Philosophy Commons^™

Iffy Predictions And Proper Expectations, Matthew A. Benton, John Turri

SPU Works

What individuates the speech act of prediction? The standard view is that prediction is individuated by the fact that it is the unique speech act that requires future-directed content. We argue against this view and two successor views. We then lay out several other potential strategies for individuating prediction, including the sort of view we favor. We suggest that prediction is individuated normatively and has a special connection to the epistemic standards of expectation. In the process, we advocate some constraints that we think a good theory of prediction should respect.

The Awakening: Reevaluating The Anthropocentric Framework Of Western Ethics, Sophie Zander '14

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

A Defense Of Stand Your Ground Legislation, Jarrett Field '14

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Dreams As A Meta-Conceptual Or Existential Experience, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

The paper argues that dreams (or the recollected experience of dreams) consist partly in an awareness or experience of the conceptual fabric of our existence. Since what we mean by reality is intimately tied to the concepts given in our experience, dreams are therefore also partly an awareness of the fabric of what we mean by being itself and in general, that is, by objective as well as subjective reality. Further, the paper argues that this characteristic of dreams accounts for several other, more specific aspects of dreams and their possible interpretation, and that it allows us to see how …

Swinburne On The Conditions For Free Will And Moral Responsibility, David P. Hunt

Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Compensation Ethics And Organizational Commitment, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

If an employee is committed to his firm – if he is “attached” or “bound” to it – then his firm may be able to obtain a discount on his labor. This paper asks: Is it wrong for firms to do so? If we understand just or fair pay solely in terms of voluntary agreements between employers and employees, the answer seems to be ‘no’. Against this, I argue that, in some cases, it is ‘yes’. In particular, it is wrong for firms to try to obtain discounts on their committed employees’ labor when their employees reasonably expect that they …

Understanding How Student Nurses Experience Morally Distressing Situations: Caring For Patients With Different Values And Beliefs In The Clinical Environment, Nancy J. Matchett, Mary Jo C. Stanley

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Introduction/Background: Moral distress and related concepts surrounding morality and ethical decision-making have been given much attention in nursing. Despite the general consensus that moral distress is an affective response to being unable to act morally, the literature attests to the need for increased clarity regarding theoretical and conceptual constructs used to describe precisely what the experience of moral distress involves. The purpose of this study is to understand how student nurses experience morally distressing situations when caring for patients with different values and beliefs than their own in the clinical environment Methods: This study is based on secondary analysis of …

Jules Lequyer: Prophet Of Open Theism (Powerpoint), Donald W. Viney

Faculty Submissions

This PowerPoint makes the case for considering Jules Lequyer as the "Prophet of Open Theism" because of his view of God as creating other creators, as affected by creaturely decisions, and therefore as facing a relatively open future. The PowerPoint was first presented in Dallas, Texas on October 24, 2014 at the Randomness and Foreknowledge Conference sponsored by the Templeton Foundation.

A Thoreauvian Account Of Prudential Value, Christopher Morgan-Knapp

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

This article develops and defends an account of prudential value and disvalue that is constructed out of ideas found in Thoreau’s Walden. The core claim is that prudential value consists in responding appropriately to those things that make the world better, and that prudential disvalue consists in encountering those things that make it worse. The core argument is that responding appropriately to objective value and avoiding objective disvalue are our aims in so far as we are evaluative creatures, and that our evaluative nature is fundamental in the context of inquiring into our own good. I conclude by discussing respects …

Institutional Theories And International Development, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

A recent trend in international development circles is ‘New Institutionalism’. In a slogan, the idea is just that good institutions matter. The slogan itself is so innocuous as to be hardly worth comment. But the push to improve institutional quality has the potential to have a much less innocuous impact on aid efforts and other aspects of international development. This paper provides a critical introduction to some of the literature on institutional quality. It looks, in particular, at an argument for the conclusion that making aid conditional on good institutional quality will promote development by reducing poverty. This paper suggests …

Coercion, Legitimacy, And Individual Freedom, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

In “World Poverty and Individual Freedom” (WPIF) I argue that the global order – because it is coercive – is obligated to do what it can to ensure that its subjects are capable of autonomously agreeing to its rule. This requires helping them meet their basic needs. In “World Poverty and Not Respecting Individual Freedom Enough” Jorn Sonderholm asserts that this argument is invalid and unsound, in part, because it is too demanding. This article explains why Sonderholm’s critique is mistaken and misses the main point of WPIF’s argument. It also explains why WPIF is important -- it can address …

An Aspect Of Variable Population Poverty Comparisons: Does Adding A Rich Person To A Population Reduce Poverty?, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Poverty indexes are essential for monitoring poverty, setting targets for poverty reduction, and tracking progress on these goals. This paper suggests that further justification is necessary for using the main poverty indexes in the literature in any of these ways. It does so by arguing that poverty should not decline with the mere addition of a rich person to a population and showing that the standard indexes do not satisfy this axiom. It, then, suggests a way of modifying these indexes to avoid this problem

