Applied Ethics Commons^™

"But Oh, What Harm Those Basics Would Cause": How Journalists Can Better Interview Vulnerable Sources Utilizing An Ethic Of Care, Noah Carandanis

University Honors Theses

Traditional journalistic ethics have emphasized detachment from sources and objectivity guiding journalists' practices. In this thesis, I explore the contribution of care ethics to the field of journalistic ethics, emphasizing care in relation to interviewing vulnerable sources. I claim that the traditional objective, detached ethical status quo in journalism is insufficient in the context of reporting on mass shootings. This thesis argues that caring journalistic practices should be utilized when interviewing traumatized, vulnerable sources. In the first part, I present the issue of traditional journalistic practices through my personal experiences. I also discuss the philosophical underpinnings to journalist's objectivity criterion. …

Sexual Violence, Rape Culture, And The Ethics Of Care In Promising Young Woman (2020), Blink Twice (2024), And Women Talking (2022), Naomi H. Fredgant

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

Evolving public discourse on rape and rape culture is reflected in contemporary cinema. This thesis analyzes Promising Young Woman (2020), Blink Twice (2024), and Women Talking (2022)—all directed by women—through the theoretical framework of the ethics of care, highlighting how these films expose the persistence of rape culture and the systemic failure of institutions to support victims of sexual violence. Drawing on scholarship about rape culture, this analysis shows how the rape myths and institutional gaslighting depicted in these films function to dismiss victims’ testimonies, mirroring broader patterns of invalidation. The films explore both individual and collective responses to sexual …

Duties To The Self (Body And Mind), Rasha Essam

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contends that self-duties are of vital significance, representing the obligations we owe to ourselves, and examines them through different life phenomena. Chapter One defends the existence of self-duties against a challenge raised by an (alleged) paradox. Chapters Two and Three then explore two particular self-duties related to the body and the mind, analyzed through the philosophical notions of self-objectification and moral testimony. Each chapter elaborates on these concepts with detailed real-life examples that illustrate how such experiences can undermine one’s humanity—as preserving one’s humanity is a core duty toward oneself. The purpose of this thesis is not only …

Beyond The Veil: Critical Black Kantianism And The Ethics Of Structural (In)Visibility, Paradise A. Stanford

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation develops what I call Critical Black Kantianism, a reconstructive approach to Kantian moral philosophy that centers race, recognition, and the structural conditions under which moral agency is formed. While Kantian ethics typically presumes idealized agents operating within just social contexts, this project argues that such abstraction obscures how racial domination actively shapes autonomy, dignity, and self-consciousness. Drawing on W.E.B. Du Bois’ account of double consciousness, Black feminist thought, and contemporary theories of recognition, I show that moral agency is not merely exercised within social environments but is constituted through them—often under conditions of misrecognition that fracture autonomy.

Against …

Complexity Theory And Environmental Conservation Management: A Case Study With Coyote And Red Wolf Hybridization, Gretchen E. Mahalic

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Conservation biology and invasion biology are value-led scientific disciplines founded on environmental advocacy, operating at the intersection of research and action. Though these disciplines are known for their scientific veracity, unexamined values are often promulgated without scrutiny and drive decisions that work against good ecological outcomes. A case in point is that coyotes migrating into southeastern territory are framed as the greatest threat to the conservation of the endangered red wolf because hybridization is seen as diminishing their species integrity. Applying Val Plumwood’s ecofeminist account of dualistic frameworks, I will use this case to show how the vilification of the …

Reimagining Democratic Education With Care Ethics—Toward Care-Full Democratic Education, Selja Koponen, Tuija Kasa

Democracy & Education

In an era of democratic crises, democratic education in basic education is considered crucial. However, recent studies show that young people perceive their influence both at school and in society as limited, which decreases their civic activity later in life. The aim of this theoretical study is to reevaluate democratic education through feminist care ethics, which is an under-researched topic in the current theoretical debate. In our article, we outline a novel approach to caring democratic education (i.e., care-full democratic education), which presents a complementary stance toward current democratic education, which relies heavily on the theories of liberal democracy and …

Not Meant To Be Read: The Stories They Silence, The Resistance That Speaks, Cristina Onea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the evolution of surveillance from overt state violence to the more insidious forms of ideological policing embedded in everyday life. Through lived experience, oral history, and critical autoethnography, I explore how surveillance moves through bodies, families, institutions, and memory—not simply as external control, but as internalized rhythms of fear, vigilance, and self-surveillance. I move between my father's life under Romanian dictatorship, my own embodied inheritance, and the contemporary struggles of librarians facing ideological suppression to reveal surveillance as a structure that persists through generations, mutates across contexts, and demands new forms of resistance.

