Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Evolutionary Continuity, Anne Benvenuti

Animal Sentience

The principle of evolutionary continuity states that all animal capacities and behaviors exist — with variations in degree — in continuity with other species. Rather than assuming discontinuity, we should ask why any behavior observed in humans would not be found in at least some other sentient animals under similar conditions. In the case of suicide, the more pertinent issue might be the ethical one: our human responsibility for creating conditions under which other animals might deliberately seek to end their own lives.

What Is The Pressing “Animal Question” About? Thinking/Feeling Capacity Or Exploitability?, Gordon Hodson

Animal Sentience

Marino’s timely review highlights what humans go to great lengths to ignore and suppress: non-human animals such as chickens have rich inner lives. Although I share her belief that such evidence should provide the impetus for ending the exploitation of chickens, the psychological literatures on motivated reasoning and group-based dominance suggest not only that this is unlikely but that people will push back precisely because of the implications (as they do for climate change). Human psychology has done a great deal to suppress the recognition of sentience in animals, but it can also shed insights into ending exploitation.

Non-Human Animal Suicide Could Be Tested, David Lester

Animal Sentience

Schaefer (1967) showed that mice can discriminate live from dead mice and lethal from nonlethal environments, and that they avoid a lethal environment; but the experiment lacked some controls. This might be a way to test whether mice would ever choose a lethal environment. Humans may also choose a potentially lethal environment unconsciously.

Understanding Animal Suicide And Death Can Lead To Better End-Of-Life Care, Jessica Pierce

Animal Sentience

Peña-Guzmán’s target article on animal suicide will help inform end-of-life care for animals by emphasizing the need for a broad research focus on animal thanatology. Greater scientific understanding of the continuum of death-related awareness, experiences, and behaviors will help us improve veterinary care for animals at the end of life.

Complicated Grief, Teya Brooks Pribac

Animal Sentience

My commentary discusses complicated grief and the ensuing sense of helplessness that may lead to suicide. I close with a story about a pygmy pig.

Can Nonhuman Animals Commit Suicide?, David M. Peña-Guzmán

Animal Sentience

Many people believe that only humans have the cognitive and behavioral capacities needed for suicidal behavior, such as reflexive subjectivity, free will, intentionality, or awareness of death. Three counterarguments — based on (i) negative emotions and psychopathologies among nonhuman animals, (ii) the nature of self-destructive behavior, and (iii) the problem of model fidelity in suicide research — suggest that self-destructive and self-injurious behaviors among human and nonhuman animals vary along a continuum.

Tribute To Jaak Panksepp, Jonathan Balcombe

Animal Sentience

No abstract provided.

Animal Ethics And Animal Consciousness, Bernard E. Rollin

Ethics and Animal Welfare Collection

Commentary on Marino and Allen (2017) The Psychology of Cows

Getting To The Other Side, Debra Merskin

Animal Sentience

Marino’s comprehensive, detailed, and timely review provides clear evidence of the sentience of chickens and strong support for those wishing to challenge their exclusion from even the limited protections currently accorded to animals grown for food.

Sentience Does Not Require “Higher” Cognition, Giorgio Vallortigara

Animal Sentience

I agree with Marino (2017a,b) that the cognitive capacities of chickens are likely to be the same as those of many others vertebrates. Also, data collected in the young of this precocial species provide rich information about how much cognition can be pre-wired and predisposed in the brain. However, evidence of advanced cognition — in chickens or any other organism — says little about sentience (i.e., feeling). We do not deny sentience in human beings who, because of cognitive deficits, would be incapable of exhibiting some of the cognitive feats of chickens. Moreover, complex problem solving, such as transitive inference, …

Misperceiving And Underestimating The Ubiquitous Chicken, Carrie P. Freeman

Animal Sentience

Marino has provided an accurate and nuanced view about chickens’ complex capabilities as sentient individuals. I explore the implications of these findings for scholars as well as for activists in the protection of farmed animals.

