in activity related to production, to subduing the physical environment. 
2) In Aristotle’s famous study of character, the virtue of courage, for example, lies between the vices of… and cowardice.
3) I’ve tried to be…in applying the rules.
4) Mary has … to cats.
5) She’s really upset – can’t you show a little…
6) We never doubted Frank’s ….
7) It would not be…to spend so much money now.
8) A person who gets angry too quickly will be…
9) The virtue of courage stands between cowardice, which involves excessive fear, and a sort of…
10) The cardinal virtue that controls the pleasure drive is… and the one that controls the power drive is courage.
11) Immoderate or…has no wish to do the moderate thing and does not do it. 
12) They are suing the doctor for…
13) We need to be able to judge whether the person’s motives were appropriate, including whether her/his feelings were appropriate or not (whether they were excessive or…).
14) Many readers said that they could hardly bear to remember the tight-fisted habits of their parents, while others reported that years of… had either broken up their marriages or had made their lives a misery.
15) Undershaft believed that one could be wasteful, careless and … if one had money enough to live handsomely.

a) honesty; b) deficient; c) rashness; d)moderation;
e) compassion; f) irascible; g) consistent; h) virtue; 
i) aversion; j) prudent; k) foolhardiness; l) stinginess; 
m) negligence; n) generous; o) self-indulgent.

VII. Make up a sentence using the words from ex.VI. about the situations.
Example: Every year on her birthday her husband would give her the same birthday card. – He is so stingy and tight-fisted. 

1) I should say that Barbara is a real savior of souls, as she helps common people a lot.
 2) In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it is more dangerous to lose than to win.
3) His wife wrote “He’s always charging the family for the things he does around the house, even for the vegetables he grows in the back garden”.
4) Sometimes it’s difficult for him to say what’s on his mind because he doesn’t want to hurt other people or make them sad.
5) A few people might be sarcastic and say the opposite of their true thoughts; they hope that other people will still understand them.
6) Although she was hoping for quiet morning alone, she agreed to help the anxious woman.
7) Fed up with the stress and pressures of living in Manhattan, Joe decided to escape the hustle and bustle of city life for the dream of a new life with a cultic group.
8) Having become suspicious, the boss uncovered the passwords of his employees and began bugging their e-mail.   
9) She becomes angry so easily even if a child throws something at another child.
10) They met each other only a month ago and got married.

VIII. Highlight the following expressions and say what vices or virtues they suggest. 

1) to fly off the handle;
2) knowing yourself and your limits;
3) relying upon intimidation to make up for a sense of powerless;
4) looking good by making others look bad;
5) exercising patience with other’s occasional bad days;
6) always taking, never reciprocating;
7) relying upon force and coercion to get the job done.

IX. Which expressions from ex. VIII best describe the following situations? 

a) She is so kind, she always tries to understand and to share other people’s feelings.
b) She is such a weird person who always asks people to give her either books or money but she never does herself.
c) Our boss is too demanding and he always makes us do excessive job; he is too much worried about the job done.
d) –How do you find your colleague P.?
    - Oh, I don’t like her, I even try to avoid her as she speaks and behaves in such a way that people can’t but feel her superiority.
e) He is difficult to deal with. Whenever somebody speaks to him, he gets angry unreasonably.
f) I don’t think that he is a good person as he always tries to keep people tense and frightened.
g) Everybody appreciates the people who don’t show off and know their worth; these people understand and admit what they do know and what they don’t.

Reading 

X. a) Read the following text and find the answers to the following questions in it. 
  
1) Is there any difference between character traits and moral virtues?
2) What is referred to moral virtues?
3) How does Aristotle interpret vice and virtue?
4) Why did Aristotle think that mildness was the virtue related to anger?
5) What can virtue ethics be used to determine?

      Text 1. Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life      

   What is primary is whether the person acting is expressing good character (moral virtues) or not.
   A person’s character is the totality of his character traits. Our character traits can be good, bad or somewhere in between. They can be admirable or not. The admirable character traits, the marks of perfection in character, are called virtues, their opposites are vices.
   Character traits are
     1) dispositions or habit-like tendencies that are deeply entrenched or engrained. They have been referred to as second nature – “first nature” referring to tendencies with which we are born. Character traits are not innate – we were not born with them. Thus infants are neither virtuous nor vicious.
    2) formed as a result of more or less freely selected actions of a certain kind. We are not born honest or liars, but we become so by repeatedly telling the truth or by repeatedly lying.
Moral virtues:
1) are admirable character traits; generally desirable dispositions, which contribute, among other things, to social harmony
   Craft knowledge is a technical virtue specific to a particular line of work (rhetoric or the art of effective persuasion, the housebuilder’s art, the computer programmer’s art, the accountant’s art). The moral virtues have a more general scope.
2) enable us to act in accordance with reason
   You cannot be morally reasonable in the fullest sense, you cannot have the virtue called prudence, unless you are morally virtuous. The person who is not morally virtuous is sometimes ruled by his or her appetites or passions. Her/his emotions get in the way of doing the reasonable thing or even recognizing what the reasonable thing might be.
3) enable us to feel appropriately and have the right intention
   The person whose character is less than virtuous may do what looks, from the outside, like the right thing to do, but his/her motives will leave something to be desired. A truthful person will usually tell the truth, and he will do so because it is the right thing to do, not because he fears the negative consequences of being found out.
4) are orientations towards the mean, rather than the extremes (vices relate to extreme).
   In Aristotle’s famous study of character, a frequent theme is the fact that a virtue lies between two vices. The virtue of courage, for example, lies between the vices of rashness and cowardice. The coward has too much fear, or fear when he should have none. The rash person has too little fear and excessive confidence. The courageous person has the right amount.
    While courage is the virtue related to the emotions of fear and confidence, mildness is the virtue related to anger. A person who gets angry too quickly will be irascible; a person who never gets angry, even when s/he should, is inirascible (the term does not matter). The virtuous person will get angry when s/he should, but not excessively and not contrary to reason. Aristotle calls the virtue of appropriate anger mildness or gentleness.

