Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Ethics In Exhibitions: Considering Indigenous Art, Rachel Bonner

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Killing Kindly: Applying Jens Timmermann's Kantian Ethics Of Animal Welfare To The Modern System Of Livestock Farming, Alexander Lowe

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

This essay seeks to contribute to this conversation in an ethically applicable way, addressing specifically the Kantian vein of animal welfare discussed by Dr. Jens Timmermann in his essay When the Tail Wags the Dog: Animal Welfare and Indirect Duty in Kantian Ethics. In Part I, I will examine the work Timmermann undertakes to extend greater protection to animals under Kantian ethics. I will also raise a critical question concerning Timmermann’s unwillingness to apply his advancements to the animal welfare problems in our modern world. In Part II, I will attempt to apply Timmermann’s conclusions to the question of …

Of Drones And Justice: A Just War Theory Analysis Of The United States' Drone Campaigns, Ethan A. Wright

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

When Justice Demands Inequality, John Thrasher, Keith Hankins

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

In Rescuing Justice and Equality G.A. Cohen argues that justice requires an uncompromising commitment to equality. Cohen also argues, however, that justice must be sensitive to other values, including a robust commitment to individual freedom and to the welfare of the community. We ask whether a commitment to these other values means that, despite Cohen’s commitment to equality, his view requires that we make room for inequality in the name of justice? We argue that even on Cohen’s version of egalitarianism equality, freedom, and welfare are not always compatible. Justice will require trade-offs between these values. Sometimes, equality will need …

Ethics In The U. S. Navy, Walter E. Carter Jr.

United States Navy: Publications

First paragraph:

The U. S. military is among the most trusted of American institutions. The trust accorded to the U. S. Navy by the American people derives from our status as members of the military profession. Only to the degree that the Navy is, and is perceived to be, trustworthy can we maintain our status as the naval profession in American society.

Last paragraph:

Our official Navy ethos charges that:

We are patriots, forged by the Navy's core values of Honor, Courage and Commitment. In times of war and peace, our actions reflect our proud heritage and tradition.

Our goal, …

Ebola Scare And Measles Resurgence: Mandatory Isolation/Quarantine And Vaccination, Mark C. Aita Md, Takeem T. Ragland Ma

Journal of Health Ethics

Public outcry for radical isolation and quarantine policies followed the first Ebola diagnosis in the United States when Eric Duncan, upon his return home Oct 2014 from West Africa, then in the midst of a catastrophic Ebola epidemic, tested positive for Ebola. Likewise, the Dec 2014 Disneyland measles outbreak unleashed an angry backlash against parents who refused to have their children vaccinated; and there was public momentum to repeal all legal exemptions to mandatory vaccination of school children. This paper presents an ethical and legal analysis to adjudicate the issue which is at stake in both controversies; namely the inherent …

The ‘New’ Heidegger, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

If discussion of “new” approaches to Martin Heidegger contradicts Heidegger’s own indictment of the passion for “novelty” in philosophy, today’s Black Notebooks scandal reminds us of the ontic problem of new news. Indeed the backwards working evidence of the notebooks kept before, during, and after WWII both vindicates and problematizes his notion of temporality temporalizing from the future -- lapsing into the past -- setting up what is now regarded as patent in the present. Simultaneously, we see that if heretofore many philosophers of technology sought to dismiss engagement with Heidegger’s critique of technology, these critical contributions turn out to …

Tom Regan On ‘Kind’ Arguments Against Animal Rights And For Human Rights, Nathan Nobis

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

Tom Regan argues that human beings and some non-human animals have moral rights because they are “subjects of lives,” that is, roughly, conscious, sentient beings with an experiential welfare. A prominent critic, Carl Cohen, objects: he argues that only moral agents have rights and so animals, since they are not moral agents, lack rights. An objection to Cohen’s argument is that his theory of rights seems to imply that human beings who are not moral agents have no moral rights, but since these human beings have rights, his theory of rights is false, and so he fails to show that …

Anger Is A Gift: How Psychology And Ethics Illuminate Moral Responsibility - Peter White Scholar Grant, Zac Cogley

Grants

This proposal details a project that builds on my current interdisciplinary research program to articulate and develop a novel theory of moral responsibility. Like many philosophers, I maintain that whether someone is morally responsible for an action depends on whether it is appropriate to adopt attitudes such as anger and resentment toward the person. What makes my view unique is how I understand these “reactive attitudes.” I show they serve three functions: to appraise the action of a person (e.g. that it is wrong), to communicate the appraisal of wrongdoing to others, and to sanction the perceived wrongdoer. My defense …

The Compensation Principle, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

In "Should Race Matter?," David Boonin proposes the compensation principle: When an agent wrongfully harms another person, she incurs a moral obligation to compensate that person for the harms she has caused. Boonin then argues that the United States government has wrongfully harmed black Americans by adopting pro-slavery laws and other discriminatory laws and practices following the end of slavery, and therefore the United States government has an obligation to pay reparations for slavery and discriminatory laws and practices to those who have been harmed by them - in particular, to contemporary black Americans. Here I argue that the compensation …