Is Psychological Science Committing “Suicide” By Linguistic Muddling?, Roger K. Thomas

Animal Sentience

Beginning mainly with the “cognitive revolution” in psychology in the latter half of the 20^th century, psychological science has been committing “suicide” slowly via linguistic muddling. Peña-Guzmán’s target article is but one of thousands of cuts contributing to this death by “suicide.” Having said that, given the current state of affairs in animal cognition research, there is much to commend in Peña-Guzmán’s article. I leave that to others, however. This commentary explains how the suicide by muddling of psychological science is happening in general, with the understanding that it applies also to Peña-Guzmán’s target article.

On Assisted Suicide, Clark Glymour

Animal Sentience

What would be the moral implications of the capacity for suicide in nonhuman animals? Humans can be helped to end their lives if they no longer find them bearable. Should captive animals not be given the same possibility?

The Role Of Ethics Online And Among Social Media Designers, Meredith James

Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design Faculty Publications and Presentations

As communication designers, our roles have changed greatly with the technological advancements of the Internet and social media. With these vastly changing roles are equal (and often problematic) demands on designers to act as ethical interventionists. In specific, designers are more and more frequently finding themselves in roles of arbitration and decision-making surrounding ethical concerns. Such decisions span everything from what is to be considered “allowable content” (breastfeeding, for example) to deciding how our devices respond to crisis (Miner, et al., 2016). I intend to present several case studies of designers placed in authority positions centered around ethics and new …

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.

Self, Death, And Suicide: Does An Animal Know Of These?, Carolyn A. Ristau

Animal Sentience

Peña-Guzmán makes a strong case, using examples from the media and scientific literature, that many captive animals suffer severely. In examining the possibility of animal suicide, he dismisses the need for “reflective self-subjectivity” and “intent” in suicidal behavior. He claims that at least some animals understand “death,” citing examples of behavior he deems to be death “rituals.” But these can be more simply interpreted. The possibility of animal suicide remains more dubious than Peña-Guzmán suggests.

Changes In Behavior And Emotion Under Chicken Domestication, Martin Johnsson

Animal Sentience

Marino’s target article provides an overview of chickens’ cognition, emotion, and personality, with the aim of changing how people view chickens. In this commentary, I will agree that chickens deserve better than their reputation, but contend with a statement about the lack of behavioral change under chicken domestication.

Trump, Populism, Fascism, And The Road Ahead, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This review essay offers a discussion of some recent studies that help to explain the election of Donald Trump as president of the USA. The studies examine Trump as “media spectacle,” analyze his support among Tea Partiers, and discuss his backing by the white working class left behind by neoliberalism and global capitalism. Special attention is given to two questions: Is Trump a rightwing populist or closer to a fascist? Relatedly, is Trump a threat to liberal democracy? The essay concludes with some suggestions of how to move beyond Trump.

Transcendental Idealism’S Theory Of Selfhood: Fichte On The Relationship Between Knowing Oneself And Moral Deliberation, Caroline Ann Buchanan

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

In this dissertation, I take on an exegetical project of understanding how Fichte’s theory of the self influences his account of moral deliberation, and specifically, his account of conscience. I argue that moral action can only be understood within Fichte’s system as possible on the basis of the individual’s own cognitive awareness that they are not only bound by the moral law, but that they are so in virtue of their essential nature as selves. In other words, the feeling of conscience in Fichte’s work, and the decision to abide it, requires that the acting individual recognize that the ought …

Kuiji’S Analysis Of Individual Capacities For Enlightenment: Philosophical Foundations Of His Chinese Yogācāra Buddhist Tradition, Ronald S. Green

Philosophy and Religious Studies

According to Mahāyāna Buddhism as seen in the Lotus Sūtra and many other Buddhist texts revered in Chinese and other East Asian traditions, the Buddha used his insight into each individual’s capacity for understanding, to tailor his teachings about how they should proceed toward overcoming suffering. For this reason, the Buddha is sometimes called the Great Physician, having the ability to diagnose an individual’s case and prescribe a specific remedy. This is the Buddha’s skillful means or skill-in-means (upāya), his expertise in crafting a personal plan for liberation. Thus, the overall ethical imperative is the same regardless of an individual’s …

Impartiality, Close Friendship And The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

This paper explores the relationship between friendship and morality. Two ideas have been influential in the history of moral philosophy: the impartial standpoint and close friendship. These two perspectives on thought and action can conflict, however, and such a case is presented.