I argue …

What's The Art In Artificial Intelligence?, Emily Verla Bovino

Open Educational Resources

This workbook learns from Black and Indigenous artists working with Artificial Intelligence to confront issues of ethics and aesthetics in its technologies. It features guided learning activities with links to publicly available video lectures and online articles, and includes options for experiential learning through both a tutorial in Midjourney and a visit to the public art collection at York College in Jamaica, Queens. Featured artists include: American Artist, Rizvana Bradley, Beth Coleman, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Suzanne Kite, Sondra Perry, Mimi Onuoha and Alisha B. Wormsley. Works by Martin Puryear and Maren Hassinger are explored in the Midjourney exercise.

About …

Navigating Climate Action: The River As Teacher For Eco-Literacy, Educational Regeneration And Creative Participation, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cultures' engagements with land and its more-than-human elements reveal their attitudes toward these dimensions, spanning a spectrum from reciprocal to transactional practices. In time, these engagements form a body of knowledges that nurtures the culture and its land, or arrests their vital and diverse qualities. This research project aims to bring to light how the different ways of engaging with and relating to land are embedded in knowledge production, distribution and communication—in short, in general educational endeavors and their philosophies—to promote a better understanding of the principles of eco-literacy. Additionally, a purpose of this project is to provide insights into …

Navigating Cultural Differences In Community-Based Conservation: A Malagasy Case Study, Austin J. Cheng

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

This SIP explores the tension between avoiding cultural imperialism and remaining true to ideals, particularly of gender equality in the creation and funding of community-based conservation organizations in patriarchal societies. To tether these loftier ideas to practice, I use my internship with Planet Madagascar in Ankarafantsika National Park as a case study, and explore it through the lenses of feminist, pragmatist, and post-colonial philosophers.

Eros And The Sublime: Tools For Reaching Toward An Altered Ecological Consciousness, Aineka Carlson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores connections between the Kantian sublime and Anne Carson’s ideas regarding “eros.” Since Kant’s Critique of Judgement was published in 1790, the Kantian sublime has grown in popularity and been utilized by theorists and creative writers alike. While the Kantian sublime is often associated with nature in popular culture, there are certain egocentric and phallocentric elements of this mode of thinking that might inhibit a biocentric mindset. Through a character study of Oryx from Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake, this thesis draws relations between the subjugation of women, nature, and the ways in which the popularized …

On The Morality Of Prostitution Under Hierarchical Social Structures: A Radical Feminist Analysis, Kendra F. Ballard

Quest

Moral Philosophy Essay

Research in progress for PHIL 2306: Introduction to Ethics

Faculty Mentor: John Macready, Ph.D.

The following article represents exemplary student research produced in PHIL 2306, a sophomore-level course in ethical and moral philosophy at Collin College. PHIL 2306 introduces students to an array of ethical and moral theories, such as virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, and contractarianism, as well as the dominant critiques of these theories. These ethical and moral theories provide models for reasoning about ethical and moral issues, which students practice by applying these theories to specific issues like abortion, torture, capital punishment, and genetic engineering. …

Is Sexyy Red Minstrelsy, Or Are We Overreacting?, Malik Brizan-Reed

Capstones

This criticism piece explores the controversial female rapper Sexyy Red. It challenges negative perspectives about her persona, primarily based on respectability politics. It highlights Sexyy Red's ability to capitalize on a moment and business savviness. The article has themes of racial double standards and classism. Sexyy Red is more than the "ghetto Black girl," aesthetic. She's a mother and entrepreneur who is authentic to herself.

Human-Machine Relations And Relational Autonomy, Hendrik Kempt, Camilla Colombo, Saskia K. Nagel

Human-Machine Communication

The ever-growing use of interactive technologies and digitization processes in decisionmaking contexts raises key challenges to the conceptualization of autonomy. Starting from the shortcomings of individualistic models, we argue that relational accounts of autonomy provide a more adequate characterization of human beings as socially embedded and integrated. By introducing a decision-theoretic framework, and further theoretical elaboration, we suggest a substantial account of relational autonomy incorporating machines and technologies within the significant relations entertained by agents. Besides optimizing decision-making performances, human-machine interactions could genuinely support and enhance individual autonomy, by fostering human connections, expanding the individual’s social context with additional perspectives, …

With Love, ; An Interdisciplinary And Intersectional Look At Why Creativity Is Essential, Theo Starr Gardner

Whittier Scholars Program

My Whittier Scholars Program self-designed major, Teaching Creativity, is a mixture of Art, Literature, and Education classes. My research and praxis classes have been focused on the ‘how?’s and 'why?’s of creativity, so it felt only right that my project should be a constructivist, generative project. The project I have been working on throughout my time at Whittier, and that has just fully come to fruition on April 11th, 2024, was a solo art gallery/open mic event entitled ‘With Love,’. With Love, was conceptually inspired by the research I’ve conducted on creativity and creative arts education over the past few …

