Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Recognition And Positive Freedom, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A number of well-known Hegel-inspired theorists have recently defended a distinctive type of social freedom that, while bearing some resemblance to Isaiah Berlin’s famous description of positive freedom, takes its bearings from a theory of social recognition rather than a theory of moral self-determination. Berlin himself argued that recognition-based theories of freedom are really not about freedom at all (negatively or positively construed) but about solidarity, More strongly, he argued that recognition-based theories of freedom, like most accounts of solidarity, oppose what Kant originally understood to be the essence of positive freedom, namely the setting of volitional ends in accordance …

When Microcredit Doesn’T Empower Poor Women: Recognition Theory’S Contribution To The Debate Over Adaptive Preferences, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay proposes recognition theory as a preferred approach to explaining poor women’s puzzling preference for patriarchal subordination even after they have accessed an ostensibly empowering asset: microfinance. Neither the standard account of adaptive preference offered by Martha Nussbaum nor the competing account of constrained rational choice offered by Harriet Baber satisfactorily explains an important variation of what Serene Khader, in discussing microfinance, dubs the self-subordination social recognition paradox. The variation in question involves women who, refusing to reject the combined socio-economic benefits of patriarchal recognition and empowering microfinance, dissemble their subordination to men. In this situation, women experience …

Critical Theory And Global Development, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter explores recent research by critical theorists concerning theories of (under)development. Drawing from the research of Thomas McCarthy, Axel Honneth, Jurgen Habermas, Amy Allen, Nancy Fraser, and others, the author explores some of the divergent responses critical theorists have given toward the theory and practice of global developmental assistance. Some theorists defending a strong modernist approach to development (e.g., McCarthy, Habermas and Honneth) appear to endorse a logic of development that works within a domesticated model of capitalist markets and lending practices; others (Allen and Fraser) reject this approach. The chapter raises questions about how development that fits within …

Just War Thought And The Notion Of Peace, James G. Murphy

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The goal of this chapter is to explore the notion of peace appropriate to just war thought. Some just war principles generate a number of inferences about peace.

Character Luck And Moral Responsibility: The Character Of The Ordinary Person In Aristotle's Rhetoric And Politics, Marcella Linn

Dissertations

There are many significant factors, such as one’s natural temperaments and upbringing, that are outside of one’s control and affect one’s character. This calls into question one’s responsibility for one’s character, and if we are not responsible for our characters, then it seems we cannot be held responsible for the many actions that stem from them. I will show how a person can be responsible for her character and actions stemming from it despite the pervasiveness of character luck. To do this, I develop an account of character and responsibility from various passages in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Rhetoric, and Politics. …

Book Review: Democracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices From Four Continents, Edited By Michael Schuck And John Crowley-Buck, Joy Gordon

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Democracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents edited by Michael Schuck and John Crowley-Buck.

Habermas And Public Reason In The Digital Age: Technology And Deliberative Democracy, Asaf Bar-Tura

Dissertations

Scholars defending the deliberative model of democracy have focused much of their attention on argumentation and criteria for offering public reasons in deliberative processes, but have paid little attention to the ways in which digital technologies mediate such deliberations. Conversely, critical theorists of technology have emphasized the socially determined nature of technology, but have lacked a theory of democracy through which to normatively assess technologies that mediate public discourse. Through a reworking of Jürgen Habermas’s discourse-based theory of democracy, my research provides a new understanding of the flows of political communication and power in the democratic public sphere and the …

“But Who, We?”: Derrida On Non-Human Others, Thomas Helmut Bretz

Dissertations

In this dissertation I establish the possibility of social and ethical relationships with non-human natural (and in particular inanimate) beings. I do so based on the work of 20th century French philosopher Jacques Derrida. In chapter 1 I discuss the relatively sparse secondary literature that addresses the intersection between Derrida's work and environmental philosophy. I also go over some textual indications that show that Derrida has been concerned with non-human beings throughout his career.

