Philosophy Commons^™

Aristotle And Game Theory On Human Nature And Ethics, Beau R. Revlett

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

This paper considers whether Aristotle’s ethics is consistent with one modern scientific view of humans. The modern scientific view discussed is based on Nancy Cartwright’s argument that game theory uncovers something akin to the Aristotelian natures of humans. Following Martha Nussbaum, this paper focuses on the role of human nature in Aristotle’s ethics. Specifically, it focuses on two kinds of ethical conclusions Aristotle grounds in claims about human nature: one about what can be coherently desired for a human being, one about the social arrangements appropriate to human beings. This paper considers Nussbaum’s interpretation that Aristotle’s claims about human nature …

The Morality Of Corporate Persons, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

This essay provides a genealogy of corporate personhood as it exists currently in US law and places moral personhood in a similar genealogical context. This treatment demonstrates that the two are inextricably intertwined in both conception and institutionalized practices. We would do well to dismantle both; meanwhile, however, corporate personhood's implicit illiberal notion of collective mentality and responsibility may suggest possibilities for establishing collective counterforces to oppose activities of transnational for-profit corporations and mitigate their devastating political, economic, and environmental effects upon actual people and the ecosystems upon which we depend.

[Review Of] Robert J. Richards And Michael Ruse, Debating Darwin, Charles H. Pence

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Noble Art Of Lying, James E. Mahon

Publications and Research

In this chapter I examine the writings of Mark Twain on lying, especially his essays "On the decay of the Art of Lying" and "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It." I show that Twain held that there were two kinds of lies: the spoken lie and the silent lie. The silent lie is the lie of not saying what one is thinking, and is far more common than the spoken lie. The greatest silent lies, according to Twain, were the national silent lies that there was nothing wrong with slavery (the U.S.), that there was nothing …

How To Understand The Debate Over Presentism And Eternalism, Travis Matthew Figg

Wayne State University Dissertations

Presentism is the view that, with the possible exception of things outside of time, everything that exists, exists at the present time. It is contrasted with eternalism, the view that everything which ever did exist or ever will exist, exists. Some philosophers argue that presentism and eternalism are not really substantive, opposed metaphysical theses. I consider some attempts in the literature to rebut this skeptical position, and argue that they are unsatisfactory. Then I make my own case for the conclusion that presentism and eternalism are substantive metaphysical theses by drawing a distinction between two ways of talking about what …

Epistemological Matters Matter For Theological Understanding, Joseph F. Laporte

Faculty Publications

This article leads the reader to appreciate some of the importance of philosophical epistemology, to the field of theology, by way of two fascinating philosophical topics. As it does so, it provides some development and clarification of two notions important in epistemology: first, rationality, and second, the distinction sometimes called the “propositional–experiential” distinction. The first is the more central to mainstream philosophy today. Since at least Plato, philosophers have asked: what is it to know something, or to be rational or right-headed, as opposed to kooky or gullible, in believing something? Christian philosophers have applied this study to the …

Towards Buen Vivir: Brian Massumi’S "The Power At The End Of The Economy”, Robert Leston

Publications and Research

In this review of The Power at the End of the Economy, Lestón delineates the theoretical apparatus of Massumi's book and its possible implications.

Novel Passions : Re-Reading English Fiction Through The History Of Emotion, 1689-1751, Joel P. Sodano

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

“The passions” were of paramount importance in the 18th century. Classical contexts established excessive emotions as potentially dangerous forces that could override the will and dictate human action, but they also perceived them as inessential to and even extirpable from human nature. With the advent of empiricism, the theoretical framework of emotion shifted from an external condition to an internal proposition. Thus, in the 18th century a conceptual symbiosis is formed between “the Gales of Passion” and “the Reins of Reason” (Spectator, no. 408, 1712). This seemingly archaic idea is actually being confirmed by contemporary neuroscience. For recently discovered neural …

Efficiency, Growth And The Pursuit Of Social Utility, Mary-Elizabeth Theresa Breitmaier

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This paper discusses and analyzes the claim that laissez-faire policies achieve greater efficiency and growth, which in turn provides overall social utility. This paper outlines and defines the terms used in the defense of laissez-faire policies and shows that this defense is suspect on all grounds. That is to say these policies do not provide greater efficiency, growth, or overall social utility. This paper argues against the questionable claim that a laissez-faire economy attains greater efficiency and growth. Further, even assuming that it did succeed in these two areas, it does not necessarily imply that greater social utility will follow …

