Philosophy Commons^™

Liberal-Democratic States Should Privilege Parental Efforts To Instill Identities And Values, Andrew M. Robinson

Political Science Faculty Publications

Liberal-democratic states’ commitments to equality and personal autonomy have always proven problematic with respect to state regulation of relations between parents and children. In the parental authority literature positions have varied from invoking children’s interests to argue for limitations on parental efforts to instill identities and values to invoking parental rights to justify state privileging of such efforts.

This article argues that liberal-democratic states should privilege parental efforts to raise their children to share their identities and values. Its approach is distinctive in two ways: i) it engages in interdisciplinary reflection upon selected findings in psychological literature on immigrant youth, …

Is There A Secular Tradition? On Treason, Government, And Truth, Ali M. Uğurlu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Because the secular is so much part of our modern life, it is not easy to grasp it directly,” writes Talal Asad, in the introduction to his Formations of the Secular. This thesis attempts to obliquely engage with secular power through a concept that has been at the center of much contention in our political present: treason. Taking the failed coup of July 16and the ensuing purge against the Gülen movement in Turkey as its points of departure, it seeks to broach some of the constitutive and operative logics of the modern nation-state. Inquiring into the State’s perennial presupposition …

The Dumb Prof Considers Intersectionality In The Age Of Trump, Justin Kh Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Among decent, intelligent, and respectable human beings in the United States and around the world, the occupation of Donald Trump of the American presidency is the shock that never ends. Much of this has to do with how vulgar the man is. The activist-academic terms intersectionality and identity politics have in turn entered into our popular vocabulary as words that might describe how all of these aggrieved groups might resist the Trump Administration. This resistance, it is claimed, is necessary because these various groups have not only been insulted by Trump’s rhetoric, but have also been oppressed by draconian policies …

Three Women, Two Spheres, And A Contract: A Comparative Study Of Mary Astell And Mary Wollstonecraft Through The Lens Of Carole Pateman's "The Sexual Contract", Robyn Burke Dabora

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

This project examines the writings of Mary Astell (1666-1731) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) regarding women in light of ideas articulated by Carole Pateman (1940- ) in her book, The Sexual Contract (1988). In her work, Pateman critiques the prescriptions for the management of society suggested by classic contract theorists such as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704) and cites that their solutions focus solely on men in the public sphere of society. Pateman illuminates the condition of women in the private sphere of the home, and asserts that this realm operates by mechanisms radically different from those of the …

Politics, Technology, And Libertarianism, Thomas J. Perry

Honors Projects

In recent years, technology has started to play a major role in the U.S. political climate. Specifically, it has created a platform for outside groups, such as libertarians, to have their voices heard. This brought forward an important research question: How has technology helped or hindered the ability of individually focused libertarians to organize for collective action? Through the exploration of previous research, two major findings are discovered: 1) technology and the growth of individualism in politics are intertwined and 2) technology and individualism both have ties to libertarianism. The implications of libertarianism are analyzed further through the study of …

Humanization Of The Enemy: The Pacifist Soldier And France In World War One, Daniel E. Stockman

Senior Theses

Not all French citizens were enthused by the prospect of war in 1914, nor were they all so willing to embrace a dehumanized view of the enemy. Some French citizens believed the “Great War” to be a patriotic endeavor. Propaganda encouraged this nationalism and the dehumanization of the enemy. “Political” pacifism existed within the French Third Republic psyche following France’s defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. However, these pacifistic undertones were systematically undermined as France began to militarize itself. Drawing from a series of notebooks, and established academic sources, this paper shows that some French soldiers endured a world at …

Cultural Hegemony In American Democracy, Mark A. Bocchini

Senior Honors Projects

The 2016 presidential election and the rise of Trump caught most of us (if not all) by surprise. Over the course of the months leading up to the election, it became apparent the American people weren’t being given the truth, and if we were, it was framed—we were primed to believe certain things, and the agenda was already set. In the face of this I decided to look into exactly what caused the media’s behavior in this election cycle. It became apparent that the media, and the rise of Trump into prominence (and the presidency) had a common connection, which …

Tempered Experience: The Educational Foundation Of Democratic Ideology, Nicholas J. Schwarm

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

Democracy is a political ideology, one that requires a person to believe in that ideology for it to exist. The contemporary political landscape is dominated by democracies, and for this reason we need to understand how to build and sustain them. There needs to be a well-educated populace of citizens, who are able to engage in democratic actions, and aid the community. What they need is tempered experience, experience that is understood though the knowledge that a citizen already has.

