Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Book Review On Sculpting The Self: Islam, Selfhood And Human Flourishing (By Muhammad Faruque), Mohammad Azadpur

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

The Best Confucian Hybrid Meritocracy-Democracy For Liberal Democracies, John J. Park

Comparative Philosophy

Several contemporary Confucian philosophers have posited differing hybrid views fusing meritocracy to democracy. There is a good deal of interest in a meritocracy in contemporary Confucian thought, and such a view perhaps should receive more serious consideration in liberal democratic thought since it may make for a stronger form of government when appended to democracy. In this paper, four contemporary hybrid theorists who combine elements of a meritocracy with a democracy are critically analyzed concerning an ability for their views to be instantiated in liberal democracies for the legislative branch only. Finally, I provide a modified hybrid view for the …

Social Justice In India: A Comparative Study Of Rawls And Ambedkar, Abinash Darnal

Comparative Philosophy

Justice has always been central to political philosophy over a period of time. No doubt, throughout the ages, countless philosophers have understood justice in different ways. Nevertheless, they have consented that a good society is a just society. Moreover, justice is a distributive concept and is concerned with the distribution of wealth, leisure, liberty, friendship, love, etc. Twentieth century justice came to be discussed usually in relation to social life in general, and the distribution of material rewards in particular and usually came to be known as ‘Social Justice’. Social justice as such came to be accepted as the fair …

Mexica Monism And Daoist Ethics In The Philosophy Of Gloria Anzaldúa, Saraliza Anzaldúa

Comparative Philosophy

Critical scholarship regarding the philosophy of Gloria Anzaldúa has proliferated in recent decades, especially in the fields of feminist theory, phenomenology, and epistemology. However, there is little analysis of the metaphysics which undergird their work and make possible their views on identity, experience, and community politics. First, this article will explore the significance of Anzaldúa’s ‘nos/otras’ and its relation to Mexica (Aztec) monistic metaphysics. Such a concept resists an us/them construction of the world because it situates the other as us: the Spanish word for ‘we’ is ‘nosotros’ and holds the ‘other/otros’ as its …

The Consequence Of Final Causality: Competing Views Of Legal Teleology, Jonathan M. Dumdei

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Philosophy of law and legal jurisprudence have received recent attention in the United States due to the significant change in the makeup of the Supreme Court. Historical understanding of the legal philosophies that have influenced the U.S. and the ancient principles upon which they are built must of necessity be properly assessed. This thesis proposes that Aquinas’s conception of Natural Law as the basis for legal teleology provides a superior grounding for American jurisprudence than the theories of legal positivism and critical legal theory due to the superiority of Natural Law’s integration of ultimate final causes. Through a survey of …

On The Ethics Of Selling Psychic Services, Jeffrey Moriarty

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In many places, it is possible to buy psychic services, including tarot card, palm, and mediumship readings. Yet we have powerful evidence that psychic abilities do not exist. This paper asks whether psychic services should be for sale. I begin by considering whether psychics deceive or mislead buyers. Next, I consider a harm-based argument against the sale of psychic services. Finally, I consider an argument in favor of their sale that appeals to expressive considerations. I conclude with a tentative policy recommendation: the sale of psychic services should be permitted. This is so even though much of the money spent …

Gnosticism, Political Theory And Apocalypse: Jacob Taubes And Günther Anders, Tracy Strong And Carl Schmitt, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Beginning with Jacob Taubes and Günther Anders on eschatology, apocalypse and political theology, including Saint Paul and Frankfurt School critical theory along with bombs and power plants (energy/climate), this essay parallels a re-reading of Tracy B. Strong’s political reading of Nietzsche on Jesus (and love) with Taubes, Anders and Carl Schmitt on politics (and technology). Highlighted throughout is the politically charged (and inherently esoteric) context of Gnosticism for philosophy and theory for Taubes but also for Anders.

