Philosophy Commons^™

Autos, Allos, And World: Life And Identity In The Situation Of Contemporary Global Modernity, Thomas M. Szwedska

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

By bringing the machinic ontology of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, together with Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s machinic theory of autopoiesis, this thesis presents a rethinking of world and identity in what we call the situation of contemporary global modernity. It argues that worlds and identity co-arise with one another through a poietic structuring. Globally, this is defined by organizational processes of autopoietic capitalism that attempts to self-separate from worlds. These processes involve an ontology of abstractive creation destruction, which continuously re-inscribe histories and identities in the image of capitalism. Locally, worlds and identities are structured by allopoietic processes, …

Civic Tenderness: Love's Role In Achieving Justice, Justin Leonard Clardy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Martha Nussbaum’s work Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice identifies the role that compassion plays in motivating citizens in a just society. I expand on this discussion by considering how attitudes of indifference pose a challenge to the extension of compassion in our society. If we are indifferent to others who are in situations of need, we are not equipped to experience compassion for them. Building on Nussbaum’s account, I develop an analytic framework for the public emotion of Civic Tenderness to combat indifference.

Civic tenderness is an orientation of concern that is generated for people and groups that …

Politics, Technology, And Libertarianism, Thomas J. Perry

Honors Projects

In recent years, technology has started to play a major role in the U.S. political climate. Specifically, it has created a platform for outside groups, such as libertarians, to have their voices heard. This brought forward an important research question: How has technology helped or hindered the ability of individually focused libertarians to organize for collective action? Through the exploration of previous research, two major findings are discovered: 1) technology and the growth of individualism in politics are intertwined and 2) technology and individualism both have ties to libertarianism. The implications of libertarianism are analyzed further through the study of …

Tempered Experience: The Educational Foundation Of Democratic Ideology, Nicholas J. Schwarm

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

Democracy is a political ideology, one that requires a person to believe in that ideology for it to exist. The contemporary political landscape is dominated by democracies, and for this reason we need to understand how to build and sustain them. There needs to be a well-educated populace of citizens, who are able to engage in democratic actions, and aid the community. What they need is tempered experience, experience that is understood though the knowledge that a citizen already has.

Plato's Machiavelli: Reconsidering Callicles' Speech In Plato's Gorgias, Steven Thomason

Presentations and Lectures

Although often dismissed as a villain, Callicles’ views about philosophy, politics, and human nature expressed in his speech in Plato’s Gorgias criticizing Socrates turn-out to be similar to Socrates’ own thoughts about philosophy, politics, and human nature when compared to Socrates’ arguments in other dialogues such as the Republic. However, Socrates obfuscates these similarities through his use of rhetoric in the latter part of the dialogue in order to conceal a more fundamental disagreement about the priority and relationship of philosophy and politics. This similarity and obfuscation constitutes an important and overlooked teaching of Plato’s Gorgias.

Strict Liability's Criminogenic Effect, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

It is easy to understand the apparent appeal of strict liability to policymakers and legal reformers seeking to reduce crime: if the criminal law can do away with its traditional culpability requirement, it can increase the likelihood of conviction and punishment of those who engage in prohibited conduct or bring about prohibited harm or evil. And such an increase in punishment rate can enhance the crime-control effectiveness of a system built upon general deterrence or incapacitation of the dangerous. Similar arguments support the use of criminal liability for regulatory offenses. Greater punishment rates suggest greater compliance.

But this analysis fails …

Character Luck And Moral Responsibility: The Character Of The Ordinary Person In Aristotle's Rhetoric And Politics, Marcella Linn

Dissertations

There are many significant factors, such as one’s natural temperaments and upbringing, that are outside of one’s control and affect one’s character. This calls into question one’s responsibility for one’s character, and if we are not responsible for our characters, then it seems we cannot be held responsible for the many actions that stem from them. I will show how a person can be responsible for her character and actions stemming from it despite the pervasiveness of character luck. To do this, I develop an account of character and responsibility from various passages in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Rhetoric, and Politics. …