Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject To Criminal Punishment And To Preventive Detention, Ken M. Levy

Journal Articles

How should we judge psychopaths, both morally and in the criminal justice system? This Article will argue that psychopaths are generally not morally responsible for their bad acts simply because they cannot understand, and therefore be guided by, moral reasons.

Scholars and lawyers who endorse the same conclusion automatically tend to infer from this premise that psychopaths should not be held criminally punishable for their criminal acts. These scholars and lawyers are making this assumption (that just criminal punishment requires moral responsibility) on the basis of one of two deeper assumptions: that either criminal punishment directly requires moral responsibility or …

Kant On Animal Consciousness, Colin Mclear

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Consider two different ways of characterizing the cognitive requirements necessary for perceptual awareness of an objective physical world.¹ On the one hand, objective perceptual awareness may only require the sensory capacity for awareness of particular physical individuals and their features, perhaps along with the minimal kinds of cognitive processing needed to integrate received sensory information with behavior. On the other hand, objective perceptual awareness may require not only these low-level cognitive capacities but also conceptual capacities, or perhaps even specific concepts.² Call these two lines of thought regarding objective perpetual awareness non-conceptualism and conceptualism respectively.

Review Of Timothy O'Leary And Christopher Falzon's (Eds.) Foucault And Philosophy, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

"Philosopher" was a label that Michel Foucault sometimes resisted, especially in the earlier decades of his career, but Timothy O'Leary and Christopher Falzon have assembled an excellent anthology of articles demonstrating Foucault's engagement with and contributions to contemporary philosophical practice throughout his life's work. The book examines and situates Foucault's work in relation to several major strands of philosophical tradition. It consists of an introduction and one paper each by the editors and an additional nine papers by well-known Foucault scholars including Gary Gutting, Jana Sawicki, Amy Allen, and Paul Patton, among others. There is no lack of interpretive disagreement …

Decapitating Power, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In “Society Must Be Defended” Foucault examines 17th century race war discourse not so much in order to understand 20th century racism or concepts of race but primarily because it constitutes an historical example of an attempt to think power without a head or king. This essay examines his account of race war discourse and the sources he used to construct it. It then takes issue with his claim that early race war discourse can be separated from 18th and 19th century racisms. Finally, it returns to the question of power and argues that the effect of the 1976 lecture …

Is ‘Argument’ Subject To The Product/Process Ambiguity?, G. C. Goddu

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The product/process distinction with regards to “argument” has a longstanding history and foundational role in argumentation theory. I shall argue that, regardless of one’s chosen ontology of arguments, arguments are not the product of some process of arguing. Hence, appeal to the distinction is distorting the very organizational foundations of argumentation theory and should be abandoned

On A Duty Of Humanitarian Intervention, David Lefkowitz

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Perhaps the most discussed topic amongst just war theorists during the 1990s was the moral (and legal) justifiability of armed humanitarian interventions. Not surprisingly, that changed after the 9/11 terrorists attacks and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with topics such as the morality of terrorism, torture, and preventive war receiving the lion's share of attention. Nevertheless, for reasons both good, such as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's endorsement of a limited duty of intervention in its report, The Responsibility to Protect, and bad, such as the conflict in Darfur, the morality of humanitarian intervention remains …

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.

Tom Regan And The Problem Of Conflicting Rights, Jeanine Campsall

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

N/A

The Border Mural In The Electronic Age: Xican@ Literacy As Rhetorical Agency, José Angel Maldonado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Border Mural in the Electronic Age is a project that responds to blanket statements, not only about a people's literacy (or illiteracy), but to the ways in which we define and measure literacy in the electronic age. In this study, literacy is located on the US-México border, and this specific location serves as the social, political, and economic grounds on which to study the types of literacies used by the local population. A cultural ecology approach is necessary when studying niche literacies, and in today's world, traditional literacies coexist among emergent forms of literacy most likely attributed to technological …

Kandinsky's Nonrepresentational Art: Finding Meaning Through Aesthetic Experience, Kandice Nikkole Diaz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The art world is not one in which much scholarship has been conducted from a communication perspective. As such, this study attempts to add to the very little body of work that exists in the realms of both art and visual rhetoric. Abstract art, such as that of Wassily Kandinsky, is full of meaning despite the fact that it is nonobjective, and therefore considered meaningless. Using a rhetorical method, I argue that by examining the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky in certain contexts, it is possible to discover the meaning embedded in his abstract paintings, in particular his Compositions and Improvisations.

Incorporating Sustainability Into Urban Infrastructures: The Tension Between Bio-Cultural Aspects And Environmental Considerations, Shane Epting

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following arguments focus on how to think about sustainability as it relates to technology and the non-human world within an anthropocentric framework. We end up with a picture showing that humankind needs to change the ways in which we look at anthropocentric concerns. Secondly, the discussion that leads up to the final picture details the urgency that guides the thinking behind the implementation of sustainability. Because, as the West learns to live in an entirely new sense that is consistent with holding humankind's desire for existence as a permanent situation, one finds that this notion must be paramount for …

The Mind And Metaphysics Of Agency, Gareth Fuller

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, I try to spell out what it is to be a human agent. I start by defending an account of agency which I call the cognitive account. The cognitive account of agency holds that there are certain mental capabilities that are required to determine what is an action of the agent and what is not. This then leads into a discussion of intentionality, where I defend a functionalist account of intentional realism. After this I discuss how actions and events are individuated leading into a discussion of what it is to do something intentionally. This relies heavily …

Problematizing Executive Prerogative In Locke And Rousseau, Benjamin Joseph Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The organization of this paper is composed of three main sections. The first section intensively analyzes the discourses of John Locke. Thoroughly combing through Locke's reasoning the concept six fundamental principles of executive prerogative are derived. This provides a basis for comparison and understanding.The second section investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's works as an alternative proposal to the static principles of Locke. In order to effectively gain insight on executive prerogative, the basis and purpose of proper governments must be thoroughly addressed. Through Rousseau's various works three tenets for proper governance are built. The factors that position Rousseau to advocate for executive …

The Exploratory Value Of Agent-Based Models In Social Science, Ricardo Andress Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

N/A

The Relationship Between Divided Government And Real Per Capita Gross State Product, Adrian Christopher Villasenor

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper analyzes the relationship between divided government and real per capita gross state product in U.S. states using a panel study of data from all of the contiguous U.S. states, except Nebraska, for the period of 1990 to 2007. Some literature can be found on the relationship between divided government and economic growth at the national level. There is a lack of study of this relationship at the state level. Real per capita gross state product is the dependent variable in this study. Divided government, partisan control of the governor's office, partisan control of the state legislature, combined federal …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …