Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 21 of 21
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Epistemic Priors, Social Justice, And The Ethics Of Humor, Paul Butterfield
Epistemic Priors, Social Justice, And The Ethics Of Humor, Paul Butterfield
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
In this dissertation I set out a theory of humor ethics and, in particular, I establish what difference humorousness makes to an instance of speech’s moral value. I set out by making the case for this approach to the topic, demonstrating that focusing on how humorous speech differs, morally, from non-humorous speech allows us to avoid getting caught up in prior ethical debates that are not strictly about humor itself – a shortcoming that is common to many treatments of humor ethics in the existing literature. I show that, in cases of humorous speech, we typically do not assert the …
Phil 2103, Ethics, Syllabus, D. Robert Macdougall
Phil 2103, Ethics, Syllabus, D. Robert Macdougall
Open Educational Resources
No abstract provided.
Friendship In The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert
Friendship In The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
An overview of how friendship has been represented and assessed in the Confucian tradition, and particularly in classical Confucian texts such as the Analects and the Mencius. Themes covered include the relationship between the family and friendship, the ambivalence towards friendship in imperial China, and the connection between friendship and the Confucian ideal of personal cultivation. The chapter finishes by exploring novel conceptions of friendship and human relatedness suggested by the Confucian tradition.
Seeing Through The Aesthetic Worldview, Andrew Lambert
Seeing Through The Aesthetic Worldview, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
Examines the various ways in which the Chinese intellectual tradition has been characterized as an 'aesthetic tradition'. In particular, this paper explores Roger Ames’ and David Hall’s claim that the classical Confucian tradition is an aesthetic tradition, comprising an aesthetic order.
From Aesthetics To Ethics: The Place Of Delight In Confucian Ethics, Andrew Lambert
From Aesthetics To Ethics: The Place Of Delight In Confucian Ethics, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
An exploration of the role of pleasure or delight (le 樂) in classical Confucian ethics. Building on Michael Nylan’s account of the role of pleasure in public spectacle and social order, I explore how the meaning of delight (le 樂) derives from the features and effects of music (yue 樂). Drawing on Dewey’ s aesthetics and accounts of music in Confucian texts, I explore a conception of Confucian ethics, in which delight— like states generated through everyday social interaction are foundational.
Introduction To Philosophy, Teófilo Reis
Introduction To Philosophy, Teófilo Reis
Open Educational Resources
No abstract provided.
Beast-Gods, Bandits, And Beggar-Kings: The Traveler In Political Thought, Nader Sadre
Beast-Gods, Bandits, And Beggar-Kings: The Traveler In Political Thought, Nader Sadre
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
In this dissertation, I use texts by Plato, Locke, Homer, and Gandhi to explore the political dimension of travel. I argue that travel is a proxy for practices and conditions that exceed “normal” politics. In this capacity, travel reveals what normal politics is, or is assumed to be. Travel marks a boundary of the political realm in a double sense: it may conceal or point to a pre-political source of authority; and it may provide an intimation of new political modes and orders. My analyses suggest that there is no single or consistent relationship between travel and politics. Rather, the …
Ethical Validity: An Ethical Validity Claim For Discourse Ethics, Jamie B. Lindsay
Ethical Validity: An Ethical Validity Claim For Discourse Ethics, Jamie B. Lindsay
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Discourse ethicists generally are anti-realists about moral rightness, in that the rightness of moral norms is a matter of discursive justification, and is not grounded in or by any objective feature of the world. Put differently, the position is that rightness is wholly constructed by our moral practices. Further, discourse ethics and liberal theories of justice more broadly generally rely on a distinction between goods that are generalizable, and goods that are in some way context-bound and particularistic. Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics makes the distinction wholly formal, abstaining from any theoretical commitment to which goods are generalizable and leaving this …
Love’S Extension: Confucian Familial Love And The Challenge Of Impartiality, Andrew Lambert
Love’S Extension: Confucian Familial Love And The Challenge Of Impartiality, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
The question of possible moral conflict between commitment to family and to impartiality is particularly relevant to traditional Confucian thought, given the importance of familial bonds in that tradition. Classical Confucian ethics also appears to lack any developed theoretical commitment to impartiality as a regulative ideal and a standpoint for ethical judgment, or to universal equality. The Confucian prioritizing of family has prompted criticism of Confucian ethics, and doubts about its continuing relevance in China and beyond. This chapter assesses how those sympathetic to the Confucian vision of the good life might respond. It first explores Confucian conceptions of love …
Just Borders: The Foundations Of Immigration Policy, Cody Fenwick
Just Borders: The Foundations Of Immigration Policy, Cody Fenwick