Female Autonomy: An Analysis Of Privacy And Equality Doctrine For Reproductive Rights, Elizabeth Levi

Political Science Honors Projects

What is the constitutional basis for women’s equality? Recently, scholars have suggested that as the right to privacy has floundered against the political undoing of women's access to abortion, equal protection arguments have grown stronger. This thesis investigates the feminist utility and limits of the equality and privacy arguments. Taking liberal feminism and feminist legal theory as analytical lenses, I offer interpretations of gender discrimination, reproductive rights, and marriage equality case law. By this framework, I argue that while an equality argument is less inherently oppressive towards women than the privacy doctrine, equality doctrine has been constructed thus far to …

How Trump Won: Media And The Silent Majority In The 2016 Us Presidential Election, Joshua K. Miller

Senior Honors Theses

Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign ended in victory because of two powerful forces: enormous media advantage gained through sensationalism and a strong coalition made up of evangelicals, pragmatic conservatives, and the silent majority. The work of Neil Postman sheds light on the underlying cultural foundation of Trump’s media advantage. Parallels from the video game industry explain how intentional sensationalism played into Trump’s success in the primary process. Evangelicals and pragmatic conservatives joined Trump’s coalition in spite of his scandals, and Eric Hoffer’s work helps explain his appeal to the silent majority. Ultimately, the patterns of Trump’s victory yield significant learning …

Humanitarian Military Intervention: A Failed Paradigm, Faruk Rahmanovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the end of the Cold War, traditional justifications for war have diminished in relevance and importance, while the use of Humanitarian Military Interventions (HMI) has proliferated, to the point that formerly traditional wars – e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq invasions – have become retroactively redefined as HMIs. While HMI suffers from a number of problems, from international law to historical track record, its proponents have managed to turn aside all arguments by claiming they represent either statistical outliers, improper implementation, or at best indicate a need for a certain degree of fine-tuning. Crucially, the validity of the HMI practice is …

Defining Biometrics: Toward A Transnational Ethic Of Personal Information, Nicola Morrow

International Studies Honors Projects

Innovations in biotechnology, computer science, and engineering throughout the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries dramatically expanded possible modes of data-based surveillance and personal identification. More specifically, new technologies facilitated enormous growth in the biometrics sector. The response to the explosion of biometric technologies was two-fold. While intelligence agencies, militaries, and multinational corporations embraced new opportunities to fortify and expand security measures, many individuals objected to what they perceived as serious threats to privacy and bodily autonomy. These reactions spurred both further technological innovation, and a simultaneous proliferation of hastily drafted policies, laws, and regulations governing the collection, …

The Scope And Limits Of Secular Buddhism: Watanabe Kaikyoku (1868–1912) And The Japanese New Buddhist 'Discovery Of Society', James Mark Shields

Faculty Contributions to Books

Although New Buddhism is a term sometimes employed to refer to the broad sweep of reform and modernization movements in Japanese Buddhist thought and practice beginning in the 1870s, the term shin bukkyō refers more specifically to a broadly influential movement of some two dozen young scholars and lay Buddhists active in the last decade of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Founded in February 1899 as Bukkyō Seito Dōshikai (Buddhist Pure Believers Fellowship or Buddhist Puritan Association), the group changed its name to Shin Bukkyō Dōshikai (New Buddhist Fellowship) in 1903. Notto Thelle refers to the NBF as “the most consistent …

