Philosophy of Science Commons^™

The ‘Law Of Environmental Dependence’ - Biology And Ethics In The Work Of Ernest Everett Just: + Found – Some 251 Mostly Typed Pages, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Abstract-

“The Origin of Man’s Ethical Behavior” (circa October 1941) by Ernest Everett Just and Hedwig A. Schnetzler Just - is an unpublished book manuscript about the biological origins and evolution of ethical behavior, and about “the law of environmental dependence.” Missing since Just’s death in October 1941, it was found and identified in May 2018 among the collected papers of Ernest Everett Just preserved at the Howard University Moorland-Spingarn Research Center in Washington, DC. In addition to the 1996 US postage with the caption “Ernest E. Just, Biologist,” we now have reason to add two new postage stamps with …

Course Syllabus (Sp19) Coli 214b--Literature & Society: "A.I. And Other Radical Humanisms In Cyberpunk And Science Fiction", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description:

As that which we call “technology” continues to evolve as both concept and practice, we discover ever more inventive ways to answer its call, and science fiction seems to serve as a universal standpoint from which global societies manage to confront, question, and reimagine the nature of our shared humanity as a radically technical relation. While the growing social pervasiveness of artificial intelligence and the attendant encoded transformations of “the human” appear, together, to form a relatively absolute horizon of political thinking, social agency, and aesthetic experience, it seems certain that our current crisis also offers us …

Art's Truth: An Aid To Ethical Sensibility, Nova Quaoser

CMC Senior Theses

In this paper I explore the philosophical implications of decision theory and deliberation on ethics, paying special attention to how vicious individuals yearn for a separate philosophical account. Drawing largely on Fricker, McDowell, Paul, and Nussbaum I discuss how transformative experiences open a window for understanding moral development in terms of habituation in the Aristotelian sense, and further how the vicious individual’s failure to deliberate may be remedied via a transformation through art.

Did Hollywood Take Theatre "By Hook Or By Crook?", Catherine S. Wright

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Hollywood and Theatre have been partners in producing entertainment for over 100 years. The relationship was fruitful for both parties, but Hollywood moguls and playwrights battled over ownership of the work and crafting of its creative nucleus, story and character. Theatre was the dominant entertainment right before the rise of motion pictures. Once Hollywood’s talkies closed the curtain on silent films, playwrights had a high creative worth to movie makers. In the cinema, story and dialogue were essential for its survival and growth. Playwrights were courted by the Hollywood studio heads but were not offered equal partnership as they were …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

Toward A Science Of Morals, Ross Taylor Colebrook

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Morality is not merely a social construction or a convenient fiction. Nor is it supernatural or non- natural. Rather, ethics could eventually be studied as a branch of the social sciences, concerned with empirically discovering the many and diverse best ways of living. There are moral facts (like “murder is wrong”), and these facts are natural, objective, and universal. In other words, moral realism is true.

Philosophers often assume that moral realism matters because it is a commitment of common sense. Drawing on new work in the psychology of metaethics, I argue that ordinary people are not in fact moral …

Digitization Of The World: A Phenomenology Of Digitization, Thomas C. Adolphs

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The dissertation analyzes digitization through a phenomenological lens, understanding the digitization as an “outgrowth” of a potential that was always already latent within our being as the human-being. The analysis primarily utilizes the philosophic work of the 20^th century philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Through their philosophies, I seek to synthesize Heidegger’s concept of de-severance with Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of embodiment and the world as possessing depth. In doing so, I bring these theoretical concepts together to build a phenomenological “picture” of how it is that the digitization of the world came into being. All the while, my ultimate …

Lessons From Brave New World, Rachel Moore

Agora

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 2 Editor's Words, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 2 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 2 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Philosophers On The Fringe: Albert Schweitzer, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Aldo Leopold, And The Wrongful Polarization Of Environmentalist History 2017, Minnie A.M. Lauzon

Master's Theses

This thesis includes three articles (chapters) intending to encourage clarification of an area of environmental history that has not received adequate attention since the publication of Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind. Since its publication in 1967, little research has been dedicated to understanding the scholarly or philosophical influence Albert Schweitzer and Liberty Hyde Bailey had on Aldo Leopold. Since my undertaking of this topic, I have established two primary goals. First, I want to provide clarification to environmentalists, academics, and the populace at large that environmentalism does not have to be bound by rules and convention, but can …

