Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Idea Of Absolute Ethical Life: Hegel’S Account Of Freedom And Natural Law In His Early Philosophical Works, Tim Fitzjohn

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation project focuses on G.W.F. Hegel’s early philosophical writings, though primarily on the Natural Law essay (1802/3), and how, through those writings, Hegel positions himself in relation to other thinkers, such as Fichte. Broadly, the modern period saw with it the rise of accounts of what is called natural law. Philosophers prior to Hegel argued that the proper account of natural law must be rooted in some kind of universal framework: either the basis of law must be the shared empirical facts of human nature (empiricism), or the basis of law must be found in the universal demands on …

Being And Structure In Plato’S Sophist, Colin C. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Being and Structure in Plato’s Sophist is a study of the metaphysical notion of being as it is at play in Plato’s dialogue the Sophist, and the senses in which Plato’s conception of being entails further accounts of ontological structure and goodness. While modern metaphysics primarily concerns existence, ancient metaphysics primarily concerns what grounds what, and in this dissertation I consider the nature and value of Plato’s understanding of being as a notion of ground rather than a principle of existence. I argue that Plato conceives of being in the fundamentally unified sense of participation, which entails a self-and-other …

Whose Market Is It Anyway? A Philosophy And Law Critique Of The Supreme Court’S Free-Speech Absolutism, Spencer Bradley

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In the wake of Charlottesville, the rise of the alt-right, and campus controversies, the First Amendment has fallen into public scrutiny. Historically, the First Amendment’s “marketplace of ideas” has been a driving source of American political identity; since Brandenburg v. Ohio, the First Amendment protects all speech from government interference unless it causes incitement. The marketplace of ideas allows for the good and the bad ideas to enter American society and ultimately allows the people to decide their own course.

Yet, is the First Amendment truly a tool of social progress? Initially, the First Amendment curtailed war-time dissidents and …

Mystical Experience And Epistemic Injustice, Jake Hudson-Humphrey

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper, we explore mystical experiences and knowledge through the application of Miranda Fricker's framework of epistemic injustice. Focusing on experiences in which the usual division between Self and Other temporarily dissolves (brought about spontaneously, through contemplative or religious practice, or through the ingestion of psychedelics), we examine the knowledge gained from these experiences in its multiple forms and discuss how the mystic, when attempting to share the knowledge she has gained, may face challenges to effective testimonial exchange which constitute testimonial injustices. Similarly, due to a cultural privileging of the rational and objective, we imagine how …

Pro Tanto Principles In Public Policy, Marisa Galvez

CMC Senior Theses

Even when given the exact same moral dilemma, equally rational peers, colleagues, and friends will disagree about the right course of action. Pro tanto principles are one way to resolve moral conflicts such as these. When broadening the conflicts to real life situations, such as those seen in public policy, pro tanto principles prove to be an extremely useful tool. This paper explores the difference between the way that the individual interacts with pro tanto principles and the way that public policy interacts with such a moral system. In the end, difficulties in public policy attempt to be resolved by …

The Denial Of Transcendental Freedom Is Self-Refuting, Theodore Kahn

CMC Senior Theses

The questions of what kind of freedom morality requires and how to reconcile the capacity for free agency within a determined temporal sequence represent the crux of the free will debate. Traditional compatibilists claim that determinism does not preclude our capacity for moral agency. Nuanced determinists, such as Derk Pereboom, deny the existence of moral agency and argue that free will is not required to save the basic modes of our practical lives, such as our capacity to affect each other and to lead practically morallives. I will argue in favor of Kant’s view, which holds that since freedom and …

The Refutation Of Existing Proofs For The Existence Of God And The Continued Search For A Valid Proof Of The Existence Of God: A Defense And Interpretation Of Kant, Emma Houston

