Philosophy Commons^™

Oppression, Civility, And The Politics Of Resistance, Alex M. Richardson

Doctoral Dissertations

Oppression based on social group membership has been and remains a major injustice which thrives in modern liberal democracies like the United States. Organized political resistance to oppression and the structures that perpetuate it has taken many forms throughout history, from the early acts of revolution that founded the United States, to the nineteenth century abolitionist movement against slavery, to the New Deal-era labor struggles and Black civil rights movement of the twentieth century and the LGBTQ+ rights movement of recent history. The moral and political legacy of these historical struggles, as well as the extent to which the surrounding …

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 …