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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

Ai Art: Artists’ Best Friend Or Mortal Enemy?, Ethan Gabrys Jun 2023

Ai Art: Artists’ Best Friend Or Mortal Enemy?, Ethan Gabrys

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

This paper analyzes the impacts and implications of generative AI software on art and examines the ethics of using such tools. Through the argument that careless use of these tools presents a danger to the art world as they risk devaluing human expression, Gabrys states that “as what it means to be human changes with each generation, new artists express sentiment through their art. Art has the ability to tell us about the human experience.” He concludes that the use of AI tools takes the skill and sentiment of human artists out of the equation, begging the question: if the …


Life Projects: Passion Versus Rationality, Robert J. Williams Jan 2016

Life Projects: Passion Versus Rationality, Robert J. Williams

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

Philosophers of all ages and locales have ruminated on what it means to live a meaningful life. This particular essay seeks to tackle the same question but with more particularity. Is a meaningful life ethically good, rational, or even successful? Susan Wolf’s work The Meanings of Lives gives a nuanced but affirmative answer. This essay counters Wolf’s answer to that question. Although Wolf’s notion of having a project does make for a meaningful life, this paper argues that her objective and subjective criteria are too restricting. What makes life meaningful is not the outcome or nature of the project, but …


Why The Greater Good Is Good: Lessons From Harry Potter, Maureen Zach May 2011

Why The Greater Good Is Good: Lessons From Harry Potter, Maureen Zach

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

For me, this paper was an opportunity to bring Harry Potter into academia by evaluating a serious moral and philosophical concept, the greater good, with J.K. Rowling’s beloved series. In the end, we see that society could do well to learn from Harry’s selflessness in working for the greater good.