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Logos-Sophia, Elliott Norman, Donald Wayne Viney, Keith Elliott Perkins, Addyson Kay Campbell, Hunter Hinds, Scott Squires

LOGOS-SOPHIA: The Journal of the PSU Philosophical Society

Logos-Sophia, Volume 17, Spring 2024. The Journal of the Pittsburg State University Philosophical Society has largely been a student publication with occasional faculty contribution

Howard (Michael) Papers, 1955-2001, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Finding Aids

Michael W. Howard (Ph.D., Boston University, 1981; M.A., Boston University, 1977; B.A., University of Chicago, 1974) came to the University of Maine in 1981 as an assistant professor of Philosophy and went on to chair the department from 1993-1998 and from 2008-2009. Professor Howard retired from the University of Maine in August 2022.

Professor Howard specialized in social and political philosophy and taught courses on justice, political and economic democracy, the history of philosophy (ancient and modern) and formal logic and was involved with various peace and justice organizations, including the Maine Peace Action Committee Peace and Justice Center of …

It's Funny 'Cause It's True: The Lighthearted Philosophers’ Society’S Introduction To Philosophy Through Humor, Jennifer Marra Henrigillis, Steven Gimbel

Open Educational Resources

It's Funny 'Cause It's True is an introductory text in philosophy exploring logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics through questions in the philosophy of humor. Subfields receive a substantive introduction with interactive essays written to be accessible to undergraduates.

Ethics Of Buddhism, Manuel B. Dy Jr

Magisterial Lectures

In this lecture, Dr. Manny Dy discusses the ethics of buddhism.

Speaker: Dr. Manuel B. Dy, Jr. finished his AB Philosophy and MA Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University, his PhD Philosophy at the University of Sto. Tomas, and attended post-doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America. He has taught various philosophy subjects for the past 52 years at the Loyola Schools. He is currently a consultant of the DepEd K to 12 Edukasyon sa Pagpakatao, a member of CHED Technical Committee on Philosophy, Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research, Philosophical Association of the Philippines, Philosophy Circle, and …

Husserl’S Phenomenological Method, Manuel B. Dy Jr

Magisterial Lectures

In this lecture, Dr. Manny Dy discusses Husserl's Phenomenological Method.

Speaker: Dr. Manuel B. Dy, Jr. finished his AB Philosophy and MA Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila University, his PhD Philosophy at the University of Sto. Tomas, and attended post-doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America. He has taught various philosophy subjects for the past 52 years at the Loyola Schools. He is currently a consultant of the DepEd K to 12 Edukasyon sa Pagpakatao, a member of CHED Technical Committee on Philosophy, Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research, Philosophical Association of the Philippines, Philosophy Circle, and Philosophical …

Tools For Ethical Decision Making, Antonette Palma-Angeles

Magisterial Lectures

In this lecture, Dr. Angeles poses an ideal method for decision making when we are faced with an ethical dilemma.

Speaker: Antonette Palma-Angeles is Professor at the Ateneo de Manila University where she teaches Ethics and Leadership. She does leadership and business ethics consulting for Philippines companies and is a regular visiting lecturer at Kyoto University’s Asian Business Leadership program. She was formerly Ateneo’s Vice President for the Professional Schools and Academic Vice President. She received her PhD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

Philosophy 21: Moral Problems - Oer Course Syllabus, Lou Matz

Pacific Open Texts

Course Syllabus for an OER / Open Access version of PHIL 21: Moral Problems at University of the Pacific during Summer 2020.

The Ethics Of Capitalism: An Introduction, Daniel Halliday, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"The textbook covers longstanding problems that are as old as the discussion of capitalism itself, such as wage inequality, global trade, and the connection between paid labor and human flourishing. It also addresses new challenges, such as climate change, the welfare state, and competitive consumption, and provides topical global case studies. Additionally, it includes study questions at the end of each chapter and an author-created companion website to help guide classroom discussion."

The Myths Of The Self-Ownership Thesis, Jason Brennan, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"As a result, every reasonable or remotely plausible theory of justice will have to recognize some role for the self-ownership thesis. And disputes between libertarians and left-liberals are not really about whether individuals are self-owners, but rather about which conception of self-ownership is the correct one. So, self-ownership is not a myth. But there are a number of myths about it, including A) that’s a foundational premise in libertarian, especially Robert Nozick’s, thought, and B) that left-liberals deny it while libertarians accept it."

Connecting Ethics To Fys Class Participation, Emily Shreve

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

One goal of UNLV’s First-Year Seminars is that students are introduced to, and understand the purpose of, the University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes (UULOs). This activity introduces students to Citizenship and Ethics, focusing especially on applying ethics in situations directly relevant to students’ daily lives.