Thresholds Of Atrocity: Liberal Violence And The Politics Of Moral Vision, Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All political communities set normative limits to the acceptable use of force. A threshold of atrocity indicates the point at which acceptable violence meets the boundaries of the unacceptable. In liberal democratic states such norms are ostensibly set higher. Hence, there is a theoretical threshold to the modern state’s ability to act in ways that violate norms it claims to uphold. Paradoxically, thresholds of atrocity are almost never breached and unconscionable violence occurs regularly. This study seeks to explain the persistence of extreme violence by developing a theory of atrocity grounded in moral vision. Liberal democratic nation-states are able to …

Book Review Of Kirsten Dyck's Reichsrock: The International Web Of White-Power And Neo-Nazi Hate Music (2016) And Nancy S. Love's Trendy Fascism: White Power Music And The Future Of Democracy (2017), Tim Engles

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

A review of Kirsten Dyck's Reichsrock: The International Web of White-Power and Neo-Nazi Hate Music (2016) and Nancy S. Love's Trendy Fascism: White Power Music and the Future of Democracy (2017).

The Value Of Black Lives: The Effect Of The Digital Age On African American Identity And Political Participation, Lauren Grimes

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

The Anti-Imperialism Of Ottobah Cugoano: Slavery, Abolition, And Colonialism In Thoughts And Sentiments On The Evil Of Slavery, Tacuma Peters

Publications and Research

This article argues that the work of Ottobah Cugoano provides readers with a robust anti-imperial analysis of European modernity. For Cugoano, slavery and colonialism are coeval and mutually constitutive processes. I argue that Cugoano’s Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery which has been accepted as a tract of radical abolitionism should also be interpreted as an anti-imperial text. I contend that we must attend to the global scope of Cugoano’s anti-imperialism which includes critiques of European colonialism in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as provides recommendations for radical changes in the relationship between Europe and …

Latin America In Theories Of Territorial Rights / América Latina En Las Teorías De Los Derechos Territoriales, Avery Kolers

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

“Who owns it?” is a surprisingly confusing question when applied to territory. Each word opens up puzzles: who can “own” territory? What is “ownership” in this context? How can it be justified in a way that could convince an outsider? These questions are particularly salient in the Latin American context, where multiple distinct kinds of land disputes converge. This paper canvasses two familiar approaches to these questions: the Kantian autochthony view, and the Lockean efficiency view. Neither view answers the question as to “who owns it” in all its complexity. The paper then defends an alternative approach grounded in recognition …

Tempered Experience: The Educational Foundation Of Democratic Ideology, Nicholas J. Schwarm

Philosophy Undergraduate

Democracy is a political ideology, one that requires a person to believe in that ideology for it to exist. The contemporary political landscape is dominated by democracies, and for this reason we need to understand how to build and sustain Them. There needs to be a well educated populace of citizens, who are able to engage in democratic actions, and aid the community. What they need is tempered experience, experience that is understood though the knowledge that a citizen already has.

Modern Politics And The Passions, David Bradshaw

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

Why is our society today so sharply divided—politically, socially and morally?

Professor Bradshaw argues that the answer can be found in two of the foundational philosophers of the modern era, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Although they are sharply opposed in many ways, they share some common features that set the pattern for modern politics.

Women And Revolution: Marx And The Dialectic, Lilia D. Monzó

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article argues that Marxism is inherently anti-sexist, anti-racist, and against all forms of exploitation and oppression. As a philosophy of revolution, Marxism is more than about economic restructuring but rather argues for the development of a new humanity based upon a class-less mode of production. Dialectically, these changes must come simultaneously from changing relations of production, changes in the material conditions of families, and the development of values and ideologies related to freedom and equality. Women's liberation and anti-racism play a central role in this revolution. Working class women and women of color are especially roused to action due …

Notes From The Editor, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces for Volume 6.

