Philosophy Commons^™

Legacies Of Freedom: Tracing Theories Of Freedom Into The Contemporary Conversation On International Intervention, Sarah Bello

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper presents an exploration into the lineage of freedom, investigating the historic structures configured in an attempt to distribute freedom in an equalizing fashion. This text will outline the intricate relationship between freedoms and liberties, by surveying the prominent political philosophies, and forms of governance within their respective temporalities. By taking up the ideas of enlightenment thinkers such as Kant, decolonial voices like Fanon, and comparing them to the current neo-liberal framework we find ourselves in, we are faced with the incompatible realities of liberalism and capitalism. This text will consequently call for a revolution of our current structures …

Understanding Authoritarianism, Fascism, Far-Right Politics, And Anti-Democratic Processes, Paul Viafranco

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

In this portfolio, Paul Viafranco seeks to understand the rise of Authoritarianism, Fascism, Far-Right Politics, and Anti-Democratic Processes, by delving into Executive Order 9066, Marine Le Pen’s use of medievalism, Donald Trump’s discourse, and the various factors that contribute to the need for seeking asylum or refugee status.

Revisiting Tocqueville's American Woman, Christine Dunn Henderson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This paper revisits Tocqueville’s famous portrait of the American female, which begins with assertions of her equality to males but ends with her self-cloistering in the domestic sphere. Taking a cue from Tocqueville’s extended sketch of the “faded” pioneer wife in “A Fortnight in the Wilderness” and drawing connections to Tocqueville’s criticisms of the division of industrial labor, I argue that the American girl’s ostensibly free choice to remove herself from public life is not an act of freedom. Rather, it is a manifestation of a particular type of unfreedom that reveals underappreciated connections between the two great dangers about …

'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Vallier offers a defence of liberalism that is publicly justified as an answer to political polarization. This critique argues that the philosophical solution he offers - a version of liberalism more likely to be endorsed by moderately idealized agents - may not succeed because the source of polarization lies elsewhere: in resentments arising out of changed social conditions and the alienation of parts of society unhappy with the very liberal narrative in question.

Critique Of Hayek's Liberalism And The Rule Of Law, Kacper Mykietyn

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

In this paper, I raise a few doubts about the adequacy of Hayek's liberal theory and the rule of law in the twenty-first century. I argue that the theory 1) fails to be morally neutral by not giving proper attention to the harm experienced by the minorities, 2) does not acknowledge a satisfactory account for the exploitation of the working class, and 3) operates with a parochial definition of freedom.

James Madison, American Liberalism, And The Problem Of The “Gordian Knot”, Nicholas Marr

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Federal jurisdiction is virtually unlimited today and the strength and survivability of liberalism, our nation’s animating political philosophy, is hotly debated. These issues are connected and James Madison’s thinking provides some insight into exactly how that might be.

Stability And Resilience In Rawls's Political Liberalism, Grace Campbell

Doctoral Dissertations

Stability and resilience are complementary attributes in John Rawls’s most developed liberal system. In his early theory, stable cooperation is guaranteed by liberal society’s single, shared conception of justice. Rawls’s more pluralist theory introduces a possibility of cooperation without a consensus about justice, but it does not explain stable cooperation. If citizens are committed to a family of reasonable, liberal conceptions of justice, a pluralist liberal system can be stable because it is also resilient. Though pluralism increases discord in dynamic conditions, citizens can appeal to a shared family of ideals to adapt and restore allegiance. This adaptive capacity is …

Review Of Federico Zuolo's Animals, Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Josh Milburn

Between the Species

No abstract provided.