Neuroscience, Virtues, Ethics, Compassion And The Question Of Character, R Younis

Philosophy Conference Papers

There has been much debate recently about the meaning, place and function of “character” and “character traits” in Virtue Ethics. For example, a number of philosophers have argued recently that Virtue Ethics would be strengthened as a theory by the omission of talk of character traits; recent neuroscientific studies have suggested that there is scope for scepticism about the existence of such traits. I will argue that both approaches are flawed and unconvincing: in brief, the first approach tends to be predicated on a narrow or insufficient conception of “character” and “character traits”; the second approach tends to go well …

Violent Sex Versus Sexual Violence: Constructing A Consensual Moral Framework, Katherine A. Barnekow

Honors Program Theses

This project aims to, through an analysis of existing frameworks and their resulting harms, justify the need for a new sexual ethical framework. Such a framework is then constructed, employing three discrete philosophical tools, and justified by existing theory and answers to potential objections.

Review: Killing By Remote Control: The Ethics Of An Unmanned Military, Edited By Bradley Jay Strawser, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Dr. Harry van der Linden's review of: Killing by Remote Control: The Ethics of an Unmanned Military, edited by Bradley Jay Strawser. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (264 pages, cloth).

Drone Warfare And Just War Theory, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This book chapter addresses two questions. First, can targeted killing by drones in non-battlefield zones be justified on basis of just war theory? Second, will the proliferation and expansion of combat drones in warfare, including the introduction of autonomous drones, be an obstacle to initiating or executing wars in a just manner in the future? The first question is answered by applying traditional jus ad bellum (justice in the resort to war) and jus in bello (justice in the execution of war) principles to the American targeted killing campaign in Pakistan; the second question is answered on basis of principles …

Topic 5: Rawlsian Ethics, Lee Eysturlid

Considerations in Ethics

John Rawls (b. 1921, d. 2002) was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. His theory of justice as fairness envisions a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. His account of political liberalism addresses the legitimate use of political power in a democracy, aiming to show how enduring unity may be achieved despite the diversity of worldviews that free institutions allow. His writings on the law of peoples extend these theories to liberal foreign policy, with the goal of imagining how a peaceful and tolerant international order might be possible.

Topic 2: Kantian Ethics, Lee Eysturlid

Considerations in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Military Genomic Testing: Proportionality, Expected Benefits, And The Connection Between Genotypes And Phenotypes, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

Mehlman and Li offer a framework for approaching the bioethical issues raised by the military use of genomics that is compellingly grounded in both the contemporary civilian and military ethics of medical research, arguing that military commanders must be bound by the two principles of paternalism and proportionality. I agree fully. But I argue here that this is a much higher bar than we may fully realize. Just as the principle of proportionality relies upon a thorough assessment of harms caused and military advantage gained, the use of genomic research, on Mehlman and Li's view, will require an accurate understanding …

A Member Of No Community? Theology After Wittgenstein, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The study of Wittgenstein has spawned a new sort of Christian theology. A growing list of theologians have discovered in Wittgenstein a therapy for conceptual confusion and tips for how to go on, not only in religious faith and practice, but also in the practice of theology as an academic discipline. This is not to say that such thinkers have succeeded in turning Wittgenstein into an instrument of apologetics or that Wittgenstein has “delivered” them from the grip of their own religious particularity. No; they have learned from Wittgenstein the skill of silence. Their theology, like Wittgenstein’s philosophy, comes to …

Ecclesial Practices, Colin M. Mcguigan, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In this chapter, we first provide an overview of the place of practice in some of the most prominent recent epistemologists of religion; second, we give an account of an ordinary practice (engineering) to flesh out a general conception of the importance of practice in training cognizers for skilled perception; third, and last, we connect the results of this inquiry with renewed theological and philosophical interest in the ‘spiritual senses’ tradition. The upshot of these reflections is the conclusion that an adequate account of social practices already anticipates the possibility that ecclesial practice might contribute to an epistemic transformation capable …

Practicing To Aim At Truth: Theological Engagements In Honor Of Nancey Murphy, Ryan Newson, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Well-meaning evangelicals unfamiliar with Nancey Murphy’s philosophical theology frequently worry that her work in philosophy of mind has the effect of depriving us of our souls. When such an objection is voiced after a speaking engagement, Murphy’s “reassurance” is predictable: “Don’t worry! There is nothing to be lost; we never had souls to begin with!”

Underneath her wry reply is a deep concern that philosophical confusion about “having a soul” is seriously undermining Christian discipleship. For example, it has become second nature for many Christians to hold that the soul is more important than the body; regardless of the state …