Philosophy Commons^™

Sustaining Autonomous Communities In The Modern United States (The United Communities Of America), Lucas Hester

Senior Theses

America has become industrialized and characterized by social anxiety and overconsumption. The inability to be sustainable has led the once plentiful and flourishing nation into an ongoing sustainability crisis. Even if there is a deep connection between them, this essay focuses on social sustainability rather than ecological. It argues for an intentional community-based framework to keep American life sustainable. Pollution, civil unrest, and intense social anxiety create unfulfilling life conditions for many American citizens. Using examples from modern American intentional communities, I will explain the need for self-directing, close-knit communities. Flourishing community members, as it will be considered from sociological …

Rocky Horror Sublimation: Identity As A Contingency Of Experience, Josh Harper

Senior Theses

Queer theory, as a subfield of feminist theories concerned with revealing epistemic, political, and humanitarian problems of a male-dominated society, has been heavily influenced by its founding thinkers, including Judith Butler, the theorist focused on herein. In critiquing various problems of our western society, Butler preserves the structure underlying such problems: through her approach of a gay/straight framework critiquing a male domination of female, the binary is preserved. This is problematic for many reasons, including its exclusion of perspectives that do not fall cleanly into such dichotomies, namely trans and polysexual ones. By appealing to these, as well as to …

The Power Of Discomfort In Learning Abroad, Alexis Barge

Capstone Collection

Currently, the majority of students who study abroad do so through short-term programs. In fact, in 2015 over 60% of students who studied abroad chose short-term programs lasting eight weeks or less (IIE, 2016). It has long been the belief that study abroad has the potential to be a life-changing and transformative experience, not just academically but also for personal growth and development. Many professionals agree that the students who go abroad on short-term study abroad programs are significantly less likely to experience meaningful learning outside of the subject matter they are studying, and are less likely to experience personal …

Dialogues On Ethical Vegetarianism, Michael Huemer

Between the Species

Two philosophy students, M and V, discuss the ethics of meat consumption. Standard arguments on both sides are reviewed, with emphasis on the argument that meat-consumption is wrong because it supports extreme cruelty. M and V also address such questions as how conflicting intuitions ought to be weighed, whether meat-eating is comparable to participating in a holocaust, why ethical arguments often fail to change our behavior even when they change our beliefs, and how an ethical vegetarian morally ought to interact with non-vegetarians.

A Game We Have To Lose: Overcoming The Harm Of Coming Into Existence, Hannah Strang

Honors Projects

This paper explores the asymmetry of pleasure and pain as expressed in David Benatar’s book Better Never to Have Been, which is the basis for the argument that it is always an irreparable harm to bring a person into existence, and therefore we are morally obligated to pursue extinction as a species. I will examine Benatar’s argument in support of the asymmetry’s existence and analyze the strength of his argument for extinction overall, ultimately determining that his conclusion is too strong. I will defend this claim on the grounds that Benatar’s asymmetry implies the truth of two claims that must …

Faith Development Beyond Religion: The Ngo As Site Of Islamic Reform, Nermmen Mouftah

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Anthropological field studies of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in their unique cultural and political contexts. Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs serves as a foundational text to advance a growing subfield of social science inquiry: the anthropology of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Thorough introductory chapters provide a short history of NGO anthropology, address how the study of NGOs contributes to anthropology more broadly, and examine ways that anthropological studies of NGOs expand research agendas spawned by other disciplines. In addition, the theoretical concepts and debates that have anchored the analysis of NGOs since they entered scholarly discourse after World War II …

Nailing Jello To A Tree: A Christian Approach To Ethics In Intelligence, Melanie Scherpereel

Senior Honors Theses

This paper will discuss Christian involvement in the intelligence field in addition to the ethical issues inherent to intelligence, specifically deception, including lying and manipulation, and technology as a force multiplier. Many Christians believe that intelligence is fundamentally a field of extensive deception that should be avoided. Ethics and morality, what it means to tell the truth, and biblical examples of people who used deception and were commended, will be analyzed from a Christian worldview perspective. The arguments will be presented in order that Christians may be able to understand how to apply the two greatest commandments, to love our …

An Exploratory Study Of The Five-Factor Personality Traits Model As Predictors Among Women In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Fields At Indiana State University, Sowmya Challa

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify any trends in personality traits of students at a mid-western university along with the influence of gender, choice of STEM or non-STEM academic major, and level of education on personality traits. The chosen mid-western university is Indiana State University (ISU) located in Terre Haute, Indiana. This study investigated the personality traits of student’s through administering Goldberg’s (1999) International Personality Item Pool of the Big Five Broad Domains of Personality. The personality profiles of students at ISU who have taken the questionnare are summarized. The personality profiles of female students were analyzed further …

The Perspective Of Education From Black–White–Biracial Students In Middle And High School, Eric Deville Jackson Ii

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The study examined middle and high school Black–White–Biracial (BWB) students’ perspectives of education. In order to accomplish this qualitative research study, the research I sought to (a) gain an understanding of how biracial students viewed themselves in secondary public school systems, (b) understand how BWB students identified within the school environment, and (c) learn how their identities affected their learning. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to gain in-depth understanding of the overall educational viewpoints of BWB students in select rural, urban, and suburban public schools in Indiana. The design of this research included data collection from one-on-one …

The Effects Of Secondary School Accountability Grades On College And University Transfer, Jill Robinson Kramer

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Workforce projections indicate that a majority of jobs to be created in the U.S. economy will require some form of postsecondary education (Cappelli, 2015; Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010). At the same time, colleges and universities are being held accountable for completion and graduation of their students (The Commission, 2014) and secondary schools are being graded under changing accountability systems (Center for Education Policy, 2008; Dee & Jacobs, 2011, Figlio & Ladd, 2008). This study looked at the longer-term implications of high school accountability grades, A–F, and the impact on student transfer, associate’s degree completion, and time to associate’s degree …

Espaces Topologique Et Phénoménologique Dans Le Mal De Peau Et Le Retour Au Village, Mahamadou Lamine Ouédraogo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Le mal de peau by Monique Ilboudo and Le retour au village by Kollin Noaga are two Burkinabè novels featuring Sibila and Catherine (for the first) and Tinga (for the second). The study questions the part of spatiality in the semantics of indexed texts: how does space mean in these novels? This problem is attacked from two angles. First, it is a matter of identifying the modes of meaning of the topos. Secondly, it is about seeing how the body, as a phenomenological space, can articulate meaning.