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Do countries have a presumptive right to limit immigration at their discretion? It is often assumed that they do, though both the immigration restrictions championed in practice and the purported justifications for the principled right to deny entry to foreigners are often supported by implicit (or explicit) racist prejudices. Many political philosophers have offered putatively more sophisticated and reasoned defenses of the state’s discretionary right to restrict immigration. I discuss the philosophical arguments for the restrictionist view on grounds of national territorial rights, and separately, on the grounds of nationalist partiality toward one’s fellow citizens. I will argue that both …
Introduction To "The Oxford Handbook Of Ethics And Economics", Mark D. White
Introduction To "The Oxford Handbook Of Ethics And Economics", Mark D. White
Publications and Research
Economics and ethics are both valuable tools for analyzing the behavior and actions of human beings and institutions. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, considered them two sides of the same coin, but since economics was formalized and mathematicised in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the fields have largely followed separate paths.
The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics provides a timely and thorough survey of the various ways ethics can, does, and should inform economic theory and practice. The first part of the book, Foundations, explores how the most prominent schools of moral philosophy relate to economics; …
Toward A Science Of Morals, Ross Taylor Colebrook
Toward A Science Of Morals, Ross Taylor Colebrook
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Morality is not merely a social construction or a convenient fiction. Nor is it supernatural or non- natural. Rather, ethics could eventually be studied as a branch of the social sciences, concerned with empirically discovering the many and diverse best ways of living. There are moral facts (like “murder is wrong”), and these facts are natural, objective, and universal. In other words, moral realism is true.
Philosophers often assume that moral realism matters because it is a commitment of common sense. Drawing on new work in the psychology of metaethics, I argue that ordinary people are not in fact moral …
On The Relationship Between Economics And Ethics, Mark D. White
On The Relationship Between Economics And Ethics, Mark D. White
Publications and Research
Economics and ethics have been linked since the days of Adam Smith, but this connection became tenuous after the formalization of economic theory in the twentieth century, the success of which in academia, government, and business serves to insulate it from ethical critique. Nonetheless, a field of “economics and ethics” has developed to restore this connection, albeit in two directions with disparate methodological approaches: one applying mainstream economic theory, primarily based in utilitarian ethics, to topics of ethical concern, and the other incorporating alternate forms of ethics, such as deontology and virtue ethics, to enrich economic analysis.
Determinism And The Problem Of Individual Freedom In Li Zehou’S Thought, Andrew Lambert
Determinism And The Problem Of Individual Freedom In Li Zehou’S Thought, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
Li Zehou’s work can be understood as an account of a Chinese modernity, a vision for Chinese society that seeks to integrate three distinct philosophical approaches. These are Chinese history and culture, which Li understands as largely Confucian; Marxism, which has exerted such influence on a modernizing China; and Western learning more generally, as expressed by figures such as Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud. Li also frequently expresses the hope that a Chinese modernity will be one in which the importance of the individual is recognized, and rights and freedoms upheld (e.g., 2006, p. 182). But this stance raises an …
Decidedly Uncertain, Sophia I. Varosy
Decidedly Uncertain, Sophia I. Varosy
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
My capstone project is meant to reflect the ideas I’ve been exposed to and the ways in which they have, as a consequence, influenced my life; the ways, I suppose, I can apply them. Over the course, or courses (literally), of my time spent at The CUNY Graduate Center, I felt (mostly) enthusiastic about the ideas and philosophies I was growing to at-least-marginally understand. However, as time passed I became increasingly more unsettled about my position as an “academic.” In other words, I found that I was moved and motivated to increase my understanding of things, but never did I …
The Noble Art Of Lying, James E. Mahon
The Noble Art Of Lying, James E. Mahon
Publications and Research
In this chapter I examine the writings of Mark Twain on lying, especially his essays "On the decay of the Art of Lying" and "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It." I show that Twain held that there were two kinds of lies: the spoken lie and the silent lie. The silent lie is the lie of not saying what one is thinking, and is far more common than the spoken lie. The greatest silent lies, according to Twain, were the national silent lies that there was nothing wrong with slavery (the U.S.), that there was nothing …
Darwinian Debunking Reconsidered, Amanda J. Favia
Darwinian Debunking Reconsidered, Amanda J. Favia
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
What can evolutionary theory tell us about morality? From descriptive claims that explain morality as an evolved trait to normative (or prescriptive) claims that rely on evolution to describe how humans ought to behave, philosophers have debated whether or not evolutionary theory can or should inform moral theory. Most recently, the debate about evolutionary ethics has shifted to metaethics. In this case, philosophers have sought after evolutionary explanations in the hopes of resolving long-standing debates between moral realists and moral antirealists.
