Philosophy Commons^™

Confucian Leadership Democracy: A Roadmap, Yutang Jin

Comparative Philosophy

What kind of polity is justified by classic Confucian values? Adopting an interpretive approach, this paper explores the idea of leadership democracy being expressive of classic Confucian values by first introducing the models of leadership democracy associated with Weber and Schumpeter and second connecting Confucian elitist values to them. I argue that leadership democracy best realizes the Confucian emphasis on the people as the source of legitimacy and the ruler as the engine of good governance. The Confucian idea of people-rootedness is borne out by citizens behaving as democratic plebeians who are empowered to choose their leader but devoid of …

In Search Of Buddhist Virtue: A Case For A Pluralist-Gradualist Moral Philosophy, Oren Hanner

Comparative Philosophy

Classical presentations of the Buddhist path prescribe the cultivation of various good qualities that are necessary for spiritual progress, from mindfulness (sati) and loving-kindness (metta) to faith (saddhā) and wisdom (paññā). Examining the way in which such qualities are described and classified in early Buddhism—with special reference to their treatment in the Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification) by the fifth-century Buddhist thinker Buddhaghosa—the present article employs a comparative method in order to identify the Buddhist catalog of virtues. The first part sketches the characteristics of virtue as analyzed by neo-Aristotelian theories. …

Between Mysticism And Philosophical Rationality: Al-Ghazālī On The Reasons Of The Heart, Marilie Coetsee

Comparative Philosophy

In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has caused them to systematically distort the claims and arguments of Eastern thinkers. While King focuses primarily on Western scholarship on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, this essay shows that his argument can also be extended to apply to Western scholarship on al-Ghazālī, whose sympathy for Sufism and apparent rejection of Greek philosophy has often earned him the reputation of being a champion of Islamic mysticism. I argue that al-Ghazālī transcends the dueling categories of …

Social Roles And Psychological Continuity: Developing A Confucian-Psychological Continuity Hybrid Account Of Personal Identity And Ontology, Sammuel Byer

Comparative Philosophy

In this paper, I delineate a variety of questions related to personal identity and ontology. I develop and compare the Confucian conception of the person and the view of the person developed throughout Derek Parfit’s work on personal identity and ontology. I will demonstrate that the Confucian conception of the person has numerous instructive similarities with Parfit’s work on personal identity, despite a number of differences. I argue, briefly, that this project is worthwhile as a piece of comparative philosophy. One of the final two sections of the paper develop a new hybrid account of personal identity and ontology that …

Let's Change The Subject: Grounding Social Change In Indigenous History And Philosophy, Robert Michael Ruehl

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

This article urges altering the discourse around social change. Too often it is antagonistic and negative; it also overlooks continuing colonizing practices and how injustices to Indigenous peoples have helped to shape past and current injustices toward other groups. First, the article foregrounds the religio-political ideology of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and the boarding-school experience to remind readers about the broader criminal history of the United States toward Indigenous nations and peoples and how colonization is not a thing of the past. Any call for social change should remember this. Second, the article looks at three dimensions of Indigenous …

中國古典美學範疇之“淡”, Zhou Cao

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

上個世紀七十年代，羅蘭·巴特（Roland Barthes）以“平淡的場域”表達了對中國的整體感觀，而後荷蘭漢學家余蓮（François Jullien）以“淡”總論中國思想與美學，兩位學者從跨文化的視野指出了“淡”在中國古代美學思想體系中的重要性。若從“淡”的歷史流變來看，不同理論流派與藝術門類的論述跨越了數個研究場域，而非限於範疇體系中“風格”論的一種表現。故此，本文嘗試超越以往視“淡”為“審美風格”的局限，著重研究“淡”在不同理論之間的流動，探尋“淡”如何從味覺現象發展為哲學、道德概念並演變為文藝美學範疇，從材質、心性、詩歌、詩歌批評、詩學理論五個角度梳理其理論漸進的過程與發展史的重要節點；同時，鑒於古代範疇隨步移行的特點，本文在微觀細讀的基礎上深入辨析一些由“淡”構成的重要概念或術語，界定它們的內涵與外延，並以文史哲結合的方法釐清其各自的理論語境與淵源，進而反思“淡”在不同時期意涵變遷的歷史文化原因。本文通過重要節點勾勒“淡”的發展史，透視古代美學思想各個場域之間的會通，希望能夠重新描繪“淡”在整個範疇體系中的位置，發現“淡”成為古典文藝審美理想的深層原因。