Powering Justice: Sketches For A New Ethos In Energy Policy, Erin Rizzato Devlin

Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts

Energy politics lie at the heart of human activity. In a time of ecological and energy crisis, it is fundamental to realise that our reality systems are always open to change and that, in order to respond to the challenges of a changing energy landscape, we must explore the full possibilities of technology in a radical way. This research aims to consider the ethical implications of energy and technology, presenting an urgent case for cosmotechnical pluralism, that is the diversification of world-views, knowledges, technologies in the pursuit of energy justice in global politics. To reconstruct the world and its politics …

State Politics And Stress Amongst Lgbtq+ Students At Florida’S Private Colleges: A Psychological And Normative Analysis, Alise Fortune

Honors Program Theses

The recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ politics and policies in Florida pose potential risks to the mental health and well-being of Florida’s LGBTQ+ students. The present study surveyed LGBTQ+ students attending private colleges in Florida to measure their self-reported stress levels in comparison to non-LGBTQ+ students, the level at which they believed specific sources of stress contributed to their stress levels, their level of distress upon experiencing discrimination, their sense of sexual identity distress, and their awareness of and involvement in advocacy against Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Survey results suggested that anti-LGBTQ+ politics in Florida and the personal lives (social and family …

Creating A Just System Of Civil Recourse – Articulating The Controlled Instrumentalist Approach For Marginalized People, Rukmini Banerjee

CMC Senior Theses

A system of civil recourse is a precondition for a just society. In this paper, I outline the ideal version of a system of civil recourse and analyze the accounts of various liberal philosophers to explain how a non-instrumental and mutual accountability theory of civil recourse best encapsulates its stated purpose. I analyze the American system of civil recourse, specifically tort law, and argue that it bypasses the threshold of tolerable injustice for marginalized people in the United States. Using Tommie Shelby’s framework in Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, I argue that marginalized people are not obligated by …

Recognition And Domination: A Hegelian Approach To Evolving Gender And Technology Paradigms, Zachary Davis

CMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to develop a strong account of recognition. It begins with a Hegel-inspired account of recognition as a fundamental desire that drives humanity. This account establishes recognition as fundamental to the initial subject formation of independent self-consciousnesses as agents. I offer the lord-bondsman dualism to provide a critique of domination as oppositional to securing the means for recognition. This entails that, as history progresses the world ought to move towards universally adopting mutual recognition relationships without domination. I adopt this goal as an ideal form of recognition. In Chapter 2, I apply this recognitional framework to gender. Through …

Brand Activism And Democratic Legitimacy: Exploring Pitfalls Through A Habermasian Analysis, Roxan Degeyter

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Brand activism has emerged as a prominent practice among corporations, as they publicly take a stand on contentious socio-political issues such as gender inequality, climate change, or discrimination, often through advertising. While extensive research has been conducted on the impact of brand activism as a marketing tool, examining its effects on sales, brand image, consumer attitudes, and authenticity, only a limited number of studies have studied its influence on public debate and processes of democratic legitimation. The latter have portrayed brand activism as an empowering force for the supported social movements, the public sphere, and democratic legitimacy, largely ignoring the …

Artistic, Artworld, And Aesthetic Disobedience, Adam Burgos, Sheila Lintott

Faculty Journal Articles

Jonathan Neufeld proposes a concept of aesthetic disobedience that parallels the political concept of civil disobedience articulated by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. The artistic transgressions he calls aesthetic disobedience are distinctive in being public and deliberative in their aim to bring about specific changes in accepted artworld norms. We argue that Neufeld has offered us valuable insight into the dynamic and potent nature of art and the artworld; however, we contend that Neufeld errs by constraining aesthetic disobedience to the artworld. Through a reconsideration of the parallel between aesthetic and civil disobedience, we illustrate how aesthetic disobedience …

A Critical Review Of Animal And Fetus Rights In Utilitarianism Or “How Come When It’S Us, It’S An Abortion, And When It’S A Chicken, It’S An Omelette?”, Katharine Mcdaid

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In this paper, I will be considering the moral standing of animals and fetuses within utilitarianism—by discussing the Time Relative Interest Account and Harm-Based Account—and how the question of moral standing relates to discussions of abortion. The Time Relative Interest Account provides a more effective framework for considering the rights of both animals and fetuses in utilitarianism, and a lack of access to abortion poses a significant challenge to the utilitarian viewpoint often espoused by anti-abortion advocates because they fail to consider the lack of access implications within their utilitarian approach. Therefore, the utilitarianism that is animal rights-based arguments used …

Heightened Technology In The Care Of Type 1 Diabetes: An Ethical Symbiosis?, Susanna Larsen

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

This paper explores the common negative consequences and ethical issues associated with the evolving medical technology used in the care of Type 1 diabetes. In this paper, I will discuss the ethical impacts of technology on diabetic youth: their view of self, their mechanical requirements, and their health priorities. In order to define the scope of the issues, I will use the following intellectual tools: feminist theory, care ethics, and philosophical discussions of control. This paper will also outline some possible solutions to these ethical issues.

