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Stephenson, Erik. "Spinoza and the ethics of political resistance." Thesis, McGill University, 2011. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=104659.
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My dissertation examines the question of the justification of political resistance in Spinoza's philosophy. More specifically, its purpose is to determine whether or not Spinoza regards political resistance as harmonizing with the dictates of reason, where the latter amount to prudential counsels for maximizing one's "power to exist". Having demonstrated the partial validity of the 'conservative' interpretation of Spinoza's ethico-rational politics – according to which reason commands strict obedience to political authorities – I go on to challenge its near-hegemonic status in the secondary literature by extracting from Spinoza's Ethics and political treatises a conditional, ethico-rational justification for political resistance. The ultimate criterion for the ethico-rational validation of an act of resistance is the empowerment of its agent(s). Since one's true empowerment is, in Spinoza's view, inextricably related to the empowerment of all those with whom one's life is intertwined, and the chief source of personal empowerment is the rational understanding of nature's causal order, it follows that any act of resistance ought to contribute to an increase in the cognitive powers of the greatest number (including, ideally, those against whom it is directed). On the basis of the fact that, by Spinoza's own reckoning, the philosophical critique of prejudices through the development of adequate ideas regarding their constitution can serve to undermine the disempowering forms of rule that depend upon them, I contend that the critique of prejudices is the ethico-rationally justified form of resistance par excellence. Thus, a State is only organized rationally if it secures institutional 'spaces' for the exercise of this form of resistance as part of its normal functioning. Finally, I maintain that active civil disobedience subverting a political regime that prohibits the continuous exercise of resistance-as-critique is not only justified but is akin to a duty if individuals are to live up to Spinoza's paradigm of rationality, the “wise” or “free” person.Notre travail se penche sur la question de la justification de la résistance politique dans la pensée philosophique de Spinoza. Plus exactement, il a pour but de déterminer si, selon Spinoza, la résistance politique s'accorde avec les préceptes de la raison, ces derniers étant compris comme conseils prudentiels en vue de la maximisation de notre « pouvoir d'exister ». Après avoir démontré la validité partielle de l'interprétation conservatrice prédominante de la politique « éthico-rationnelle » de Spinoza – selon laquelle la raison recommande une obéissance absolue à toute autorité politique – je lui dispute son statut hégémonique dans la littérature secondaire en dégageant de l'Éthique et des traités politiques de Spinoza une justification éthique conditionnelle de la résistance politique. Le critère de légitimation ultime d'un acte de résistance est que ce dernier contribue à augmenter le pouvoir de son (ou ses) sujet(s). Puisque, d'abord, l'augmentation de notre pouvoir est, aux yeux de Spinoza, étroitement liée à l'augmentation du pouvoir de tous, et qu'ensuite, la source principale de cette augmentation réside dans la compréhension rationnelle de l'ordre causal de la nature, il s'ensuit que n'importe quel acte de résistance politique doit contribuer à l'augmentation du pouvoir cognitif du plus grand nombre possible (incluant, idéalement, ceux et celles contre lesquels l'acte est dirigé). Partant du fait que, selon l'avis de Spinoza lui-même, la critique philosophique des préjugés par moyen de la formation d'idées adéquates quant à leur genèse serait à même de saper le pouvoir des régimes qui en dépendent, nous suggérons que la critique des préjugés est la forme par excellence d'une résistance éthiquement justifiable. Par conséquent, un État n'est organisé de façon rationnelle que s'il se porte garant d'espaces institutionnels permettant le déploiement de cette forme de résistance au sein de son fonctionnement normal. Finalement, nous affirmons que la résistance politique active ayant pour objectif le renversement d'un régime politique qui pose obstacle à l'exercice continu de la résistance-cum-critique est non seulement justifiée, mais se veut un devoir moral – dans le sens que Spinoza prête à ce terme – pour quiconque souhaiterait incarner, dans la mesure du possible, le modèle spinoziste de l'homme libre, du Sage.
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Berry, Gerald J. "Private ethics and public office." Thesis, University of Surrey, 1991. http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/843634/.