Baking As A Means Of Non-Verbal Expression: An Aesthetic Inquiry On Conventual Pastry, Maddalena Borsato

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The aim of this essay is to philosophically explore the domain of conventual pastry by understanding baking as a form of aesthetic expression. I intend to investigate the aesthetic meaning of making sweets, both for the specificity of this taste and for the link between tacit knowledge and the meaning of gift through cloistering. From the very beginning of its production in the monasteries, pastry developed not only as an economic livelihood but also as a way to create a meaningful language beyond the so-called intellectual activities. The philosophical interest lies in the relationship of food practice with intimate …

The Bodies Of The Condemned: The Return Of The Body As The Object Of State Power, Kenzo E. Okazaki

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper provides a historical analysis of the genealogy of American policing and attempts to explain the return of state power to individual bodies. It argues that this return was informed by French counterinsurgency strategies in Algeria. Through engagement with Foucault's analysis of power and surveillance practices, it aims to shed light on and help us better understand and combat police brutality today.

Guest Post: A Well-Read Post, Rebecca Konyndyk Deyoung

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

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 …

"Porphyry, The Argument From Species Overlap, And Rationality", Daniel A. Dombrowski

Between the Species

No abstract provided.

Medical Schools Ignore The Nature Of Consciousness At Great Cost, Anoop Kumar

Journal of Wellness

The essential question of the relationship between consciousness and matter is ignored in medical school curricula, leading to a machine-like view of the human being that contributes to physician burnout and intellectual dissatisfaction. The evidence suggesting that the brain may not be the seat of consciousness is generally ignored to preserve the worldview of the primacy of matter. By investigating new frameworks detailing the nature of consciousness at different levels of hierarchy, we can bring intellectual rigor to a once opaque subject that supports a fundamental reality about our experience: We are human beings, not only human bodies.

What An Ethics Of Discourse And Recognition Can Contribute To A Critical Theory Of Refugee Claim Adjudication, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Thanks to Axel Honneth, recognition theory has become a prominent fixture of critical social theory. In recent years, he has deployed his recognition theory in diagnosing pathologies and injustices that afflict institutional practices. Some of these institutional practices revolve around specifically juridical institutions, such as human rights and democratic citizenship, that directly impact the lives of the most desperate migrants. Hence it is worthwhile asking what recognition theory can add to a critical theory of migration. In this paper, I argue that, although its contribution to a critical theory of migration is limited, it nonetheless carves out a unique body …

What An Ethics Of Discourse And Recognition Can Contribute To A Critical Theory Of Refugee Claim Adjudication: Reclaiming Epistemic Justice For Gender-Based Asylum Seekers, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Abstract: Using examples drawn from gender-based asylum cases, this chapter examines how far recognition theory (RT) and discourse theory (DT) can guide social criticism of the judicial processing of women’s applications for protection under the Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) and subsequent protocols and guidelines put forward by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). I argue that these theories can guide social criticism only when combined with other ethical approaches. In addition to humanitarian and human rights law, these theories must rely upon ideas drawn from distributive, compensatory, and epistemic justice. Drawing from recent …

Arguments For Banning Autonomous Weapon Systems: A Critique, Hunter Cantrell

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

No abstract provided.