The Federalist Papers' Account Of Human Nature, Jeffrey P. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper is an analysis of the account of human nature found in The Federalist Papers. This interpretation assumes The Federalist is a work of political rhetoric and advocacy, but also one of genuine significance as political science and philosophy. As a book, The Federalist is a coherent whole, which offers a coherent account of human nature, despite the collective nature of its authorship, the time pressures of its publication, and the piecemeal nature of its workmanship. This understanding of human nature is the thread which runs through all its analysis and numbers. Its arguments asserting the inadequacies of …

Loose Connections In The Just Society, Benjamin Parviz

Theses

John Rawls’ influential A Theory of Justice presents a liberal theory in which individuals gain “a sense of justice” that commits them to the success of the just society above other interests or life plans. Critics of Rawlsian liberalism such as Taylor, Sandel, MacIntyre, Walzer, and the communitarians have variously complained that his theory inadequately accounts for individual commitment to community as distinct from commitment to the whole of society. In this essay I consider Rawls’s theory in light of the arguments of these community concerned critics in order to understand whether these complaints have any merit. In particular, I …

Community Unclaimed: Plurality And The Problem Of Sovereignty In Bataille, Nancy, And Blanchot, Gregory J. Grobmeier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation takes up the exchange between three prominent French thinkers on the question of “community”: Georges Bataille, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Maurice Blanchot. Taken together, and starting with Bataille’s prewar writings and communitarian activism in the 1930s, the exchange between them now spans nearly a century. Georges Bataille’s importance as a political thinker and writer was brought out of relative obscurity with the publication of Jean-Luc Nancy’s “La Communauté désoeuvrée” in 1983. Less than a year after the appearance of Nancy’s inaugural essay, Maurice Blanchot, a close friend of the late Bataille, published La Communauté inavouable. Blanchot’s text was …

Metaphor And The Struggle Between Populism And Liberal Democracy, Daniel Cole

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Populist movements have emerged the world over, appearing even in countries in which it had long been assumed that liberal democracy was unassailable. Scholars have been grappling with the concept of populism for decades, but as populists have won victories close to home, the research has taken on a heightened sense of urgency. Two of the common theses that have appeared in the recent literature are, (a) populism is opposed to liberal democracy, and (b) populism is linked to a democratic tradition of thought that originates with Rousseau. While I am willing to grant (a), I argue in this dissertation …

The Other China Model: Daoism, Pluralism, And Political Liberalism, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

While scholars often portray Chinese political thought and tradition as standing in opposition to Western notions of political liberalism, little consideration has been given to compatibility between liberalism and Daoism, a prominent religion and long-standing alternative school of thought among Chinese peoples. Addressing this gap in the literature, this study in comparative political thought compares Laozi’s Dao De Jing with John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty to illustrate certain core political ideas in the Dao De Jing and their treatment in Mill’s landmark text on political liberalism. Although the two texts diverge in terms of advocacy of popular representation, public contestation, …

Beast-Gods, Bandits, And Beggar-Kings: The Traveler In Political Thought, Nader Sadre

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I use texts by Plato, Locke, Homer, and Gandhi to explore the political dimension of travel. I argue that travel is a proxy for practices and conditions that exceed “normal” politics. In this capacity, travel reveals what normal politics is, or is assumed to be. Travel marks a boundary of the political realm in a double sense: it may conceal or point to a pre-political source of authority; and it may provide an intimation of new political modes and orders. My analyses suggest that there is no single or consistent relationship between travel and politics. Rather, the …

Economies Of Security: Foucault And The Genealogy Of Neoliberal Reason, Marshall Scheider

Gettysburg Social Sciences Review

Michel Foucault is well-known for his theorizations of institutional power, normativity, and biopolitics. Less well-known is the fact that Foucault developed his analysis of biopolitics in and through his historical investigation of neoliberalism. Today, while critique of neoliberalism has become a commonplace of humanities discourse, and popular resistance to neoliberalization rocks the southern hemisphere, it remains unclear that the historical specificity of neoliberalism is well-understood. In particular, the relation between classical liberalism and neoliberal governance remains murky in popular debate. As Foucault powerfully illustrates, this relation is far from clear-cut, and neoliberalism is not reducible to a simple extension of …

Environmental Transformative Justice: Responding To Ecocide, Manuel Rodeiro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation’s central objective is to normatively devise ethically appropriate sociopolitical and juridical responses to ecocide (i.e., grave environmental harm). More specifically, the work seeks to philosophically engage the ethical question of what is owed to human societies that are displaced due to intentional environmental destruction.

