Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Plant Sentience And The Case For Ethical Veganism, Josh Milburn

Animal Sentience

Does the possibility of plant sentience pose a problem for ethical veganism? It has not yet been demonstrated that plants are sentient (i.e., that they can feel). Moreover, even if it were demonstrated that plants could feel, it would also have to be demonstrated that they can feel the affectively “valenced” feelings that are ethically significant, such as pain and fear, rather than just neutral sensations such as darker/lighter, or wetter/drier. Finally, if plants could feel valenced feelings, veganism would likely still be the ethical option, on the principle of causing the least harm.

The Possibility Of Relationships With Others, Joshua Severud

LSU Master's Theses

Levinas offers a rich philosophical insight into the kind of responsibility and ethics that we must have for the Other. This involves a certain conception of what it means to be hospitable which turns out to be impossible. In order to talk about how this impossible relationship can occur, I use Heidegger’s description of the existential Being-with structure and Derrida’s conception of the event in order to make sense of how this Levinasian relationship can possibly exist in spite of—or thanks to—its impossibility.

Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik

Animal Sentience

Plant sentience is a hot topic in scientific and popular media. There are moral reasons to respect both the service of plants to humanity and their natural integrity as creatures playing their own significant role in a complex ecosystem. However, to infer that plants have certain cognitive capacities that are present also in certain human and nonhuman animals calls for scientific rigor beyond mere analogy. The unique capacities of plants identified by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo are not necessarily linked to sentience. Nor is it likely that sentience is an evolutionary trait that is present to some extent in all living …

Natural Lights & Natural Rights: The Problem Of The New Classical Natural Law Theory, Charles Neville Cacciatore

LSU Master's Theses

The present work examines the natural law jurisprudence of John Finnis. It argues that Finnis’s teaching is a genuinely new natural law theory. Finnis’s jurisprudence is not a re- presentation of the jurisprudence of St. Thomas Aquinas because its central element—a doctrine of natural rights—is a departure from Aquinas’s natural law teaching. In support of these claims, the present work relies upon the scholarship of Ernest L. Fortin, A.A. Following Fr. Fortin, it presents an understanding of the natural law that endorses a clear distinction between natural right and natural rights—between premodern political philosophy and modern political philosophy.

The Hidden Victims Of War, Drishti Khandelwal

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

This essay explores how the rights of women have been eroded by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Surrogacy As A Means Of Survival, Emma Reyes

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

Surrogacy is an arrangement where a woman agrees to carry a baby on behalf of a couple, typically because they cannot have the baby on their own. This has especially become an increasingly common option for many same-sex couples to have a child. However, many countries have discriminative laws set in place that prohibit surrogates from conceiving a child for same-sex couples. As a result of this, different surrogate agencies have found loopholes to go around these laws. In the Radiolab podcast episode titled “Birthstory '', an Israeli couple who were forbade from hiring a surrogate in their own country, …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Phi 1700 (Global Ethics), Yingshihan Zhu

Open Educational Resources

Knowing how to think and act ethically is essential for living as moral agents. The aim of this course is to introduce you to major ethical theories, both in the West and the East, as well as moral issues that affect people globally. After completing this course, you should be able to: 

• Understand a variety of moral theories
• Identify and articulate a number of moral wrongs in everyday life
• Evaluate ways to respond to moral wrongs
• Present your thoughts verbally and textually in a logical manner
• Predict and handle potential objections to your view

Discovering Dune: Essays On Frank Herbert’S Epic Saga., Edited By Dominic J. Nardi And N. Trevor Brierly, G. Connor Salter

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

G. Connor Salter reviews Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert’s Epic Saga, edited by Dominic J. Nardi and N. Trevor Brierly, considering its new contributions to studies of Frank Herbert's work. Essays included fit into four categories (Politics and Power, History and Religion, Biology and Ecology, and Philosophy, Choice and Ethics) and range from Herbert's use of ecology in Dune to how game theory may help explain certain characters' apparent ability to see the future. Discovering Dune also includes an appendix which contains the only up-to-date bibliography of Herbert's work (primary and secondary sources).

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 …

Book Discussion - Violence And Peace In Sacred Texts: Interreligious Perspectives, Maria Power, Helen Paynter

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of Against War: Building A Culture Of Peace, William J. Collinge

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Root Of War: Thomas Merton’S Advice To Peacemakers, Jerry Kendall

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Resisting Nazism Within Hitler’S Germany, Patricia M. Mische

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of Social Defense, Eli Mccarthy

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Ethics And Epidemiology Workshop Report: Towards Ethics-Informed Epidemiology And Epidemiology-Informed Ethics, Zoe Ritchie, Brendan T. Smith Phd, Maxwell J. Smith Phd

Health Studies Publications

Two key groups of researchers have worked in parallel to advance health equity—one on the descriptive component (those in public health sciences, e.g., epidemiologists) and one on the normative component (those in the humanities and social sciences, e.g., philosophers and ethicists). Yet a significant gulf exists between their respective research. Consequently, advances in thinking regarding the philosophical underpinnings and normative requirements of health equity have been largely divorced from the design of public health interventions that seek to reduce health inequities. As a consequence, public health interventions aiming to advance health equity may fail to target the most appropriate populations …

A Century Of Critical Buddhism In Japan, James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

This chapter introduces the central arguments of Critical Buddhism as a lens by which to view the course of “modern” Buddhism in Japan, particularly as it relates to politics. It traces philosophical and political precedents for Critical Buddhism in the context of Japanese modernity, by focusing on several progressive Buddhist figures movements from mid-Meiji through early Shōwa, including the New Buddhist Fellowship and the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism. I argue that previous attempts to centralize criticism as a basic Buddhist precept were unsuccessful in part do to an inability to distinguish the Buddhistic components of their thought and practice, …

'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.

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.

Everybody Wants To Be A Fascist Online: Psychoanalysis And The Digital Architecture Of Fascism, Anthony Faramelli, Imogen Piper

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Félix Guattari and Franco Berardi have both argued that media ecologies and psychic ecologies are intimately intertwined and as such, any exploration of the collective unconscious must engage with how the mind is formed with and through media. This understanding of networks of interdependence necessitates an exploration of how platformization has impacted users” collective psyche. Drawing from psychosocial theory, psychoanalysis and the work of Félix Guattari, this article analizes the micropolitics of desire of digital platforms, with an explicit focus on how algorithmic structures amplify extreme Right content, allowing fascisms to metastasis throughout digital spaces. It will first examine the …

The Murder Of George Floyd: A Case Study Examining How The Policing Of Black Men And Grassroots Activism Influence The Will Of Black Women To Lead, Ella Gates-Mahmoud

Doctorate in Education

This study's objective investigates the viewpoints held by Black women in two urban areas of Minnesota about the social upheaval that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020 for using a counterfeit $20 bill. In the last decade, police killings of innocent Black people in the United States have received more attention, and Floyd's death is only one example of this phenomenon. In the U.S., the likelihood of a police officer taking the life of a Black man is higher than that of a White man. Between 2013-2019 there have been 1,641 fatal shootings of defenseless Black men by …