Philosophy Commons^™

Responsible Believing, Miriam S. Mccormick

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In most of our decisions as parents or educators concerning how we should talk to children about difficult subjects, the question turns to what degree we should withhold the truth, how much information we should provide, or what details are appropriate. We, as adults, know the answer to the child's question, and the difficulty arises in figuring out what to convey and how. Questions about death and the afterlife are not like this. We - and by "we;' I mean especially educated adults of the Western world - are often as confused about what we should believe about these matters …

The Role Of Consensus In The Neutrality/Advocacy Debate, Michael Patrick Bailey

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The debate over the preferred teaching method of ethics is between the methods of neutrality and advocacy. Proponents of each assume that only one method is acceptable. I argue that both methods have acceptable versions and that there are different situations in which one is preferred over the other.

Using both methods throughout an ethics course is preferable to using only one method exclusively. The question then becomes how one decides which method to use with each particular issue. I argue that it depends on whether an ethical issue is controversial or whether or not a consensus exists.

Controversy and …

Leadership Ethics, Joanne B. Ciulla, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

A CEO bankrupts the company he is supposed to be leading. A retiree donates thousands of hours to her community. A company's leadership decides not to relocate a factory overseas, for the sake of the residents of an economically challenged town. A president of a club on a college campus encourages members to cheat on their examinations so that the group's members can earn academic honors. An elected public official arranges a tryst with a lover and abandons his duties for days on end.

These behaviors raise questions about motivation, rationality, and intent, but with a difference; these actions cannot …

Curriculum Vitae Of Gareth B. Matthews, Gareth B. Matthews

Collected Papers of Gareth B. Matthews

No abstract provided.

Hostis Antiquus Resurgent: A Reconfigured Jerusalem In Twelfth-Century Latin Sermons About Islam, Todd P. Upton

Quidditas

This paper investigates how Christian writers from late antiquity through the twelfth century transformed explanations of encounters with Middle Eastern peoples and lands into a complex theological discourse. Examinations of sermons and narrative sources from antiquity through the first century of Crusades (1096-1192) serve as evidentiary bases because of the polemical way in which Pope Urban II’s 1095 sermon at Clermont defined Muslims. In that sermon, chroniclers recorded that the pope rallied Frankish support for an armed pilgrimage by disparaging Muslims who had overrun Jerusalem and the Holy Sites – calling them a “race utterly alienated from God” (gens …

Allen D. Breck Award Winner 2011

Quidditas

Michael Call

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper presented by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

The Changing Portrayal Of Sir Thomas More’S Life, Gary Cirelli

Quidditas

Sir Thomas More is an important figure in European intellectual history. During his lifetime, he was known throughout Europe as an accomplished thinker, writer, and lawyer. His devotion to the Church, pious lifestyle, and dramatic execution at the hands of Henry VIII made him a Catholic martyr, leading to his canonization in 1935. The facts of his remarkable life, his status among early modern Humanist intellectuals, friendship with Erasmus, his written works, like his famous Utopia, make it unsurprising that numerous scholars have written about More and analyzed his works. However, many of these scholars do not fully address …

Pedagogical Rhythms: Practices And Reflections On Practices. In Smith James K. A. & Smith David (Eds.), Teaching, Learning, And Christian Practice, Rebecca Konyndyk Deyoung

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Marx's Concept Of The Transcendence Of Value Production, Peter Hudis

Dissertations

Although the literature produced on Marx's philosophic contribution over the past 100 years is immense, most of it has focused on his analysis of the economic and political structure of capitalism, the "materialist conception of history," and his critique of value production. There has been very little discussion or analysis, however, of his conception of what constitutes an alternative to capitalism. One reason for this is that it has long been assumed that Marx's disdain for utopian socialists and his strictures against inventing "blueprints about the future" meant that his work does not address the possible content of a postcapitalist …

Restoring The Balance: Setting Aside Naturalism In Favor Of Personhood In Extreme Cases, Brian Joseph Buckley

Dissertations

This dissertation addresses a simple question: Is an anencephalic child a person? These children are born with only a brain stem, and, as such, cannot experience any type of consciousness. If personhood is understood as an articulable moral category, particularly distinct from DNA membership, reasonable evidence would be required to attribute any such moral category in these cases. That is, to claim that children who may never think or feel are persons carries a philosophical burden that extends beyond mere Homo Sapiens membership. This dissertation accepts that burden and answers that anencephalic children are persons. To do this, I first …

Giving Voice To The Vulnerable: Discourse Ethics And Amnesty For Undocumented Immigration, Kyle Thomsen

Dissertations

The purpose of my dissertation is to explore the unique challenges facing undocumented migrants, and the claims to amnesty they can make. I take a discourse theoretic approach to this issue, following in the footsteps of Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib, among others. My thesis consists of the following claims. First, a rights-based approach to amnesty does not clearly distinguish between different types of immigrants (i.e. undocumented and potential immigrants). Second, the relevant distinguishing factor between undocumented and potential immigrants is what I refer to as rooted residency, a category which captures factors such as time spent in a nation, …

The Significance Of The Erosion Of The Prohibition Against Metabasis To The Success And Legacy Of The Copernican Revolution, Jason Aleksander

Faculty Publications

Although one would not wish to classify Copernicus’ own intentions as belonging to the late-medieval and Renaissance tradition of nominalist philosophy, if we are to turn our consideration to what was responsible for the eventual success of the Copernican Revolution, we must also attend to other features of the dialectical context in relation to which the views of Copernicus and his followers were articulated, interpreted, and evaluated. Accordingly, this paper discusses the significance of the erosion of the Aristotelian prohibition against metabasis to the eventual success of the Copernican Revolution.

