Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Altruism In The Good Life: An Archetype Of Virtuous Friendship, Elliott Thornburg

CMC Senior Theses

What does it mean to live a good life shared with others? The question fundamentally motivates my inquiry into the ancient ethical theories of Aristotle and the early Stoics. Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia presented in Nicomachean Ethics is selected over the early Stoics for the conception of human nature integral to it honors the importance of partiality in human development and flourishing. The altruism central to an Aristotelian’s perfect friendships by way of goodwill is defended to demonstrate virtuous people have genuine altruistic concern for the sake of their friends as explained by self-referential altruism. Finally, an archetype of kinds …

It Does Not Cost The Earth To Be Kind, Svetlana Feigin

Animal Sentience

The COVID-19 crisis is a wake-up call on a global scale. What lessons we learn from this crisis will determine our survival as a species. The global health crisis calls for individual and collective changes in our agricultural practices and our consumption habits. Most important, it is a call for us as a species to move towards an empathic way of living and interacting with nature.

The Altruistic Self, Nathan Dougherty

Dialogue & Nexus

Altruism as a purely naturalistic phenomenon self-defeats the term altogether; however, theology also makes unsubstantiated claims that some behaviors are purely selfless. I will first define various conceptual forms of altruism and then offer explanations of the term from neurological, evolutionary and psychological investigations. Despite the position that altruism can be reduced to a fantastical impossibility bearing neither the arms of science nor theology, it is also a fallacy to separate it from a religiously derived supernatural altruism that carries no implications for the realm of morality.

Degrees Of Altruism As Dependent Upon Degrees Of Relations, Bobbi Jackson

Theses

In David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1738), he asserts that humans act most altruistically toward people in the closest relations to us, e.g., in family or friendship relations, and somewhat less so toward those who are merely in our own ethnic group, of our own nationality, etc., and least altruistically toward people in the most distant relations to us. But, current empirical data appears to indicate vast multitudes of exceptions to Hume's claim. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to determine the cause of this apparent conflict and suggest potential solutions that might allow Hume's theory …

The Study Of Emotion In Animals, Thomas R. Zentall

Animal Sentience

The responsiveness of dogs to humans encourages us to attribute human-like emotions to them. Indirect evidence for emotions in other animals can be obtained but one must be careful to find means of distinguishing what we believe to be evidence for such emotions from simpler mechanisms. For example, is a dog’s growl an indication of anger, fear, or possibly an unemotional defense of territory? By carefully designing experiments, we may be able to rule out alternative accounts and show better evidence for underlying emotions.

Levels Of Altruism, Martin Zwick, Jeffrey Alan Fletcher

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

The phenomenon of altruism extends from the biological realm to the human sociocultural realm. This paper sketches a coherent outline of multiple types of altruism of progressively increasing scope that span these two realms and are grounded in an ever-expanding sense of “self.” Discussion of this framework notes difficulties associated with altruisms at different levels. It links scientific ideas about the evolution of cooperation and about hierarchical order to perennial philosophical and religious concerns. It offers a conceptual background for inquiry into societal challenges that call for altruistic behavior, especially the challenge of environmental and social sustainability.

This talk was …

Oyun: A New, Free Program For Iterated Prisoner’S Dilemma Tournaments In The Classroom, Charles H. Pence, Lara Buchak

Faculty Publications

Evolutionary applications of game theory present one of the most pedagogically accessible varieties of genuine, contemporary theoretical biology. We present here Oyun (oy-oon, http://charlespence.net/oyun), a program designed to run iterated prisoner's dilemma tournaments, competitions between prisoner's dilemma strategies developed by the students themselves. Using this software, students are able to readily design and tweak their own strategies, and to see how they fare both in round-robin tournaments and in “evolutionary” tournaments, where the scores in a given “generation” directly determine contribution to the population in the next generation. Oyun is freely available, runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, …

Levels Of Altruism, Martin Zwick, Jeffrey Alan Fletcher

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The phenomenon of altruism extends from the biological realm to the human sociocultural realm. This paper sketches a coherent outline of multiple types of altruism of progressively increasing scope that span these two realms and are grounded in an ever-expanding sense of "self." Discussion of this framework notes difficulties associated with altruisms at different levels. It links scientific ideas about the evolution of cooperation and about hierarchical order to perennial philosophical and religious concerns. It offers a conceptual background for inquiry into societal challenges that call for altruistic behavior, especially the challenge of environmental and social sustainability.

Nietzsche On Naturalism, Egoism And Altruism, Derrick Phillip Nantz

Philosophy Theses

In this thesis I provide an overview of Nietzsche's ethics with an emphasis on showing how his naturalistic approach to ethics leads him to advance an egoistic moral code. I argue that this, though radical in the light of conventional morality, is not irrational, unprincipled, or proscriptive of other-regarding moral considerations. On the contrary, it demands the highest degree of foresight and integrity. While Nietzsche's writings are meant for a select group of people, namely "higher men," whose flourishing may be undercut by their unwitting acceptance of a self-destructive morality. I explain that Nietzsche places the highest degree of value …

The Science And Religion Dialogue: Are Philosophical Foundations Necessary?, Michael Ventimiglia

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

William James is well-known for arguing that different words which describe the same practical state of affairs are, in fact, equivalent in meaning. This theory of meaning is one important strain of American pragmatism, the movement which remains America’s primary philosophical contribution to intellectual history, and it invites us to consider a unique perspective on the contemporary dialogue between science and religion. Specifically, it raises the question of the necessity of philosophical foundations when there is practical agreement.

This paper argues that when practical agreement can be reached there are certain purposes for which philosophical foundations can be strategically ignored. …

Payment For Egg Donation And Surrogacy, Bonnie Steinbock

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the ethics of egg donation. It begins by looking at objections to noncommercial gamete donation, and then takes up criticism of commercial egg donation. After discussing arguments based on concern for offspring, inequality, commodification, exploitation of donors, and threats to the family, I conclude that some payment to donors is ethically acceptable. Donors should not be paid for their eggs, but rather they should be compensated for the burdens of egg retrieval. Making the distinction between compensation for burdens and payment for a product has the advantages of limiting payment, not distinguishing between donors on the basis …

Altruism, Impartiality And Moral Demands, Jurgen De Wispelaere

Jurgen De Wispelaere

Advocates of altruism maintain that altruism is an inherently beneficial and, therefore, morally desirable motivational disposition towards furthering other people’s good. In this paper I dispute this claim by showing various ways in which altruism might come into conflict with plausible moral demands. The underlying problem is always one of moral myopia, an altruistic blind spot that interferes with altruism’s capacity to track moral demands. To resolve the moral dilemmas associated with altruism, I argue, we need to embed altruistic dispositions in a more comprehensive moral framework. I propose that a theory of impartiality might succeed in embedding altruism in …

Trends. Altruism As Egoism In International Trade Policy: Some Strange Bedfellows, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses the tenuous nature of political cooperation between advocates of trade unionism and environmentalism.