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I use Kant's Transcendental Ideal and Fourth Antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason as a bedrock to understand mistakes in popular spatio-temporal and transcendental proofs for the existence of God and develop a discussion of the necessity of the continued search for, and potential foundation of, an alternative proof of the existence of God. I will first attempt to instill the thought of the necessity of a commitment to the idea of the existence of God. I will then explain and clarify a) the three transcendental proofs for the existence of God and b) what I …

Art's Truth: An Aid To Ethical Sensibility, Nova Quaoser

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper I explore the philosophical implications of decision theory and deliberation on ethics, paying special attention to how vicious individuals yearn for a separate philosophical account. Drawing largely on Fricker, McDowell, Paul, and Nussbaum I discuss how transformative experiences open a window for understanding moral development in terms of habituation in the Aristotelian sense, and further how the vicious individual’s failure to deliberate may be remedied via a transformation through art.

Relationship Between Novice Counselors' Supervisory Attachments And Boundary Practices And Perceptions, Glenda Hill Nanna

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Novice counselors may struggle to understand and follow ethical guidelines for boundary behaviors with clients. When counselors violate therapeutic boundaries, harmful consequences can result for clients and counselors. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the possible relationship between novice counselors' (NCs') attachment to supervisors and NCs' ethical perceptions and boundary practices. This study addressed the possible predictor variables of age, gender, relationship status, and practice setting. Bowlby's attachment theory provided the framework for the study. Survey data from 114 NCs were analyzed using descriptive statistics and hierarchical linear regression. Each regression analyzed predictors of age, gender, relationship …

A Narrative Study Focusing On Survivors Of Forced Labor Trafficking, Taras Nk Raggio

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Throughout history, the media's rendering of slavery depicts vulnerable groups caught in a network of trafficking looking for a better life. Scholars of trafficking cite challenges in understanding the health care needs of domestic forced labor trafficking survivors in the United States. Seminal trafficking findings have shown that variations of trafficking affect the survivors' health after surviving trafficking. Therefore, in this qualitative, narrative inquiry I sought to understand how 8 survivors of forced labor trafficking, ages 25 years and older, described their health following trafficking beyond 5 years. The theory of social constructionism constituted the theoretical foundation, and the salutogenic …

The Search For Microbial Martian Life And American Buddhist Ethics, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default nonharm toward potential living beings, default nonharm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default nonharm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative …

A Critical Review Of Current Approaches And Practices In Computing Ethics Education, Sophia Farquhar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Recent scandals caused by the results of negligent, malicious, or shortsighted software development practices highlight the need for software developers to consider the ethical implications of their work. Computing ethics has historically been a marginalized area within computing disciplines, so educators in these disciplines do not have a common background for teaching the topic. Computing ethics education, although often a required part of coursework, can vary widely in the method of implementation from university to university.

In this report I summarize the insights I gained from interviewing four educators from three different institutions on their pedagogical approaches to computing ethics. …

How Evangelical Ministries Create Social Identity On College Campuses: An Analysis Of The Salt Company, Hannah Gregor

Honors Program Theses

My initial interest in researching college evangelical ministries spurred from my own experience with a ministry on my campus, The Salt Company. As I dug into their media presence, I became fascinated with how The Salt Company creates and performs their social identity as a larger community. The current research over evangelical ministries on college campuses focuses primarily on students involved within the ministry, but there has been little to no research of how these evangelical ministries and their social power affect students who are not members of the ministries. I used media from The Salt Company’s website to do …

Is It Ethical To Genetically Enhance Your Future Child?, Bella Ratner

Scripps Senior Theses

As the science related to genetic engineering becomes more advanced, more and more ethical questions relating to technologies such as CRISPR and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) arise. If we have the opportunity to choose the genes of our future children in order have children with our desired characteristics, should we do so? Is it okay to mess with some genes of your future child and not others? In this paper, I discuss arguments and objections associated with these questions. The aim of this paper is to show that it is ethical to alter the DNA of your future child or …

