Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Gadflies Nibbling, Branan Mull

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

In this paper I examine issues related to public and private “moral authority”, and how this public moral authority interferes with the exercise of private moral authority. This paper explores what public authority is, and why that while in other field it can properly exist, in terms of morality it by its very existence is problematic because 1) it interferes with the exercise of reason in determining ethical action and 2) because it treats the public moral authority as something other than a human being. I then look to several ethical dilemmas as presented by several philosophers and show how ...

Moral Judgment: Why Should We Judge And Who Has The Right To?, Megan Moulton

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

In this paper, I explore the origin of the moral authority to judge another person’s wrong actions through the relationships to those involved in the situation. I also argue that moral authority has an aspect grounded in past experience with similar situations and the ability to understand what it means to be held and to hold another morally responsible. The purpose of defining moral authority and its application is determined to be for the moral growth of the perpetrator, until further development is denied, in which case the possible occurrence of manipulation to stay in relation with the unchanging ...

Moral Authority In Scientific Research, Evelyn Sowers

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

This paper addresses the issue of applying moral limitations to modern scientific research and who or what has the authority to do so. It examines two opposing positions on the issue: (1) that moral authority over scientific research should be held by society and (2) that moral authority over scientific research should be held by the scientific community. This argument centers around the nature of societal and scientific morality, and how allowing either to hold authority would affect the progression of research. Overall, it concludes that moral authority over scientific research must come from within the scientific community.

Go Your Own Way: The Producer As Moral Author In Entertainment, Taryn Stewart

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

Moral authority is a moral derivative of authority, which in turn is connected to religion and tradition. In today’s Western society, both religion and tradition are fragmented in our increasingly diverse society. This is nowhere more apparent than it is in entertainment. So where does moral authority lie in entertainment? Producers in entertainment hold moral authority. Authority is the ability to create action, versus power, which is the ability to force action. Because producers create content, which in turn has the potential to enact change, they possess moral authority. Different producers have differing amounts of moral authority. Disney has ...

Correctional Officers, Step Off The Treadmill Of Power: The Lack Of Moral Authority In U.S. Correctional Officers, Kavida Naidu

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

The abuse of authority and power is commonly encountered in different institutions. Similarly, prisons are not immune to the overuse of authority and power. Correctional officers exercise their authority on inmates in ways that result in a prison culture, which is filled with violence and dehumanization. Correctional officers often consider inmates as morally inferior beings, who deserve to be punished beyond sentence, for the crimes that they have committed are inexcusable. However, the abrasive environment of prisons places correctional officers in a situation where they eventually adopt the prison identity and find themselves trapped in this brutish incarcerated culture. This ...

Moral Authority And Artificial Intelligence, Jacob Souza

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

This paper looks at the relationship between Artificial intelligence and moral authority. It explores the important concepts related to moral authority, such as power, authority, responsibility, and morality, but also defines what a thinking machine will look like in human society. What the paper determines is that it is difficult to trust machines that do not show emotion, but thinking machines without emotion will still have an important role in society and that when emotional AIs are achievable, they will be able to achieve moral authority.

Being A Part Of Something Bigger: How Leaders Affect Morality, Abra Casey

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

If a person is in a position of leadership then is he or she also responsible to uphold the moral values of the group? This paper argues that people, they are not responsible for morality, rather they become the voice of morality. This is to say that leaders should not develop a new morality on behalf of their group. When leaders do create their own version of morality instead of adhering to an inherent and objective truth such as the golden rule, then their actions ultimately become immoral. Not all leaders actually have this responsibility however. For example, there are ...

The Nature Of Authority In Nature, Sean Cleary

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

Everything from the clothes we wear to the food we eat is related to the natural world around us. Why do we Montana residents where a fluffy jacket while walking to class in the middle of December? What makes us decide on athletic shorts in July? Although these questions offer a simple response: Montana winters are colder than a Tibetan tin toilet top and Montana summers are hotter than hells pepper patch, they indicate that the natural world influences the way we act on a daily basis. We certainly have the freedom to rock a bikini in the freezing cold ...

Sources Of Moral Authority: Thinking Beyond Religion And Politics, Rhiannon B. Sturgess

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

Religion and politics served as sources of moral authority for centuries, but are limited as such, especially in modern, diverse societies like the United States. Many people feel as though they are not understood, and that their traditional beliefs are not considered when moral decisions are made. Such feelings can incite contempt between people who would otherwise be friends. This lack of harmony can lead to civil unrest and an unhappy society. Therefore, it is important that we strive for a source of moral authority that treats all people as equals. Because not all people can be assumed to operate ...

Power Versus Authority: Sacrifice Lied Or Applied?, Conor Coutts

Power, Voice, Mandate: Moral Authority in the Contemporary Age

We live in an age that is both desperate for moral authority while simultaneously not knowing what genuine moral authority is. Authority from merely a standard of wealth and political office is not morally legitimate but instead merely powerful. I seek to differentiate between power and authority, asserting that it is through a sense of sacrifice and a disregard for popularity that moral authority is attained. Looking to the Abrahamic faiths that assert such a sacrifice and humility, the life of Christ and subsequent Christian tradition serve as an ideal practice of this. Such a practice of authority and how ...