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The apparent dichotomy between public and private morality and the problem of justifying 'raison d'etat' has been a constant problem in political philosophy since the publication of Machiavelli's 'II Principe'. In this thesis the conflict between personal morality and the demands of public office are examined in the light of the ethical and political systems of Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, Kant and Bosanquet all of which to a greater or lesser extent fail not only to answer the questions raised but to provide a comprehensive justification of the grounds for ethical conduct. It is contended here that the morality of self perfection, coupled with the acceptance of the notion of Natural Law as a yardstick against which both legislation and executive acts of public officials can be judged, does provide a unifying moral principle capable of bridging the gap between political action and private conscience. Statesmen, politicians and public officials cannot shirk the hard decisions that often go with public office but if they recognise a wrongful act for what it is and subscribe to a morality which includes an ethic of character then the chances of their being corrupted are greatly reduced.
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Cowen, Margot. "Virtue ethics and the legal and political philosophy of Martha Nussbaum." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2000. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272299.
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Baderin, Alice. "Political theory, public opinion and real politics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7fa3ccbe-1a70-4d6f-95ce-54146da83af1.
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If we are interested in questions about how we ought to organize our political lives, what kind of weight, if any, should we give to evidence about what people actually think? The thesis explores this question about the role of public opinion in normative political theory. First, I disentangle a number of distinct justifications for taking account of public opinion. Specifically, the thesis evaluates four views of the status of public opinion: as an epistemic resource; a feasibility constraint; a means of democratizing political theory; or constitutive of moral and political ideals. I defend the epistemic argument, outlining two forms in which popular attitudes represent a valuable epistemic resource. The thesis criticizes the feasibility and democratic accounts of the role of public opinion as these are presented in the existing literature, but suggests more convincing ways of reconstructing these arguments. Finally, I reject the view that public opinion constitutes the ideal of justice, arguing that such an account is subject to a fundamental tension. As well as clarifying the status of popular attitudes, the thesis addresses the methodological difficulties that arise when we seek to bring public opinion to bear on ideas from political theory, whose meaning and status in everyday political thought and discourse is often limited or uncertain. I outline two approaches to integrating normative theory with the investigation of popular attitudes that mitigate the methodological problems that often confront such projects. The second major aim is to situate the question of the role of public opinion in the context of wider debates about the aims and methods of contemporary political theory. In particular, I address recent demands for greater ‘realism’ in political theory, distinguishing two main strands of realist critique and drawing out their contrasting implications for the role of public opinion.
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Gete, Daniel Garrido. "The ideal of liberty in the political philosophy of David Hume." Connect to e-thesis, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/382/.
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Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008.Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Attwood, David. "The theological basis for political ethics in the thought of Paul Ramsey." Thesis, Trinity College, Bristol, 1989. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.328259.
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Phillips, Lauren E. "The Ethics of College Admissions." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/775.
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“Our society is quickly reaching a point where notions of right and wrong have become so binary as to virtually eliminate all areas of grey. One result of increased regulatory and enforcement pressure is the suppression flexibility and creativity.”
Kenneth S. Phillips Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) HedgeMark International, LLC An Affiliate of BNY Mellon
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Okorie, Ogbonnya. "The Ethical Implication of Separating Morality From Politics : Taking Cue From Machiavellian Political Ideas and The Nigerian Political Experience." Thesis, Linköping University, Centre for Applied Ethics, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-6776.
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The attention of this paper would be to assess critically the consequences of any conscious effort to separate morality from politics giving that morality constitutes an essential and integral part of any political culture. With this understanding it becomes controversial and worrisome for any one to suggest that morality can be divorced from politics and still make a success out of the entire business of governance. The concept of Machiavellianism presents a very big challenge to this possibility in politics. I would attempt to show the dangers inherent in such a calculated effort using the Nigerian political experience as a case study
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Hardesty, Kathleen Sandell. "An(other) Rhetoric: Rhetoric, Ethics, and the Rhetorical Tradition." Scholar Commons, 2013. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4898.
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Rhetoric as a discipline is still touched by the shadow of ancient Greece. Rhetoric was defined famously by Aristotle as the "available means of persuasion," codified into five canons in classical Rome, and has since been a central part of Western education to train speakers and writers to effectively move their audiences. However, particularly beginning in the mid-20th Century, the discipline's understanding of rhetoric as a means of persuasion (or even manipulation) passed down from our ancient roots began to shift to a sense of rhetoric as matters of ethics and a concern for the other. It begs the question: As a discipline, how did we get to a point where ethical concerns have increasingly entered the rhetorical conversation?