Editor's Words, Bo Mou

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 1 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 1 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 8 No 1 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 2 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

An Ecological Critique Of Capitalism, Macauley Berg

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I will be addressing the broad set of impacts generally referred to as "the environmental crisis.” I argue that this environmental crisis is truly an ecological one, insofar as humans are its primary drivers as well as its primary victims. I then investigate the structural cause (or structural causes) which produce this multitude of effects. In turn, this leads me to seek out and address the social underpinnings of this problem. I identify capitalism (specifically, its current form of global neoliberal economics) as a major driver of the ecological crisis and explore the relationship between capitalism and environmental practice. As …

Deontological Ethical System For Google's Self-Driving Car, Edgard Alejandro Arroliga Jr.

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Google's Self-Driving Car is a revolutionary product that is riddled with ethical conundrums. It is able to accurately scan and drive through densely populated roads without much difficulty. However, there are some situations where the car will likely have to make decisions that affect, maybe even take, the lives of those on the road. Issues such as the Trolley Problem and the Rear-End Dilemma describe situations where there seems to be no single ethical answer as to how the car should act. In order to solve these issues, I propose that a Deontological Ethical System should be implemented because it …

The Confluence Of Philosophy And Biology: An Excavation Of Philosophical Issues In Molecular And Developmental Biology, Patrick Johnson Mendie, Emmanuel Bassey Eyo (Ph.D)

Journal of Health Ethics

Philosophical evaluations have played an influential role in the growth and development of molecular and developmental biology to ensure that every individual is born healthy, born wanted and has the privilege to fulfil his or her potentials for a life free from disease and disability. This is why it becomes necessary for biologists to carefully understand human genes, evolution, cells and general human anatomy to fulfil this project. During this process, they are faced with challenges where they also lack the foundation on how to solve them. This challenge gave birth to a philosophical excavation of molecular and developmental biology. …

Becoming What We Are: Virtue And Practical Wisdom As Natural Ends, Keith Buhler

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

This dissertation is about ethical naturalism. Philippa Foot and John McDowell both defend contemporary neo-Aristotelian ethics but each represents a rival expression of the same. They are united in the affirmation that virtue is ‘natural goodness’ for human beings. Nevertheless, they are divided in their rival conceptions of ‘nature.’ McDowell distinguishes second nature or the "space of reasons" from first nature or the “realm of law.” Foot rejects this division.

On Foot's naturalism, natural goodness is just as much a feature of first nature as health is, even though human practical reasoning is unique in the biological world. I defend …

Ethical Considerations Facing The Regulation Of Self-Driving Cars In The United States, Richard Mancuso

CMC Senior Theses

Self-driving cars are here. Once an advanced technology that seemed futuristic, they are now closer than most believe. Many of the largest automobile manufacturers are working on autonomous vehicle technology of their own. Perhaps most well-known, though, are the cars being developed by Tesla and Google. Both companies have well-developed prototypes of fully autonomous vehicles, meaning they require no human input or supervision, and Tesla has promised widespread, consumer availability of this technology in the next one to two years.

Along with the availability of this technology to the public and transportation companies like Uber and Lyft, comes a need …

Fish Sentience And The Precautionary Principle, Robert C. Jones

Animal Sentience

Key (2016) argues that fish do not feel pain based on neuroanatomical evidence. I argue that Key makes a number of conceptual, philosophical, and empirical errors that undermine his claim.

What Would The Babel Fish Say?, Monica Gagliano

Animal Sentience

Starting with its title, Key’s (2016) target article advocates the view that fish do not feel pain. The author describes the neuroanatomical, physiological and behavioural conditions involved in the experience of pain in humans and rodents and confidently applies analogical arguments as though they were established facts in support of the negative conclusion about the inability of fish to feel pain. The logical reasoning, unfortunately, becomes somewhat incoherent, with the arbitrary application of the designated human criteria for an analogical argument to one animal species (e.g., rodents) but not another (fish). Research findings are reported selectively, and questionable interpretations are …

Vol 7 No 1 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 1 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.

Vol 7 No 1 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.