Adult Learning And The Effect Of Education And Gender Interaction On Type 2 Diabetics, Abdi H. Nur

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to investigate whether the relationships between education and medication and healthy exercise adherence were the same among female and male Type 2 diabetic adult learners. The purpose included also exploring whether registered nurses would alter their approach to diabetic adult learners’ education on medication and healthy exercise adherence considering patients’ gender and education levels. The study also investigated the correlation between diabetes duration and medication and healthy exercise adherence. The research investigation employed mixed methods sequential explanatory design using qualitative data to help explain the quantitative findings. The quantitative study was …

An Investigation Of Principal Leadership Behaviors And Implementation Of Adult Learning Strategies On The Professional Learning Environment Of A K-12 School, Christina Larson

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the influence of principal leadership behaviors and potential of utilizing adult learning strategies on the development of a school’s professional learning environment (PLE). The intention was also to determine if principals considered themselves prepared to develop and sustain such an environment. Research shows that principals and teachers perceive professional development needs and results differently. To obtain perspective from both groups, two separate surveys were administered. The results from this dissertation came from 262 principals and 433 teachers employed in K-12 public schools in Indiana. With the survey completed by principals, the …

I Am Commanded To Love You: The Journey Of Three Women College Presidents, Carey Monroe

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This was a phenomenological study of the lived experiences of women who serve as college presidents. Three women, who serve as current college presidents, participated in this study. The first was a president at a two-year community college in the upper Midwest for twelve years and served as president in another Midwestern community college for nine years prior. The second woman was a first-time president who had served for three years at a Catholic four-year college established to provide nurses for a health system. The third was a first-time president who served at a Research I institution in the upper …

Effect Of Directed Study Of Mathematics Vocabulary On Standardized Mathematics Assessment Questions, Adel Marlane Waite

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problems under investigation included (a) Did a directed study of mathematics vocabulary significantly affect student performance levels on standardized mathematical questions? and (b) Did the strategies used in this study significantly affect student performance levels on standardized mathematical questions? The population consisted of eighth-grade pre-algebra students from two different middle schools in southern Indiana. This quasi-experimental study was of a quantitative, repeated-measures design, using a population of approximately 140 eighth-grade students with a control sample of 37 and an experimental sample of 52. I performed a repeated measures ANCOVA to analyze scores from a mathematics vocabulary posttest for each …

Oral History Conversation With Yasmin Alkhal, Elona Bebla, Nick Del Mundo

Philosophy 111: Philosophy of Human Nature

This oral history project builds on an ongoing storytelling project by freelance photographer Jim Lommasson entitled What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization, which has now become a traveling exhibit. The exhibit features various artifacts and belongings that Iraqi and Syrian refugees have carried with them on their journey to America. Each artifact bears a story about particular objects, images, or memories that reconnect refugee communities to what they have lost or left behind.

In their conversations with Iraqi and Syrian refugees, USD students invited members of the Iraqi/Syrian communities in San Diego to share the life …

Waiting As Resistance: Lingering, Loafing, And Whiling Away, Harold Schweizer

Faculty Journal Articles

„Waiting as Resistance: Lingering, Loafing, and Whiling Away” is a critique of the economics of consumption, suggesting that the widespread denigration of waiting as lost time and its economic and psychological displacements in consumer goods amount to a denigration of human life itself. In the practice of lingering and its related temporalities, the author proposes, we regain an appreciation of the fundamental temporality of all things, that everything, we humans included, is constituted by time. Conceptually indebted to Theodor Adorno and substantiated with reference, chiefly to Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and other poetic works, this argument throughout opposes the …

Sharing Responsibility For Divesting From Fossil Fuels, Eric S. Godoy

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

Governments have been slow to address climate change. If non-governmental agents share a responsibility in light of the slow pace of government action then it is a collective responsibility. I examine three models of collective responsibility, especially Iris Young's social connection model, and assess their value for identifying a collective, among all emitters, that can share responsibility. These models can help us better understand both the growth of the movement to divest from fossil fuels and the nature of responsibility for collective action problems. Universities and colleges share a responsibility because they occupy similar positions of, among other things, power …

Socratic Metaethics Imagined, Steve Ross, Lisa Warenski

Sophia and Philosophia

A time machine mysteriously appeared one day in ancient Athens. Curious about the future of philosophical dialogue, Socrates entered the device and traveled to the 21st Century. He spent several months in the United Kingdom and United States discussing metaethics before returning to Athens, now a devoted and formidable quasi-realist moral expressivist.

Toward A Legal Harm Principle: Constructing And Applying A Legal Principle From John Stuart Mill's General Harm Principle, Kathryn Alice Zawisza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My goal in this work is to outline a specifically legal harm principle that is derived from John Stuart Mill’s harm principle in On Liberty. I will do this by providing a close reading of On Liberty and comparing it to what he says in chapter V of Utilitarianism. I believe that these two works provide a foundation for a harm principle that defines the domain and limits of the law. While this goal is not new, I focus on Mill’s general harm principle and the two maxims that he believes make it up in order to construct a relatively …