Applied Ethics Commons^™

When Does Human Life Begin? Conception And Ensoulment, Larry Poston, Lindsey Disney

Bible & Religion Educator Scholarship

Is “human life” strictly a biological phenomenon measured from the moment when sperm and egg combine? Or does “human life” not actually begin until the immaterial aspect known as “the soul” appears at some indeterminate point? This essay examines the views held by various adherents of the Christian faith regarding the concepts of “conception” and “ensoulment” and the relation of these views to contemporary ethical issues having to do with abortion, in vitro fertilization, contraception, and stem cell research. The essay discusses the fact that Christians historically have been characterized by a marked lack of unity concerning the teachings of …

Ethics Of Euthanasia And Physician Assisted Suicide, Kathryn Halloran

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Modern American Propaganda: An Institutional History, Douglas Morrow

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy is the primary government institution in charge of overt, foreign-directed propaganda. This paper argues that the institutional culture of this institution was born and came to fruition in the period 1941-1953, and has not significantly changed since. That institutional culture includes a fierce adherence to a “strategy of truth,” with aesthetic norms being reserved and largely unemotional as a result of positioning themselves in moral and aesthetic opposition to Nazi and early Cold War Communist propaganda. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to staff these nascent institutions with artists, poets, …

An Uber Ethical Dilemma: Examining The Social Issues At Stake, Florence Chee

School of Communication: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Purpose

This paper aims to engage with the social issues emerging from the increasing reliance upon app-driven services, as they pertain to precarious labor and ethical standpoints in a digital era. Popular ride services such as Uber have been lauded for bringing much needed transportation services that are superior to expensive taxis or unpleasant or inaccessible public transit.

Design/methodology/approach

As a result of over three years of ongoing research and analysis, this paper is a comprehensive assessment of a number of social issues facing the integration of practices both signified and enacted in an economy driven by apps such as …

The Ethics Of Single-Use Plastics, Kiara Goodwine

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Kierkegaard On Truth, Caroline Moore

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Many philosophers believe in three types of truth and all of them are considered objective: correspondence, coherence and pragmatist. Objective knowledge “can designate a knowledge-claim having, roughly, the status of being fully supported or proven.”i If asked, philosophers often say that they believe in a mixture of two or more of the objective truths because each of the truths has points of weakness. While the objective truths cover much of what is considered to be valid truth, they all leave something out, subjective truth. Subjective truth is “a judgment or belief’ “that is compelling for some rational beings (subjects) but …

Ecocide Is Genocide: Decolonizing The Definition Of Genocide, Lauren J. Eichler

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

I demonstrate how the destruction of the land, water, and nonhuman beings of the Americas constitutes genocide according to Indigenous metaphysics and through analysis of the decimation of the American buffalo. In Genocide Studies, the destruction of nonhuman beings and nature is typically treated as a separate, but related type of phenomenon—ecocide, the destruction of nonhuman nature. In this article I follow in the footsteps of Native American and First Nations scholars to argue that ecocide and the genocide of Indigenous peoples are inextricably linked and are even constitutive of the same act. I argue that if justice is to …

Egoism: A Case Study Of The Relationship Between Self-Interest And Ethics, India Rhodes

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Bioethics Of Human Cloning: Are We Playing God?, Caleb Smith

NEXUS: The Liberty Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

No abstract provided.

Automating Autism: Disability, Discourse, And Artificial Intelligence, Os Keyes

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems shift to interact with new domains and populations, so does AI ethics: a relatively nascent subdiscipline that frequently concerns itself with questions of “fairness” and “accountability.” This fairness-centred approach has been criticized for (amongst other things) lacking the ability to address discursive, rather than distributional, injustices. In this paper I simultaneously validate these concerns, and work to correct the relative silence of both conventional and critical AI ethicists around disability, by exploring the narratives deployed by AI researchers in discussing and designing systems around autism. Demonstrating that these narratives frequently perpetuate a dangerously dehumanizing model …