With a theoretical focus, this study traces and examines how rhetoric's relation to ethics has transformed over the past 60 years from our discipline's Aristotelian/Platonic/Socratic inheritance to the introduction of multiple new perspectives and voices. In suggesting that the goal of rhetoric is more than persuasion--a major focus of the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition dominant in the field of rhetoric and composition in the early 20th Century--this study traces a "turn" within our discipline from "confrontational" rhetoric to "invitational" rhetoric. It suggests that invitational rhetoric challenges a strict definition of rhetoric as persuasion seeks instead to understand rather than convert, support camaraderie and mutuality (if not unity) instead of reinforcing dominant power relationships, challenge the speaker as much as the audience, and privilege listening and invitation over persuasion when appropriate. Rhetorical ethics is defined as the ethical decisions made in the everyday interactions that constantly invite us to make rhetorical choices that inevitably have consequences in the world. The study examines kairos/sophistic rhetoric, identification, and responsibility to establish a potential framework for rhetorical ethics, as well as listening and acknowledgement as methods for enacting this model. The ambition is a rhetoric of ethics that attends to everyday situations; accommodates different, often "silenced," voices; and offers the possibility of an ethical encounter with others.
The study offers several possible conclusions about the nature of rhetorical ethics. Significant areas of continued study include issues of voice, agency, and marginalization--even invitational rhetoric does not guarantee that quieter or disadvantaged voices will be heard. In all, an(other) rhetoric is both a ripe topic for continued disciplinary attention, as well as a necessary component of everyday interactions with others that long to display love over hate, listening over silencing, inclusion over exclusion, and acceptance over rejection.
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Patrone, John D. "An American Philosophy of Punishment: Moral Permissibility, the Inferiorities of Punishment, and a Case for Pure Restitution." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2017. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/424.
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“An American Philosophy of Punishment: Moral Permissibility, the Inferiorities of Punishment, and a Case for Pure Restitution” is an examination of the paradigm of criminal punishment currently implemented in the United States and the inherent flaws of ‘punishment’ as a system of justice. The characteristics of punishment are evaluated from a perspective, “punishment by necessity,” which attempts to justify criminal punishment for a lack of viable alternatives. David Boonin, in his book, The Problem of Punishment, offers a robust alternative paradigm of criminal justice- ‘pure restitution’. Boonin advances two arguments: (1) ‘pure restitution’ is capable of replacing punishment as a paradigm of criminal justice and (2) restitution should replace punishment because punishment is morally impermissible. This paper considers two of the most notorious objections to Barnett’s pure restitution, the “irreparable harms” and “third party victims” objections, as well as the moral status of punishment. The “irreparable harms” objection claims that the inability of restitution to entirely repair victims in crimes against the person indicates that restitution cannot offer any remedy, and that this inability is unacceptable. This objection fails to recognize the possibility for partial reparations, nor that punishment is equally incapable of wholly repairing the victims of these crimes. The “third party victims” objection claims that by compelling the offender to make restitution to the victim, the state is harming individuals in proximity to the offender, but the state is prohibited from harming individuals. This objection fails to consider the critical distinction of intent and culpability; the state does not intend to harm third parties by exacting restitution, but does so as a foreseeable consequence, whereas the offender caused an intentional harm, and thus carries a higher degree of blameworthiness. Additionally, the present implementation of restitution is considered by considering the relevant legal precedent, the Constitutional situation of restitution, and a hypothetical implementation scenario, which highlights the potential for “crime insurance/ tax”, and the other practical implications of implementing restitution.
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Stervinou, Louis. "A Critical Interpretation of Aristotle's Ethics." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2027.
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This essay is a critical interpretation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, as it attempts to reconcile the tension between moral virtue and intellectual virtue, the two virtues which Aristotle deems characteristic of man. This paper looks to include both moral and intellectual virtue in Aristotle’s conception of the happy life, through the summarization and analyzation of David Keyt, J.L Ackrill, John Cooper and Daniel Devereux’s modern interpretations of the ethics.
