Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

Politics And Philosophy In Aristotle's Critique Of Plato's Laws, Kevin M. Cherry

Political Science Faculty Publications

Whether on matters of politics or physics, Aristotle's criticism of his predecessors is not generally considered a model of charitable interpretation. He seems to prefer, as Christopher Rowe puts it, "polemic over accuracy" (2003, 90). His criticism of the Laws is particularly puzzling: It is much shorter than his discussion of the Republic and raises primarily technical objections of questionable validity. Indeed, some well-known commentators have concluded the criticisms, as we have them in the Politics, were made of an earlier draft of the Laws and that Plato, in light of these criticisms, revised the final version. I hope …

The Philosophy Of Sex And The Morality Of Homosexual Conduct, Kyle C. Hansen

CMC Senior Theses

Homosexuality is an important and controversial topic in political, philosophical, ethical and religious spheres. We are exposed to the debate of homosexuality in the media on a regular basis and issues related to homosexuality have been taken up by the Supreme Court, politicians and religious institutions. Needless to say, the debate surrounding homosexuality has captured the attention of almost everyone in society to some degree. It is my goal in this thesis to give a candid overview and analysis of the arguments surrounding homosexual sexual conduct. First, I will present an argument by John Corvino, who posits that homosexual conduct …

Conventional Wisdom About Yugoslavia And Rwanda: Methodological Perils And Moral Implications, Aleksandar Jokić

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

While ostensibly a response to a critique, the main goal of this Article is to demonstrate how easily conventional wisdom, usually shaped by the media and politics, can corrupt scholarship when it is simply presupposed by those engaged in what should be an academic polemic, yet often also includes ‘activism in scholarship’. The examples of approved narratives in the West on Yugoslavia and Rwanda are used for the sake of this demonstration.

An(Other) Rhetoric: Rhetoric, Ethics, And The Rhetorical Tradition, Kathleen Sandell Hardesty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rhetoric as a discipline is still touched by the shadow of ancient Greece. Rhetoric was defined famously by Aristotle as the "available means of persuasion," codified into five canons in classical Rome, and has since been a central part of Western education to train speakers and writers to effectively move their audiences. However, particularly beginning in the mid-20th Century, the discipline's understanding of rhetoric as a means of persuasion (or even manipulation) passed down from our ancient roots began to shift to a sense of rhetoric as matters of ethics and a concern for the other. It begs the question: …

The Man Behind The Mask: A Principal's Search For A Moral Leaderhip Purpose, James Franklin Lane

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this autoethnographic narrative inquiry was for the researcher to describe and explain how he discovered, constructed, and refined his sense of moral purpose as a principal during his seven-year tenure at Orange Pines Middle School. He inductively analyzed and reflected primarily on self-authored texts tied to critical professional ethical dilemmas so as to discover emergent themes, patterns, insights, and epiphanies in the development of his persona as a morally directed school leader. He then analyzed and reflected on how he applied those defined values in interactions with groups of teachers to design and implement elements of school …

Jewish, Christian – Or What? Questions Of Self-Designation In The 'Ascension Of Isaiah', Meghan Henning, Tobias Nicklas

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The Question of the “Parting of the Ways” between Jews and Christians has become a matter of debate again: is it really appropriate to speak about two more or less coherent groups going two different ways from a certain point in history – perhaps after Paul’s mission, after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), or after the Bar-Kokhba War (132-135 CE)? Does the image of a tree with one root and two different trunks going into two different directions really fit what the extant sources tell us about the complexities of the past? Or shouldn’t we distinguish between …

By Design: Ethics, Theology, And The Practice Of Engineering, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Both engineering and human living take place in a messy world, one chock full of unknowns and contingencies. "Design reasoning" is the way engineers cope with real-world contingency. Because of the messiness, books about engineering design cannot have "ideal solutions" printed in the back in the same way that mathematics textbooks can. Design reasoning does not produce a single, ideally correct answer to a given problem but rather generates a wide variety of rival solutions that vie against each other for their relative level of "satisfactoriness." A reasoning process analogous to design is needed in ethics. Since the realm of …

The Role Of Adaptation To Disability And Disease In Public Health, Meghan Mary Connors

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Some patients with chronic disabilities and diseases are able to adapt to their health states and, as a result, rate their quality of life higher than hypothetical patients imagining themselves to be in such states. Due to this phenomenon of adaptation, there is much controversy surrounding the effect of adaptation on patient preferences and the role that these adapted preferences ought to play in health care resource allocation decisions. The process of adaptation affects public health debates about whether we ought to give priority to the worst off in allocation decisions because within traditional public health frameworks, it is unclear …

Phronesis After Situationism, Edward C. Dubois

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Situationism, as put forward by John Doris' Lack of Character (2002) and several short articles by Gilbert Harman (2003, 2000, 1999), is the philosophical position that is skeptical of the existence of robust character traits of the kind that Aristotle described. Situationism posits that human beings lack robust character traits and are too easily made overconfident in their own behavioral abilities. Reams of social psychological data suggest that such 'thick' character traits do not exist. Doris and Harman suggest that subtle and potentially irrelevant situational cues may easily influence behavior. Moreover, situational pressures may cause people to deviate from expected …

Harmful Beneficence, Lisa Rivera

Philosophy Faculty Publication Series

Beneficence can be significant to moral action but criteria for good beneficence is rarely discussed. Much work has focused on how extensive the demands are on agents to be beneficent and on agents’ motivations for beneficence.