The Bionic Brain: Pragmatic Neuroethics And The Moral Plausibility Of Cognitive Enhancement, Peter A. Depergola Ii

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The seemingly infinite possibilities of contemporary neuroscience span from the augmentation of memory, executive function, appetite, libido, sleep, and mood, to the maturation and development of emotional health and personality. These prospects hint at the capacity to alter neurocognitive conceptions of reality. They also mark the unavoidable inculcation of nuanced individual responses, perhaps radical, to these “tailor- made” perceptions. Hence, there exists certain neuroethical, and even more generally, existential risks within this fascinating and expeditious enterprise. The primary question in the context of present-day neurotechnology is not what can be done, but what should be. To that end, this paper …

The Revolt Against Mourning: Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner, And Beyond, Andrew Leo Beutel

Theses and Dissertations--English

The Revolt against Mourning calls into question the widespread critical alignment of literary modernism with Freudian melancholia. Focusing instead on “mourning,” through close readings of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, I demonstrate how their depictions of this notion overturn both its traditional and contemporary understandings. Whereas Freud conceives mourning as a psychic labor that the subject slowly and painfully carries out, Woolf, Joyce, and Faulkner convey it as a destabilizing, subversive, and transformative force to which the subject is radically passive. For Freud, mourning is a matter …

Second Persons And The Constitution Of The First Person, Jay L. Garfield

Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Philosophers and Cognitive Scientists have become accustomed to distinguishing the first person perspective from the third person perspective on reality or experience. This is sometimes meant to mark the distinction between the “objective” or “intersubjective” attitude towards things and the “subjective” or “personal” attitude. Sometimes, it is meant to mark the distinction between knowledge and mere opinion. Sometimes it is meant to mark the distinction between an essentially private and privileged access to an inner world and a merely inferential or speculative access to that world. No doubt there are other uses as well. But I don't care about this …

Artificial Intelligence And Role-Reversible Judgment, Kiel Brennan-Marquez, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

As intelligent machines begin more generally outperforming human experts, why should humans remain ‘in the loop’ of decision-making? One common answer focuses on outcomes: relying on intuition and experience, humans are capable of identifying interpretive errors—sometimes disastrous errors—that elude machines. Though plausible today, this argument will wear thin as technology evolves. Here, we seek out sturdier ground: a defense of human judgment that focuses on the normative integrity of decision-making. Specifically, we propose an account of democratic equality as ‘role-reversibility.’ In a democracy, those tasked with making decisions should be susceptible, reciprocally, to the impact of decisions; there ought to …

Octopus Umwelt Or Umwelten?, Luis H. Favela

Animal Sentience

Even if its intelligent behaviors are the product of decentralized control systems, Mather argues that the octopus has an “Umwelt,” and, thus, a mind. I argue that Umwelt does not provide a conceptual basis for understanding the octopus as having a mind. First, Umwelt does not refer only to an organism’s perceptual abilities. Second, in providing evidence for decentralized control systems that underlie intelligent behaviors, Mather makes a case against an octopus Umwelt. Instead, the octopus is more akin to a collection of systems, or Umwelten, than a single system with an Umwelt.

A Community Of Minds, Bennett L. Schwartz

Animal Sentience

Mather (2019) provides an excellent overview of the literature on octopus perception, cognition, memory, and behavior. Anyone interested in cephalopod cognition and brain organization will find her target article informative and interesting. In this commentary, I challenge the idea that an individual organism must have an individual mind. Given the structure of the octopus brain and their complex behavior, one must consider the possibility that an octopus is a community of minds rather than a single mind.

The Ingenuity Of Cephalopods, Angel Guerra

Animal Sentience

I present a brief overview of the richness of cephalopod behavioral, neural and cognitive traits.

Octopi-Ing A Unique Niche In Comparative Psychology, Jennifer Vonk

Animal Sentience

Mather’s work has been fundamental in informing scientists of the relatively mysterious behavior and cognition of an understudied group of animals – the cephalopods. This work helps to fill a gap in the comparative literature that has historically sought evidence for complex behavior only in species that are closely related to humans or share important ecological features such as social complexity.