The motivation behind the project stems from the lack of academic research (excluding a pocket of recent analysis of the international community’s obligation to assist ‘climate refugees’) involving the question: “What ought to be afforded victims of environmental harm?” The dearth of scholarship is surprising, considering growing global concerns, vis-à-vis accelerating rates of environmental …

What Role Should Philosophy Play In The Public Sphere? The Intrinsic Value Of Public Philosophy, Jonathan Engle

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Public philosophy is a relatively new area of meta-philosophy requiring further development. In this paper I seek to establish a clear definition of public philosophy and clarify what at times has become a muddled term. This is followed by laying a groundwork for how to view philosophical study and its consequences to the students. I primarily address Weinstein’s argument that public philosophy is primarily for entertainment. This is based on one of his points that public philosophy leads to self-knowledge (self-cultivation). Rather than peripheral to public philosophy, I will argue that this is central to public philosophy, establishing it as …

Idealist And Materialist Approaches To Abolition In Uncle Tom's Cabin And The Daughter Of Adoption, Jillian Shea

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sentimentalism was a popular aesthetic, moral, political, and literary movement in the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States and England, and both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and John Thelwall’s The Daughter of Adoption (1801) use sentimentalism in their attempts to advocate for the abolition of slavery. Scholars such as Lauren Berlant critique sentimentalism, specifically Stowe’s use of sentimentalism, for its potential to make structural problems appear as if they can be assuaged by personal change, and I situate this understanding of sentimentalism within an idealist framework, or a framework that primarily emphasizes subjectivity’s role in …

Intervention Principles In Pediatric Health Care: The Difference Between Physicians And The State., D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

According to various accounts, intervention in pediatric decisions is justified either by the best interests standard or by the harm principle. While these principles have various nuances that distinguish them from each other, they are similar in the sense that both focus primarily on the features of parental decisions that justify intervention, rather than on the competency or authority of the parties that intervene. Accounts of these principles effectively suggest that intervention in pediatric decision making is warranted for both physicians and the state under precisely the same circumstances. This essay argues that there are substantial differences in the competencies …

A State Of Impermanence: Buddhism, Liberalism, And The Problem Of Politics, Cory Michael Sukala

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship of Buddhist political thought and liberal political thought at the level of first principles. I will examine the tension created by the Buddhist view of political life as instrumental and secondary to man's being as a function of the transition of the Buddhist world into the sphere of Western political life, which views the role of politics as primary to man's nature. In Part I, this will be accomplished through a consideration of the origins of political life and the foundation of the political state in each tradition as viewed through the themes of human …

Why The Duty To Self-Censor Requires Social-Media Users To Maintain Their Own Privacy, Earl W. Spurgin

2019 Faculty Bibliography

Revelations of personal matters often have negative consequences for social-media users. These consequences trigger frequent warnings, practical rather than moral in nature, that social-media users should consider carefully what they reveal about themselves since their revelations might cause them various difficulties in the future. I set aside such practical considerations and argue that social-media users have a moral obligation to maintain their own privacy that is rooted in the duty to self-censor. Although Anita L. Allen provides a paternalist justification of the duty that supports my position that social-media users are obligated to self-censor what they reveal about themselves, I …

Replacing Liberal Confucianism With Progressive Confucianism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

A Liberal Analysis Of Religious Exemptions To Public Accommodation Laws, Michael David Doering

Theses and Dissertations

In 2015, the United States Supreme Court effectively made same-sex marriage legal throughout the country. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy opined that not extending marriage equality to same-sex couples violated both their autonomy and their right to equal dignity under the law. Three years earlier, a same-sex couple visited Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Colorado, and requested that the owner design and create a cake to celebrate their same-sex wedding. The owner declined, advising the couple that he did not provide wedding cakes for same-sex weddings due to his religious beliefs. He was found guilty of violating the Colorado …

