Philosophy Commons^™

Foundations Of A Political Identity: An Inquiry Into Indian Swaraj (Self-Rule), Shantanu Garg

CMC Senior Theses

India is celebrated as the largest democracy in the world but is it truly democratic? Is it the nation-state that its founder’s envisioned it to be? Has it addressed it ancient issue of social diversity?

This paper seeks to assess the present problem faced by the Indian Democracy; problems based on India’s inherent social diversity. Furthermore the paper seeks to recommend a solution based on Amartya Sen’s Open Impartiality approach that will allow the country to reassess its democratic platform. The paper also aims at providing a starting point to execute Sen’s approach by exploring the vision of two of …

The Replicator And Scheffler’S Distributive Hybrid: Deriving Moral Obligations From Ability To Aid, Adam Griffith

CMC Senior Theses

If one can do a good thing, ought one do it? In this paper, I argue that capability is a strong source of moral obligation that can, in proper doses, override things like property rights. I will build a hypothetical case based on a fictional invention called the Replicator with enormous potential for use as a humanitarian tool and I’ll use it to display the way that capability to aid imposes powerful moral obligations on both individuals and organizations. Ultimately, I will use the model that I will develop to demonstrate that some real-world entities are not satisfying their moral …

The Deontological And Utilitarian Cases For Rectifying Structural Injustice In Sweatshop Labor Ethics: A Critical Assessment, Clark J. Kissiah

CMC Senior Theses

Sweatshop labor has been condemned by scholars, activists, students and consumers in more developed countries on charges of wrongful exploitation, and a failure to respect the dignity, and basic needs of sweatshop workers. This paper surveys charges against sweatshop labor, and some of the more influential arguments for, and against, rectifying the background structural injustices that perpetuate it. I argue that in certain sweatshop cases, compensating workers below a prima facie morally acceptable level can be most successful in striving towards the duty of beneficence that employers owe to their employees. Therefore, we ought to pursue utility-maximizing acts over others …

Structuralist Qualia, Lucas Jon Van Houten

CMC Senior Theses

Structuralist theories of properties state that properties are individuated by their nomological or causal roles. It has previously been suggested that structuralism is incompatible with robust conceptions of qualia. In this paper, I argue that structuralism should be taken as a theory of de re representation, and under this formulation it is able to accommodate qualia as intrinsic, introspectable properties of experiences. I then turn to various thought experiments used by qualia theorists to expand the notion of qualia, and find the majority of these compatible with structuralism as well. I conclude that the structuralists and qualia theorists need not …

The Artist's Dilemma; A Philosophical Analysis Of “Selling Out” And Its Impacts On Well-Being In The Music Industry, Jenson R. Tuomi

CMC Senior Theses

Beginning with a discussion of a concept referred to as “The Artist’s Dilemma,” my thesis discusses the common criticism of artists in the music industry that they can “sell out” by changing their sound, appearance, and jeopardizing their artistic integrity in exchange for financial or celebrity gain. Furthermore, it attempts to search for a universal guide by which artists in the music industry could circumnavigate this “artist’s dilemma” in order to ensure a meaningful career without over-playing their role as a celebrity, nor under-playing their role as a musician. In order to evaluate this topic, I consider multiple “real world” …

Curating [Encyclopedia Entry], Curtis L. Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Historical Accountability And The Virtue Of Civic Integrity, Margaret Urban Walker

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Moral Vulnerability And The Task Of Reparations, Margaret Urban Walker

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This essay seeks to understand the domain and demands of reparative justice in terms of moral vulnerability. Significant harms raise the question of whether victims stand in truly reciprocal practices of accountability; if they do, they enjoy the power of calling others to account as well as bearing the liability of being accountable to others. In the aftermath of harms, victims’ moral vulnerability is tested: they may be exposed to the insult and injury of discovering that they do not enjoy the moral standing of holding others accountable. While the occasion of reparative justice is significant wrongs and wrongful harms …

Religion Beyond The Limits Of Criticism, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Hermeneutics, Pol Vandevelde

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Aesthetics Of Everyday Life: East And West, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Art Photography And Everyday Life, Curtis Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

David Hume And Arguments For Design, Devon Young

2014 Symposium

The 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume is famous for his destructive critique of natural religion, as found in his book, the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. David Hume addresses six potentially fatal flaws with natural religion that originate from his radical skepticism of what can be known as true knowledge. This paper seeks to explain and offer potential refutations of two arguments in depth; namely, can we know of design a priori (before experiencing it) and can we know that kind A always causes kind B?