In an attempt to resolve this tension, and understand the assumptions that give rise to it, I explore an alternative conception of moral conduct and friendship suggested by early Confucian thought. Within this account, moral conduct is that which aims at harmony, understood as the appropriate blending of different elements. This suggests a conception of friendship, ‘event friendship’, …

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. …

Why Legally Downloading Music Is Morally Wrong, Tim Anderson, D. E. Wittkower

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) We've all done it. We certainly have, and we will again. But paying for and legally downloading music is morally wrong.

Restoration, Shannon M. Slaight-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The marks I make in clay have different characteristics, and the physical mark of one’s fingertips or visual record of the hand is personal and intimate. This visible activity is the evidence of my constant presence and control within each object. Its repetitive meditation produces a private relief from my persistent anxieties. This exploration for me is not only visual, but also physical. This is the start of my infatuation with the idea of pattern. It has its own discrete visual language and modes of communication; and through my research I am developing a method of intercommunication.

Daredevil: Legal (And Moral?) Vigilante, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

In 1964, the comic world was introduced to its first physically disabled practicing attorney: Matt Murdock. Initially a proud graduate of "State College" and later more impressively pedigreed as a graduate of either Columbia or Harvard Law, Murdock supplemented his day job as attorney with a side of vigilante justice as Daredevil. In 2003, Murdock became the only attorney superhero to appear as the title character in a movie. A truly awful movie, yes, but a movie all the same. And then in 2015, thanks to the talents of Drew Goddard, Murdock became the star of a terrific television series. …

How Should We Conceptualize Moral Disagreements About Animals?, Kristian Cantens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I intend this paper as a sort of philosophical reflection on my experiences as an animal activist. In my three years of doing outreach on college campuses, I came to an increasing appreciation for what Murdoch referred to as “the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons” (Murdoch 1998d, 293). This appreciation came in turn at the cost of an increasing disappointment with many of the philosophers I admired at the time – namely, Peter Singer and Tom Regan. What I came to understand is that many of these contemporary moral theories were in fact …

Going Fossil Free: A Lesson In Climate Activism And Collective Responsibility, Eric S. Godoy

Faculty Publications - Philosophy

Colleges and universities already contribute significantly to the fight against climate change, but the UN has recently called upon them to do even more. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that institutions of higher education play a unique role in combating climate change and other structural injustices, not only by conducting research and disseminating knowledge, but also by fostering a form of collective political responsibility. A philosophical analysis of different forms of collective responsibility, with specific attention to the Fossil Free divestment movement, reveals how social position facilitates this contribution more so in colleges than in other institutions.

The Morality Of Corporate Persons, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

This essay provides a genealogy of corporate personhood as it exists currently in US law and places moral personhood in a similar genealogical context. This treatment demonstrates that the two are inextricably intertwined in both conception and institutionalized practices. We would do well to dismantle both; meanwhile, however, corporate personhood's implicit illiberal notion of collective mentality and responsibility may suggest possibilities for establishing collective counterforces to oppose activities of transnational for-profit corporations and mitigate their devastating political, economic, and environmental effects upon actual people and the ecosystems upon which we depend.

The Noble Art Of Lying, James E. Mahon

Publications and Research

In this chapter I examine the writings of Mark Twain on lying, especially his essays "On the decay of the Art of Lying" and "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It." I show that Twain held that there were two kinds of lies: the spoken lie and the silent lie. The silent lie is the lie of not saying what one is thinking, and is far more common than the spoken lie. The greatest silent lies, according to Twain, were the national silent lies that there was nothing wrong with slavery (the U.S.), that there was nothing …

Ethical Decision Making: Balancing The Rights And Needs Of Stakeholders, Sarah Becker

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.