The Promise Of Reconciliation Through Sympathy, Raphael Faith Moser

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A history of policies and practices of racial injustice against black Americans in the United

The Philosophy And Physics Of Time Travel: The Possibility Of Time Travel, Ramitha Rupasinghe

Honors Capstone Projects

Time travel to the past is an alluring subject for many science fiction writers but is it really science fiction or is there a way to make it happen, possibly in the distant future? In the world of physics, time travel to the future has already been accomplished but time travel to the past seems to be a subject of controversy. Similarly, both philosophers and physicists cannot completely agree on one fundamental question about time: what is it? In this interdisciplinary project, I will explore the fundamental nature of time as a building block to help me understand time travel. …

To Paint A Queen, Anne-Taylor Cahill

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Penny For Your Thoughts... The Evolution Of The British Postal System, Anne-Taylor Cahill

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mill's Act Utilitarian Interpreters On Chapter V Paragraph 14, Dale E. Miller

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In the fourteenth paragraph of the fifth chapter of Utilitarianism, J. S. Mill writes that ‘We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.’ I criticize the attempts of three commentators who have recently presented act-utilitarian readings of Mill – Roger Crisp, David Brink, and Piers Norris Turner – to accommodate this passage.

Voltaire The Feminist, Esdras Castaneda

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Voltaire was not the common Enlightened philosopher. No, he was one of the great ones. And especially critical in the fight for social justice and equality for women. Voltaire did not write about women. Typically, women were seen as weak, fragile, had pale skin, and were very thin. But Voltaire wrote about them in the exact opposite way. They were as strong, resilient, and brave as any man. And they were buxom, plump, and provocative. Voltaire purposefully writes this way to switch the gender roles; to show that women could be anything a man could be. That they could be …

Voltaire, A Modern-Day Realist, Sebastian Valdiviezo

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Voltaire, arguably one of the most influential and crucial characters during the Enlightenment period. He was able to implement his ideologies while criticizing social norms in many of his literary works. Influenced by the many fortunes and tragedies of his time, he was able to transform these events and constitute them into a philosophy that changed the world forever. Challenging the ideas of his time, Voltaire writes Candide to criticize the optimistic ideologies held by many of the other philosophers of his time.

Many would agree in calling Candide a guideline into a small overview of Voltaire’s philosophy. He constantly …

Persistent Problems In Modified Divine Command Theory, Brandon Trey Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I argue that there are persistent problems in contemporary modifications of divine command theory. Divine command theory states that God’s commands are moral obligations only because he commands them. Modified divine command theories attempt to add to or amend the justification for God’s commands being moral obligations. The problem is that they aren’t successful at escaping the Euthyprho dilemma, which states the following of God’s commands: they are either a) moral obligations because they are commanded by God, or they are b) commanded by God because they are moral obligations. Modified divine command theories attempt to navigate between these two …

The False Intent-Purpose Distinction In Textualism, Aaron Graham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Textualism is the theory of legislative interpretation championed most famously by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Textualism adopts twin interpretive commitments: (1) the meaning of a legislative text should be discerned by application of long-established canons of construction, the most important of which is that the text means what its words convey; and (2) a legislative text means what it meant at the time it was enacted. This paper examines the first principle, and in particular Scalia and treatise coauthor Bryan A. Garner’s belief that it mandates that judges forswear any consideration of legislative intent. This paper assess …

Consciousness In Comatose Clowns: No Funny Business, Mary Gregg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Consider the tragic case of four circus clowns whose pie-to-the-face gag effectively knocks each one into a cream-pie coma. In each of the four cases, motor capacities (voluntary speech, limb movement, etc.) Are not available to the patient's conscious control. Although none of our apparently comatose clowns have voluntary motor capacities, each has a unique set of internal and external activity going on. In other words, each of our clowns (bozo, chuckles, wiggles, and krusty, respectively), now sits in a vegetative state. Now, there's a problem. Sometimes comatose patients are conscious, so there's a big philosophical and empirical issue going …

What Can Research On Nonhumans Tell Us About Human Dissonance?, Jennifer Vonk

Animal Sentience

Zentall’s thoughtful review of the literature on cognitive dissonance in nonhumans helps to highlight the common finding that similar outcomes in humans and nonhumans can be attributed to different underlying mechanisms. I advocate a more fully comparative approach to the underlying mechanisms, avoiding the assumption of shared processes in humans and nonhumans.