When To Trust Authoritative Testimony: Generation And Transmission Of Knowledge In Saadya Gaon, Al-Ghazālī And Thomas Aquinas, Brett A. Yardley

Dissertations (1934 -)

People have become suspicious of authority, including epistemic authorities, i.e., knowledge experts, even on matters individuals are unqualified to adjudicate (e.g., climate change, vaccines, or the shape and age of the earth). This is problematic since most of our knowledge comes from trusting a speaker—whether scholars reading experts, students listening to teachers, children obeying their parents, or pedestrians inquiring of strangers—such that the knowledge transmitted is rarely personally verified. Despite the recent development of social epistemology and theories of testimony, this is not a new problem. Ancient and Medieval philosophers largely took it for granted that most human knowledge primarily …

Asymmetry And Symmetry Of Acts And Omissions In Punishment, Norms, And Judged Causality, Toby Handfield, John Thrasher, Andrew Corcoran, Shaun Nichols

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

Harmful acts are punished more often and more harshly than harmful omissions. This asymmetry has variously been ascribed to differences in how individuals perceive the causal responsibility of acts versus omissions and to social norms that tend to proscribe acts more frequently than omissions. This paper examines both of these hypotheses, in conjunction with a new hypothesis: that acts are punished more than omissions because it is usually more efficient to do so. In typical settings, harms occur as a result of relatively few harmful actions, but many individuals may have had the opportunity to prevent or rectify the harm. …

Empathy And Jus In Bello, Kevin Cutright

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

No abstract provided.

Monetary Incentives For Producing Counterfeit, Adulterated, And Misbranded Medicine: Case Studies And Examples, Heather R. Campbell, Robert A. Lodder

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Pharmaceutical fraud can be very profitable. Those working in pharmaceuticals are in a tempting position as the nature of the product and supply is complex, making detection of fraud difficult and expensive. However, a reliable pharmaceutical supply can often be a life-or-death situation for patients. Thus, when detection of fraud occurs, a Regulator's Dilemma often emerges (recall a drug for which a supplier is the sole source, or allow a substandard product to be sold)—generally resulting in pharmaceutical companies receiving minimal penalties even for the worst acts. Despite pharmaceutical companies' unique leverage over regulators and profitability, studies are rare …

The Design Of A Framework For The Detection Of Web-Based Dark Patterns, Andrea Curley, Dympna O'Sullivan, Damian Gordon, Brendan Tierney, Ioannis Stavrakakis

Conference Papers

In the theories of User Interfaces (UI) and User Experience (UX), the goal is generally to help understand the needs of users and how software can be best configured to optimize how the users can interact with it by removing any unnecessary barriers. However, some systems are designed to make people unwillingly agree to share more data than they intend to, or to spend more money than they plan to, using deception or other psychological nudges. User Interface experts have categorized a number of these tricks that are commonly used and have called them Dark Patterns. Dark Patterns are varied …

Connectivism: Adopting Quantum Holism In International Relations, Grant Randal Highland

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The current scientific context of both quantum science and an ever-increasingly connected global citizenry has set the conditions for a new perspective whereby the social sciences are on the cusp of adopting a quantum approach of probability and potentiality versus the clockwork mechanistic determinism of cause-and-effect Newtonian mechanics. While a scientific realist approach toward the application of quantum science to the social sciences is germane, there is a valid reason international relations should also consider and adopt the philosophical worldviews outside the genealogical canon of our early western forbears, as well as the philosophical explorations of consciousness and humanism which …

Inamori International Thesis Prize In Military Ethics 2019 | 2020 - Front Matter And Message From The Editors, Shannon E. French, Beth Trecasa

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

The Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence awards an annual prize for the best thesis in military ethics to promote active involvement in the study and application of military ethics, including: Just War Theory; the Conduct of War; the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC); International Humanitarian Law (IHL); and other related fields that include the study of human rights issues in the context of armed conflict.

In an effort to foster global discussion of pressing issues in military ethics and improve the accessibility of the field in languages other than English, the Inamori Center publishes the winning theses, in …

Just War Traditions And Revisions, Joseph Chapa

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

No abstract provided.

