Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Scandinavian Dream: A Region’S Common Philosophical Principles Resulting In Equality, Prosperity, And Social Justice, Remy Christopher Ansiello

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Common philosophical principles formed by the three Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden developed through a shared past. Over the centuries this region’s historical, social, economic, and religious ties paved the way for a belief-system based on egalitarian ideals. By the beginning of the 20th century these egalitarian ideals formed the unique social welfare system Scandinavia has in place, benefiting citizens from the day they are born throughout their entire lives. This welfare system centers on the principle that both men and women are fully equal; furthermore society has a moral and legal obligation to remove all barriers preventing …

Persistent Revolutions In Colombia And Peru: A Comparative Analysis, Brandon Huson

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis performs a comparative analysis of rural-based revolutionary movements in Latin America. The movements that are compared are the FARC, originating in Colombia, and the Shining Path, which emerged from the highlands of Peru. The comparison is meant to serve as a test for what variables are predictive of revolutionary success. Since these movements differ in their success in establishing permanent political, social and military movements in their countries over time, their dichotomous outcome can be used to point toward variables that warrant further consideration. Comparison of revolutionary movement makes sense in this case due to the similarities between …

Care Of The Self And The Will To Freedom: Michel Foucault, Critique And Ethics, Stephanie M. Batters

Senior Honors Projects

Care of the Self and the Will to Freedom

Stephanie Batters

Faculty Sponsor:  Stephen Barber, English

What do subjectivity, power and ethics have in common?  For French philosopher Michel Foucault, each of these concepts inherently resides within the others.  His works, spanning from the mid-1950s to his death in 1984, offer a profound theoretical approach to the complex questions that obtain between the individual and society.  Foucault’s works present careful and intricate theories about the relationships of the past with the present, the individual with society, and power with truth.  Many of his writings explore how the individual is made …

The Implications Of Merleau-Ponty For The Human Sciences, Ryan Marcotte

Senior Honors Projects

The Implications of Merleau-Ponty for the Human Sciences Ryan Marcotte Cobb Faculty Sponsor: Galen Johnson, Philosophy The American Anthropology Association (AAA) made headlines in November 2010 due to a controversial change in their 'Long-Range Plan.' The revised AAA mission statement omits all mention of the word 'science' and this omission has sparked a fierce debate within the anthropology community. The debate reveals that the study of social phenomena can be approached from two competing points of view – a scientific and a non-scientific perspective.  This project is concerned with the historical and intellectual developments that led to this competition between …

Free Culture, Ian Heifetz

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Free Culture is a documentary short that aims to promote user-autonomy in the digital age, with a focus on culture proliferations. The film takes a look a critical stance against the Digital Millennium Copyright act, arguing it is unenforceable through either legislative or technical means. To support this viewpoint, interviews with Yochai Benkler of the Harvard Law School and Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Council to Google, are provided. While threats to the DMCA, such as piracy, are often seen as illegal criminal action, they signify a changing environment. One man taking advantage of this is Benn Jordan, a.k.a. The …

Grassroots Poverty And Grassroots Human Rights: Grounding Theory In Practice, Scott Collison

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Philosophical discourse on human rights is broad and contested, and not all of it agrees with human rights practice. None of the common philosophical problems, such as the reconciliation between theory and human rights law, the debate between civil-political and socio-economic rights, or even what sort of thing human rights are, has been answered definitively. What is uncontested, however, is the fact that human rights are far from fulfilled in the world today, as world poverty and inequality persist into the 21^st century.

A recent trend across the board—from philosophy to development studies to human rights practice—is to view …

The Right To Privacy In Light Of The Patriot Act And Social Contract Theory, Betsey Sue Casman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There is a continual debate between individuals who attempt to measure the individual’s right to privacy against the government’s right to know in order to provide for the security of all citizens.

The questions that beg to be answered are whether the individual’s right to privacy outweighs the government’s duty to provide security; and if security is deemed more important, can there even be a right to privacy. It is critical to our nation’s anti-terrorism effort that our intelligence agencies possess the legal capacity to intercept all forms of communications utilized by terrorists and hostile intelligence agents. Inevitably this will …

The Economics Of The Atomic Bomb: Cost And Utilization, Jonathan M. Davis Mr.

Senior Honors Theses

Few moments in human history can be compared to the culmination of events that brought the atomic bomb into creation.  It is incredible to contemplate that while a nation was fighting a two front war that spanned from Europe into the Pacific, that the United States was able to utilize the time, energy, brains, materials, manpower, and capital to complete a project in four years. That under any other circumstances would have taken greater than half a century to complete.

