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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
A Game We Have To Lose: Overcoming The Harm Of Coming Into Existence, Hannah Strang
A Game We Have To Lose: Overcoming The Harm Of Coming Into Existence, Hannah Strang
Honors Projects
This paper explores the asymmetry of pleasure and pain as expressed in David Benatar’s book Better Never to Have Been, which is the basis for the argument that it is always an irreparable harm to bring a person into existence, and therefore we are morally obligated to pursue extinction as a species. I will examine Benatar’s argument in support of the asymmetry’s existence and analyze the strength of his argument for extinction overall, ultimately determining that his conclusion is too strong. I will defend this claim on the grounds that Benatar’s asymmetry implies the truth of two claims that must …
Teaching Excellence: The Use Of Heroes In Moral Education, Shaun Douglas Respess
Teaching Excellence: The Use Of Heroes In Moral Education, Shaun Douglas Respess
Institute for the Humanities Theses
Heroism allows us to explore morality on a much deeper level, supplying us with people, events, actions, and circumstances that make our beliefs more complex, more meaningful, and more practical. My research evaluates heroism as an instructional tool and subject for the use in moral education and personal development. In this thesis, I argue that heroes are and should be used in moral education to stimulate the retention or reevaluation of cultural values and moral conventions. My objective will be to explain how heroes are currently used to support and guide moral development, while raising important questions regarding the benefits …
Building Morality: A New Strategy For Creating Human-Like Moral Psychology In Artificial General Intelligence, Christopher Barr
Building Morality: A New Strategy For Creating Human-Like Moral Psychology In Artificial General Intelligence, Christopher Barr
Lawrence University Honors Projects
Humanity seems well on its way to creating artificial general intelligence, or AGI, within the next century. Such a creation poses great existential risk to humanity, as an AGI of suitable power could conceivably wipe us all out, either by accident or through actual malevolence, and this threat has lead many to search for a solution to the “Control Problem”. Current theories propose various kinds of rule-based solutions, like Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, supposing that a rule-based system would be sufficient for creating a cooperative AGI. I argue that this is not the case; rather, what is necessary is …
Theory For A Starving Obese, Ishai Shapira Kalter
Theory For A Starving Obese, Ishai Shapira Kalter
Theses and Dissertations
Theory for a Starving Obese (2017) is both a book and an installation. During the years 2015-2017 I began writing Theory for a Starving Obese; a collection of essays and art criticism about exhibitions that took place in white cubes in New York. I was following my dissatisfaction, and hoped to delve deeper into the question “What is Contemporary Art?” At the end of a process, I sent seventeen envelopes to artists who exhibited solo shows in New York and whose works I have criticized. Each envelope consists of one digital drawing (שרבוט, pronounced Shirbut), DVD with the …
Nietzsche's Genealogy: An Historical Investigation Of The Contingency Of Moral Values, John A. Greene
Nietzsche's Genealogy: An Historical Investigation Of The Contingency Of Moral Values, John A. Greene
Undergraduate Honors Theses
This work examines how values seem to be contingent on various factors which affect their growth and development. This study is based around the ethical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, On the Genealogy of Morals serves as the foundation for my thesis. This book contains three essays which purport to show how moral values originated as a result of certain human phenomena rather than, as many people take for granted, from moral “truths.” This contribution to ethics is important because it leaves many questions regarding the value of morality untouched. In the Genealogy, there are numerous themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy …
Just War Thought And The Notion Of Peace, James G. Murphy
Just War Thought And The Notion Of Peace, James G. Murphy
Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works
The goal of this chapter is to explore the notion of peace appropriate to just war thought. Some just war principles generate a number of inferences about peace.
