Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Murderer At The Switch: Thomson, Kant, And The Trolley Problem, James E. Mahon

Publications and Research

In this book chapter I argue that contrary to what is said by Paul Guyer in Kant (Routledge, 2006) Kant's moral philosophy prohibits the bystander from throwing the switch to divert the runaway trolley to a side track with an innocent person on it in order to save more people who are in the path of the trolley in the "Trolley Problem" case made famous by Judith Jarvis Thomson (1976; 1985). Furthermore, Thomson herself (2008) came to agree that it would be wrong to throw the switch, just as it is wrong to push the person off the bridge to …

Existing Competencies In The Teaching Of Ethics In Computer Science Faculties, Ethics4eu Consortium

Reports

This report is one of the deliverables for the Ethics4EU project. It presents results obtained from a survey conducted in early 2020 that polled faculty from Computer Science and related disciplines on teaching practices in Computer Ethics in Computer Science across Europe. The survey was completed by respondents from 61 universities across 23 European countries. Participants were surveyed on whether or not Computer Ethics is taught to Computer Science students at each institution, the reasons why Computer Ethics is or is not taught, how Computer Ethics is taught (for example, as a standalone course or embedded within other courses), the …

European Values For Ethics In Digital Technology, Ethics4eu Consortium

Reports

Digital Ethics deals with the impact of digital Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on our societies and the environment at large. It covers a wide spectrum of societal and ethical impacts including issues such as data governance, privacy and personal data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), algorithmic decision-making and pervasive technologies. Importantly, it is not only about hardware and software, but it also concerns systems, how people and organizations and society and technology interact. In addition, with Digital Ethics comes the added variable of assessing the ethical implications of artefacts which may not yet exist, or artefacts which may have impacts we …

The Role Of Empathy In Moral Inquiry, William Gray Kidder

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this dissertation, I defend the view that, despite empathy’s susceptibility to problematic biases, we can and should cultivate empathy to aid our understanding of our own values and the values of others. I argue that empathy allows us to critically examine and potentially revise our values by considering concrete moral problems and our own moral views from the perspective of another person. Appropriately calibrated empathy helps us achieve a critical distance from our own moral perspective and is thus tied to impartiality in moral inquiry. In defending this role for empathy in moral inquiry, I draw on empirical work …

Scientific Practice And Democratic Virtues, Gregory R. Peterson

School of American and Global Studies Faculty Publications with a Focus on History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion

Chapter 21: Scientific Practice and Democratic Values

Democracy and science, it might be thought, go hand in hand. As we commonly think of it, science has its roots in the heritage of Greek thought, and the same is true of democracy. And while Athenian democracy developed at best a complicated relationship with its intellectual luminaries, Athens was nevertheless home to both Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum. Nearly two centuries later, the scientific revolution most quickly took root in those nations that had come to have some semblance of democratic rule. While the Republic of Florence had passed under Medici control …

Socrates And The Divine Mission Of Political Friendship, Ronahn I. Clarke

Honors Theses

Plato is widely regarded as an authoritarian political thinker on account of Socrates’ endorsement of rule by philosopher kings in the Republic. Yet the Republic should not be mistaken for a political treatise or the entirety of Socrates’ political theorizing. Each of the Socratic dialogues is concerned with the political endeavour of reorienting souls within communities of souls toward virtue via philosophical discussion. This project examines the Lysis, the Gorgias, the Symposium, the Republic, and other dialogues in the context of the philosophical mission Socrates establishes in the Apology. Socrates’ philosophical work expresses a …

Strategies For Small Businesses To Enhance Ethical Financial Reporting, Mercy Nchangnwi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Unethical financial reporting can negatively impact the sustainability of a business organization. Small business owners who struggle to promote ethical financial reporting are at high risk of failure. Grounded in the fraud diamond theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies small business owners use to enhance ethical financial reporting. The participants comprised four small business owners in Massachusetts who effectively used strategies to enhance ethical financial reporting. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, company documents, and casual observation. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Five themes emerged: ethical behavior, internal control and communication, monitoring, …

Care Ethics, Disability, And Public Policy, Piper Gibson

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Influencing Capitalist Attitudes To Drive More Capital Towards Social Good, Leah Michelle Burton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to better understand how to influence capitalist attitudes and drive more capital towards social good. This is why we must explore the prospect of emancipating the capitalists from capitalism. This study identifies capitalism as a form of oppression that is contributing to a newly developed ethics of capital, a term introduced in this study. Emancipatory action research and general systems theory were employed as the primary approaches to engaging a group of venture capitalists and finance professionals in activities and dialogues. Value2 is the theory of action I use to influence the attitudes of …

Narrative Value And Well-Being, Franchesca Fu

Scripps Senior Theses

Some philosophers think that one’s well-being increases when one obtains more objective goods, and one of those objective goods under debate is one’s narrative. In this thesis, I examine how one’s narrative can increase one’s well-being by itself by drawing from David Velleman’s argument for narrative value. After finding Velleman’s argument compelling, I clarify what a narrative is, including how it has an objective and subjective component. I then explore what criteria are necessary for one’s narrative to make a positive contribution to one’s well-being by presenting Connie Rosati’s argument that one’s narrative needs to be chosen or internalized, affirming, …

