Philosophy Commons^™

Prudence, Ethics And Anticipation In Visionary Leaders, Yanick Farmer

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

In ethics, prudence is an essential skill in making informed decisions. Although several studies in various fields have dealt with the notion, few empirical studies have addressed one of its inextricable aspects: anticipation. To gain a better understanding of the notion, this study questioned fifteen leaders whose peers consider to be “visionary” in their respective fields. The results of this qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews describe the fundamental aspects of anticipation according to three categories: reasoning and trend analysis, implementation and strategy, and personality and values.

Stoicism And Just War Theory, Leonidas D. Konstantakos

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ancient philosophy of Stoicism, itself one of the foundations for international law, can improve contemporary just war thinking by forming a coherent set of philosophical principles to serve as a foundation for a just war theory. A Stoic approach considers justifications for moral actions to come not from an appeal to human rights, conformity to deontological rules, or from the utility of the actions themselves, but from virtuous character traits and corresponding virtuous actions. As such, a Stoic approach to just war theory is a virtue ethics perspective in which metaethical incentive for moral action is the agent’s own …

Addressing The Harms Of Pornography, Gillian Allison

Honors Theses

Within this paper I look at the existing philosophical work on pornography, from scholars like Catherine MacKinnon, Ronald Dworkin, and Rae Langton to show the current state of the pornography debate that I intend to enter by presenting my own argument about the morality of pornography. I argue that while pornography is harmful, these harms are best resolved through increased sexual education and the popularization and production of more inclusive pornography. The harms pornography causes are so great because pornography is where a lot of people learn about sex. Pornography was never designed to depict an average sexual experience. If …

Ethical Issues In Data Journalism, Bastiaan Vanacker

School of Communication: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter starts out by situating data journalism in relation to computer-assisted reporting and computational journalism and argues that data journalism has ballooned in recent decades as a result of the great availability of databases, increased training, and lower costs of computers. It then analyzes the main issues that can spring up at each phase of the data journalism process. During the collection process, journalists can be manipulated by flawed data or ethically compromised by using illegally obtained data. When they obtain data through surreptitiously scraping the web or paying for datasets, they might be violating notions of transparency and …

Covid-19 And Challenges To The Traditional Understanding Of Individual Medical Autonomy, Callon A. Green

Honors Theses

Throughout history, vaccines have provided the human population with the ability to combat dangerous illnesses and avoid preventable suffering. Despite the benefits vaccines provide to the public health of the United States, anti-vaccination sentiment and resistance to vaccine uptake are still prevalent in the modern day. As the COVID-19 pandemic has developed into a major public health crisis that can be controlled through vaccination, the issues underlying vaccine resistance are becoming more critical to return to normal life. Using COVID-19 as a case study, it is evident that the individual choice to deny vaccination can have consequences on the health …

Medical Expertise, Patient Expertise, And Surrogate Decision Making: The Importance Of Co-Deliberation In Medical Decision-Making, Lindsey Grossheim

Theses

In biomedicine, there are many cases where a patient is incapacitated and unable to make their medical decisions. Often, these patients have no declared decision-maker. This thesis explores solutions which promote these patients’ ability to receive beneficent care and have a respect for their autonomy by proposing a requirement for co-deliberation between a medical professional (medical expert) and someone who knows the patient well (patient expert). This thesis studies a case and applies three solutions: one where each expert has full authority and a final solution where the two experts co-deliberate. Co-deliberation is a conversation between the two experts to …

Kantian Just War Theory, Deven Anand

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Special Issue Call For Papers: Ethics In Mathematics, Catherine Buell, Victor Piercey

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics is pleased to announce a call for papers for a special issue on Ethics in Mathematics. Please send your abstract submissions via email to the guest editors by September 1, 2021. Initial submission of complete manuscripts is due December 1, 2021. The issue is currently scheduled to appear in July 2022.

An Ethical Market For Kidney?, Sang T. Truong

Student Research

The kidney performs several vital functions that maintain our general health condition, including filtering waste chemicals out of our blood. Kidney failure is a condition where patients’ kidneys lose their ability to filter the waste from their blood, leading to accumulating toxin in their body. Without any medical care, a patient with kidney failure has a couple days to a couple of weeks to live. One way to elongate the life of the kidney-failure patient is through kidney transplant, where another kidney is implanted into the patient’s body.

In the U.S, it is illegal to trade a kidney for money. …

Machine Ethics, Ethics For Machines: Context-Based Modeling For Machines Making Ethical Decisions, Jaysa Ramirez

Honors Program Theses

Machine ethics is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that focuses on if – and if so, how – machines can make ethical decisions autonomously. Through a close study of two positions on whether or not machines can be moral agents, this project sheds light on a clash of assumptions that is keeping the field of machine ethics in limbo. After making this clash of assumptions clear, I raise two questions which get at the scope of machine ethics itself: 1) What makes ethical decision-making different from other kinds of decision-making? 2) To what extent can machines engage with ethics and make …

Three Roles Of Narratives In The Treatment Of Chronic Pain, Nina Atanasova

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

In this paper, I discuss the roles narratives play in the diagnostics, treatment, and recovery of chronic pain patients. I show that the successes of this narrative approach to the treatment of chronic pain support the biopsychosocial model of disease. The central example of narrative interventions discussed in the paper is pain neuroscience education. This is an intervention which aims at helping chronic pain patients reconceptualize their pain experiences so as to align them with neuroscientific knowledge of pain. Multiple clinical trials have established the success of these interventions in pain reduction. This shows that neuroscience pain education is in …

Ethical Price For Essential Pharmaceuticals?, Sang T. Truong

Student Research

Azidothymidine or AZT is an antiretroviral medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. Nowadays, AZT remains to be the primary active drug that can elongate the life of infected patients. Without treatment, patients can live for 5 to 10 years after infected. With the treatment, their life expectancy approaches the norm.

However, it is important to note that AZT is a life-saver for HIV patients only if they can afford it. An HIV patient needs to spend about $17,000 for AZT every year until the end of his life. Therefore, the estimated lifetime cost of HIV will be $600,000. This …

Talking About Ethics: A Conversational Approach To Moral Dilemmas, Michael Jones, Mark Farnham, David Saxon

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Talking About Ethics provides the reader with all of the tools necessary to develop a coherent approach to ethical decision making. Using the tools of ethical theory, the authors show how these theories play out in relation to a wide variety of ethical questions using an accessible dialogue format. The chapters follow three college students as they discuss today’s most important ethical issues with their families and friends, including:• Immigration• Capital punishment• Legalization of narcotics• Abortion• Premarital sex• Reproductive technologies• Gender identity• The environment, and many moreThe engaging dialogue format illustrates how these topics often take shape in the real …