In chapters 2 and 3 I establish the impossibility of conclusively excluding any kind of being from the purview of ethical responsibility. While chapter 2 develops …

Poverty Knowledge, Coercion, And Social Rights: A Discourse Ethical Contribution To Social Epistemology, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In today’s America the persistence of crushing poverty in the midst of staggering affluence no longer incites the righteous jeremiads it once did. Resigned acceptance of this paradox is fueled by a sense that poverty lies beyond the moral and technical scope of government remediation. The failure of experts to reach agreement on the causes of poverty merely exacerbates our despair. Are the causes internal to the poor – reflecting their more or less voluntary choices? Or do they emanate from structures beyond their control (but perhaps amenable to government remediation)? If both of these explanations are true (as I …

Mindful Mending: The Repair Of Thought And Action Amidst Technologies, Bryan Kibbe

Dissertations

My thesis is that the concept and practice of repair, properly understood and circumscribed, can serve to: (1) specify a responsibility to care for individuals who are cognitively dependent on particular configurations of technologies and suffer cognitively significant harms following damage to various technologies, and (2) to act as a standard by which to regulate the design, implementation, and selection of technologies available for human use and appropriation. I begin (Chapters One and Two) by providing a critical investigation of the concept and practice of repair. In Chapters Three and Four, I set forth a proposal to consider what I …

The Limits Of Rationality: Suicidality, Affectivity, And The Rational, Maria Jennifer Kulp

Dissertations

In this project, I expose conceptual and moral difficulties with the concept of rational suicide. After offering a comprehensive list of criteria used to define rationality in the bioethics literature, I turn to the scholarship of Susan Sherwin, Susan Wolf, Rosemarie Tong, Lisa Ikemoto and others to apply feminist critiques regarding the privileging of the liberal individual and claims of value neutrality in bioethics generally to the rational suicide literature specifically. Further, using the work of Genevieve Lloyd, I argue that just as definitions of rationality have been used to marginalize vulnerable populations (e.g., women and minorities), a similar marginalization …

International Trade: A Justice Approach, Aaron Crowe

Dissertations

The current international trade regime is flawed, unjust and in need of redress. It largely ignores concerns for global economic justice, and fails those most in need of a strategy to help them move out of extreme poverty. It exacerbates inequalities, both between states in global society and within individual countries. It also creates a competitive pressure on producers to use the differing legal standards and enforcement between countries to externalize important environmental, social /human rights and cultural costs that harm others now or in the future.

In the first two chapters, this dissertation draws out, and considers critically, the …

Moral Philosophy And The Art Of Silence, Kristina Grob

Dissertations

In this dissertation I begin with the claim that silence is part of moral life. Moral philosophy must make every attempt to bring within it all that is part of moral life. The dissertation produces a methodology for learning how to see some of the silences that I claim for moral life and it shows the importance of silence to continuing moral self-formation.

Democracy And Scientific Expertise: Illusions Of Political And Epistemic Inclusion, J.D. Trout

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Realizing the ideal of democracy requires political inclusion for citizens. A legitimate democracy must give citizens the opportunity to express their attitudes about the relative attractions of different policies, and access to political mechanisms through which they can be counted and heard. Actual governance often aims not at accurate belief, but at nonepistemic factors like achieving and maintaining institutional stability, creating the feeling of government legitimacy among citizens, or managing access to influence on policy decision-making. I examine the traditional relationship between inclusiveness and accuracy, and illustrate this connection by discussing empirical work on how group decision-making can improve accuracy. …

Reconciling Positivism And Realism: Kelsen And Habermas On Democracy And Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jürgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack on the rule of law. However, despite embracing the realist spirit of Kelsen’s legal positivism, Habermas criticizes Kelsen for neglecting to connect the rule of law with a concept of procedural justice (Part I). I argue, to the contrary (Part II), that Kelsen does connect these terms, albeit in a manner that may be best described as functional, rather than conceptual. Indeed, whereas Habermas tends to emphasize a conceptual connection between …

