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Full-Text Articles in Ethics and Political Philosophy
Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton
Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many religious traditions and ethical systems hold that individuals accrue merit through their good intentions, acts, and character, and demerit through their bad intentions, acts, and character. This merit and demerit, accumulated by individuals throughout their lives, gives each person a kind of ethical “score” that can determine what they deserve, and influence whether good or bad things happen to them (e.g., divine punishments and rewards, a favourable or unfavourable rebirth, etc.). In some traditions (most notably Buddhism, but also to a limited extent in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), “merit transference” is a feature of these merit-based ethical systems. This …
Revisiting Tocqueville's American Woman, Christine Dunn Henderson
Revisiting Tocqueville's American Woman, Christine Dunn Henderson
Research Collection College of Integrative Studies
This paper revisits Tocqueville’s famous portrait of the American female, which begins with assertions of her equality to males but ends with her self-cloistering in the domestic sphere. Taking a cue from Tocqueville’s extended sketch of the “faded” pioneer wife in “A Fortnight in the Wilderness” and drawing connections to Tocqueville’s criticisms of the division of industrial labor, I argue that the American girl’s ostensibly free choice to remove herself from public life is not an act of freedom. Rather, it is a manifestation of a particular type of unfreedom that reveals underappreciated connections between the two great dangers about …
Climate Denialism Bullshit Is Harmful, Joshua Luczak
Climate Denialism Bullshit Is Harmful, Joshua Luczak
Research Collection College of Integrative Studies
This paper suggests that some climate denialism is bullshit. Those who spread it do not display a proper concern for the truth. This paper also shows that this bullshit is harmful in some significant ways. It undermines the epistemic demands imposed on us by what we care about, by the social roles we occupy, and by morality. It is also harmful because it corrodes epistemic trust.
'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas
'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Vallier offers a defence of liberalism that is publicly justified as an answer to political polarization. This critique argues that the philosophical solution he offers - a version of liberalism more likely to be endorsed by moderately idealized agents - may not succeed because the source of polarization lies elsewhere: in resentments arising out of changed social conditions and the alienation of parts of society unhappy with the very liberal narrative in question.