The Connection Between Stakeholder Theory And Stakeholder Democracy: An Excavation And Defense, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In early writings, stakeholder theorists supported giving all stakeholders formal, binding control over the corporation, in particular, over its board of directors. In recent writings, however, they claim that stakeholder theory does not require changing the current structure of corporate governance and further claim to be “agnostic” about the value of doing so. This article’s purpose is to highlight this shift and to argue that it is a mistake. It argues that, for instrumental reasons, stakeholder theorists should support giving all stakeholders control over the corporation, in the form of control over its board. That is, stakeholder theorists should support …

"Another Way": The Pneumatology Of Deleuzean Minoritarian Communal Interpretation In Scripture, The 16th Century Radical Reformation, And Alternative 21st Century Anabaptist Community, Jeremy Garber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a constructive theology of the Holy Spirit called the "pneumatology of minoritarian communal interpretation," the alternative creation of meaning within an oppressive majority context. It illustrates the convergence of Deleuzean philosophy with Anabaptist pneumatology and media communal interpretation theory in three particular locations: 1) selected mentions of the Holy Spirit in the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament; 2) the 16th century Radical Reformation; and 3) "Another Way," a 21st century alternative Anabaptist group focused around the spiritual discussion of art and popular media. Chapter One outlines the three theories. Chapter Two examines the Holy Spirit in …

Toward A More Hospitable Conception Of Race & The Political: The Play Of Difference & Economy In A Politic Of Disruption, Zachary Thomas Settle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The body of this thesis is framed around Carl Schmitt's articulation of the political as the distinction between friend and enemy; more importantly, though, it revolves around opposition as the necessary foundation of the political. Making use of Derrida and

Agamben, this particular argument critiques/radicalizes Schmitt's notion.

After establishing the necessary limits and boundaries at play in the binary opposite embedded within Schmitt's understanding of the political, this essay aims to level a certain generative critique of Schmitt's definition. A certain appropriation of Agamben's homo sacer reveals that the presence of those bound up in the fate of the state …

Is Geoffrey Chaucer’S Tale Of Sir Thopas A Rape Narrative? Reading Thopas In Light Of The 1382 Statute Of Rapes, Kristin Bovaird-Abbo

Quidditas

Considering the tale’s placement between two narratives of violence—the Prioress’s Tale and the Tale of Melibee—it is surprising that the Tale of Sir Thopas has not merited more discussion of the potential for violence against feminine bodies. I argue that Chaucer the author introduces significant changes to the typical medieval romance, with the result that Thopas’s actions in the name of “love” conceal a rape narrative that engages late fourteenth-century debates as to what exactly constituted rape. As the transfer of property was a significant portion of such discussions, the 1382 Statute of Rapes prompted concerns about the ability …

Global Justice And Charity: A Brief For A New Approach To Empirical Philosophyi, Nicole Hassoun

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

What does global justice or charity requires us to give to other people? There is a large theoretical literature on this question. There is much less experimental work in political philosophy relevant to answering it. Perhaps for this reason, this literature has yet to have any major impact on theoretical discussions of global justice or charity. There is, however, some experimental research in behavioral economics that has helped to shape the field and a few relevant studies by political philosophers. This paper reviews this research. Moreover, it argues that the little work that has been done can offer some methodological …

The Freedom Of Thought, In Dream-Life If Nowhere Else: Freud, Foucault, And Euripides, Sharon Sliwinski

Data and Test Instruments

This essay examines the “dead daughter in a box" dream, initially reported in Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), in order to explore two, related ideas: First, the dream is considered an exemplar of the work of symbolization, and in particular, a means for the dreamer to work through the fantasy of infanticide. Second, the dreamer’s disclosure of her dream is treated as an example of parrhesia – a particular speech act that Michel Foucault regarded as central to democracy. The overarching aim is to view dream-life as a quotidian and crucial site for the freedom of thought and speech.

Disciplinarity And Trandisciplinarity In The Study Of Knowledge, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Scholarly inquiry about the nature and significance of knowledge has been shaped by disciplinary traditions and priorities that define “knowledge” differently and result in disconnected literatures. In the mid to late twentieth century, library science educator Jesse Shera sought to bridge the conceptual gap between epistemological and sociological approaches to knowledge in proposing a new discipline he called social epistemology. Around the same time, long-term projects by the economist Fritz Machlup and the physical chemist turned philosopher of science Michael Polanyi did not merely combine existing disciplinary approaches but transcended conventional frameworks for conceptualizing knowledge. These scholars can be viewed …

