Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Aristotle On The Metaphysics Of Emotions, Myrna Gabbe

Myrna Gabbe

This article explores the nature of Aristotelian emotions and the body-soul metaphysics required to undergird them. The point of departure is an oft-cited argument that appeals to our experience of fear and anger to show the inseparability of the soul. My claim is that this argument is commonly misunderstood: that the intended target is not a separable soul, but an embodied soul. Reinterpreted, we find that Aristotle is driven by an interest to integrate the sentient body with the intellect. And while, on this interpretation, the argument does not support a functionalist reading of Aristotle on the soul, it does …

Rational Internalism, Samuel Asarnow

Samuel J.B. Asarnow

'Wait — Something’S Missing!': The Status Of Ethics In Basic Public Speaking Texts, Jon A. Hess

Jonathan A. Hess

The basic course is important to the welfare of the speech communication discipline. According to Seiler and McGukin (1989), the basic course is the mainstay of the discipline. Gibson, Hanna, and Leichty (1990) surveyed 423 institutions of higher education nationwide and found that at 92% of the schools’ enrollment in the basic course was increasing or holding steady (this is up from the figure of 88% reported in 1985). In a survey of college graduates, Pearson, Nelson, and Sorenson (1981) found that 93% believed that the basic speech course should be required for all students. Because of its popularity and …

Aquatic Animals, Cognitive Ethology, And Ethics: Questions About Sentience And Other Troubling Issues That Lurk In Turbid Water, Marc Bekoff

Marc Bekoff, PhD

In this general, strongly pro-animal, and somewhat utopian and personal essay, I argue that we owe aquatic animals respect and moral consideration just as we owe respect and moral consideration to all other animal beings, regardless of the taxonomic group to which they belong. In many ways it is more difficult to convince some people of our ethical obligations to numerous aquatic animals because we do not identify or empathize with them as we do with animals with whom we are more familiar or to whom we are more closely related, including those species (usually terrestrial) to whom we refer …

Compassion As A Practical And Evolved Ethic For Conservation, David Ramp, Marc Bekoff

Marc Bekoff, PhD

The ethical position underpinning decisionmaking is an important concern for conservation biologists when setting priorities for interventions. The recent debate on how best to protect nature has centered on contrasting intrinsic and aesthetic values against utilitarian and economic values, driven by an inevitable global rise in conservation conflicts. These discussions have primarily been targeted at species and ecosystems for success, without explicitly expressing concern for the intrinsic value and welfare of individual animals. In part, this is because animal welfare has historically been thought of as an impediment to conservation. However, practical implementations of conservation that provide good welfare outcomes …

Animal Welfare Cannot Adequately Protect Nonhuman Animals: The Need For A Science Of Animal Well-Being, Marc Bekoff, Jessica Pierce

Marc Bekoff, PhD

A focus on animal welfare in the use of nonhuman animals in the service of human economic and scientific interests does not and cannot adequately protect (nonhuman) animals. It presupposes that using other animals for human ends is acceptable as long as we try our best to improve the welfare of the animals we use. We argue instead for a “science of animal well-being” in which the protection of animal needs is not subordinated to human economic or scientific interests.

Moral Virtue, Civic Virtue, And Pluralism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Full-On Stating, Robert J. Stainton

Robert J. Stainton

Institutional Animal Care And Use Committees: A Flawed Paradigm Or Work In Progress?, John P. Gluck, F. Barbara Orlans

John P. Gluck, PhD

In his challenging article, Steneck (1997) criticized the creation of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) system established by the 1985 amendments to the Animal Welfare Act. He saw the IACUC review and approval of biomedical and behavioral research with animals as an unnecessary "reassignment" of duties from existing animal care programs to IACUC committees. He argued that the committees are unable to do the work expected of them for basically three reasons: (a) the membership lacks the expertise in matters relevant to animal research and care, (b) there exists an inherent and disabling conflict of interest, and …

Ethical Issues In The Use Of Animals In Biomedical And Psychopharmocological Research, John P. Gluck, Jordan Bell

John P. Gluck, PhD

Rationale: The ethical debate concerning the use of animals in biomedical and pharmacological research continues to be replete with misunderstandings about whether animals have moral standing. Objectives: This article briefly reviews the central ethical positions and their relationship to the basic parameters of research regulation from an international perspective. The issues associated with the validation of animal models will then be discussed. Finally, suggestions for empirical ethics research will be presented. Methods: Recent literature reviews were accessed and analyzed. Results: This review summarizes the pertinent ethical and research literature. Conclusions: In summary, regardless of the ethical perspective one favors, there …

Harry F. Harlow And Animal Research: Reflection On The Ethical Paradox, John P. Gluck

John P. Gluck, PhD

With respect to the ethical debate about the treatment of animals in biomedical and behavioral research, Harry F. Harlow represents a paradox. On the one hand, his work on monkey cognition and social development fostered a view of the animals as having rich subjective lives filled with intention and emotion. On the other, he has been criticized for the conduct of research that seemed to ignore the ethical implications of his own discoveries. The basis of this contradiction is discussed and propositions for current research practice are presented.

Animals In Biomedical Research: The Undermining Effect Of The Rhetoric Of The Besieged, John P. Gluck, Steven R. Kubacki

John P. Gluck, PhD

It is correctly asserted that the intensity of the current debate over the use of animals in biomedical research is unprecedented. The extent of expressed animosity and distrust has stunned many researchers. In response, researchers have tended to take a strategic defensive posture, which involves the assertation of several abstract positions that serve to obstruct resolution of the debate. Those abstractions include the notions that the animal protection movement is trivial and purely anti-intellectual in scope, that all science is good (and some especially so), and the belief that an ethical consensus can never really be reached between the parties.