Redefining Paternalistic Practices In Women’S Health: How Dysfunctional Trust Relationships Impact Medical Autonomy Of Female Patients In The Contemporary Clinical Setting, Lauren K. O'Dell

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Utilizing Trudy Govier’s (1997) conception of social trust, this dissertation will provide a framework for understanding trust in healthcare relationships and highlight some of the ways that unequal power distribution and dependency, poorly defined roles, and institutions complicate trust between women and their providers. This framework will also explain how distrust, especially prejudicial distrust, leads to paternalistic attitudes on the part of providers. Paternalism limits patient autonomy because medical autonomy is constitutively relational. This means that insofar as distrust causes paternalism, it also damages autonomy. Through negative outcomes, this lack of autonomy can cause patients to distrust healthcare, which can …

"Standing In The Gap": Combating Sexual Abuse In The Protestant Church, Hayley N. Carter

Honors Projects

Sexual abuse in the Christian Church has been a problem for many decades, and scholars have written extensively about sexual abuse occurring in the Catholic Church. However, abuse occurring in the Protestant Church has not been given that same attention. In 2017, the #MeToo movement went viral and has inspired many sexual abuse survivors to share their stories. I will argue that the Protestant Church should acknowledge the #MeToo movement’s accomplishments, and that this acknowledgement would lead to positive changes in how it approaches sexual abuse. I also will discuss financial abuse, which is a correlating behavior along with sexual …

The Right To Reproduce, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

The reproductive rights of women have been a central topic in feminist bioethics. The focus has been predominantly on the right not to reproduce, and so not to be subject to pronatalist social forces that make motherhood compulsory for women. That is the case despite many women and other members of marginalized groups experiencing anti-natalism, or in other words, social pressure to avoid biological reproduction. For these groups, the right to reproduce is as important, if not more important, than the right not to reproduce. This chapter concentrates on the right to reproduce and considers what form it should take …

Feminist Ethics And Research With Women In Prison, Christina Quinlan, Lucy Baldwin, Natalie Booth

Articles

In this article, a new model, An Ethic of Empathy, is proposed as a guide for researchers, particularly new scholars to the discipline. This model emerged from the authors’ concerns regarding the application of ethics to studies that focus on the experience of female offenders in criminal justice systems. The key issue is the vulnerability of incarcerated and post-release women in relationship to the powerful status of social scientist researchers. The complexity of ethics in such research settings necessitates a particular ethical preparation, involving formation, reflection, understanding, commitment, care, and empathy. Three cases are outlined which document the authors’ ethical …

Addressing The Harms Of Pornography, Gillian Allison

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Within this paper I look at the existing philosophical work on pornography, from scholars like Catherine MacKinnon, Ronald Dworkin, and Rae Langton to show the current state of the pornography debate that I intend to enter by presenting my own argument about the morality of pornography. I argue that while pornography is harmful, these harms are best resolved through increased sexual education and the popularization and production of more inclusive pornography. The harms pornography causes are so great because pornography is where a lot of people learn about sex. Pornography was never designed to depict an average sexual experience. If …

A Critical Analysis Of Amelioration And Inclusion By Katherine Jenkins, Braden S. Ritchey

Global Tides

This paper argues that Katherine Jenkins' inclusive ameliorative account fails to avoid the inclusion problem in her attempt to account for all women in her definition of woman. It goes about doing this by first examining the context of the scholarly debate. It is divided into three sections: (1) an examination of Jenkins' critique of Sally Haslanger's response to the inclusion problem, (2) an explanation of Jenkins' conceptual exploration, viz. the two sense of gender, and (3) an analysis of Jenkins' argument.

Care Working Conditions: The Ethics And Politics Of Social Reproductive Labor From Aristotle To Marxist Feminism, Andrew R. Van't Land

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

The spectre of an inescapably divided working class has haunted every generation of marxist theorists, including the latest wave of marxist feminists engaged in the research programme known as Social Reproduction Theory (SRT). In this dissertation, I will explain how Marx’s clear theoretical debt to Aristotle extends into the marxist feminist analysis of social reproductive labor and of the exploitation, class interests, and normative demands which condition such care workers. I will demonstrate how SRT can follow Marx’s own example in reading Aristotle, critically yet charitably, in order to resolve three problems. First, Aristotle’s original concept of use value (built …