Parental Incarceration: Negative Impacts And How To Find Reform, Emma Melendrez

McNair Scholars Program

It is no secret that the Criminal Justice System has been put into question and even more so in recent years. The following research raises the thought provoking reality regarding the impacts of parental incarceration, more specifically the behavioral, socioeconomic, and placement impacts, as well as raises the question of if there can be or is a possibility of reform to these systems implemented to protect the well-being of these children. For this I have compiled data from articles spanning from across the United States within the past 20 years (2000-2021).

Who Is A Wise Person? Zhuangzi And Epistemological Discussions Of Wisdom, Shane Ryan, Karyn Lai

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay articulates the contribution that the Zhuangzi can make to contemporary epistemological discussions of wisdom. It suggests that wisdom in the Zhuangzi involves, in part, correctly distinguishing the "heavenly" (or the naturally given) from human artifice. It is important for humanity to understand naturally given conditions (e.g., seasons, climate, forces, mortality) to grasp what is within, and what beyond, our initiatives. To enable this, we need to be openly engaged with the world, rather than approach it with rigid convictions about outcomes or goals. We characterize such openness and readiness to engage as an attitude, that of "epistemic humility." …

Viii—Gambling On Others And Relying On Others, Nicolas Cornell

Articles

Gambling on another person and relying on another person are similar but intuitively distinct phenomena. This paper argues that gambling is distinguished by the stance that it necessarily involves towards the bet-upon conduct. It then contends that, where one has gambled upon the conduct of another, one has no standing to complain against that person for losses that result. This small point may have significant implications for how we think about speculative economic losses.

Revenge Of The Lawn, Jason James Wallin

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

A great irony of the present moment involves the return of objects long thought rallied to the will of man. As growing consensus in climate change research submits, the world presumably given to the mastery of man today returns as an alien force of material and conceptual upheaval. It is against this backdrop of rapid ecological transformation and its cultural impacts that Revenge of the Lawn is situated. As a work of speculative philo-fiction, Revenge of the Lawn surveys the horror of being “read” from the vantage of the non-human as it exists astride and yet withdraws from human melodrama …

Critical Hermeneutics And The Counter Narrative Of Ledger Art, Katie Fuller

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Too often historical artworks in schools, textbooks, cultural institutions, and public spaces share a narrative that bolsters white-centered histories, but when an historical artwork is studied as text it creates room for multiple perspectives (Newfield, 2011) expanding the narrative to include subjugated histories. Looking at art through the philosophy of hermeneutics opens up questions and conflicts that arise within texts based on interpretations of those texts (Leonardo, 2003). This paper will apply the philosophy of hermeneutics to critique historical memory, and it will present ledger art as a visual text and counter narrative to dominant white narratives. Ledger art emerged …

The Application Of Complex Systems Science To Political Philosophy, Benjamin Nicholas House

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although complex systems science is relevant to problems of political philosophy, the intersection of these two disciplines has not been studied in depth. Complex systems are made up of multiple interdependent parts whose interactions create emergent properties. This interdependence makes these systems “fat-tailed”: low-probability events can have a major impact on the system. Complex systems engineers have formulated a series of rules of thumb for approximating an “evolutionary” environment. Contemporary human civilization is a complex system; because of this, governments need to become adaptable and approximate the evolutionary environment by fostering policy innovation while at the same time promoting mechanisms …

Evolutionary Debunking Arguments And Theism: How Moral Knowledge Points To The Existence Of God, John Roland Fraser

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Recent debates in the area of metaethics and moral epistemology have centered around evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs). These arguments purport to show that the conclusions of Darwinian evolution pose a serious problem for moral knowledge. I argue that attempts to resolve the issues around debunking arguments from a non-theistic framework fail. I also agree with some atheists who argue that the evidence shows universal benevolence to be an attitude-independent moral truth. I then show that non-theistic approaches do not adequately account for this, whereas theism does. Theism not only explains the cosmic coincidence between our moral beliefs and moral facts, …