Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Stephen James On The Challenge Of Human Rights: Origin, Development And Significance By Jack Mahoney. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 215pp., Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Challenge of Human Rights: Origin, Development and Significance by Jack Mahoney. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 215pp.

Will As Commitment And Resolve: An Existential Account Of Creativity, Love, Virtue, And Happiness, John Davenport

Philosophy & Theory

In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve, Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires.

The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving will. Beginning with the contrast between "eastern" and "western" attitudes toward assertive willing, Davenport traces the lineage of the idea of projective motivation from …

Would The United States Doctrine Of Preventative War Be Justified As A United Nations Doctrine?, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

On the same day, 23 September 2003, that President George W. Bush defended his Iraq policy to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan also spoke to the Assembly. Annan reiterated his opposition to the view that states may independently be justified in using military force “preemptively” to avoid the dangers posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) among states and terrorists, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Aristotelian Privacy: Perfectionism, Pornography, And The Virtues Of The Polis, G. Scott Davis

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In the United States privacy is a hot topic, not least because of the current administration's desire to have unbridled access to its citizens' overseas conversations. But in what follows I do not plan to deal directly with any legal or policy concerns. Instead, I am interested in the philosophical foundations,- if any there be, of privacy as something to which individuals and other groups may be entitled. Because much of the discussion of "privacy rights" has revolved around matters sexual, I shall key the discussion to individual access to sexually explicit publications and what limits, if any, moral reflection …

Can We Talk? Feminist Economists In Dialogue With Social Theorists, Julie A. Nelson

Economics Faculty Publication Series

The article focuses on the issues regarding the social and political theory of feminism. It has been mentioned that political action will be dynamized rather than compromised by a more alive observation of economic organizations and activities. The author has suggested that feminist social theorists across the disciplines must join the several feminist economists who are dropping the negative one-size-fits-all prescription of protection from markets. It is essential to have more positive results in the complex contemporary economies.

Introduction To John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, G. Scott Davis

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, which first appeared in three installments of Fraser's Magazine in 1861, was intended as a defense of the notorious doctrine identified with the liberal reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and with the author's father, James Mill (1773-1836). The defense was successful. While "the principle of utility, or as Bentham has latterly called it, the greatest happiness principle," may have scandalized Victorian England, Mill's Utilitarianism became one of the defining documents of modern British and American liberalism. It is impossible to appreciate contemporary social and political life without coming to grips with utilitarianism.

Introduction To G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica, G. Scott Davis

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

When Principia Ethica appeared, in 1903, it became something of a sacred text for the Cambridge-educated elites-Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes-who, along with Virginia Woolf, would form the core of the Bloomsbury Group. In a letter of October 11, 1903, Strachey confesses to Moore that he is "carried away" by Principia, which inaugurates, for him, "the beginning of the Age of Reason." Moore's critique of convention, his caustic dismissal of his philosophical predecessors, and the relentless rigor of his method promised a revolution in morality commensurate with the modernist transformation of art and literature. Principia Ethica shifted …

Nietzsche, Nihilism, And The Virtue Of Nature, Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Nietzsche’s view of nature and his attack on the platonic tradition has given him a reputation as a nihilist, a label he himself acknowledged. Yet what does Nietzsche mean by nihilism? and to what extent is he a nihilist? This article explores Nietzsche’s use of the term as it relates to modernity, his own postmodern project, and how it is connected with what Nietzsche calls “virtue.”

The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche’S Philosophy Of The Two, Alenka Zupancic (Book Review), Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Book review by Steven Michels.

Zupančič, A. (2003). The shortest shadow: Nietzsche’s philosophy of the two. MIT Press.

ISBN 9780262740265

Carl Cohen’S ‘Kind’ Arguments For Animal Rights And Against Human Rights, Nathan Nobis

Animal Welfare Collection

Carl Cohen’s arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one’s peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek philosophical consolations …

Immanuel Kant (Reference Entry), Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

"Immanuel Kant," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 804-06, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press.

Immigration (Reference Entry), Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

"Immigration," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 715-17, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press.

Commentary On Philosophy And Aviation Security, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article outlines how the formal study of philosophy can be applied to aviation security, considering the merits of the inclusion of philosophers in the international working groups tasked with discerning and commenting on aviation security trends and their relevance for intelligence and security activities.

