Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction, Daniel R. Denicola

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction is a compact yet comprehensive book offering an explication and critique of the major theories that have shaped philosophical ethics. Engaging with both historical and contemporary figures, this book explores the scope, limits, and requirements of morality. DeNicola traces our various attempts to ground morality: in nature, in religion, in culture, in social contracts, and in aspects of the human person such as reason, emotions, caring, and intuition.

Deleuze And Derrida: Difference And The Power Of The Negative, Vernon W. Cisney

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

The first scholarly comparative analysis of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze's philosophies of difference.

Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze are best known for their respective attempts to theoretically formulate non-dialectical conceptions of difference. Now, for the first time, Vernon W. Cisney brings you a scholarly analysis of their contrasting concepts of difference.

Cisney distinguishes their conceptions of difference by differentiating them on the basis of the criticisms they level against Hegel, as well as their valorisations of Nietzsche, and the ways in which they understand Nietzsche's thought to surpass that of Hegel. The contrast between the two, Cisney argues, is …

The Poststructuralist Broom Of Wallace’S System: A Conversation Between Wittgenstein And Derrida, Vernon W. Cisney

Philosophy Faculty Publications

David Foster Wallace famously characterized his first novel, The Broom of the System, as ‘a conversation between [Ludwig] Wittgenstein and [Jacques] Derrida.’ This comes as little surprise, given the ubiquity of the question of language in the works of these two thinkers, and given the novel’s constant reflections on the relation between language and world. Broom’s protagonist, Lenore Beadsmen – in search of her eponymous great-grandmother – is preoccupied with the dread that ‘all that really exists of [her] life is what can be said about it,’ that is to say, that reality is entirely coextensive with language. …

Physician Assisted Dying As An Extension Of Healing, Zoe I. Marinacci

Student Publications

The role of a physician is to provide care for those who seek their assistance. Lisa Yount attributes the most ancient statement about this activity to the Hippocratic Oath. Many doctors, in fact, still take this oath, part of which reads, “I will [not] give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to that effect,” (8). This vow is still widely considered to be the ultimate statement of the physician’s moral creed (Yount 8). Debate over whether active physician assisted dying is an extension of healing ability or a violation of their …

Can The Philanthropic Imperative Enhance International Health Care?, Paul Carrick

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Elsewhere I have argued that, historically, the public and private funding of health care has been fueled primarily by four mixed motives, namely, the redemptive, the utilitarian, the prudential, and the charitable motives. In this paper, I further explore what I call the unifying moral force of the philanthropic imperative. The philanthropic imperative interfaces these four motives by potentially appealing to the consciences of wealthier Northern countries to provide medical resources to the sick and hurting in the typically poorer South. This, as a matter of our collective duty to others consistent with the teachings of Immanuel Kant, Thich Nhat …

A New Vision Of Liberal Education: The Good Of The Unexamined Life, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Alistair Miller’s book, A New Vision of Liberal Education, is a dilation of his doctoral thesis, but it is enormously ambitious in aim: “My specific aim in this book is to explore whether aspects of the two traditions [of Enlightenment and Aristotelian ethics] might be synthesised in the concrete form of a liberal-humanist education” (NVLE, 11). Indeed, the arc of Miller’s argument ranges from these contrasting traditions of moral philosophy, through alternate versions of liberal education, to a proposal for curricular content. The book is well researched and proceeds dialectically, as Miller sifts through scholarship on liberal education, moral education, …

Combating Chromophobia: The Importance Of Living Life In Full Color, Natasha G. Kerr

Student Publications

David Batchelor argues that Western culture has chromophobia, a fear of corruption by color, and therefore tends to marginalize color in favor of the achromatic and linear. In examination of cinematic examples of The Wizard of Oz and Pleasantville, as well as the novel The Giver, this paper explores the Chromophobia thesis in action, discussing the dangers of a chromophobic society compared to the benefits of a fall into color. Based on the equation of the fall into color with the fall into self-consciousness, the paper further illustrates the importance of color to life and its role in authenticity and …