First, this thesis will discuss breakthroughs in research that led scientists to believe that the atomic weapons could be built, …

The Thomistic Conception Of Natural Law: Does It Commit The Naturalistic Fallacy?, Maria M. Owen

Senior Honors Theses

Does Thomistic Natural Law theory commit the naturalistic fallacy?  Ralph McInerny seems to think that Thomistic Natural Law, as Thomas Aquinas himself articulates it, escapes any potentially defeating criticism derived from the Naturalistic fallacy as described most notably by G. E. Moore and David Hume, which states that morality is not derivable from any natural property.  The naturalistic fallacy, if successful in its purpose, deals a fatal blow to the school of moral philosophy that strives to adhere to traditional Thomism.  In response to the criticism rooted in the Naturalistic fallacy, scholars like John Finnis insist that Thomistic Natural Law …

Ethics Of Paid Gamete Donation, Kyle Dayton, Maeleen Witte

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

This presentation shows the standing ethical questions in the aspect of gamete donation, analyzes them, and contrasts them. This article primarily focuses on whether it is ethical to pay a donor for their gametes (sperm or egg). Within this presentation, we question whether donation should be purely altruistic and not motivated by incentives.

Should Primates Have Legal Rights?, Hannah Barten, Zhimin Chen

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

A primate having legal rights is a controversial topic these days. Many other countries around the world support the idea of great apes having legal rights, because we for one are one of the five great primates. Others do not support this trending topic as much as others. These types of people believe that great apes such as chimpanzees are superb testing animals for medical purposes, because of the fact that they are closely related to mankind. Organizations such as Great Ape Protection, work towards protecting the rights of these great apes since they cannot speak for themselves. In many …

Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Michael Phan, Jeniene Hassan

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to regenerate malfunctioning tissues and replace harmful cancer cells. Although it holds the potential to alleviate malicious disabilities and diseases, it raises ethical concerns due to the destruction of a fertilized human embryo. In certain religions (Catholics and Christians), embryonic stem cell research is detested due to the destruction of a human at its early stages of life (embryo). On the other hand, scientists believe that embryonic stem cells can “someday…used to treat human diseases.” (Hansen 879) This analysis on embryonic stem cell research will consider both the supporting and opposing side of …

Ethics Behind Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Samantha Haydock, Regine Dejesus

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

Advancement in embryonic stem cell research can cure the world of sicknesses in ways that were only imagined. Out of all the stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the capabilities to develop into any cell and tissue type. Embryonic stem cell research is controversial due to how these cells are harvested. In harvesting these cells, the embryos are destroyed; further halting any development of a human being. We began our research by asking why this topic is an ethical issue. Using various media resources, we took key points from both sides and also looked into the latest advancements that may …

Global Warming: At What Point Does Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Release Become Unethical?, Luke Good, Gladys Lopez

Festival of Communities: UG Symposium (Posters)

In recent decades, the concept of global warming has developed increasing concern among the scientific community and general public alike. What was initially dismissed as little more than unlikely has now become a severe warning for global climate crisis threatening not only our way of life but ultimate future existence on this planet? Global warming is defined as the steady mean increase in atmospheric temperature, the primary asserted cause thereof being increased emissions and inherent atmospheric concentrations of “greenhouse gases” – carbon dioxide in particular. These gases contribute to the greenhouse effect by trapping radiation (from the sun) in the …

Balancing The Scales Of Justice: Legal, Ethical Dilemmas Within Wrongful Convictions Involving Client Confidentiality, Robert Steele '11

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Pacifying Violence: The Ethics And Responsibility Of Living In A Militarized Society, Kevin Milne '11

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Adorno On Science And Nihilism, Animals, And Jews, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No less than Heidegger or Nietzsche, Adorno had his own critical notions of truth/untruth. But Adorno’s readers are unsettled by the barest hint of anything that might be taken to be anti-science. Thus it is argued that Adorno opposes not science but scientism. But, and here not unlike Arendt, Adorno argued that so-called “scientistic” tendencies are the very conditions of society and of scientific thought.” I ask how we are to read Adorno by exploring his thought on animals and nihilism.

Cognitive Relatives Yet Moral Strangers?, Judith Benz-Scharzberg, Andrew Knight

Animal Welfare Collection

This article provides an empirically based, interdisciplinary approach to the following two questions: Do animals possess behavioral and cognitive characteristics such as culture, language, and a theory of mind? And if so, what are the implications, when long-standing criteria used to justify differences in moral consideration between humans and animals are no longer considered indisputable? One basic implication is that the psychological needs of captive animals should be adequately catered for. However, for species such as great apes and dolphins with whom we share major characteristics of personhood, welfare considerations alone may not suffice, and consideration of basic rights may …

Jean Hampton’S Theory Of Punishment: A Critical Appreciation, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Jean Hampton’s work first came to my attention in 1984, when the summer issue of Philosophy & Public Affairs appeared in my mailbox. Hampton’s essay in that issue, “The Moral Education Theory of Punishment,” did not persuade me—or many others, I suspect—that “punishment should not be justified as a deserved evil, but rather as an attempt, by someone who cares, to improve a wayward person” (Hampton 1984, 237). The essay did persuade me, though, that moral education is a plausible aim of punishment, even if it is not the “full and complete justification” Hampton claimed it to be (Hampton 1984, …

Taking It Off In The Mideast, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author explores the concept of democracy and the impact of financial, moral, and sexual corruption in the Middle East.