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 6

Tales Of Humanitarian Intervention Gone Awry: The Emergence Of Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas And Practice From The Nineteenth Century To The Present; The Conceit Of Humanitarian Intervention, Richard Falk

International Dialogue

Ever since manitarianthe fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union there has been an upsurge of international undertakings that have claimed humanitarian justifications for military interventions in foreign societies. A second kind of justification for such interventions all of which are launched by Western countries (especially the United States) was associated in this period with the global “war on terror” initiated during the presidency of George W. Bush in response to the 9/11 attacks of 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In other words, this upsurge in interventions draws partly on …

Failure Of Multiculturalism? Immigration, Radical Islamism, And Identity Politics In Europe, Fatos Tarifa, Monica Di Monte

International Dialogue

This paper addresses the issue of how Europe’s ethnic and cultural mix is changing drastically by the large numbers of culturally diverse, especially Muslim immigrants, as well as problems that Western European governments face today as they try to deal with unintended consequences of their liberal policies of multiculturalism. In light of this discussion, radical Islamism and identity politics are seen as long-term challenges for all liberal democracies. We argue that extremist voices among the right-wing populist parties in many Western European countries opposed to immigration and increasingly mobilized around the issue of Muslim minorities, may spur resentment and political …

Philosophers In Search Of Life..., David A. White

International Dialogue

If, after reading the above title, someone has ventured this far—the opening sentence—then he or she has doubtless conquered any urge to dismiss the contents of this piece (and do something else...) because the title is so blatantly silly. Onlya philosopher would be so sadly quixotic as to feel a need to become involved in a “search” for life. Dwelling in the realm of the living is where we humans spend all our waking hours. Furthermore, all of us settle into sleep for a greater or lesser amount of time and once in that state (discounting the differentiating factor of …

Rawls’S Political Liberalism, Matthew Jones

International Dialogue

The contribution that John Rawls has made to political philosophy, and liberal political philosophy more specifically, should not be underestimated. His two key texts, A Theory of Justice (1971), and Political Liberalism (1993), not only reinvigorated social contract theory, but set the foundation for much of the contemporary debate surrounding the nature of the liberal democratic state given the fact of reasonable pluralism. If the European philosophical tradition, as noted by Alfred North Whitehead, should be seen as a series of footnotes to Plato, then contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy, especially if it intersects with aspects of liberal political philosophy, could …

Lawrence Of Arabia’S War: The Arabs, The British And The Remaking Of The Middle East In Wwi, Bruce M. Garver

International Dialogue

Seldom does a newly published book both enlarge our understanding of its subject and enhance our appreciation of its principal primary sources. In Lawrence of Arabia’s War, Neil Faulkner admirably achieves both objectives. In the first instance, he thoroughly and critically discusses British foreign policy and military operations in the Middle East and North Africa from 1914 through 1922, with emphasis upon British relations with the Arabs, primarily the desert-dwelling Hashemite sherifs as opposed to the landlords and officials who dominated millions of Arab small farmers and city dwellers. Whenever appropriate, he carefully examines relations between the British and their …

Victims Without Philosophy: Intellectuals And Power; General Theory Of Victims, Stanimir Panayotov

International Dialogue

There does not exist an easy way to discuss François Laruelle and it is impossible to be ecstatic about his writing. The two books under scrutiny here—Intellectuals and Power and General Theory of Victims—are, however, a relatively accessible introduction to the machinic parlance that Laruelle superposes onto philosophy’s presumed legibility. The human instance he discusses in both works is that of the victim. These two books could be both beneficial for and alienating to the wider readership in humanities: not for lack of originality (or even clarity), but due to the signature-style of conceptual resistance in Laruelle’s language. Virtually every-one—from …

How We Fight: Ethics In War, Roger Bergman

International Dialogue

As indicated by the editors, the ten essays in this volume “arose from a conference on just war theory held at the University of Sheffield [United Kingdom] in August 2010” (vii). The authors are all academics and all but two are philosophers; the outliers are professors of law and of politics. The emphasis is indeed on just war theory, not investigation of the development of the just war tradition over many centuries in theological, philosophical, or legal contexts, or of its application to historical cases from the remote or recent past. One should not look here for scholarly illumination, say, …