Urban Desertification.2014.Pdf, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 8.5px Times} My thesis is that current cities and the way that cities are beingdeveloped is unsustainable and poses global problems for the long-termflourishing of the world’s inter-related and interdependent economies, formatters of justice and happiness in socio-cultural relations between peoples,and for the health of our natural environments. I argue that ‘urbandesertification’ happens in the complex relationship between cities (both urbanand suburban) and rural environments that support them as both a natural andethical phenomenon that I study using a form of analysis calledphenomenological ethics. First, I briefly present sketches of phenomenologyand sustainability in …

Dispositions And Potentialities, Jennifer Mckitrick

Department of Philosophy: Faculty Publications

Dispositions and potentialities seem importantly similar. To talk about what something has the potential or disposition to do is to make a claim about a future possibilitythe "threats and promises" that fill the world (Goodman 1983, 41). In recent years, dispositions have been the subject of much conceptual analysis and metaphysical speculation. The inspiration for this essay is the hope that that work can shed some light on discussions of potentiality. I compare the concepts of disposition and potentiality, consider whether accounts of these concepts are subject to similar difficulties, and whether having a disposition or a potentiality can depend …

Constellating Technology: Heidegger’S Die Gefahr/The Danger, Babette Babich

Research Resources

Heidegger’s question concerning technology was originally posed in lectures to the Club of Bremen. This essay considers the totalizing role of technology in Heidegger’s day and our own, including a discussion of radio and calling for a greater integration of Heidegger’s thinking and critical theory. Today’s media context and the increasing ecological pressures of our time may provide a way to think, once again, the related notions of event [ Ereignis] and ownedness [ Eigentlichkeit ].

Taking ‘Might’-Communication Seriously, Benjamin Lennertz

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

In this paper, I show that, given seemingly plausible assumptions about the epistemic‘might’ and conditionals, we cannot explain why in some circumstances it is appropriate to utterconditional ‘might’-sentences, like “If Angelica has crumbs in her pocket, then she might be thethief” and not the corresponding simple ones, like “Angelica might be the thief.” So, one of ourassumptions must be incorrect. I argue that the root of the problem is an umbrella thesis aboutthe pragmatics of ‘might’-communication – one that says that the communicative impact of anutterance of a ‘might’-sentence is the performance of a consistency check on the information ofthe …

Simple Contextualism About Epistemic Modals Is Incorrect, Benjamin Lennertz

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

I argue against a simple contextualist account of epistemic modals. My argument, like theargument on which it is based (von Fintel and Gillies 2011 and MacFarlane 2011), charges thatsimple contextualism cannot explain all of the conversational data about uses of epistemicmodals. My argument improves on its predecessor by insulating itself from recent contextualistattempts by Janice Dowell (2011) and Igor Yanovich (2014) to get around that argument. Inparticular, I use linguistic data to show that an utterance of an epistemic modal sentence can bewarranted, while an utterance of its suggested simple contextualist paraphrase is not.

Corporations, The Democratic Deficit, And Voting, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Many writers argue that a “democratic deficit” is created when private actors such as corporations take on state functions. The problem, it is said, is that the course of public life is being shaped by agents who are not accountable to the public. We evaluate this claim and consider what should be done about it. We focus in particular on a recent attempt, put forward principally by Palazzo and Scherer, to address the democracy deficit by “democratizing” corporations. We argue that their proposal, while promising, has a significant defect. We then propose a remedy for this defect. In sum, our …

Interiority In Some Novels By François Mauriac And Georges Bernanos, Eamon Maher

Books/Chapters

No abstract provided.

Shaky Ground, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

The debate surrounding free will and moral responsibility is one of the most intransigent debates in contemporary philosophy - but it does not have to be. At its heart, the free will debate is a metaethical debate - a debate about the meaning of certain moral terms - free will, moral responsibility, blameworthiness, praiseworthiness. Compatibilists argue that these concepts are compatible with wholly deterministic world, while incompatibilists argue that these concepts require indeterminism, or multiple possible futures. However, compatibilists and incompatibilists do not disagree on everything - both parties agree that free will and moral responsibility require control - the …

Review Of Ethics And The Golden Rule By Henry J. Gensler, William Simkulet

Philosophy and Religious Studies Department Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

The Multidimensionality Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology: From Philology Through Science And Technology To Theology, Babette Babich

Research Resources

Studies of hermeneutics have historically invoked and even enumerated dimensions and hermeneutic phenomenology is inherently multidimensional. In part this is due to the essential connection between hermeneutics and philology, which one cannot overlook. But it is also the legacy of Wilhelm Dilthey in particular. Hence Joseph J. Kockelman’s 2003 *Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences* invokes “The Importance of Methodical Hermeneutics.” With this description, echoing the contributions of his friend and long-time colleague, Thomas Seebohm, Kockelmans relates Dilthey to Boeckh and thus to the classic tradition of hermeneutics including but also well in advance of Gadamer. Hence …