Critically Developing Real Capabilities, Christopher Byron

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Critical Realism, the Capabilities Approach, and Marxism, all have underdeveloped theoretical problems. For Critical Realism, the ceteris paribus clause, which is used to asses an ideological critique, does not properly specify what other things warrant the dismissal or acceptance of said critique. For the Capabilities Approach, a proper ontology or metaphysics is missing, and the claim that the Capabilities Approach can be metaphysically neutral is false. Finally, Marxism is good at describing the more onerous aspects of capitalism (e.g., alienation, exploitation, crisis), but it does not provide normative force for seeing these descriptions as bad. I argue that these three …

E Pluribus Unum? Liberalism And The Search For Civility In America, Jeannemarie Halleck

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores issues of civility in liberal democracy, and in particular, how civility and civic engagement must be regenerated in order to forward the democratic ideals of equal rights, citizen equality and collective self-government in a meaningful way. Liberal democracy presupposes a level of civility in order to uphold standards of individual liberty and freedom, however as a theory it fails to compel citizens to support levels of mutual respect.

An etymological exploration of the term civility introduces the work of puritan theologian Roger Williams, whose early writings on individual liberty as well as the role of civility and …

Bringing Out The Feminist In Bernard Williams: Constructing An Anti-Moralistic Care Ethic, Benjamin David Hershey Kenofer

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are different versions of the ethical approach known as “care ethics”, making care ethics more like a cluster of approaches rather than a singular one. Hence the question is not just whether care ethics is a suitable feminist ethic, but which version(s) of care ethics feminists should endorse. Considering which versions of care ethics are capable of recommending the sort of political activism that is required for progressive political change goes some distance in answering this question. The concern about whether care ethics can recommend the political activism needed for feminist aims arises because such activism exposes those the …

Deconstructing Presence: Rethinking The Intentionality Of The Subject On The Basis Of The Existentiality Of Dasein, Edgar Diaz

HIM 1990-2015

Having begun from the assumption that our most fundamental way to relate to the world stems from an #I think# and that consciousness is at the center of this act, Edmund Husserl sets himself up for a very narrow and specialized view of human experience. In the end, such assumptions in the philosophical tradition and their terms often remain unquestioned and ingrained in a paradigm of discourse. My aim is to move beneath these assumptions-using Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological work-so as to, first, explicitly undermine the scope of Husserlian intentionality at its foundation and, second, decenter the subject in contemporary …

Clarifying The Gettier Objection To Plantinga’S Theory Of Knowledge, Scott J. Woods

Global Tides

In “The Inescapability of Gettier Problems,” Linda Zagzebski provides a specific Gettier case to Plantinga’s proper function theory of knowledge. However, her objection fails to understand Plantinga’s cognitive environment criterion. Specifically, a cognitive environment must be assessed alongside the faculties being used in the formation a belief. Zagzebski’s example is then adapted accordingly. This paper ends with a dilemma: either Plantinga’s theory adopts a dangerously strong condition for warrant, or admits that it cannot escape Gettier cases.

Formal Properties As The Basis For Value In Music, Thomas B. Yee

Global Tides

This paper defends the thesis that value in a piece of music is based in its formal properties rather than its non-formal properties. Two arguments are presented to support this conclusion. The first argument shows that if value in music is to be objective, then it must be grounded in a piece's formal properties rather than its non-formal properties. In the second argument, a number of alternate possibilities for grounding value in music are considered and shown to miss the mark or be inadequate. Finally, a number of possible objections against the arguments and conclusion are considered and possible responses …

Persimals, Steven Luper

Philosophy Faculty Research

What sort of thing, fundamentally, are you and I? For convenience, I use the term persimal to refer to the kind of thing we are, whatever that kind turns out to be. Accordingly, the question is, what are persimals? One possible answer is that persimalhood consists in being a human animal, but many theorists, including Derek Parfit and Jeff McMahan, not to mention John Locke, reject this idea in favor of a radically different view, according to which persimalhood consists in having certain sorts of mental or psychological features. In this essay, I try to show that the animalist approach …