Unraveling Controversies Over Civic Honesty Measurement: An Extended Field Replication In China, Qian Yang, Weiwei Zhang, Shiyong Liu, Wenjin Gong, Youli Han, Jun Lu, Donghong Jiang, Jingchun Nie, Xiaokang Lyu, Rugang Liu, Mingli Jiao, Chen Qu, Mingji Zhang, Yacheng Sun, Xinyue Zhou, Qi Zhang

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Cohn et al. (2019) conducted a wallet drop experiment in 40 countries to measure "civic honesty around the globe," which has received worldwide attention but also sparked controversies over using the email response rate as the sole metric of civic honesty. Relying on the lone measurement may overlook cultural differences in behaviors that demonstrate civic honesty. To investigate this issue, we conducted an extended replication study in China, utilizing email response and wallet recovery to assess civic honesty. We found a significantly higher level of civic honesty in China, as measured by the wallet recovery rate, than reported in the …

Towards A Feminist Theory Of Distrust, Hale Demir-Doğuoğlu, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

We use feminist insights about institutional distrust to critique the most general and well-developed theory of distrust in philosophy—Katherine Hawley’s commitment account—and to learn from this exercise about what a feminist theory of distrust should be like. Though not designed to explain institutional distrust as we understand it, Hawley’s theory is meant to apply to people’s relationships with institutional representatives as well as to friendships or intimate relationships whose contours are shaped by informal institutional structures. It should therefore be able to explain the institutional distrust that is prevalent among socially marginalized people. However, we argue that the account falls …

Are Saviour Siblings A Special Case In Procreative Ethics?, Elizabeth Finneron-Burns, Caleb Althorpe

Political Science Publications

Children conceived in order to donate biological material to save the life of an already existing child are known as 'saviour siblings'. The primary reasons that have been offered against the practice are: (i) creating a saviour sibling has negative impacts on the created child and (ii) creating a saviour child represents a wrongful procreative motivation of the parents. In this paper we examine to what extent the creation of saviour siblings actually presents a special case in procreative ethics. Although we do not deny that there is a unique feature present in the saviour sibling case—namely, that the child …

Critical Theory And Poverty, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter explores the contributions that the Frankfurt School of critical theory has made to philosophical discussions about the meaning and injustice of poverty. Critical theorists interpret poverty to mean more than material deprivation, and they see its injustice as 2 extending beyond wrongful suffering and the threat to a human right to life to encompass psychological impoverishment and dehumanization. The chapter begins by examining critical theory’s historical roots in the Marxist critique of capitalism. The next section discusses early efforts by critical theorists to extend this critique to state-administered economies (capitalist and socialist) that have succeeded in sharply reducing …

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 …

Jurisprudence And Animal Protection, Carlos Montemayor

Animal Sentience

Jurisprudence is based on normative principles that go beyond instrumental reasoning and practical goals concerning what is convenient. It concerns justice and truth. The empirical evidence justifies the legal protection of various species on legal grounds. Given the risks we face regarding climate degradation, international legal agencies must expand the framework of human rights and environmental law in order to effectively protect animals and their environments.

War Emissions, Russia’S Invasion Of Ukraine, And Just War Theory, Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has already caused large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will continue to do so for many years after hostilities have ceased mainly because of the emissions linked to the rebuilding of destroyed or damaged housing, public buildings, infrastructure, factories, and the like. My aim in this paper is to discuss how in a time of climate emergency such emissions of war should impact the political morality of states initiating, continuing, and ending war (through a just and enduring peace) as understood by just war theory (JWT). My point of …

Collecting An Empire: Stolen Heritage Of Indigenous Australians, Kyla Moore

MA Theses

Exploring the importance of the protection and preservation of Australian Aboriginal
cultural heritage, this thesis seeks to examine a need for change in the way
governments approach cultural heritage repatriation from a legal and ethical
perspective. By analyzing binding and non-binding laws of the United Kingdom and
Australia, this paper suggests the need for the improvement of legal frameworks and legislation currently in place regarding cultural heritage repatriation. It also identifies challenges Indigenous communities face in the quest to reclaim control over their cultural heritage, history, and identity. Examining contrasting case studies of repatriation, the impact legislation has on the …

Plurality And Epistemic Injustice: A Neo-Arendtian Reading Of Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice, David Casciola