Kant's Change Of Heart: Radical Evil And Moral Transformation, Christina Drogalis

Dissertations

In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), Kant makes the claim that all humans are radically evil, both by nature and through a free choice. This radical evil, which is the state of having a Gesinnung (disposition) that commits oneself to prioritizing incentives of inclination above incentives of duty, throws into question whether humans can ever become morally good. For this reason, many commentators have dismissed the Religion as not cohesive with Kant's corpus and do not consider it to play an important role in his ethical theory, in particular. Contrary to this traditionally-held interpretation, I show in …

Ontology In Emmanuel Levinas's Philosophy, Stacy Carol Bautista

Dissertations (6 month embargo)

Taking the notion of the il y a, its prehistory and eventual fate, as an index of the development of the problem of being in Levinas's work, this thesis argues that Levinas's philosophy does not respond to a consistently articulated problem. He eventually transforms ontological evil into social evil, a shift that is visible in his handling of il y a.

The Structural Injustice Of Forced Migration And The Failings Of Normative Theory, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

I propose to criticize two strands of argument - contractarian and utilitarian – that liberals have put forth in defense of economic coercion, based on the notion of justifiable paternalism. To illustrate my argument, I appeal to the example of forced labor migration, driven by the exigencies of market forces. In particular, I argue that the forced migration of a special subset of unemployed workers lacking other means of subsistence (economic refugees) cannot be redeemed paternalistically as freedom or welfare enhancing in the long run. I further argue that contractarian and utilitarian approaches are normatively incapable of appreciating this fact …

Group Rights: A Defense, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Human rights belong to individuals in virtue of their common humanity. Yet it is an important question whether human rights entail or comport with the possession of what I call group-specific rights (sometimes referred to as collective rights), or rights that individuals possess only because they belong to a particular group. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) says they do. Article 15 asserts the right to nationality, or citizenship. Unless one believes that the only citizenship compatible with a universal human rights regime is cosmopolitan citizenship in a world state – a conception of citizenship that is not countenanced …

Global Distributive Justice After Rawls: A Modified Poggean Argument For How We Harm The World's Poorest, Mark Chakoian

Dissertations

This work presents an analysis of Thomas Pogge's approach to the problem of world poverty as presented in World Poverty and Human Rights. It begins by situating the project of Pogge relative to the work of his predecessor John Rawls. It then moves on to compare Pogge's negative-duty approach to more common positive-duty approaches by discussing the relative merits and weaknesses of the approach of Peter Singer to the problem of poverty. The remaining chapters give an in-depth analysis of Pogge's argument itself. Although there are significant holes and inconsistencies in Pogge's approach, a reformulated argument that preserves his original …

Restoring The Balance: Setting Aside Naturalism In Favor Of Personhood In Extreme Cases, Brian Joseph Buckley

Dissertations

This dissertation addresses a simple question: Is an anencephalic child a person? These children are born with only a brain stem, and, as such, cannot experience any type of consciousness. If personhood is understood as an articulable moral category, particularly distinct from DNA membership, reasonable evidence would be required to attribute any such moral category in these cases. That is, to claim that children who may never think or feel are persons carries a philosophical burden that extends beyond mere Homo Sapiens membership. This dissertation accepts that burden and answers that anencephalic children are persons. To do this, I first …

Thinking Through The Phenomenon Of Trust: A Philosophical Investigation, Jeffrey M. Courtright

Dissertations

Jeffrey M. Courtright

THINKING THROUGH THE PHENOMENON OF TRUST: A PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION

The phenomenon of trust is historically underrepresented as a topic of serious investigation in Western philosophy. This dissertation investigates the integral role that trust plays in enabling and sustaining meaning and significance in human existence. This thesis is substantiated in the following ways.