There has been little direct attention to the relationship between benefactor and beneficiary. The argument here is that serious deficiencies exist in the view that benefactors should focus primarily on satisfying another’s self-chosen ends. A narrow focus on the attempt to help someone satisfy her ends misses the harmful effects that benefactors can have on a dependent beneficiary's ability to choose freely from her …

The Desert Of The Ethical, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

 As far as I can tell, the concept of “desert” in Levinas’s thought seems to retain itsfamiliar associations, namely, as an environment that can be empirically characterizedas inhospitable, barren, and destitute of the kinds of material resources necessary forthe growth of the autonomous and autochthonous subjective self. It also seems plausiblethat a relevant extension of desert conditions to human community in Levinas’stopography would be the “cities” of concentration camps of the Holocaust. In otherwords, there is a correlative interior type of desert that, with Levinas, can be intuitedas what I am calling a desert of the ethical . In what …

To Live, By Grace, William Robert

Religion - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

For What I Hate, I Do: An Investigation Of Weakness Of Will, Craig B. Knepley

Global Tides

In this paper, I argue that Alfred Mele's account of weakness of will (externalism) is more philosophically defensible than R. M. Hare's account (internalism). I explain why the phenomenon of weakness of will is philosophically troubling, then go on to spell out Hare and Mele's respective views. I entertain Austin's psychological objection to Hare, as well as the objection that Hare ultimately overreaches. I argue that Hare might respond to the first but not the second of these objections. I consider the free will objection to Mele's schema, in addition to Bratman's objection that such a schema is counter-intuitive. I …

Comparing Consequentialist Solutions To The Nonidentity Problem, Emily K. Ott

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the nonidentity problem, an influential puzzle in modern ethics which addresses the nature of our moral responsibilities towards future generations. I begin by laying out the two conflicting intuitions comprising the problem and providing several examples to illustrate how we conceive of the moral status of future people. I then examine two versions of consequentialism, averagism and totalism, which circumvent the nonidentity problem. However, these two solutions each pose their own respective problems; thus, I argue that a modification of totalism – the critical level view – is the most viable consequentialist answer to the nonidentity problem.

The Intricacy Of Death And Destiny, Christopher Rogers

PTRS Undergraduate Publications

It is our eternal shadow and our ultimate judge. It is our shared destiny and greatest fear; death. The conceptualization of death has always been a fascination of man; we have forever explored it, pondered it, dissected it, but never conquered it. We know how to live, but yet very few of us know how to die.

Two of the most brilliant explorations of this dynamic are vastly different yet inherently important works. The genius of both George Orwell’s political satire 1984, and Albert Camus’ The Plague is their accessibility to the imagination regarding dying, the authors ability to …

Can A Pluralistic Commonwealth Endure?, Brian Mccall

Faculty Articles

This article considers whether the American pluralist system can satisfy Cicero's definition of a commonwealth as a multitude united in a definition of law and justice. The analysis is based upon a review of Thaddeus Kozinski's book, The Problem or Religious Pluralism and Why Philosophers Can't Solve It. This book critiques the philosophy of John Rawls, Jacques Maritain and Alisdaire MacIntyre. The critique is based upon Cicero's definition of a commonwealth and the article concludes that a society which maintains a deep pluralism over the first principles of law and justice cannot survive as a commonwealth.

Search, Seizure, And Immunity: Second-Order Normative Authority And Rights, Stephen E. Henderson, Kelly Sorensen

Faculty Articles

A paradigmatic aspect of a paradigmatic kind of right is that the rights holder is the only one who can alienate it. When individuals waive rights, the normative source of that waiving is normally taken to be the individual herself. This moral feature—immunity—is usually in the background of discussions about rights. We bring it into the foreground here, with specific attention to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Kentucky v. King (2011), concerning search and seizure rights. An entailment of the Court’s decision is that, at least in some cases, a right can be removed by the intentional actions of …

A Question Of Values: Overpopulation And Our Choice Between Procreative Rights And Security-Survival, Megan T. Latta

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the beliefs of population theorist Julian L. Simon through the creation of a harm principle. It specifically analyzes his argument that we value our freedom to choose how many children we want above all other values in the context of overpopulation and environmental destruction. The developed harm principle is meant to give us a method to decide how to balance our personal freedom with our security-survival. I begin with an overview of Simon’s work, as well as an exposition of other prominent population theorists. I then propose a principle that is a utilitarian alternative to John Stuart …