West Chester University Master’s Theses

In this thesis I bring the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Miranda Fricker into conversation. Specifically, I argue that through Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice (EI) we are able to see more clearly the importance of testimony—lexis as an aspect of Action for Arendt—in Arendt’s socio-political framework. Arendt divides the world into the Private, Social, and Public as separate realms of human activity (Labor, Work, and Action respectively); it is in the Public where we are able to appear and express our plurality. According to Arendt this is the only space where equality must be ensured. However, in using …

Pluralistic Ethical Personalism, Qifan Hu

Honors Theses

In the thesis, I sketch out a general outline for a pluralistic, personalist theory of ethics. This theory intends to capture the phenomenon that our life experience is saturated with ethical and other kinds of values; and it also emphasizes the idea that each ethical agent, or human being, has a unique ethical project that is understandable in light of various ethical values.

Ignorance And Moral Responsibility: A Novel Response To The Skeptical Argument From Ignorance And Applications For Responsibility For Implicit Biases, Chad L. Hunter

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this dissertation, I offer a novel solution to a contemporary skeptical argument about moral responsibility stemming from actions from ignorance. The skeptics argue that actions are only blameworthy when they are akratic or result from an akratic act. This condition, the skeptics argue, leads to skepticism about moral responsibility. This is because people rarely conceptualize their action as wrong; they are ignorant of some decisive reason not to do that act. Thus, in order to be blameworthy for the wrong act, the person must be blameworthy for the ignorance. But in order to be blameworthy for the ignorance, the …

The Gratitude Trap, Sean Chung

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This paper explores the concept of gratitude and the many physical and psychological benefits. However, these benefits have caused us to overlook a trap that is associated with gratitude. Specifically, the paper focuses on two types of gratitude: propositional gratitude, which involves feeling grateful towards a generalized group or concept, and targeted gratitude, which is directed towards specific individuals or entities. The paper argues that there is a trap associated with both types of gratitude and can be invoked maliciously. This paper examines several examples of the trap and how it has been used maliciously in the past as well …

Shaping Knowledge With Distortions: Museums As Oppressive Spaces And Hermeneutical Injustice, Fangzhangyi Chen

CMC Senior Theses

Museums are places where people come to make sense of their and others’ social experiences related to social identities. However, what if museums present a distorted picture containing prejudicial stereotypes that harm socially marginalized groups? In this thesis, I argue that museums are oppressive spaces that reinforce hermeneutical injustice as distorted hermeneutical resources shaped by the socially powerful to sustain the asymmetrical social dynamics at large. The primary objective of the thesis is to contribute to the existing literature of museums being oppressive spaces by offering a novel explanation utilizing Miranda Fricker’s framework of hermeneutical injustice. Hermeneutical injustice arises when …

A Theory Of (In)Justice: The Failure Of Tort Law To Secure Equal Respect For Women And A Feminist Contractarian Framework For Reform, Eva Augst

CMC Senior Theses

Traditional approaches to philosophical theories of tort law have systematically undermined the individual worth and security interests of women. However, torts also provide a particularly powerful avenue for reform, in that they embody the public power of private law and offer individuals the opportunity to seek recourse and accountability for wrongs. In this paper, I offer a framework for such reformist approaches to tort philosophy, predominantly inspired by Jean Hampton’s “Feminist Contractarianism,” which requires that women be recognized as individuals with intrinsic worth who are deserving of respect. To accomplish this, I first note the particular relevance of social contract …

A Defense Of Kantian Ethics Against Rigorism, Leyna Hong

CMC Senior Theses

Kantian ethics has prevailed as one of the most popular ethical theories due to its appeal to our moral intuitions. The good will is the good with the most intrinsic value, and respect for others as rational beings is at the core of the moral principles. Despite its appeal, Kantian Ethics faces some difficult challenges. One challenge with great force is that of rigorism. The charge is that the moral principles outlined by Kant should allow for exceptions; if they don't, Kantian ethics is too rigorous and inflexible to fit our moral intuitions.