Emotion/Action               Vice: Deficiency
Giving money                   Stinginess
Fear                                   Rashness
Anger                                Inirascibility
Seeking pleasure               Insensibility
Virtue: Mean (“Middle”)   Vice: Excess
Generosity                          Prodigality
Courage                              Cowardice
Mildness                             Irascibility
Moderation                         Self-Indulgence

    Virtue ethics can be used to determine the rightness or wrongness of an action by relating the choice to admirable character traits:
    An act or choice is morally right if, in carrying out the act, one exercises, exhibits or develops a morally virtuous character. It is morally wrong to the extent that by making the choice or doing the act one exercises, exhibits or develops a morally vicious character.
    To apply virtue ethics to a given case one should discuss which character traits (virtues, vices, intermediate states) are relevant and reflect on the kind of actions, attitudes, and feelings go along with them. It is not enough to say “This action expresses virtue”, you must say which virtue (generosity, appropriate compassion) and be prepared to say why.

b) Look at the scheme given above and explain the difference between 1) stinginess and prodigality; 
2) rashness and cowardice; 3) inirascibility and irascibility;  4) insensibility and self-indulgence. Highlight it with the help of the episodes and situations based on your personal experience.

c) Refer back to the text and prove that:
1) The admirable character traits are called virtues.
2) There is difference between vice: deficiency and vice: excess.

d) Discuss with your partner what you would add to or change in the information given in the text. 

XI. a) Read the text and find the following information in the text:

1) Why is it important to teach and to know ethical business culture?
2) What does it mean to act ethically in everyday business life?
 
   Text 2. Vice and Virtue in Everyday Business Life 

    We all (hopefully) mastered some “essential skills” at the beginning of our education. They include:
- Don’t take things that aren’t yours
- Play fair
- Don’t hit people
- Clean up your own mess
- Put things back where you found them
- Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody
- Take a nap every afternoon
- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you
- Flush
    Treating other people decently on a daily basis may not guarantee making the right decision when the heat is on, but at least a habit of caring about one’s acquaintances would be well-established. Such a habit would pre-install a panoply of developed cognitive skills and emotional sensitivities to assist moral decision-making when facing the tough cases.
    There are some kinds of actions and attitudes to which we should attend in everyday business life. 
    One way of thinking about being a professional is to set out goals or standards of excellence related to (1) the quality of one’s work, (2) self-discipline, and (3) the treatment of others. Two of these goals are illustrated by forms of action which help to meet them and by activities which detract from them.  
  Self-control and respect for oneself
Self-controlled individuals know themselves, know their limits, and seek help when things get out of control in their lives. They work to establish a pattern of self-discipline which allows for productivity and satisfaction through regulating and addressing self-destructive and obsessive tendencies. By maintaining a kind of balance in their lives, they are happier and, in general, easier to work with.
Acting ethically:
          *maintaining a set of personal standards of excellence
          *keeping cool, but focused
          *knowing yourself and your limits
          *delegating when necessary or helpful
          *keeping a schedule others can rely upon
          *taking a day off when needed
          *resisting compulsive or obsessive fascinations
          *blending flexibility with reliable structure
          *getting help when things are getting out of control 
To be avoided 
 *”getting off” on others (even when they seem to deserve it
*sexual harassment (inflicting your sexual desires on others who aren’t interested)
*relying upon intimidation to make up for a sense of powerlessness
*spending the workday cruising the porno, sports, or gambling web-sites
*being a workaholic (and expecting others to do likewise)
*working at a speed you know is too fast
*looking good by making others look bad
*being a sleaze, a whiner, a slacker, a missing person
*inflicting your dissatisfaction with your present job upon everyone else.
    Respecting others
Professionals treat other people as if they really mattered, rather than as tools, or mere opportunities for profit, labor, or resume-building. Imaginatively placing themselves on the receiving end of their actions, they create a climate of respect and dignity which allows everyone a meaningful measure of satisfaction and success. Professionals cleverly devise a strategy for consistently meeting their goals which allows others to do so also, with a minimum of bloodletting.
Acting ethically: 
*keeping appointments and being punctual
*maintaining good records for those who will follow after you
*reading your email, returning calls, and passing on messages
*returning what you borrow (pens, files, catalogues)
*maintaining an agenda when you lead a meeting
*refilling the coffee pot, the copy machine, the company car
*giving recognition to others for their ideas, work (sharing the spotlight)
*exercising patience with others’ occasional bad days
*taking the blame for mistakes you made
*respecting others’ private lives, personal preferences, and eccentricities
*speaking up when a blatant injustice is being done to another
To be avoided
*making others waste their time as they wait for you to show up or be ready
*demanding a quid pro duo for promotions, job security, or just doing your job
*requiring excessive overtime of subordinates
*relying upon force and coercion to get the job done
*using others’ ideas without giving credit
*finding entertainment in others’ conflicts
*shifting the blame, always finding a scapegoat, demonizing
*upbraiding a subordinate or colleague in public
*always taking, never reciprocating
*allowing others to “stew” as they await your next action
    In conclusion, our authentic moral intuitions (and our commitments to them) are developed and acted out in the manner by which we treat our fellow employees, supervisors, underlings, customers and suppliers in daily situations. If we don’t learn to treat our co-workers with dignity, respect, and kindness, this reduces the prospects for ethical decision-making when big money is at stake. Or, even if we do act ethically in the larger sphere – perhaps out of fear of legal consequences – there is a strange kind of hypocrisy and schizophrenia in projecting a public image of being a “good guy” while maintaining a workplace behind the scenes which is little better than a hell-hole. Such hypocrisy is not unknown, but perhaps we can do more to eliminate it by giving heed to the ethics of everyday business life.
                                 (Dr. Douglas Chismar)

