Philosophy Commons^™

Knowing The Standard American Diet By Its Fruits: Is Unrestrained Omnivorism Spiritually Beneficial?, Matthew C. Halteman

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

This essay aims to challenge the standard [North] American diet's (SAD) default status in church and among North American Christians generally. It attempts to allay some common concerns about the suitability of food ethics as a topic for serious Christian discernment, and argues that SAD is not spiritually beneficial, drawing support from five traditional sources for Christian moral deliberation, including and especially general revelation and discernment of the fruits of the spirit.

Understanding Evil: Reflections On Thought Action And Punishment, Tauseef Ahmed

Honors Theses

Actions are the basis for moral judgment. In this paper, I develop a concept of action that illustrates the differences between bad, evil, and sadistic actions. Using this theory of action, I apply it to punishment theory and the philosophy of criminal law. Bad and evil actions are defined by differences in their magnitude, as measured by the ability of the victim to recover from harm. I propose that sadistic actions comprise a qualitatively unique form of wrongdoing. They are performed following a bad or evil action with the intent to add insult to injury. I propose that within a …

The Right To Die, Samantha Steenburn

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I argue that, with certain procedural safeguards in place, physician‐assisted death (PAD) and euthanasia are morally permissible and should be an option for terminally ill patients. The first chapter introduces the history of PAD and euthanasia in the United States focusing on Oregon and Washington. Chapter two focuses on PAD in The Netherlands. Chapter three reviews philosophical arguments regarding PAD and details certain procedural safeguards such as medical friendships, consultations, and multiple opinions, which help to guarantee the moral acceptability of PAD and euthanasia. These safeguards also contribute to a relationship of beneficence from the physician to …

Machines And The Moral Community, Erica L. Neely

Philosophy and Religion Faculty Scholarship

A key distinction in ethics is between members and nonmembers of the moral community. Over time, our notion of this community has expanded as we have moved from a rationality criterion to a sentience criterion for membership. I argue that a sentience criterion is insufficient to accommodate all members of the moral community; the true underlying criterion can be understood in terms of whether a being has interests. This may be extended to conscious, self-aware machines, as well as to any autonomous intelligent machines. Such machines exhibit an ability to formulate desires for the course of their own existence; this …

Angels, The Space Of Time, And Apocalyptic Blindness: On Günther Anders’ Endzeit — Endtime, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Anders was a preeminent critic of technology and critic of the atomic bomb as he saw this hermeneutico-phenomenologically in the visceral sense of being and time: the sheer that of its having been used (where the Nietzschean dialectic of the ‘having been’ reflects the essence of modern technology) as well as the bland politics of nuclear proliferation functions as programmatic aggression advanced in the name of defense and deterrence. The tactic of sheerly technological, automatic, mechanical, aggression is carried out in good conscience. The preemptive strike is, as Baudrillard observed, the opponent’s fault: such are the wages of evil. Violence …

Between Law And Markets: Is There A Role For Culture And Ethics In Financial Regulation?, Dan Awrey, William Blair, David Kershaw

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The limits of markets as mechanisms for constraining socially suboptimal behavior are well documented. Simultaneously, conventional approaches toward the law and regulation are often crude and ineffective mechanisms for containing the social costs of market failure. So where do we turn when both law and markets fail to live up to their social promise? Two possible answers are culture and ethics. In theory, both can help constrain socially undesirable behavior in the vacuum between law and markets. In practice, however, both exhibit manifest shortcomings.

To many, this analysis may portend the end of the story. From our perspective, however, it …