Justifying A Standard Of Death, Michael Milhim

Honors Projects

There are three major positions in the legal definition of death debate: the cardio-pulmonary standard, the whole-brain standard, and the higher-brain standard. Prominent arguments for each standard appeal to a theory of human persistence. I’ll contend that these arguments fail for two reasons: the metaphysical underpinnings of the arguments are not decisive, and even if they are decisive, they may not be the right policy to enact. The later of these is more practically important than the former.

Martin Luther King Jr. On Economy, Ecology, And Civilization: Toward A Mlk Jr-Inspired Ecotheology, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

This MLK Jr-inspired ecotheology [eco-theology] connects “economics,” “ecology,” and “ecological civilization” to the theological ethics of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Though we often remember King primarily as a domestic civil rights leader; attention to King’s book—Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) reveals that he advanced a global ethics. King called for replacing recourse to war with nonviolent resistance to evil, and for abolishing poverty throughout “the world house.” He prescribed that we “civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” King was concerned with civilizing “the world house” (house ...

Democracy And Scientific Expertise: Illusions Of Political And Epistemic Inclusion, J.D. Trout

J.D. Trout

Realizing the ideal of democracy requires political inclusion for citizens. A legitimate democracy must give citizens the opportunity to express their attitudes about the relative attractions of different policies, and access to political mechanisms through which they can be counted and heard. Actual governance often aims not at accurate belief, but at nonepistemic factors like achieving and maintaining institutional stability, creating the feeling of government legitimacy among citizens, or managing access to influence on policy decision-making. I examine the traditional relationship between inclusiveness and accuracy, and illustrate this connection by discussing empirical work on how group decision-making can improve accuracy ...

Deliberate One-Sidedness As A Method Of Doing Philosophy: Reflections On Rosemont’S View Of The Person, Peimin Ni

Comparative Philosophy

As one of the most influential comparative philosophers of our time, Henry Rosemont, Jr. is known for his unrelenting criticisms against Western libertarian ideas, and for advocating ideas derived from classic Confucian thought. One of the criticisms against him is that his views are one-sided, and hence unfair to Western libertarian ideas. In this paper, I argue that Rosemont’s one-sidedness is deliberate. His theory is not intended to be a balanced account. I will illustrate that Rosemont’s way of conceiving the human self is not peculiar to him, but characteristic of those who take philosophy as a way ...

Self And Social Roles As Chimeras, Mary I. Bockover

Comparative Philosophy

In Against Individualism, Henry Rosemont argues against a contemporary Western concept of self that takes rational autonomy to be the “core” of what it means to be a person. Rational autonomy is thought to be the only essential feature of this core self, endowing us with an independent existence and moral framework to act accordingly—as independent, rational, autonomous individuals. In marked contrast, and drawing from the Analects of Confucius, Rosemont defines personhood as consisting of social roles and their correlative responsibilities. We are persons relationally, only in virtue of the roles that interdependently connect us to each other. Rosemont ...

The Future Of Confucian Political Philosophy, Stephen C. Angle (Ed.)

Comparative Philosophy

On February 14, 2017, Joseph Chan and Stephen Angle convened a Roundtable on the Future of Confucian Political Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Eight invited speakers each offered thoughts on the main topic, followed by discussion among the panelists and responses to questions from the audience. This transcript has been reviewed and edited by the main participants. Much of the discussion revolves around the relations and tensions between Confucian political philosophy as academic theory-construction and the lived realities of citizens in the modern world, especially in East Asia. How is Confucian theorizing connected to Confucian activism? Another central ...

Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights, Nathan Nobis

Morehouse Faculty Publications

This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. Which, if any, uses of animals are morally wrong, which are morally permissible (i.e., not wrong) and why? What, if any, moral obligations do we, individually and as a society (and a global community), have towards animals and why? How should animals be treated? Why?

We will explore the most influential and most developed answers to these questions – given by philosophers, scientists, and animal advocates and their critics – to try to determine which positions are supported by the best ...

Environmental Sustainability For Business Success, Kailyn Cohen

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Corporations And Environmental Responsibility: Considering The Moral And Financial Implications Of Oil Spills, Fracking, And Controversial Pipelines, Sarah Becker

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Thinking Like A Fox: Individual Choice And The Unique Role Of Liberal Arts Colleges In Empowering America's Future Leaders, Christopher Tan

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

The dilemma faced by Dean Kelly Smith on whether to allow Chris Williams to graduate from her college challenges the current model of higher education in the United States from an economic and normative perspective. When considering the situation that Dean Smith faces, this paper aims to demonstrate how Chris Williams should not be allowed to graduate without first passing the Senior Seminar after: (1) exploring the role of liberal arts colleges in encouraging agency among their students; (2) assessing the qualitative value of a college education in diversifying students’ knowledge base and providing students with the resources and opportunities ...