Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Civic Engagement Through Theatre: Running A Brechtian Workshop In The Classroom, Margot Morgan

eJournal of Public Affairs

This study presents an innovative active learning technique to support the development of civic education: a theatrical workshop based on the dramaturgy of Bertolt Brecht. I argue that the Brechtian workshop can develop three skills necessary for effective civic engagement: perspective taking, collaboration, and critical judgment/self-reflection, and that these skills are directly tied to the three civic values of pluralism, community, and civic responsibility. Using qualitative data gathered in the course of teaching this workshop to two distinct student populations — a self-selecting group of students in a liberal arts environment and a group of students at a commuter campus …

Witnessing Anew: Human Rights Advocacy For Migrants At The U.S. Southern Border In Covid-19 Times, Ellen Maccarone

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this paper I provide a case study of transnational migrant advocacy done by the Kino Border Initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly before the pandemic I spent a week with KBI for an immersion experience part of which focused on the ideas of human rights advocacy and witnessing. “Witness” in this context has both a spiritual/moral dimension and an experiential one that can form a foundation for advocacy. Using accounts of migrants to inform and humanize changed when interpersonal witnessing became impossible during the pandemic. This increased the levels of human rights abuses experienced by migrants and limited the …

What Are Intended As Systems Of Support Become Systems Of Struggle, Kevin Timpe

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

Education is, in theory, a human right owed to all individuals, including those who are disabled. In practice, however, that right is often not satisfied. While disabled students now have a federal right to a public education in the United States, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is often not followed. And even when it is, ensuring that it is often places undue demands on disabled students and their families. The system that is supposed to support disabled students all too often is itself a source of struggle.

God And Kant’S Suicide Maxim, Carlo Alvaro

Publications and Research

Kant’s argument against suicide is widely dismissed by scholars and often avoided by teachers because it is deemed inconsistent with Kant’s moral philosophy. This paper attempts to show a way to make sense of Kant’s injunction against suicide that is consistent with his moral system. One of the strategies adopted in order to accomplish my goal is a de-secularization of Kant’s ethics. I argue that all actions of self-killing (or suicide) are morally impermissible because they are inconsistent with God’s established nature and order. It is argued that the existence of God as the locus of moral value and duty …

How Critical Legal Studies Risks Rights: Roberto Unger Criticized Through A Dworkinian Lens, Nicholas Michael Vanhee

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Sex: An Analysis Of U.S. Attitudes Toward Climate Change, Chloe Riggs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes the intersection of sex, environmental risk perception of climate change, and feminism. More specifically, with a sample size of 8,280 respondents from the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2020 Times Series Study, this research examines the relationship between pro-environmental attitudes and sympathy for feminism, controlling for sex, as well as if a measure of sympathy for feminism influences pro-environmental attitudes, controlling for demographic (age, education, race, sex, and income) and political preference (political ideology and party affiliation) variables. Previous literature strongly supports a sex gap in risk perception, a pattern known as the White Male Effect (WME) …

How “Interested” Criticism Fueled The Formulation Of Nineteen Eighty-Four’S Cultural Afterlife, John Cameron Bosch

All Theses

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four carries a “cultural afterlife” as a result of “interested” criticism, which has a set political/practical barometer or motive. While everyone agrees that the novel presents a frightening dystopia, many also consider it a prophetic piece that illuminates the possible corruption of executive power of a nation thanks to this cultural afterlife; the modern and popular term “Orwellian” resulted from these sorts of analyses and have only escalated in the years since its inception. As a result, within the past decade, multiple scholars, analysts, and journalists have referenced Orwell’s novel as a factual representation of this executive …

Broken Nest: Deterring China From Invading Taiwan, Jared M. Mckinney, Peter Harris

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan without recklessly threatening a great-power war is both possible and necessary through a tailored deterrence package that goes beyond either fighting over Taiwan or abandoning it. This article joins cutting-edge understandings of deterrence with empirical evidence of Chinese strategic thinking and culture to build such a strategy.

Pseudo-Science And ‘Fake’ News ‘Inventing’ Epidemics And The Police State, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

The Pandemic, Environmentalism, And Re-Thinking Social And Political Philosophy: Pandemic 2: Chronicles Of A Time Lost, Edward Sandowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

In Pandemic!2-Chronicles of a Time Lost, Slavoj Žižek continues his discussions, written and performed in multiple media, of the pandemic that has severely afflicted the world for what seems so very long. And there are more trials coming, into the indefinite future, possibly, at worst, he imagines, terminated by a grand climate/ecological crisis and its consequences, which may, admittedly, end humanly experienced time altogether.