b) Highlight the following expressions with the help of the episodes and situations based on your personal experience: 

1) maintaining a set of personal standards of excellence;
2) delegating when necessary;
3) blending flexibility with reliable structure;
4) going off on others;
5) being a sleaze, a whiner, a slacker, a missing person;
6) giving recognition to others for their ideas, work.

c) Work in pairs. Decide what other business ethics you would include. 

XII. Read the text and find the answers to the following questions in it:

1) Why do concepts of “virtue” and “character” become necessary?
2) What does a human being need that enables him to behave consistently in an appropriate manner?
3) What kinds of virtue are distinguished?
4) What do human beings need to guide their actions?
5) What does prudence mean?
6) How is the skill in thinking of the needs and rights of others interpreted?
7) What are pleasure drive and the power drive? What do these virtues control?

                   Text 3. Virtues and Character

    The concepts of “virtue” and “character” become necessary when we observe that human behavior is modified by learning. Furthermore, this learning is not simply the acquisition of information but of skill in using that information in ways that are effective in satisfying human needs. Thus intellectual education is not just learning facts and explanatory theories, it is also acquiring skill in using this information for various freely chosen purposes, for example to be a lawyer or a doctor. Such skills are needed not only to solve the more difficult problems people meet in satisfying their needs, and especially the needs that are fixed in human nature but also to do so consistently and without undue stress and strain on the human organism.
    Human beings are complex, bodily organisms that undergone constant change and variation. Consequently it is quite difficult for any of us who have made a choice of behavior to carry that through to the goal. We are easily distracted, discouraged, act impulsively, fail to adjust and adapt to change, etc., and consequently often end by frustrating ourselves. We need, therefore, a set of skills that enable us to behave consistently in an appropriate manner throughout the course of whole career, indeed of a whole life. It is too obvious that many people lack such skills and get in a life time get nowhere.
    Since human beings have intelligence and free will they can use these to guide their actions to satisfy realistically and effectively not only to meet freely chosen goals, such as to make a million dollars, but also to satisfy those needs that are so much a part of our human nature that if they are not met we will be miserable and eventually will not survive. For example, our need to eat and drink is not something we choose, although we can choose within a certain range the kind of food and drink that we will use to meet this need and we can devise various technologies to produce these kinds. We must, however, eat and drink and we can do this in a way that truly satisfies our fixed need for proper nourishment and enables us not only to survive but be healthy. On the other hand, sadly enough, we can eat too little or too much or foods that do not make for health.
    Thus for all of us, whether we be thick or thin, what, how much, and when is one of the fundamental problems of human life that each of us has the ethical responsibility to solve and this solution is not always easy. To consistently make good decisions about our eating we need an intellectual virtue that helps us realistically and cautiously yet with ingenuity decide how, what and when to eat. This is in part a problem that a skilled dietician who has acquired the technology or practical science of dietetics can help us with. But even after we have the dietician’s advice we have to apply it intelligently to the concrete situations we meet in life; for example, to choose or not to choose to have some desert at a party. To do this consistently requires the intellectual skill or virtue of prudence, skill in practical thinking about satisfying our innate nutritional needs.
    Prudence is a virtue that especially requires a great deal of experience beyond book learning or set of rules.
It can be assisted, however, by a systematization that resembles a scientific theory since it is based on the life sciences and this is called ethics from the Greek ethos, “character”. To have a fully developed virtue of prudence at least an intuitive kind of ethics is required and for difficult problems in life a systematic, scientific ethics itself or the advice of those who know such an ethics. Thus prudence is the guide of human life and in practical living serves the same governing role as wisdom does in the theoretical order. It is practical wisdom. Thus it is primarily an intellectual virtue and yet it governs the ethical or moral order. Aquinas argues that it is, therefore, the greatest of the four cardinal moral virtues.
    We cannot think realistically about our needs, however, if we do not take two other kinds of problems into consideration, namely, our relations with other people, and the control of our own emotions. Since human beings, as Aristotle said, are “political animals’, that is, social beings who cannot achieve their personal goals except in cooperation, communication and sharing with others in a common good, nothing could be more imprudent than to lack respect for the rights of others. Thus skill in thinking of the needs and rights of others is the second cardinal virtue, justice. It is difficult for us to be either prudent or just, however, if our emotions or rather the drives that produce these emotions prevent us from thinking clearly and objectively. Aristotle and Aquinas concluded from experience that we have two  basic sets of such drives. One of these sets of drives are those that move us to seek what gives us physical pleasure, for example our pleasure in food; and another that moves us to seek power over our environment or other persons who raise difficulties for us in attaining our goals. The cardinal virtue that controls the pleasure drive is moderation (temperance) and the one that controls the power drive is courage (fortitude). 

b) Agree or disagree with the following statements. Give your reasons. 