One particular essay of Kant that has …

The Gay Science: Power On The Body, Population, And Psyche, Nicola Augustyn

CMC Senior Theses

Michel Foucault is a philosopher of power who left behind a legacy of ideas that continue to inspire scholars today. His conceptualization of power is not limited to the figures of kings, monarchs, or the sovereign state. Rather, he regards power as a productive force that shapes subjectivity, manufactures knowledge, and engenders the truth in a particular historical context. In this thesis, I aim to provide a comprehensive account of Foucault’s analysis of power, starting with his refutation of the “repressive hypothesis” that challenges the predominant view of centralized top-down power. Then, I present Foucault’s proposal for redefining power as …

Language Matters, Teya Brooks Pribac

Animal Sentience

The term sentience tends to be associated with affective valence along with affectively neutral sensory states. In the absence of evidence for affectively laden states in plants, the use of the term sentience in the exploration of plant sensory and behavioral complexity is misleading and ethically problematic for its potential to trivialize animal sentience.

Reply To Tannenbaum Et Al.: Constructive Dialogue Advancing Research On Civic Honesty, Weiwei Zhang, Yacheng Sun, Shiyong Liu, Xinyue Zhou, Qian Yang, Qi Zhang

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pacifism And The Science Of War: Jane Addams And Bertrand Russell On World War I, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In July 1915, after hearing Jane Addams speak in London on her efforts for peace during wartime, Bertrand Russell wrote to an American friend, “You can gather what I think and feel by talking to Miss Addams. She seemed to me to have exactly the same outlook as I have.” In this paper I compare how Russell and Addams used the era’s scientific theories in formulating their pacifism. After recounting Addams’s and Russell’s experiences during the war, I show how Addams and Russell accounted for civilization’s “descent into barbarism” in parallel ways. I then contrast their conceptions of what counts …

Plant Sentience Revisited: Sifting Through The Thicket Of Perspectives, Paco Calvo, Miguel Segundo-Ortin

Animal Sentience

In our target article (Segundo-Ortin & Calvo 2023), we proposed the intriguing possibility of plant sentience, drawing parallels with non-human animal studies. This response aims to sift through the rich thicket of perspectives offered by our commentators. To do so, we assess the risks of employing double standards, as well as the tendencies of anthropomorphizing and zoomorphizing in plant studies. We also emphasize the need for clarity in linguistic and conceptual terms, examine the neurophysiological evidence for plant sentience, and discuss the ethical implications of such recognition.

The Moral Imperative To Include More Women In Leadership Within Institutions Of Higher Education, Kathryn Mattingly Flynn

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

In higher education, women’s trajectory into leadership positions is not equitable to men’s. The concerns with the scarcity of women in leadership positions, specifically deans, provosts, presidents, and board members, involve varying levels of gender biases, norms, and stereotypes, as well as expectations of representation. Gender biases and stereotypes remain ingrained in American societal structures and result in immoral consequences, injustice for colleges and universities, and diminished happiness of the participants within them. I will use philosophical inquiry to argue that greater representation of women in the leadership of higher education would lead to morally better outcomes for institutions and …

Leadership Strategies For Modeling Ethical Behavior In The Real Estate Industry, Lakecia Ann Reddrick

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Real estate brokers face challenges in cultivating and supporting the ethical conduct oftheir agents. Developing ethical behavior and decision-making is crucial as it directly impacts the trust, satisfaction, and protection of clients, buyers, sellers, and other stakeholders in the real estate industry. Grounded in the theories of emotional intelligence and servant leadership, this qualitative multiple-case study aimed to explore strategies real estate brokers used in modeling ethical behavior and decision-making for their agents to influence performance and profitability positively. The participants were nine real estate brokers who modeled the ethical behavior and decision-making their agents must practice to impact performance …

The Effectiveness Of The Ethics Officer’S Influence: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Exploration, Cheryl K. Douthitt

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The position of ethics officer was created to watch over corporate behavior. However, scandals have continued to demonstrate unethical leadership involving government officials, sports heroes, religious organizations, and corporate leaders. The research problem was that despite the adoption of corporate ethics programs and government oversight, there is a lack of understanding of ethics officers’ experiences, perceptions of effectiveness, and whether they effectively influence executive-level ethical conduct. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of ethics officers regarding their interactions with executives. Shaped by Brown and Treviño’s ethical leadership theory, the research question concerned the …