Canada’S Commercial Seal Hunt: It’S More Than A Question Of Humane Killing, David M. Lavigne, William S. Lynn

William S. Lynn, PhD

No abstract provided.

Animals, Ethics And Geography, William S. Lynn

William S. Lynn, PhD

No abstract provided.

Contested Moralities: Animals And Moral Value In The Dear/Symanski Debate, William S. Lynn

William S. Lynn, PhD

Geography is experiencing a ‘moral turn’ in its research interests and practices. There is also a flourishing interest in animal geographies that intersects this turn, and is concurrent with wider scholarly efforts to reincorporate animals and nature into our ethical and social theories. This article intervenes in a dispute between Michael Dear and Richard Symanski. The dispute is over the culling of wild horses in Australia, and I intervene to explore how geography deepens our moral understanding of the animal/human dialectic. I begin by situating the inquiry into ethics and animals in geography. Next, I provide a synopsis of Dear …

Review: Killing By Remote Control: The Ethics Of An Unmanned Military, Edited By Bradley Jay Strawser, Harry Van Der Linden

Harry van der Linden

Dr. Harry van der Linden's review of: Killing by Remote Control: The Ethics of an Unmanned Military, edited by Bradley Jay Strawser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (264 pages, cloth).

Introduction: Teaching A Gendered World, Karen Sotiropoulos

Karen Sotiropoulos

Introduces some essays about infusing gender and women's history in teaching world history.

Introduction: Teaching A Gendered World, Karen Sotiropoulos

Karen Sotiropoulos

Introduces some essays about infusing gender and women's history in teaching world history.

Arguments Against Drone Warfare With A Focus On The Immorality Of Remote Control Killing And “Deadly Surveillance”, Harry Van Der Linden

Harry van der Linden

Drone warfare, particularly in the form of targeted killing, has serious legal, moral, and political costs so that a case can be made for an international treaty prohibiting this type of warfare. However, the case would be stronger if it could be shown that killing by drones is inherently immoral. From this angle I explore the moral significance of two features of this technology of killing: the killing is done by remote control with the operators geographically far away from the target zone and the killing is typically the outcome of a long process of surveillance. I argue that remote …

Registered Savings Plans And The Making Of Middle Class Canada: Toward A Performative Theory Of Tax Policy, Lisa Philipps

Lisa Philipps

Politicians across Canada’s political spectrum strive to position themselves as defenders of the middle class, and tax policy is a prime vehicle for making this pitch. Any tax reform proposal can be examined critically to evaluate its likely distributional impacts and how well these map onto specific definitions of the middle class. This article attempts, however, a different project. Drawing on the ideas of Judith Butler, it analyzes instead how tax policy produces middle-class identity through the very process of claiming to advance middle-class interests. The case study for this purpose is the rise of tax incentives for saving as …

Animal Suffering In China, Peter J. Li

Peter J. Li, PhD

Chinese policy has been aimed at maximizing GDP; it is time to focus also on minimizing animal suffering.

A Balancing Act: Reading 'Amoris Laetitia', Peter Steinfels, Paige E. Hochschild, William L. Portier, Sandra A. Yocum, Dennis O'Brien

William L. Portier

Five religious scholars provide commentary on Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis's 2016 apostolic exhortation on love in the family.

Topic 6: Aristotelian Ethics: The Virtue Of Success, Lee Eysturlid

Lee W. Eysturlid

No abstract provided.

Topic 2: Kantian Ethics, Lee Eysturlid

Lee W. Eysturlid

No abstract provided.

Topic 1: Utilitarian Ethics, Lee Eysturlid

Lee W. Eysturlid

No abstract provided.

Topic 5: Rawlsian Ethics, Lee Eysturlid

Lee W. Eysturlid

John Rawls (b. 1921, d. 2002) was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. His theory of justice as fairness envisions a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. His account of political liberalism addresses the legitimate use of political power in a democracy, aiming to show how enduring unity may be achieved despite the diversity of worldviews that free institutions allow. His writings on the law of peoples extend these theories to liberal foreign policy, with the goal of imagining how a peaceful and tolerant international order might be possible.

A Modus Vivendi? Sex, Marriage & The Church, William L. Portier, Nancy Dallavalle, Christopher C. Roberts, Tina Beattie, R. R. Reno, Patricia Hampl, Luke Timothy Johnson, Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Paul Baumann

William L. Portier

During the 1960s, nearly 80 percent of adult Americans were married. A recent analysis of U.S. census data reported that only 52 percent of adult Americans were married in 2009. That is the lowest percentage reported in the 100 years the Census Bureau has collected such information. The reasons for this dramatic cultural shift are well known: high rates of divorce; changing attitudes toward premarital sex; social acceptability of cohabitation; the weakening of the stigma surrounding out-of-wedlock births and single parenting; the postponement of marriage and children for academic or professional reasons.

Among those with only a high-school education or …

Here Come The Nones! Pluralism And Evangelization After Denominationalism And Americanism, William L. Portier

William L. Portier

This essay begins with a four-part overview of American Catholic history focused on the building and dissolution of an immigrant Catholic subculture. The final period, “Catholics and the Dynamics of Pluralism (1968-present)” leads naturally into a discussion of the demography of Catholics in the United States. Particular attention is given to the trend to disaffiliation among millennials and how best to interpret it. Pastoral and theological reflections on the demography of disaffiliation emphasize the need for the church in the United States to take on an evangelical form more suited to a pluralism that is post-denominational and post-Americanist, and how …

The Barber Who Read History And Was Overwhelmed, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Commentary On F S Nielsen, Douglas Walton

Douglas Walton

No abstract provided.