Philosophy Commons^™

Dignifying Decisions: The Role Of Dignity In Surrogate Decision-Making, Jeffrey Pannekoek

Doctoral Dissertations

Dignity refers, broadly speaking, to a kind of status that is intrinsically connected to certain norms. Often, we think of dignity as the status of having inherent value, which entails that certain kinds of treatment are morally impermissible. References to dignity are pervasive in clinical ethics, where the concept is called on to do a broad variety of work, including bolstering claims about patient-focused health care, advocating in favor of and against euthanasia, and supporting an infinite number of particular medical decisions. In stark contrast to its pervasiveness, the conceptualization of dignity is still an unsettled issue, in particular in …

An Ethics Of Amusement, Ashley Caroline Mobley

Doctoral Dissertations

Human beings often hold one another morally responsible for what we find funny or fail to find funny. Though this practice is common and so demands philosophical attention, it remains underexplored in the literature. The purpose of this project is to devote attention to this practice by developing an ethics of amusement.

In chapter 2, I argue for why amusement is an emotion according to incongruity theory—the dominant theory of humor and amusement. With this in mind, I argue in chapter 3 that we are responsible for our emotions insofar as we have emotional agency. In particular, while we cannot …