1) Human beings are complex, bodily organisms that undergone constant change and variation.
2) Intellectual education is also acquiring skill in using the information for various freely chosen purposes.
3) If human beings’ needs are not met we will be miserable and eventually will not survive.
4) The skill in practical thinking about satisfying our needs is prudence.
5) In Freud’s opinion the power drive is aggression. 

c) Referring back to the text prove that:

1) Virtues are skills that need to be developed require a great deal of experience.
2) We need a set of skills that enable us to behave consistently in an appropriate manner throughout the course of whole life.
3) There are four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, moderation and courage.
Support your idea with some information or situation based on your personal experience. 

XIII. a) Below is a list of the “Top Ten” evil people of all time followed by a list of the “Top Ten” good people of all time – sorted in order of evilness and goodness. Read it and answer the following questions:

- Who would you like to see added to the list? 
- What alterations would you make to the list or the ordering?
- Do the scales of good and evil balance?
- Why is it easier to think of evil examples than good ones? 
- Is it much easier to do something big and bad than it is to do something big and good?

                Text 4. The Scales of Good and Evil
 
The Top Ten Evil 
1. Tomas de Torquemada. Born in Spain in 1420, his name is synonymous with the Christian Inquisition’s horror, religious bigotry, and cruel fanaticism. He was a fan of various forms of torture including foot roasting, use of the garrucha, and suffocation. He was made Grand Inquisitor by Pope Sixtus IV. Popes and kings alike praised his tireless efforts. The number of burnings at the stake during Torquemada’s tenure has been estimated at about 2,000. Torquemada’s hatred of Jews influenced Ferdinand and Isabella to expel all Jews who had not embraced Christianity. 
2. Vlad Tepes – Vlad the Impaler was a prince known for executing his enemies by impalement. He was a fan of various forms of torture including disemboweling and rectal and facial impalement. Vlad the Impaler tortured thousands while he ate and drunk among the corpses. He impaled every person in the city of Amlas – 20,000 men, women and children. Vlad often ordered people to be skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, stabbed, etc. He also liked to cut off noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. But his favorite method was impalement on stakes, hence the surname “Tepes” which means “The Impaler” in the Romanian language. It is this technique he used in 1457, 1459 and 1460 against Transylvanian merchants who had ignored his trade laws. He also looked upon the poor, vagrants and beggars as thieves. Consequently, he invited all the poor and sick of Wallachia to his princely court in Tirgoviste for a great feast. After the guests ate and drank, Dracula ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. No one survived.
   Note: Every Romanian who contacted me said I   
   should remove Vlad from the list. They said he was 
   not evil and seemed to like him. So the perception of
   evil can differ from person to person. (Cliff Pickover)
3. Adolph Hitler – The dictator of Nazi Germany, Adolph, was born on April 20, 1889, at Braunauam Inn, Austria-Hungary. 
4. Ivan the Terrible – Ivan Vasilyevich, (born Aug. 25, 1530, in Kolomensloye, near Moscow) was the grand prince of Moscow (1533-84) and the first to be proclaimed tsar of Russia (from 1547). His reign saw the completion of the construction of a centrally administered Russian state and the creation of an empire that included non-Slav states. He enjoyed burning 1000s of people in frying pans, and was fond of impaling people. 
5. Adolph Eichmann – Born in March 19, 1906, Solingen, Germany he was hanged by the state of Israel for his part in the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II. “The death of five million Jews on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction”.
6. Pol Pot – Pol Pot (born in 1925 in the Kompong Thom province of Cambodia) was the Khmer political leader whose totalitarian regime (1975-79) imposed severe hardships on the people of Cambodia. His radical communist government forced the mass evacuations of cities, killed or displaced millions of people, and left a legacy of disease and starvation. Under his leadership, his government caused the deaths of at least one million people from forced labor, starvation, disease, torture, or execution.
7. Mao Tse-tung – leader of the Gang of Four, who killed somewhere between 20 and 67 million (estimates vary) of his countrymen, including the elderly and intellectuals. His picture still hangs throughout many homes and businesses. Mao’s own personality cult, encouraged so as to provide momentum to the movement, assumed religious proportions. The resulting anarchy, terror, and paralysis completely disrupted the urban economy. Industrial production for 1968 dipped 12 percent below that of 1966.
8. Idi Amin – Idi Amin Dada Oumee (born in 1924 in Uganda) was the military officer and president (1971-79) of Uganda. Amin also took tribalism, a long-standing problem in Uganda, to its extreme by allegedly ordering the persecution of Acholi, Lango, and other tribes. Amidst reports of the torture and murder of 100,000 to 300,000 Ugandans during Amin’s presidency.
9. Joseph Stalin – Born in 1879. During the quarter of a century preceding his death in 1953, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin probably exercised greater political power than any other figure in history. In the 1930s, by his orders, millions of peasants were either killed or permitted to starve to death. Stalin brought about the deaths of more than 20 million of his own people while holding the Soviet Union in an iron grip for 29 years. Stalin succeeded his hero Vladimir Lenin in 1924. From then on, he induced widespread famines to enforce farm collectives, and eliminated perceived enemies through massive purges.
10.Genghis Khan – The Mongol Temjin, known to history as Genghis Khan (born 1162) was a warrior and ruler who, starting from obscure and insignificant beginnings, brought all the nomadic tribes of Mongolia under the rule of himself and his family in a rigidly disciplined military state. Massacres of defeated populations, with the resultant terror, were weapons he regularly used. His Mongol hordes killed off countless people in Asia and Europe in the early 1200s. When attacking Volohoi, Khan convinced the city commander that Mongols would stop attacking if the city sent out 1,000 cats and several thousand swallows. When he got them, Genghis had bits of cloth tied to their tails and set the cloth on fire. The cats and birds fled back to the city and ended up setting hundreds of fires inside the city. Then Genghis attacked and won. At another time, Mongols rounded up 70,000 men, women and children and shot them with arrows. Genghis told his comrades: ”Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding, use his women as a nightshirt and support, gazing upon and kissing their rosy breasts, sucking their lips which are as sweet as the berries of their breasts”.