What Is Good For An Octopus?, Heather Browning

Animal Sentience

Mather (2019) has brought together the current empirical research in support of the claim that octopuses possess minds; and the weight of the evidence does appear to support octopus sentience. Being sentient means an organism has welfare concerns, a subjective experience of life that can go well or poorly. Protecting welfare requires knowing what conditions will have a positive or negative impact. Understanding what is in the mind of an octopus will give us valuable insight into what is good for an octopus.

The Octopus: A Beautiful (But Disorganized) “Mind”, Jon Mallatt

Animal Sentience

Mather (2019) presents convincing evidence that octopuses have minds, but in the first 85% of the target article, the evidence does not come through very clearly because it is hidden by other information and by problems with the paper’s organization. I propose ways to build a tighter argument in the author’s Response to the Commentaries.

Are Our Ideas About Octopus Life Too Anthropomorphic To Help?, Kenneth J. Aitken

Animal Sentience

Our understanding of the evolution and ontogeny of the octopus and its behavioral repertoire in its natural habitat remains rudimentary at best. There are many parallels, but also just as many differences from our models of human biology and ontogeny, making anthropocentric generalizations of limited use in explanation.

A Behavior-Analytic Approach To Understanding Octopus “Mind”, Lindsay R. Mehrkam

Animal Sentience

Mather makes a convincing case for octopus sentience based on a lot of evidence of their complex learning capabilities. It should follow from Mather’s findings that these intelligent invertebrates are worthy of welfare considerations, just as vertebrate species with similar capabilities are. I provide a complementary environment-behavior analysis of how we might understand the world of the octopus more straightforwardly, borrowing from Mather’s examples, to show how to promote opportunities for complex learning and species-typical behaviors in the octopus.

Octopus Experience, Peter Godfrey-Smith

Animal Sentience

The first part of this commentary attempts to get "inside" the octopus mind a little further than Mather does, drawing on her description of octopus cognition in many places but diverging in others. The second part outlines other disagreements with her account of the animals, especially in the area of social behavior.

Octopus Intelligence: The Importance Of Being Agnostic, Piero Amodio

Animal Sentience

Mather’s (2019) provocative claim that octopuses have a mind hinges on the inference that their striking behavioural flexibility is evidence of “complex” cognitive abilities. I discuss alternative explanations — not to deny the possibility of complexity but to point out that current evidence does not allow us to draw firm conclusions. Only an agnostic approach will lead to the systematic investigation of octopus behaviour and ultimately, greater insights into the cognitive capacities of these fascinating creatures.

Keeping Hold Of Nurse, Andrew Packard

Animal Sentience

Mather draws from a lifetime devoted to studying individual octopuses in the wild and in aquaria to combine a natural history account of their actions with an argument from design adopted from second-, often third-hand sources. The 'distributed' [decentralised] nervous system said to contrast with that of vertebrates – a premise largely accepted by Mather’s commentators so far – does not reflect the original literature on motor control, nor the facts of comparative anatomy, functional morphology and morphogenesis. Ontogeny is absent. With the help of some old or little-known illustrations from my own participant-observer experimental investigations, I will try here …

Octopus: Multiple Minds Or Just A Slow Thinker?, Shelley A. Adamo

Animal Sentience

An octopus has more neurons in their peripheral nervous system (PNS) than in their brain. PNS neurons could participate in forming cognitive networks with the central brain in the same way that the cerebellum is now thought to contribute to mammalian cognition. However, cephalopods lack myelinated fibres, which might decrease the ability of the PNS to participate in cognitive networks. The lack of myelinated fibres may also select for a less integrated brain, with an increased emphasis on local information processing. Alternatively, integration may still occur across distant neural centers, but proceed more slowly in cephalopods than in mammals.