Do Politics Repel Truth? Hannah Arendt On Political Controversies In Dialogue With Plato, Marie-Josée Lavallée

International Dialogue

This article uncovers Hannah Arendt’s debt to Plato’s work in her analyses of political controversies of her time, as Nazi propaganda and state lies on American involvement in the Vietnam War, and her assessment of the failure of the French Revolution. While her relation to Plato’s oeuvre when she tackles political issues most often took the form of a stormy and one-sided dialogue resembling a monologue, her treatment of these controversies shows that Arendt had at times an authentic, open, and fruitful dialogue with the Greek philosopher. To make sense of these phenomena and events, she uses a range of …

Fleeing From War Or Pandemic, And Returning Home, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Today, the word ‘flee’ connotes a moral weakness for many, perhaps even cowardice for some. However, that is not entirely accurate. Fleeing may be a morally decent response to a dangerous situation. As the American philosopher Todd May wrote in his insightful book A Decent Life: Morality for the Rest of Us (2019): “Most of us seek to live a morally decent life. We are not moral monsters, but neither do we strive to be moral saints. [There are] avenues of moral improvement that do not require us … to sacrifice our deepest commitments and projects ….[Why? That which] … …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 11

Forbearance, Endogenous Development, And Aid Work, Selina L. Haynes, Mark S. Williams

International Dialogue

The international aid industry continues to export paid and unpaid Westerners to undertake development work of questionable and suspect utility to Africa, and to the less-developed countries of other regions. Despite its widespread acceptance in the West and tremendous financial support, this work has been criticized as failing to meaningfully improve the quality of life due to a multitude of systemic challenges within the industry. This range of challenges includes the intrinsic power imbalances found between debtor nations and their creditors; the dominant position of great powers within international organizations and as the funders of international non-governmental organizations; the pathological …

Notes From The Editor, Rory Conces

International Dialogue

Introduction to volume 11.

Notes from International Dialogue's Editor-in-Chief, Rory J. Conces

Complex Effects Of International Relations: Intended And Unintended Consequences Of Human Actions In Middle East Conflicts Ofer Israeli. New York:, Kenneth Christie

International Dialogue

Ofer Israeli, in this book, offers us an original and encompassing study of the complex effects of international relations, elucidating for readers the intended and unintended consequences of human action. And that is no simple task given the often-chaotic way that international relations seem to play out in real life. Hindsight, particularly in international relations is beneficial but not always conducive to change and how we make decision-making effective goes beyond how we see our national interests play out. Any effort to alleviate, change these disastrous outcomes in the post 1945 period would have been welcome but we can see …

Consent To Unjust Institutions, Bas Van Der Vossen

Philosophy Faculty Articles and Research

John Rawls wrote that people can voluntarily acquire political obligations to institutions only on the condition that those institutions are at least reasonably just. When an institution is seriously unjust, by contrast, attempts to create political obligation are “void ab initio.” However, Rawls's own explanation for this thought was deeply problematic, as are the standard alternatives. In this paper, I offer an argument for why Rawls's intuition was right and trace its implications for theories of authority and political obligation. These, I claim, are more radical than is often thought.

Policing And Ethics With Ekow Yankah, Christiane Wisehart, Ekow Yankah

Examining Ethics Podcast

Overview & Shownotes

Police have had a fraught relationship with communities of color since the earliest days of law enforcement in the eighteenth century. Our guest today, professor of law Ekow Yankah, argues that police power has often been deployed in a misguided attempt to solve deep economic and social problems. And this typically comes at the cost of harming people from marginalized communities. Instead, he argues, we need to imagine healthy communities where police play a background role.

For the episode transcript, download a copy or read it below.

Contact us at [email protected]

Links to people and ideas mentioned …

Justifying Advocacy Of Patients’ Belief Diversity W/ Support From William James’ Lectures On Pragmatism: A New Name For Some Old Ways Of Thinking, The Variety Of Religious Experiences & The Will To Believe, Sterling Courtney

The Hilltop Review

Abstract:

Predating monastic healthcare in the Middle Ages (Siraisi, 2019), spirituality and/or religion have been unified with healing, caring for the sick and consoling the dying, as documented by historical writings as early as c.3000 BCE-c.500 BCE in Mesopotamia and followed by coinciding accounts from c.750 BCE-c.280 BCE Greece and Rome (Mann, 2014). Via philosophy and science, a movement towards secularization has been perceived (as the Renaissance faded and the scientific revolution led into the Age of Enlightenment), therefore creating a dichotomy between treating the physical body separate from the metaphysical soul. In the early 1900’s, Abraham Flexner discredited any …

Freedom Or Responsibility? On The Unreason Of Public Reason, Mitchell L. Winget

The Hilltop Review

Abstract: This article argues that the public reason tradition of political normativity is flawed. As a result, I argue for a politically normative approach that rationally justifies morally legitimate political power for democratic political societies from outside the paradigm of public reason. To this end, I propose that neo-Aristotelian virtue theory lends us such a framework. Furthermore, I’ll defend this framework against the objections that such a theory of political normativity is unreasonable and anti-democratic.