The Morality Of Corporate Persons, Ladelle Mcwhorter
The Morality Of Corporate Persons, Ladelle Mcwhorter
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications
This essay provides a genealogy of corporate personhood as it exists currently in US law and places moral personhood in a similar genealogical context. This treatment demonstrates that the two are inextricably intertwined in both conception and institutionalized practices. We would do well to dismantle both; meanwhile, however, corporate personhood's implicit illiberal notion of collective mentality and responsibility may suggest possibilities for establishing collective counterforces to oppose activities of transnational for-profit corporations and mitigate their devastating political, economic, and environmental effects upon actual people and the ecosystems upon which we depend.
Jess Smith And The Design Firm, Gabriel Tenaglia
Jess Smith And The Design Firm, Gabriel Tenaglia
Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics
No abstract provided.
Art By Jerks, Bernard Wills, Jason Holt
Art By Jerks, Bernard Wills, Jason Holt
Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)
Is it wrong to enjoy art created by immoral people? Some people express discomfort with listening to or reading the works of artists who have been abusive to others in their personal lives. In this paper, the authors argue that, generally speaking, moral and aesthetic judgment should be kept distinct, as authors and their works formally differ. Indeed, works by morally dubious artists may well contain crucial acts of moral imagination we should not deprive ourselves of as ethical beings. Nonetheless, the authors argue there are limits to how far the ethical and aesthetic can be divorced. Art that is …
Moral Reasoning: An Intentional Approach To Distinguishing Right From Wrong, Michael Jones
Moral Reasoning: An Intentional Approach To Distinguishing Right From Wrong, Michael Jones
Faculty Publications and Presentations
This book represents a unique contribution to the study of ethics: an introductory textbook that is designed to be very readable while at the same time being deeply philosophical. It leads the reader on an exploration of the major approaches to ethics that have developed in the Western philosophical tradition: Ethical Relativism, Virtue Ethics, Natural Law Ethics, Ethical Egoism, Utilitarianism, Duty Ethics, Social Contract Theory, and Divine Command Theory. It discusses the chief strengths and weaknesses of each and opts for a modified Divine Command Theory while retaining the useful elements of each of the other theories. Written in a …
What Makes A Social Order Primitive? In Defense Of Hart’S Take On International Law, David Lefkowitz
What Makes A Social Order Primitive? In Defense Of Hart’S Take On International Law, David Lefkowitz
Philosophy Faculty Publications
The widespread antipathy to Hart's description of international law as a simple or primitive social order, one that lacks a rule of recognition and therefore does not qualify as a legal system, rests on two misunderstandings. First, the absence of a division of labor in identifying, altering, applying, and enforcing law is as much, if not more, central to Hart's understanding of what makes a society primitive as is the absence of any secondary rules at all. Second, it is primarily in terms of the presence of such a division of labor and the implications it has for the ontology …
The Demandingness Of Morality: The Person Confined, Jose Salazar
The Demandingness Of Morality: The Person Confined, Jose Salazar
CMC Senior Theses
Losing ownership and control over the development of and connection to our own person detaches us from the most innate embodiment of ourselves, our person. Without being able to develop and connect to our person, we become detached from expressing our identity, exercising our autonomy, and formulating our own values, the most intrinsic features our person encapsulates. While we yearn to act on our own projects to express our identity, exercise our autonomy, and formulate our own values the way we want, morality imposes huge demands on our person that restrain us from doing so. Morality’s major requirement to always …
Can Neuroscientific Studies Be Of Personal Value?, Andrew Mullins
Can Neuroscientific Studies Be Of Personal Value?, Andrew Mullins
Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles
This essay reflects on the ability of neuroscientific data to be of personal value and to enrich our lives by offering insight into our capacities for self management and choice. The theory of cognitive dualism proposed by Roger Scruton seeks to preserve rationality and allow for freedom of will, but he appears reluctant to engage with the data accruing in neural studies. I contrast this approach with a Thomistic hylomorphic approach to the philosophy of mind that is founded on participation in being. It offers the potential to draw on neurobiological knowledge for insights into rationality, motivation, and eudaimonia. …