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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
An Incongruent Amalgamation: John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism On Naturalism, Jeffrey M. Robinson
An Incongruent Amalgamation: John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism On Naturalism, Jeffrey M. Robinson
Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal
John Stuart Mill's utilitarian principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, often surfaces in cultural debates in the contemporary West over the extent and foundations of moral duties. Given the drift from its historical Judeo-Christian moorings, naturalism now provides much of the epistemic grounding in Western culture in relation to moral duties. The amalgamation of Mill’s utilitarianism and naturalism has resulted in a cultural and epistemic disconnect. Naturalism is hard-pressed to provide consistent epistemic support for Mill’s utilitarian principle. This essay provides a number of suggestions as to why Mill’s utilitarianism may be inconsistent on naturalism.
A Teleological Exploration Of The Plausibility Of Moral Knowledge, Kevin Lebel King Jr.
A Teleological Exploration Of The Plausibility Of Moral Knowledge, Kevin Lebel King Jr.
Masters Theses
Natural selection seems to offer a compelling case for the development of evaluative judgments independent of evaluative facts. If such a case can be made, then how do moral judgments correlate to moral facts? It seems that there would be no tight connection from judgments to truth and moral judgments would be unwarranted. Gilbert Harman realized the implications of a probable non-moral genealogy. Richard Joyce goes on to provide a probable non-moral genealogy that would epistemically undermine moral judgments as Harman thought. Joyce argues that in a naturalistic world natural selection can account for moral judgments, but that the truth …
Auctor In Fabula: Umberto Eco And The Intentio Of Foucault's Pendulum, Douglas Stephens Iv
Auctor In Fabula: Umberto Eco And The Intentio Of Foucault's Pendulum, Douglas Stephens Iv
Senior Honors Theses
Umberto Eco’s 1988 novel Foucault’s Pendulum weaves together a wide range of philosophical and literary threads. Many of these threads find their other ends in Eco’s nonfiction works, which focus primarily on the question of interpretation and the source of meaning. The novel, which follows three distinctly overinterpretive characters as they descend into ruin, has been read by some as a retraction or parody of Eco’s own position. However, if Foucault’s Pendulum is indeed polemical, it must be taken as an argument against the mindset which Eco has termed the “hermetic”. Through an examination of his larger theoretical body, including …
Religion As Philosophy And Art In The Work Of Lucian Blaga, Michael Jones
Religion As Philosophy And Art In The Work Of Lucian Blaga, Michael Jones
Faculty Publications and Presentations
This article introduces the thought of the Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga on religion as a cultural creation that has value apart from questions of the truthfulness of religious doctrines. According to Blaga, religion has considerable aesthetic and philosophical significance. The article places this insight within the context of Blaga’s metaphysical vision and his analysis of epistemology and illustrates it with a new translation of one of his most famous poems.