Gender Deviants: Subverting Regulatory Power In Medical Institutions, Ursa Nuffer-Rodriguez Mx.

University Honors Theses

Medical and psychiatric institutions have a long history of regulating and pathologizing the bodies of non-normative individuals. The harmful normativity of these institutions is particularly salient for trans* people pursuing gender-affirming medical care, as popular media representations of trans* identity reinforce narratives of certainty and aspirations towards cisgender standards of corporeality which rarely map onto authentic narratives of trans*ness. For the gender deviant subject, who conceives of hirself beyond these hegemonic notions of identity, navigating these institutions often requires a false projection of identity that fits the standard narrative, simply as a means to an end. In doing so, the …

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 …

David Graeber And Militant Epistemologies: A Tribute, Adrian Favell, Myka Tucker-Abramson, Mark Davis, Andrew Wallace

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

The Ghost University: Academe From The Ruins, Peter Fleming

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Critical Theory, Fascism, And Antifascism: Reflections From A Damaged Polity, Bradley Macdonald, Katherine E. Young

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The presidency of Trump has produced an increasing sense that we are possibly moving into a period of fascism in the United States. In this essay, we wish to look closely at conditions which define this current political period by taking seriously Max Horkheimer’s plea to see the necessary relation of capitalism to protofascist potentials and fascist aspirations within our liberal democratic context. Drawing upon the work of Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and others, we will look more closely at the particular political economic conditions that underlie the development of our one-dimensional society, in which “totalitarian” economic-technical control, rampant consumerism, …

Progressive Neoliberalism Isn't The Solution. We Need A Radical, Counter-Hegemonic And Anti-Capitalist Alliance. A Conversation With Nancy Fraser, Nancy Fraser, Lara Monticelli

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

During the annual meeting of the research network “Alternatives to Capitalism” held at the New School for Social Research in New York City in 2019, Professor Nancy Fraser engaged in a vibrant discussion about one of her latest books, “Capitalism. A Conversation in Critical Theory”, co-authored with Rahel Jaeggi (Polity Press, 2018). Here is a shortened and edited extract of the conversation.

What We Owe To Our Audience: The Hermeneutical Responsibility Of Fiction Creators, Kathryn Wojtkiewicz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this project is to provide a theoretical underpinning for the belief that creators of fiction should dedicate time to diversifying the cast of characters in their fictions, and to avoiding harmful stereotypes when doing so. I establish this as a hermeneutical responsibility: because of the epistemic influence fictions can wield over their audiences, trafficking in harmful stereotypes of marginalized identities (instances of which I call Bad Representation Problems) or excluding marginalized identities entirely (which I call No Representation Problems) from one’s fictions can reinforce harmful beliefs about real people with those identities. The more popular the fiction, …

Informed Consent: Foundations And Applications, Joanna Smolenski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since its advent in the 20th century, informed consent has become a cornerstone of ethical healthcare, and obtaining it a core obligation in medical contexts. In my dissertation, I aim to examine the theoretical underpinnings of informed consent and identify what values it is taken to protect. I will suggest that the fundamental motivation behind informed consent rests in something I’ll call bodily self-sovereignty, which I argue involves a coupling of two groups of values: autonomy and non-domination on the one hand, and self-ownership and personal integrity on the other. I will then go on to consider two 'case …

Must Consent Be Informed? Patient Rights, State Authority, And The Moral Basis Of The Physician's Duties Of Disclosure, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

Legal standards of disclosure in a variety of jurisdictions require physicians to inform patients about the likely consequences of treatment, as a condition for obtaining the patient’s consent. Such a duty to inform is special insofar as extensive disclosure of risks and potential benefits is not usually a condition for obtaining consent in non-medical transactions.

What could morally justify the physician’s special legal duty to inform? I argue that existing justifications have tried but failed to ground such special duties directly in basic and general rights, such as autonomy rights. As an alternative to such direct justifications, I develop an …

Climbing The Mountain When There Is No Mountain To Climb: Pragmatism And The Reconstruction Of Moral Philosophy, Ryan Marshall Felder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this dissertation is to leverage philosophical resources given to us by Richard Rorty which can show that various diverse and seemingly-incompatible strands in moral theory can be reconciled to show that the differences between moral theories are illusory. The strategy is to show that Rorty’s approach to philosophy allows a pragmatist reconstruction of several prominent positions in normative ethics (Chapters 1 and 2) and metaethics (Chapter 3 and 4), and that a Rorty-style pragmatism, with its emphasis on liberal ironism and a relaxed approach to semantics and truth, facilitates the moderation of normative theories and metaethical theories, …