The Top Ten Good 

1. Buddha – Buddhism, far more than Christianity or Islam, has a very strong pacifist element. The orientation toward nonviolence has played a significant role in the political history of Buddhist countries.
2. Baha’u’llah – Baha’is believe that all the founders of the world’s great religions have been manifestations of God and agents of a progressive divine plan for the education of the human race. Despite their apparent differences, the world’s great religions, according to the Baha’is, teach an identical truth. Baha’is believe that Baha’u’llah (d.1892) was a manifestation of God, who in His essence is unknowable. Baha’u’llah’s special function was to overcome the disunity of religions and establish a universal faith. Baha’is believe in the oneness of humanity and devote themselves to the abolition of racial, class, and religious prejudices. The great bulk of Baha’I teachings is concerned with social ethics; the faith has no priesthood and does not observe ritual forms in its worship.
3. Dalai Lama – head of the dominant Dge-lugs-pa order of Tibetan Buddhists and, until 1959, both spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his nonviolent campaign to end Chinese domination of Tibet.
4. Jesus Christ – for the preaching of love.
5. Moses – just the idea of “resting on the seventh day” improved the life of countless people.
6. Mother Teresa – Once Mother Teresa was asked how she could continue day after day, visiting the terminally ill: feeding them, wiping their brows, giving them comfort as they lay dying. And she said, “It’s not hard because in each one, I see the face of Christ in one of His more distressing disguises”. 
7. Abraham Lincoln – for paving the way to freeing the slaves.
8.Martin Luther King – American clergyman and Nobel Prize winner, one of the principal leaders of the American civil rights movement and a prominent advocate of nonviolent protest.
9. Mohandas Gandhi – Indian national leader, who established his country’s freedom through a nonviolent revolution.
Who should be number 10? Would you ever consider someone like Carl Djerassi, “ father of the birth control pill”? Because millions of unwanted children were not produced, countless suffering has been abolished (including decreases in crime, child abuse, and ecological nightmares). With women gaining more control over their reproductive fate, society has changed. Reliable birth control became as easy as taking a pill, which some call the single greatest factor in helping women achieve equality. Although religious people may debate whether a fertilized egg (zygote) should be accorded the same rights as a child (and therefore the pill is evil), no one debates that the pill has decreased the suffering of fully formed, multicellular humans.
    Note that “zygotic personhood” (the idea that a fertilized egg is a person) is a recent concept. For example, before 1869, the Catholic church believed that the embryo was not a person until it was 40 days old. (Aristotle agreed with this 40-day threshold). Thus, the church did not believe a human had a soul until day 40. Pope Innocent III in 1211 determined that the time of ensoulment was anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks. This means that the Catholic church, for centuries, did not equate abortion with murder.
                                    (Cliff Pickover)
b) Referring back to the text discuss with your partner the following questions:

If you had scales and put Stalin’s massacres on the left side, what could you put on the right-hand side to balance it?  Extreme kindness and attempts to alleviate suffering? Curing cancer? Ending world hunger? Charity? Elevating the thinking of humankind with respect to human rights? Perhaps the very best people don’t seek publicity for their good deeds; these are the unknown heroes who work tirelessly with the poor and the sick. When considering religious leaders, do we need to consider possible negative results that evolved, such as fundamentalist groups that suppress women, or the concept of Jihad, or holy war? If the Inquisition arose out of Christianity, need we consider this in assessments we make?

c) Give your list of ten top evil and ten top good.

Discussion Activity

XIV. Why should we bother with virtue ethics?
Answer the following questions and find out if you do.

    *Do you want to be liked or loved by good people for what kind of a person you are? Or would you rather just be liked or loved because of your money or your good looks which nature gave you and you did not create?
    *Do you want to be the kind of person who can stand on her or his own two feet and who, after examining an issue carefully, can be fairly confident of his own moral judgements? Or do you want to be someone who needs constant approval of his actions from people around you even though they disagree among themselves and do not remain consistent even in their own judgements?
    *Do you want to be able to do the courageous thing, the honorable thing, honest thing, and enjoy doing it, even if most other people would find it uncomfortable or painful? Or do you want to do the courageous or honest thing reluctantly – as if it really hurts, as if you would rather be doing the opposite?

    If you have answered yes to the first question in each of these pairs, then you want to develop the good character traits known as moral virtues. 

XV. Next to each proverb, determine what value is being taught or what vice is conveyed by it. Discuss them with your partner supporting your idea with some information. 