When Equality Matters, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Equality is at the heart of liberal, democratic political theory. Despite this, there is considerable disagreement about how we should understand equality in the context of liberal politics. Several different conceptions of equality (e.g., equality of opportunity, equality of welfare outcomes, and equality of basic rights) will recommend different and often conflicting policies and institutions. Further, we can expect, in democratic societies, that citizens will disagree on the correct conception of equality. This leads to the diversity problem of equality— there is no one conception of equality that will be acceptable to all citizens. This is compounded by the complexity …

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction, Daniel R. Denicola

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Moral Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction is a compact yet comprehensive book offering an explication and critique of the major theories that have shaped philosophical ethics. Engaging with both historical and contemporary figures, this book explores the scope, limits, and requirements of morality. DeNicola traces our various attempts to ground morality: in nature, in religion, in culture, in social contracts, and in aspects of the human person such as reason, emotions, caring, and intuition.

In Defense Of Openness, Bas Van Der Vossen, Jason Brennan

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"The topic of global justice has long been a central concern within political philosophy and political theory, and there is no doubt that it will remain significant given the persistence of poverty on a massive scale and soaring global inequality. Yet, virtually every analysis in the vast literature of the subject seems ignorant of what developmental economists, both left and right, have to say about the issue. In Defense of Openness illuminates the problem by stressing that that there is overwhelming evidence that economic rights and freedom are necessary for development, and that global redistribution tends to hurt more than …

Property And Business, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter gives an overview of the main foundational theories of property. As I will show, there are two major families of justification for property (with each family, of course, having many different members). After laying out those two families and their potential problems, I will then consider some of the issues that reside in intellectual property, turning subsequently to explore one way in which a theory of business ethics may either be in tension or fit with such a justification of property. In particular, I will look at the tensions that stakeholder theory, on at least one version of …

Theology, Phenomenology, And The Divine In King Lear, Kent R. Lehnhof

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"In what follows, then, I would like to think through Levinas's ideas on transcendence and ethics in such a way as to map out a new pathway for approaching Shakespeare's great tragedy. As unorthodox as it may sound, I propose to shed light on the darkling religiosity of King Lear by turning-not to the theological doctrines of early modem Christians-but to the postmodern ethics of a twentieth-century Jew."

Libertarianism, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Libertarianism is a theory in political philosophy that strongly values individual freedom and is skeptical about the justified scope of government in our lives. Libertarians see individuals as sovereign, as people who have a right to control their bodies and work, who are free to decide how to interact with willing others, and who cannot be forced to do things against their will without very strong justification.

For some, the argument in support of this view hinges on the principle of self-ownership. To them, individual rights are morally foundational, the basic building blocks of their theory. Many others, however, take …

Debating Humanitarian Intervention: Should We Try To Save Strangers?, Fernando R. Tesón, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"When violence breaks out in a country, foreign governments face a difficult dilemma: should they intervene on behalf of the victims, or should they remain spectators? Each choice offers its own perils, and philosophers Fernando R. Tesón and Bas van der Vossen offer contrasting views of intervention by employing modern analytic philosophy, particularly just war theory. Tesón and van der Vossen refer to and weigh the consequences of past, present, and future interventions in Syria, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, Lybia, Egypt, and more."

The Impossibility Of A Civil Society, Isidoro Talavera

Learning Showcase 2016: A Celebration of Discovery, Transformation and Success

We will never be able to achieve a liberal civil society because limitations of a civil society cannot be seen to be just a matter that it sometimes operates in an arena where contradictory forces are at play-where imperfect people organize around democratic and liberal values, and also around values that can be defined as uncivil to protect their group-based interests. The five conditions prohibit a liberal civil society because when applied each of which seems, when independently considered, to be plausible, but when taken together in fact conflict and are logically incompatible. Accordingly, one may argue that civil society …

Stop Factory Farming For The Sake Of Humanity!, Alexander V. Dimauro

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

Abstract: The world is being destroyed. We do not care about the mistreatment of animals in factory farms because of our consumeristic taste buds, but this gluttony is even more problematic than we think. It is blinding us from an even larger factor at stake. Our factory farming methods are a leading contributor in the causes of global warming. What this means for us is that our consumption has a direct impact on our destruction. We need to think big, and act. The only way to combat this issue is through taking courses of action that will force people to …

Self-Determination And Moral Variation, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Self-determination plays a central role in debates about international morality and law. One important argument invokes the value of self-determination in order to show that rules of international morality and law should be modest or limited in content. The basic idea is clear enough. Self-determination seems to involve a kind of social process by which different groups, including political states, can develop their own distinctive shared moral codes. And so there can be legitimate moral variation between political societies. Because self-determination is valuable, the argument goes, acceptable international norms should allow for this variation, at least within certain limits. Self-determination …

Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights, Nathan Nobis

eBooks

This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. Which, if any, uses of animals are morally wrong, which are morally permissible (i.e., not wrong) and why? What, if any, moral obligations do we, individually and as a society (and a global community), have towards animals and why? How should animals be treated? Why? We will explore the most influential and most developed answers to these questions – given by philosophers, scientists, and animal advocates and their critics – to try to determine which positions are supported by the …

The Calculus Of Consent, John Thrasher, Gerald Gaus

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy is a groundbreaking work in democratic theory. This chapter argues that it is of continued relevance today, due both to its methodological innovations and its use of those innovative techniques to solve the fundamental problem of democratic justification. In Calculus, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock fuse economic methods, political theory, and the normative project of showing how democratic institutions of a particular sort can be justified contractually, creating a unique form of democratic contractualism that came to be known as “Constitutional Political Economy” and the more general research program of “Public …

Rational Choice And The Original Position: The (Many) Models Of Rawls And Harsanyi, Gerald Gaus, John Thrasher

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Rawls proclaims that 'the theory of justice is part, perhaps the nwst significant part, of the theory of rational choice' (T]R, p. 15, emphasis added; see section 2.2.3 below). Many have refused to take this claim literally (or even seriously), by, for example, interpreting the original position analysis as a heuristic for identifying independently true moral principles (see Dworkin, "Original Position," p. 19 and Barry, Theories, pp. 271-82). In this chapter we take this fundamental claim of Rawls at face value. We thus shall defend:

The Fundamental Derivation Thesis: the justification of a principle of justice …

Biopower: Foucault And Beyond, Vernon W. Cisney, Nicolae Morar

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Michel Foucault’s notion of “biopower” has been a highly fertile concept in recent theory, influencing thinkers worldwide across a variety of disciplines and concerns. In The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Foucault famously employed the term to describe “a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them.” With this volume, Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar bring together leading contemporary scholars to explore the many theoretical possibilities that the concept of biopower has enabled while at the same time pinpointing their most important …

The Virtues Of Justice, John Thrasher, David Schmidtz

Philosophy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This essay considers (and endorses) three complementary conceptions of justice as virtue. To the two senses of justice just mentioned-justice as a virtue of the soul and of the polis-we add a third that bridges these two. Virtue can be a kind of outreach rather than a kind of internal harmony, because we are talking about essentially social beings. The harmony that is this virtue's object is harmony with a community. Thus, a person who is just in this sense is disposed to respect (play within the rules of) institutions that command respect by virtue of actually working-that is, actually …

[Introduction To] Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls And Beyond, Martin O'Neill, Thad Williamson

Bookshelf

Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond features a collection of original essays that represent the first extended treatment of political philosopher John Rawls' idea of a property-owning democracy.

- Offers new and essential insights into Rawls's idea of "property-owning democracy"

- Addresses the proposed political and economic institutions and policies which Rawls's theory would require

- Considers radical alternatives to existing forms of capitalism

- Provides a major contribution to debates among progressive policymakers and activists about the programmatic direction progressive politics should take in the near future

[Introduction To] Plato, Aristotle, And The Purpose Of Politics, Kevin M. Cherry

Bookshelf

In this book, Kevin M. Cherry compares the views of Plato and Aristotle about the practice, study, and, above all, the purpose of politics. The first scholar to place Aristotle's Politics in sustained dialogue with Plato's Statesman, Cherry argues that Aristotle rejects the view of politics advanced by Plato's Eleatic Stranger, contrasting them on topics such as the proper categorization of regimes, the usefulness and limitations of the rule of law, and the proper understanding of phronēsis. The various differences between their respective political philosophies, however, reflect a more fundamental difference in how they view the relationship of …

[Introduction To] Warcraft And The Fragility Of Virtue: An Essay In Aristotelian Ethics, G. Scott Davis

Bookshelf

The origins of the book make a chronicle of the unexpected. In the spring of 1985, if memory serves, I was invited by Jeffrey Stout to teach a course at Princeton focusing on war and traditions of moral reasoning. Although I had not previously explored the just war tradition, it dovetailed nicely with my interest in Aristotle and his place in contemporary moral theory.

Who Owns This Text?: Plagiarism, Authorship, And Disciplinary Cultures, Carol Petersen Haviland, Joan A. Mullin

All USU Press Publications

Carol Haviland, Joan Mullin, and their collaborators report on a three-year interdisciplinary interview project on the subject of plagiarism, authorship, and "property," and how these are conceived across different fields. The study investigated seven different academic fields to discover disciplinary conceptions of what types of scholarly production count as "owned." Less a research report than a conversation, the book offers a wide range of ideas, and the chapters here will provoke discussion on scholarly practice relating to intellectual property, plagiarism, and authorship---and to how these matters are conveyed to students. Although these authors find a good deal of consensus in …

Ethics In Business And Government, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Ethics

Bibliography and photographs of a display of government documents from Minnesota State University, Mankato.