These metaethical debates have centered on what are called Darwinian debunking arguments. Proponents of the Darwinian debunking argument, …
The Ethics And Politics Of Child Naming, Eldar Sarajlic
The Ethics And Politics Of Child Naming, Eldar Sarajlic
Publications and Research
This article examines the issue of justification of government’s intervention in the parental acts of child naming, a neglected topic in the recent philosophical literature. It questions the ability of some of the current theories in family ethics to respond to this problem and argues that both permissive and restrictive theories fail to provide a plausible argument about the proper limits of government regulation of child naming practices. The article outlines an alternative solution that focuses on the child’s right to authenticity and suggests that only those names that infringe upon this right invite justified state intervention.
Can Culture Justify Infant Circumcision?, Eldar Sarajlic
Can Culture Justify Infant Circumcision?, Eldar Sarajlic
Publications and Research
The paper addresses arguments in the recent philosophical and bioethical literature claiming that social and cultural benefits can justify non-therapeutic male infant circumcision. It rejects these claims by referring to the open future argument, according to which infant circumcision is morally unjustifiable because it violates the child’s right to an open future. The paper also addresses an important objection to the open future argument and examines the strength of the objection to refute the application of the argument to the circumcision case.
Why Should One Reproduce? The Rationality And Morality Of Human Reproduction, Lantz Fleming Miller
Why Should One Reproduce? The Rationality And Morality Of Human Reproduction, Lantz Fleming Miller
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Human reproduction has long been assumed to be an act of the blind force of nature, to which humans were subject, like the weather. However, with recent concerns about the environmental impact of human population, particularly resource depletion, human reproduction has come to be seen as a moral issue. That is, in general, it may be moral or immoral for people to continue propagating their species. The past decade's philosophical discussions of the question have yielded varying results. This dissertation takes on the issue in a broader moral perspective and asks not only whether it is moral to reproduce but …
Alchemy And Inquiry: Reflections On An Inside-Out Research Roundtable, Sarah Allred, Angela Bryant, Simone Weil Davis, Kurt Fowler, Phil Goodman, Jim Nolan, Lori Pompa, Barbara Sherr Roswell, Daniel L. Stageman
Alchemy And Inquiry: Reflections On An Inside-Out Research Roundtable, Sarah Allred, Angela Bryant, Simone Weil Davis, Kurt Fowler, Phil Goodman, Jim Nolan, Lori Pompa, Barbara Sherr Roswell, Daniel L. Stageman
Publications and Research
In 2008, The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program convened a Research Committee to (1) facilitate a collective, critical, and professional consciousness about social justice, crime, and incarceration through the exploration of the Inside-Out program pedagogy, impact, and effectiveness; (2) develop and encourage proposals for various types of research that focus on The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program; and (3) establish ethical guidelines for inquiry that would meet and exceed the federal human subjects guidelines in research practices. In fall 2012, Research Committee members Sarah Allred, Angela Bryant, Phil Goodman, Kurt Fowler, Jim Nolan, Lori Pompa, and Dan Stageman joined with Simone Davis …