Better die with honor than live with shame.
Better be envied than pitied.
Envy shoots at others, and wounds herself.
After a thrifty father, a prodigal son.
It is better to give than to receive.
It is hard for a greedy eye to have a leal heart.
Honour is the reward of virtue.
He that hurts another hurts himself.
Idle people have the least leisure.
Lying and thieving go together.
Patience is the virtue.
Every sin brings its punishment with it.
A thief passes for a gentleman when stealing has made him rich.
Poverty is no vice but an inconvenience.
Pride goes before, the shame follows.
Once a thief, always a thief.

XVI. Read the following advertisements from newspapers and magazines and name the value implied in them.

1) Nicaraguan children find a family.
2) There is no place like Homecoming at Eastern.
3) Peace Corps Get ready to redefine your word!
4) Reader touched by Afghan Teachers.
5) The truth behind the Greek life.
6) Respecting and helping your children and young adults.

XVII. a) Fill in the statements with appropriate words or phrases or those of denial, objection, contradiction, etc., providing some credible information.

1) …No specific virtue or vice in a man implies the existence of any other specific virtue or vice in him, however closely the imagination. ….
2) Virtue consists,….not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it…
3) Self-denial is not a virtue,…: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality…
4) Disobedience,… the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, …the laziest and commonest of the vices….
5)…Economy is the art of making the most of life…
6)The love of economy… is the root of all virtue.
               (Bernard Shaw “Man and Superman” from 
                “Maxims for Revolutionists”)                     

 b) Comment on the implicit meaning of these statements. 

XVIII. a) Analyze and explain the following statement.
            b)Provide some credible information or situation from your life experience to illustrate it.

  Vice has always a new fresh young face while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
              (John Steinbeck “East of Eden”)

XIX. a) Most of the brief tales traditionally ascribed to Aesop, a Greek slave on the island of Samos (6th century B.C.) are about animals with human traits, but in some there are human characters. The stories are simple, short and direct. Their purpose is to illustrate some human folly, frailty, vice or virtue. This is made plain by the appended moral. 
    What human follies, frailties, vices and virtues are 
illustrated in Aesop’s fables given below?

1. The Frog and the Ox
    “Oh Father,” said a little Frog to the big one sitting by the side of a pool, “I have seen such a terrible monster? It was as big as a mountain, with horns on its head, and a long tail, and it had hoofs divided in two”.
    “Tush, child, tush,” said the old Frog, “that was only Farmer White’s Ox. It isn’t so big either; he may be a little bit taller than I, but I could easily make myself quite as broad’ just you see.” So he blew himself out, and blew himself out, and blew himself out. “Was he as big as that?” asked he.
    “Oh, much bigger than that,” said the young Frog.
    Again the old one blew himself out, and asked the young one if the Ox was as big as that.
    “Bigger, father, bigger,” was the reply.  
    So the Frog took a deep breath, and blew and blew and blew, and swelled and swelled and swelled and swelled. And then he said: ”I’m sure the Ox is not as big as…” But at this moment he burst.

2. Androcles
    A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled to the forest. As he was wandering about there he came upon a Lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee, but finding that the Lion did not pursue him, he turned back and went up to him.  As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain. He pulled out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog. Then the Lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day used to bring him meat from which to live. But shortly afterwards both Androcles and the Lion were captured, and the slave was sentenced to be thrown to the Lion, after the latter had been kept without food for several days. The Emperor and all his Court came to see the spectacle, and Androcles was led out into the middle of the arena. Soon the Lion was let loose from his den, and rushed bounding and roaring towards his victim. But as soon as he came near to Androcles he recognised his friend, and fawned upon him, and licked his hands like a friendly dog. The Emperor, surprised at this, summoned Androcles to him, who told him the whole story. Whereupon the slave was pardoned and freed, and the Lion let loose to his native forest.

3. The Hart in the Ox-Stall
    A Hart hotly pursued by the hounds fled for refuge into an ox-stall, and buried itself in a truss of hay, leaving nothing to be seen but the tips of his horns. Soon after the Hunters came up and asked if any one had seen the Hart. The stable boys, who had been resting after their dinner, looked round, but could see nothing, and the Hunters went away. Shortly afterwards
the master came in, and looking round, saw that something unusual had taken place. He pointed to the truss of hay and said: “What are those two curious things sticking out of the hay?” And when the stable boys came to look they discovered the Hart, and soon made an end of him. He thus learnt that….

What did the Hart learn? Suggest your idea.

4. The Fox and the Grapes
    One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the thing to quench me thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

5. The Peacock and Juno
    A Peacock once placed a petition before Juno desiring to have the voice of a nightingale in addition to his other attractions; but Juno refused his request. When he persisted, and pointed out that he was her favourite bird, she said:…

What did Juno say?

6. The Dog in the Manger
    A Dog looking out for its afternoon nap jumped into the Manger of an Ox and lay there cosily upon the straw. But soon the Ox, returning from its afternoon work, came up to the Manger and wanted to eat some of the straw. The Dog in a rage, being awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the Ox, and whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last the Ox had to give up the hope of getting at the straw, and went away muttering:…

What did the Ox mutter?

7. The Two Fellows and the Bear
    Two Fellows were travelling together through a wood, when a Bear rushed out upon them. One of the travellers happened be in front, and he seized hold of the branch of a tree, and hid himself among the leaves. The other, seeing no help for it, threw himself flat down upon the ground, with his face in the dust. The Bear, coming up to him, put his muzzle close to his ear, and sniffed and sniffed. But at last with a growl he shook his head and slouched off, for bears will not touch dead meat. Then the fellow in the tree came down to his comrade, and, laughing, said “What was it that Master Bruin whispered to you?”
    “He told me,” said the other,….