First, I explicate various senses and ways of thinking about trust in the work of two historically important philosophers, Plato and Nietzsche. I show that Socrates, in Plato's dialogue Phaedo, articulates the feeling of being entrusted with life, a feeling that one experiences as a …

Recognition Within The Limits Of Reason: Remarks On Pippin’S Hegel’S Practical Philosophy, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since the publication of Charles Taylor’s Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition in 1989,[1] the concept of recognition has re-emerged as a central if not dominant category of moral and political philosophy.

[1] C. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 25-73.

Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, And Their Aftermath, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Developments in Anglo-American philosophy during the first half of the 20^th Century closely tracked developments that were occurring in continental philosophy during this period. This should not surprise us. Aside from the fertile communication between these ostensibly separate traditions, both were responding to problems associated with the rise of mass society. Rabid nationalism, corporate statism, and totalitarianism (Left and Right) posed a profound challenge to the idealistic rationalism of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosophies. The decline of the individual – classically conceived by the 18th-century Enlightenment as a self-determining agent – provoked strong reactions. While some philosophical tendencies sought to …

Corporations As Group Agents / Responsible Collectives In Theory And In Practice, Kathryn Real King

Dissertations

The goals of this dissertation are to examine the existing philosophical literature on group agency and collective responsibility and to demonstrate that this literature fails to sufficiently address the hierarchical organization of corporations, thereby severely limiting the applicability of this literature to real-world business situations. Where references to corporate hierarchy are made in the group agency and collective responsibility literature, they are incidental and descriptive only. This is in contrast to general business literature, business ethics literature, and organizational theory literature, which each highlight the importance of corporate hierarchy from their respective points of view. In this dissertation, the concept …

Humanity In The Balance: The Relationship Between The Moral Law And The Promotion Of The Moral World In Kant's Ethics, John J. Garcia

Dissertations

This dissertation deals with the tension between two seemingly divergent approaches to morality. On the one hand, there are those who take the view that morality concerns itself with the promotion of certain ends. This is a teleological or consequentialist view of ethics. On the other hand, we see thinkers who take the view that rationality or some other criteria provide us certain moral imperatives that may not be violated, regardless of our desire to bring about a particular end. Kant is usually depicted not only as a member of the latter camp, but indeed as the father of this …

An Experiential Approach To Kant's Moral Philosophy: A Reply To Dogmatism, Formalism And Rigorism, Chris Mctavish

Dissertations

Many of Kant's commentators and critics interpret his moral philosophy solely in terms of the cognitive dimension of his categorical imperative. Such a predominant manner of reading Kant gives rise to the criticism that his moral philosophy is too far removed from the actual way in which human beings orient themselves as moral persons in the world. In response to this general tendency in Kant interpretation, my dissertation proposes to offer an experiential approach to Kant's ethics. By the expression experiential I mean an approach to Kant's thinking that attends to the living sense in which we experience the phenomena …

Of Sweatshops And Human Subsistence: Habermas On Human Rights, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike …

Toward A Cleaner Whiteness: New Racial Identities, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article re-examines racial and ethnic identity within the context of pedagogical attempts to instill a positive white identity in white students who are conscious of the history of white racism and white privilege. The paper draws heavily from whiteness studies and developmental cognitive science in arguing (against Henry Giroux and Stuart Hall) that a positive notion of white identity, however postmodern its construction, is an oxymoron, since whiteness designates less a cultural/ethnic ethos and meaningful way of life than a pathological structure of privilege and narrowminded cognitive habitus.

Foucault And Habermas, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article is a comprehensive comparison of Foucault and Habermas which focuses on their distinctive styles of critical theory. The article maintains that Foucault's virtue ethical understanding of aesthetic self-realization as a form of resistance to normalizing practices provides counterpoint to Habermas's more juridical approach to institutional justice and the critique of ideology. The article contains an extensive discussion of their respective treatments of speech action, both strategic and communicative, and concludes by addressing Foucault's understanding of parrhesia as a non-discursive form of truth-telling.