Paul Piccone’S Providential Moment: Phenomenology, Subjectivity, And 20th Century Marxism In Telos, Jacob A. Ulmschneider

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the intellectual history of editor, writer, and philosopher, Paul Piccone and Telos, an independent journal of contemporary critical theory, which he founded in 1968. Born in Italy, Piccone lived most of his life in the United States, earning his Ph.D. in philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo in 1970. Piccone served as Telos’ editor and a major contributor from 1968 to 2004. This thesis follows the trajectory of his thought by contextualizing his writing within the broader world of Marxist, and eventually post-Marxist, political philosophy. Telos also concerned itself with modern interpretations of historical dialectics and early 20^th-century …

American Populism Shouldn’T Have To Embrace Ignorance, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Public ignorance is an inherent threat to democracy. It breeds superstition, prejudice, and error; and it prevents both a clear-eyed understanding of the world and the formulation of wise policies to adapt to that world.

Plato believed it was more than a threat: He thought it characterized democracies, and would lead them inevitably into anarchy and ultimately tyranny. But the liberal democracies of the modern era, grudgingly extending suffrage, have extended public education in parallel, in the hope of cultivating an informed citizenry. Yet today, given the persistence and severity of public ignorance, the ideal of an enlightened electorate seems …

Unparadoxical Liberalism, Andrew Koppelman

San Diego Law Review

Larry Alexander argues that liberalism is internally incoherent because it contains a paradox: it is committed to toleration, but if it tolerates illiberal ideas and practices it betrays itself. The paradox does not exist. Liberalism aims to tolerate as much diversity as it can consistent with the preservation of the liberal project. It has distinctive reasons to tolerate illiberal ideas, since it aims to be adopted by the citizenry consciously and with a full understanding of the alternatives. How much diversity can, in practice, be tolerated is a contingent question dependent on the facts of any particular time and place. …

Alexander On Koppelman On Alexander, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

In my book Is There a Right of Freedom of Expression?, I argued that liberalism, to the extent it is defined by a commitment to freedom of illiberal speech, illiberal religions, and illiberal associations, is at its core paradoxical. For, I argued, if liberalism is the correct political philosophy, it must regard illiberal thought and its manifestations in action and policy as fundamentally mistaken. And these mistaken illiberal views cannot be deemed by the liberal to have value as views, except perhaps for whatever instructive value they might have in getting people to see the truth of liberalism. When such …

Liberalism And Tolerance, William Voegeli

San Diego Law Review

I began by raising the possibility that tolerance is minor issue, having no bearing on whether liberalism works out or makes sense. I conclude by noting that it is a central question, for liberalism and politics in general. Tolerance is important because intolerance is important. “Anything Goes” is one of Cole Porter’s best songs, but is unlikely to become any country’s national anthem. The questions of what doesn’t go, and why, and how to prevent it from going any further, explain a great deal about the political ideologies of our era, as well as the premises on which social orders …

Why Liberal Tolerance, Rightly Understood, Is Coherent And Defensible, William A. Galston

San Diego Law Review

One of the most familiar criticisms of liberal democracy is that it cannot defend itself against its enemies while remaining true to its principles. This criticism is odd as well as unjust because theorists regarded as arch-liberals offer compelling reasons to reject it. . .

A Transcendental Argument For Liberalism, Samuel C. Rickless

San Diego Law Review

Liberalism is the view that the state should not, except on mutually justifiable grounds, coerce a society’s citizens to adopt, support, or follow some particular comprehensive conception of the good. So understood, a liberal state, by definition, permits each citizen a zone of freedom delimited by her own understanding of the ingredients of a happy life. Liberalism, as a normative theory governing state–citizen (and, indirectly, citizen–citizen) relations, is opposed by various forms of totalitarianism, including theocracy and communism. A theocratic state is one that imposes a particular religious form of life on its citizens, and thereby restricts their freedom to …