What did the Bear tell the fellow? Suggest your idea.

8.Avaricious and Envious 
    Two neighbours came before Jupiter and prayed him to grant their heart’s desire. Now the one was full of avarice, and the other eaten up with envy. So to punish them both, Jupiter granted that each might have whatever he wished for himself, but only on condition that his neighbour had twice as much. The Avaricious man prayed to have a room full of gold. No sooner said than done; but all his joy was turned to grief of when he found that his neighbour had two rooms full of the precious metal. Then came the turn of the Envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbour had any joy at all. So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes put out, by which means his companion would become totally blind.

9. The Goose With the Golden Eggs
    One day a countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy as lead and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick had been played upon him. But he took it home on second thoughts, and soon found to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling his eggs. As he grew rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing.

10. The Fox, the Cock, and the Dog
    One moonlight night a Fox was prowling about a farmer’s hen-coop, and saw a Cock roosting high up beyond his reach. “Good news, good news!” he cried.
    “Why, what is that?” said the Cock.
    “King Lion has declared a universal truce. No beast may hurt a bird henceforth, but all shall dwell together in brotherly friendship”.
    “Why, that is good news,” said the Cock; and there I see some one coming, with whom we can share the good tidings.” And so saying he craned his neck forward and looked afar off.
    “What is it you see?” said the Fox.
    “It is only my master’s Dog that is coming towards us. What, going so soon?” he continued, as the Fox began to turn away as soon as he had heard the news. “Will you not stop and congratulate the Dog on the reign of universal peace?”
    “I would gladly do so,” said the Fox, “but I fear he may not have heard of King Lion’s decree”.

11. The Wind and the Sun 
    The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on. 

12. The Miser and His Gold
   Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains. A robber, who had noticed this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used to come and visit his gold. “Did you ever take any of it out?” asked one of them.
    “Nay,” he said, “I only came to look at it.”
    “Then come again and look at the hole,” said a neighbour; “it will do you just as much good.”

13. The Cat-Maiden
    The gods were once disputing whether it was possible for a living being to change its nature. Jupiter said  “Yes”, but Venus said “No’. “So, to try the question, Jupiter turned a Cat into a Maiden, and gave her to a young man for a wife. The wedding was duly performed and the young couple sat down to the wedding-feast. “See,” said Jupiter, to Venus, “how becomingly she behaves. Who could tell that yesterday she was but a Cat? Surely her nature is changed?”
    “Wait a minute,” replied Venus, and let loose a mouse into the room. No sooner did the bride see this than she jumped up from her seat and tried to pounce upon the mouse. “Ah, you see,” said Venus,…
What did Venus say?

14. The Horse and the Ass
   A Horse and an Ass were travelling together, the Horse prancing along in its fine trappings, the Ass carrying with difficulty the heave weight in its panniers. “I wish I were you,” sighed the Ass; “nothing to do and well fed, and all that fine harness upon you.” Next day, however, there was a great battle, and the Horse was wounded to death in the final charge of the day. His friend, the Ass, happened to pass by shortly afterwards and found him on the point of death. “I was wrong,” said the Ass:…

What did the Ass say? 

b) Choose the morals from list below to match the fables.

a) Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.
b) Better humble security than gilded danger.
c) Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
d) Self-conceit may lead to self-destruction.
e) Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch.
f) Cunning often outwits itself.
g) It is easy to despise what you cannot get.
h) Wealth unused might as well not exist. 
i) Vices are their own punishment.
j) Nothing escapes the master’s eye.
k) Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
l) Nature will out.
m) Greed oft o’er reaches itself.
n) Kindness affects more than severity.

c) Think of the situations from your own or your friend’s life experience illustrating the vices and virtues described in the fables.

XX. Evaluate people, their moral virtues and /or vices from the following cases. Discuss them with your partners.

    Case 1: One of “Us” or One of “Them”

    The professor in Mustafa’s political science class had tried to be fair. The class had been discussing the global effects of terrorism, and she had been active in moderating the discussion. When a student, glaring at Mustafa, expressed anger about “those crazy Muslims and Arabs who are trying to destroy the West, “ she quickly pointed out that “of course we must remember that not all Muslims or people from the Middle East are behind acts of terrorism; only a fringe minority is”. And when another student asked Mustafa to explain “why your people do these things,” she had stepped in to say that it was not an appropriate question. But the teacher’s attempts to protect him weren’t enough, Mustafa thought; he had still felt that the whole discussion was very much “us” against “them” – with him being the sole representative of “them”.
    The class had never paid much attention to him, and Mustafa had liked it that way. (He usually sat by himself toward the back of the room and rarely spoke, out of shyness about his slight stutter). Today his anger and embarrassment were extreme as the other students kept turning around to stare at him during the discussion. Didn’t they know how stupid they looked? He was as good an American as they were; maybe better. Why pick on him? But he thought it wiser not to try to explain their ignorance to them.
    What followed after class was worse. The discussion had so stimulated the students that several of them hung around talking outside the classroom door even after the professor left. As Mustafa walked down the hall, he overheard a voice behind him say, “We should make all those towel-heads leave the country.” Another replied, “Yeah, we’ll never be safe until we’ve bombed them all.” Mustafa’s ears burned. Were those words intended for him? He didn’t wear a turban, but the remarks seemed to follow from the hostility in class. He wasn’t sure who had spoken. Should he turn around and say something, or just keep walking? Either way, he couldn’t see ever going back to class.