America’S Presidential Crisis Of Legitimacy: How The Electoral College Became Obsolete And How We Can Fix It, Julia Rose Foodman

Scripps Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to critique the current American Presidential electoral system, the Electoral College, and to show what an alternative could potentially mean for the American people. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the main arguments for the Electoral College, why are they troubling, and how can we mend American Presidential elections for the greater purposes of political equality, democracy, and freedom? To do so, core arguments made by conservative pundits in favor of the Electoral College are outlined in order to bring attention to their logical, political, and moral inconsistencies. The inequalities …

Sufficientarianism Revised: A Look At Past Theories Of Distributive Justice And Working Prospects For Future Theories, Georgia Dietz

CMC Senior Theses

In philosophy, distributive justice is the economic, political, and social structure that constitutes a larger debate on how resources should be divided in society. What is a ‘fair’ way of distributing resources? Many philosophers have created different frameworks that attempt to answer this question. This paper will focus on the attempts that have been made by sufficientarians, then look at problems with these theories that have been pointed out by critics, and finally attempt to revise sufficientarianism altogether.

Arguments For The Abolition Of Gender, Antonio Pineda

CMC Senior Theses

Throughout the process of writing this thesis, I have struggled with whether or not to use the term “gender abolition.” In one sense, the term itself initially piqued my interest in the topic. I remember the first time I heard of gender abolition, I had an immediate intuitive resistance. I thought it was another manifestation of the disconnect that exists between academia and society at large. However, my feelings quickly changed when the concept was explained to me in my sophomore year philosophy seminar. My incredulousness transformed to excitement when I realized gender abolition was actually simply the full realization …

“Emotion, Executive Dysfunction, And Agency: Can Emotional Disability Impair An Agent’S Likelihood Of Virtue?” In Faith & Virtue Formation: Christian Philosophy In Aid Of Becoming Good, Edited By Adam C. Pelser And W. Scott Cleveland, Kevin Timpe

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

The Economic And Philosophic Manuscripts Of Data, Sage D. Young

CMC Senior Theses

Society is filled with words and images that elucidate the positive force radiating from technology entities. I push back against this imprecise and inaccurate narrative by breaking down the illusions created by surveillance capitalism. I argue that there exists a unique relationship between an individual and their environment in creating value, especially in the form of data. This relationship tears down the smokescreens prompted up by the surveillance state because it demonstrates the costs of technology and surveillance capitalism. I found that how data is created and made monetarily valuable has significant, adverse repercussions on the capability to flourish as …

Honesty And Love In Plato's Symposium, Cheng Rui Yap

CMC Senior Theses

Plato’s account can be understood in two sections, his critical method, which prioritizes true nature over false praise, and his account of Love. This paper is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the importance of the critical spirit and explains his praise of honesty and truth. The second section describes the nature of Love as virtues of passion. In the third section, I criticize Plato for going against his virtues of passion because of his bad passions, disinterest and malice.

On The Wrongs Of Fake News, Samuel Fiske

CMC Senior Theses

While fake news has become a hot political issue in the past years, it presents novel and apolitical philosophical problems that are often neglected. This paper explores the epistemic and moral wrong of fake news, drawing on work from Immanuel Kant, Seana Shiffrin, and Miranda Fricker to explain exactly why fake news is so problematic. I argue that creating and sharing fake news violates Kant’s Categorical Imperative because it cannot be willed into a universal law and because it fails to respect rational agents as ends in themselves. I also argue that fake news presents distinct epistemic harms as it …

Didactic Democracy: Rethinking The Roles Of Individuality, Political Freedoms And “Cultural Values” In The Process Of Development, Sabrina Hartono

CMC Senior Theses

Working off of Amartya Sen’s “Development as Freedom,” this paper challenges the conception of political freedoms and their instrumental, constructive and intrinsic roles in the development of society. I explore how identity formation is not as individualistic as Sen implicitly assumes in his framework. Using Elizabeth Anderson’s work on the importance of community in developing an individual identity, as well as incorporating ideas from Marx and Somers, I argue that there is strong reason to believe that Sen’s emphasis on the instrumental and constructive roles of political freedoms is exaggerated. I challenged Sen’s conception of the intrinsic value of political …

Humanist But Not Radical: The Educational Philosophy Of Thiruvalluvar Kural, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Humanist ideas in education have been promoted by both Western thinkers and classical wisdom texts of Asia. Exploring this connection, I examine the educational philosophy of an iconic ancient Tamil (Indian) text, the Thiruvalluvar Kural, by juxtaposing it with a contemporary humanist classic, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As this comparative study reveals, both texts offer humanist visions of relevance to education, politics, and society. Notably, however, the Kural takes what might be described as a more mainstream humanist stance vis-à-vis Freire’s radical humanist approach. Nevertheless, both educational philosophies share a common humanist bond representing important breakthroughs …

What Are You Guarding? Lessons On Anger And Its Antidotes From The Christian Tradition In Adam C. Pelser & W. Scott Cleveland (Eds.), Faith And Virtue Formation: Christian Philosophy In Aid Of Becoming Good, Rebecca Konyndyk Deyoung

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

A reconciliation of different approaches to anger in the Christian moral tradition, with cautions and recommendations for virtuous anger formation.