Explaining, Assessing, And Changing High Consumption, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

These writings reflect the renewed interest in the 1990s of scholars and the public in questioning the consumer society, an interest that the political crises engendered by 9/11 have overshadowed but not eliminated. In The Overspent American, Schor explains the emergence of strong doubts about high consumption by arguing that a “new consumerism” of escalating desires has evolved that is increasingly costly to the American high consumers themselves.

Two Concepts Of Immortality: Reframing Public Debate On Stem-Cell Research, Frank Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Regenerative medicine seeks not only to cure disease, but also to arrest the aging process itself. So far, public attention to the new health care has focused on two of its methods: embryonic stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning. Since both processes manipulate embryos, they alarm those who believe life begins at conception. Such religious objections have dominated headlines on the topic, and were central to President George W. Bush's decision to restrict stem-cell research.

Although they are now politically potent, the present religious objections to regenerative medicine will soon become irrelevant. Scientists are fast developing new ways of culturing the …

Ethics Of Euthanasia: A Cross Cultural Perspective, Aneesh Goyal

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

How Some Risk Frameworks Disenfranchise The Public, Kristin Shrader-Frechette

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The author responds to recent characterizations of her work.

Asceticism/Askēsis: Foucault's Thinking Historical Subjectivity, Ladelle Mcwhorter

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In the Introduction to The Use of Pleasure Foucault calls his work an askēsis, "an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought." The "living substance of philosophy," Foucault writes, is the essay, "which should be understood as the assay or test by which, in the game of truth, one undergoes changes, and not as the simplistic appropriation of others for the purpose of communication." Foucault's work, then, does not simply report to us his conclusions or theories. Foucault is not primarily interested in imparting information. What he offers instead is a kind of exercise book.

Seneca And The Schools Of Philosophy In Early Imperial Rome, Victoria Larson

Department of Classics and General Humanities Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Philosophy, Ethics, And Virtuous Rule: A Study Of Averroes' Commentary On Plato's "Republic", Charles E. Butterworth

Faculty Books

No abstract provided.

04. Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp, Frederick S. Oscanyan

Middle School Curriculum

This instructional manual includes hundreds of short, accessible explanations of the philosophical ideas and issues written into HARRY the novel, and as such is a valuable introduction to philosophy. Adults with no experience in academic philosophy will have no trouble using this manual to engage young people in philosophical dialogue. The manual provides discussion plans and exercises to help the students think for themselves about the philosophical ideas most relevant to their experience. The manual is also a primer in critical thinking and formal and informal logic, which are treated as helpful tools for inquiry. Students will find the logic …

The Ethics Of Benedict De Spinoza, Translated By George Eliot, Benedict De [Baruch] Spinoza, George Eliot , Translator, Thomas Deegan , Editor

Electronic Reference Materials

The Ethics of Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677) was written in Latin 1664-65 and published posthumously the year of his death. Spinoza's statement of moral philosophy, inspired by the rationalism of Descartes and the Enlightenment, was considered heretical at the time. He was excommunicated by Jewish religious authorities and his writings proscribed by the Catholic Church. His works, however, proved a hiden influence on the thought Locke, Hume, Liebnitz, and Kant, and became one of the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition, with profound influence on the works of Hegel, Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

George Eliot [Marian Evans] (1819-1880) prepared …

Rights And The Meta-Ethics Of Professional Morality, Mike W. Martin

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

This article looks into the Meta-Ethics of medical professionals.

An Hegelian Interpretation Of The Vietnam War, Diane Heggarty

All Master's Theses

This essay attempts to use the philosophy of politics and history of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to interpret a contemporary situation--the Vietnam War. The gradual involvement of America in Vietnam is illustrated by the use of Hegel's dialectic or logic. Internal problems and strife are put in perspective by Hegel's political philosophy. Problems arise because general theories must always ignore particulars in a concrete situation such as Vietnam. But Hegel's view of the world is generally applicable to the twentieth century.

The Origin Of Living Things, By Julius Seiler, Translated By Gerard Farley, Gerard Farley

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Cairns, H., Legal Philosophy From Plato To Hegel, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.