Being In The Know: Punk, Confrontation, And The Process Of Validating Truth Claims, Christopher Richard Penna

Master's Theses

Since the birth of punk, it has been a harbinger of trends within both youth culture and what cultural theorist Theodor Adorno calls the "culture industry" (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1947; Adorno, 1971). However, punk has never been fully embraced by the culture industry, largely, by design. Punk arose as a response, borne out of the frustration of a stagnant world that values profit over people (Sabin, 1999, p. 3). Present within opposition is confrontation--which is the very nature of punk. This thesis seeks to exemplify how punk uses confrontation as the instrument through which punk comes to know truths. The …

The Persistence Of Casuistry: A Neo-Premodernist Approach To Moral Reasoning, Richard Arthur Mercadante

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The general purpose of this dissertation is to explore casuistry--case-based reasoning--as a discredited, rehabilitated, and, most importantly, persistent form of moral reasoning. Casuistry offers a much needed corrective to principle-based approaches. I offer a defense of a "principle-modest" casuistry and explore the epistemology of casuistry, describing the prerequisite knowledge required for casuistry. I conclude by arguing that casuistry is best understood as a neo-premodernist approach to moral reasoning.

The Virtuoso Human: A Virtue Ethics Model Based On Care, Frederick Joseph Bennett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to develop the foundation and structure for a virtue ethics theory grounded in a specific notion of care. While there has been a recent revival of interest in virtue ethics theory, the theory has its roots in Aristotle's work as well in the medieval writings of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas worked out many of Aristotle's ideas in much more detail. However, while Aquinas offers a very rich and compelling ethical theory, it is problematic because it is very tightly wrapped in his theology. A key component in Aquinas's theory is charity. Charity is one of …

The Existential Compromise In The History Of The Philosophy Of Death, Adam Buben

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I begin by offering an account of two key strains in the history of philosophical dealings with death. Both strains initially seek to diminish fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the Platonic strain, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications, this is the strain that is taken up by much of the mainstream Christian tradition. According to the Epicurean strain, death should not be feared since the …

Philosophical Precursors To The Radical Enlightenment: Vignettes On The Struggle Between Philosophy And Theology From The Greeks To Leibniz With Special Emphasis On Spinoza, Anthony John Desantis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation lays out some of the chief philosophical precursors to Jonathan Israel's Radical Enlightenment. It investigates the principal question of Will Durant's The Age of Voltaire: "How did it come about that a major part of the educated classes in Europe and America has lost faith in the theology that for fifteen centuries gave supernatural sanctions and supports to the precarious and uncongenial moral code upon which Western civilization has been based?" The aim of this project is both broad and specific: the first is to provide a general history of the philosophical precursors to the Radical Enlightenment up …

Nothing But A Pack Of Cards: Semi-Fictitious Persons And Flopping Jellyfish In Elizabeth Bowen, Renée C. Hoogland

English Faculty Research Publications

Taking the wildly conflicting critical evaluations of Elizabeth Bowen's final novel, Eva Trout, or Changing Scenes (1969) as its starting-point, this essay argues against 'interpreting' both the novel and its 'monstrous' heroine in conventional representational terms, to argue, instead, for an appreciation, or experience, of both novel and protagonist as instantiations of a process of becoming along Deleuzian lines. Rather than seeing Bowen's final novel as a (failed) attempt to do what the Anglo-Irish writer's previous work would have suggested this text to do as well, the novel and its eponymous heroine are approached as Bowen's rigorously ethical effort to, …

On The Incompatibility Of Political Virtue And Judicial Review: A Neo-Aristotelean Perspective, Ralph F. Gaebler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Part I of this essay outlines a neo-Aristotelean theory of political virtue, an instance of virtue generally, that serves as the basis of excellent citizenship in the polis. As such, political virtue contributes its share to the achievement of eudaimonia, or the fulfillment of an individual’s natural, human function. In fact, political virtue is especially important because people are political beings, i.e. they seek the good most comprehensively in the context of association with others. Therefore, Aristotle describes politics as the master science of the supreme good, because politics orders the community of the polis and thereby establishes the norms …

E Pluribus Plurum, Or, How To Fail To Back Into A State In Spite Of Really Trying, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

“The framework for utopia,” Robert Nozick tells us at the beginning of the fi nal section of Part iiiof Anarchy, State, and Utopia( ASU), “is equivalent to the minimal state” (p. 333). The rich andcomplex body of argumentation of Parts iand iihad produced theconclusion that the minimal, and no more than a minimal, statewas legitimate or morally justifi ed. What Part iiireveals is that theminimal state “is the one that best realizes the utopian aspirationsof untold dreamers and visionaries” (p. 333). Although this happyconvergence is surely no accident, neither, Nozick insists, is it contrived, for it is the conclusion reached …