                             Case 2: Cheating 

    Nick and Katie have been a couple for two years, and despite some minor fights, they feel firmly committed to each other. They often talk about getting married eventually and have even planned many details of their future life together. One night when Katie went out with her girlfriends, Nick met Olivia at a party. Olivia was very sexy, exotic, temperamental, and rather wild-everything that Katie was not. Nick and Olivia began an affair almost at once. Nick knew, even while he was “in lust” with Olivia, that he had no intention of dropping Katie for her. Katie was the person he wanted to marry someday, and Olivia was merely the person with whom he wanted to do unprintable things right now. Therefore he took great care to avoid making Katie suspicious, and he saw Olivia only on the sly, when Katie thought he was studying or out with his friends.
  In fact, no one knows Nick’s dirty little secret except for Linda and Omar, mutual friends of Nick’s and Katie’s who saw Nick and Olivia embracing passionately under a tree. Linda and Omar argue about whether or not to tell Katie what’s going on. (They don’t know Olivia, and they feel no loyalty to her). Omar thinks it’s none of their business; perhaps Katie already knows about it and has decided to ignore the affair until it blows over. “We’ll just embarrass them both if we tell her what we saw,” he says. “And maybe this is something Nick just needs to get out of his system.”
    Linda disagrees. “He has no right to treat Katie like this! When I see Katie with Nick, I’m sure she doesn’t know. And she would never forgive us if she found out that we knew and didn’t tell her.” 

XXI. Work in groups. Discuss the following thesis using the instructions given below.

Thesis: In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win.
                (Bernard Shaw “Man and Superman”)

Supporters                          Opposers
agreement                           disagreement
analyzing and comparing   contradiction
facts
providing some credible     disproof and
information                         giving opposite example
comment on the example    insistence on the argument 
and giving counterargument
giving an example from      rejection and giving
your life experience            a counterargument, etc.

XXII. Debating the Issue:
You are going to take part in a panel discussion of the thesis: “A virtue is a learned skill, acquired by repeated practice, to deal with the problems of life effectively so as to satisfy a human need intrinsic to human nature”.

                 1. Preparation for the Debate
a. Write down a list of points either for or against the idea of virtue as a learned skill. Use the suggested ideas to help you.

b.Try to anticipate the arguments the other group are going to come up with and think of an answer to them.

c. Think of as many ways of giving opinions and agreeing and disagreeing as you can. Look at the Useful Language. Which expressions do you think are the most and least strong?

d. Provide some credible information about the idea of virtue as a learned skill from real life or find and quote some information from written sources to contribute to objectivity to the arguments. 
Work in groups. One group (group A – supporters) is going to defend the motion and the other (group B – opposers) is going to attack it. 

                                2. Procedure
Group A: Ideas.
- Take a list of all the reasons you can think of as to why the experiences should be taken seriously.
- Decide in what order you should make the points.
- Have “a real life witness”  (parents, a psychologist, a teacher) to give his/her experience as convincingly as possible. 
- Think of questions which you will ask the other group, or points you will make, to try to defeat their argument.

Group B: Ideas.
- Think of as many reasons as you can why this idea cannot really be valid and try to suggest other explanations for them. Make a list of reasons.
Example: That’s impossible. I can hardly believe it. I think you remember the Aesop’s fable about the cat-maiden and the dispute that it is possible for a living being to change its nature and to become virtuous. It proved vice versa. Nature will always out.

- One of you should invent a “negative” experience that you had, which you think disproves the other experiences you heard or read about above. Argue for it 
being an inborn skill.
- Decide in what order you will make the points.
- Think of questions to ask the other group or points to put to them which may defeat their argument.

                             Useful Language

Giving Opinions:
In my opinion…                   I think /I believe…
It is clear /obvious that…      
There is no doubt that…

Agreeing:
Exactly! I couldn’t agree any more…
(I agree) absolutely. You’ve got a point, but… .
Possibly, but…                    That’s just what I think.
That seems reasonable…     Beyond all doubt.

Disagreeing: 
Do you really think so?
I’m sorry, but I just can’t accept that.
You can’t be serious.            It’s impossible.
I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.
It’s just the other way round.
Avoiding giving an opinion: 
I really don’t know.                I’m not really sure.
It’s difficult to say….
I suppose it depends on your point of view.

Expressing doubt:
I find it hard to believe. 
Sounds promising /incredible /highly improbable.
I doubt that it…                       It’s not unlikely that…
You never know.  

    Key Answers 

Ex. V, p. 5.
1-e;   2-m;  3-l;  4-I;  5-f;  6-a;  7-k;  8-n;  9-d;  10-h;  11-b;  12-j;  13-g;  14-p;  15-c;  16-t;  17-o;  18-s;  19-q;  20-r

Ex. VI, p. 6.
 1-h;  2- c;  3-g;  4-I;  5-e;  6-a;  7-j;  8-f;  9-k;  10-d;  11-o;  12-m;  13-b;  14-l;  15-n

Ex. XIX, p. 26.
a) 3. Nothing escapes the master’s eye.
    5. “Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything”.
   6. “Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves”.
   7. ”Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch”.
  13. “Nature will out”.
  14. “Better humble security than gilded danger”.

b)  1-d;  2-c;  3-j;  4-g;  5-a;  6-k;  7-e;  8-i;  9-m;  10-f;  11-n;  12-h;  13-l;  14-b