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Lemmons, Taylor. "Justice in Migration: A Case Study for War Refugees." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1562.
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More now than ever, the status of war refugees and the standard of how certain global actors are obligated to treat them is of the utmost importance. Often, within a conventional sense of justice it is difficult to determine blame for the suffering of refugees because multiple actors play significant roles in the events leading up to displacement. This paper is an analysis of five prominent arguments regarding justice in migration for war refugees. I also present my own formulation of a principle that dictates how we should treat refugees. In conceiving this principle, I concentrated specifically on people displaced from Iraq and Syria. This focus came directly in response to the recent Executive Order 13769, titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” I examine the philosophical conceptions of moral repair, moral blame, and humanitarian obligation within the context of the executive order and the sociological factors and implications in its institution.
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McCaslin, David F. "The Cognitive Implications of Aristotelian Habituation and Intrinsic Valuation." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1245.
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Habituation in the Aristotelian tradition claims that we develop our moral virtues through repeated and guided practice in moral actions. His theory provides important insights for moral education and as a result many contemporary philosophers have debated how to properly interpret his writing. This thesis will explore Aristotelian habituation and the competing interpretations surrounding it, namely the cognitivist and mechanical views. It will then criticize the mechanical view and argue that the intrinsic valuation of virtuous actions evidences a cognitivist interpretation of habituation in the Aristotelian tradition.
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Furman, Katherine Elizabeth. "Exploring the possibility of an Ubuntu-based political philosophy." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002003.
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It is typically said that there are two questions that political philosophy seeks to address: ‘who gets what?’ and ‘who decides on who gets what?’ South Africa, along with much of the rest of the world, has answered the second question badly and currently ranks as one of the world’s most unequal societies. Counter-intuitively, South Africa maintains a social-political order that (re)produces this inequality along with great enthusiasm for ubuntu, an African ethic that at a minimum requires that we treat each other humanely. However, due to the view that ubuntu has been co-opted in support of South Africa’s unjust system, ubuntu has largely been ignored by radical thinkers. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore the possibility of an ubuntu-based political philosophy, with the core assumption that political philosophy is rooted in ethical theory. Three tasks are therefore undertaken in this thesis. Firstly, ubuntu is articulated as an ethic. Secondly, it is compared to similar Western ethical theories in order to determine if there are distinguishing characteristics that make ubuntu a more appropriate founding ethic for South African political philosophy. Finally, whether ubuntu can find real-world applicability will be assessed by looking at the way ubuntu has been used in the law
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Walls, John Linn. "Managing an Effective Way to Teach Business Ethics." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1947.
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Unethical behavior is prominent in the business world and typically leads to negative consequences for people and the environment. Business ethics education acknowledges that ethics teaching has a positive effect on business decisions; however, the problem was the lack of information that is specific to the factors and strategies required to best educate students in business ethics. This lack of information is demonstrated by continued ethical lapses. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to research what is known and unknown on the subject of teaching business ethics through a design intended to understand the lived experiences of ethics instructors. The ethical framework for this study was based on the virtue and justice approaches as a technique for analyzing ethical aspects of a decision, with the goal of improving ethical outcomes. Data collection was completed via interview questions regarding a successful strategy of teaching business ethics. To accomplish this goal, 15 business ethics instructors were interviewed individually to record their lived experiences relating to teaching ethics. Information relating to ethics course design, along with missing components, was the topic of questions. Data analysis using open and axial coding generated 7 major theme clusters that include highlighting character and virtue ethics, increasing concern for stakeholders, and employing the teachings of Socrates and other classic scholars as a basis. The implications for positive social change point to an opportunity for business schools to produce socially conscious leaders who engage in ethical conduct.
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Pascarella, John Antonio. "Friendship, Politics, and the Good in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2015. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc801900/.
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In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII and IX provide A philosophic examination of friendship. While these Books initially appear to be non sequiturs in the inquiry, a closer examination of the questions raised by the preceding Books and consideration of the discussion of friendship's position between two accounts of pleasure in Books VII and X indicate friendship's central role in the Ethics. In friendship, Aristotle finds a uniquely human capacity that helps readers understand the good is distinct from pleasure by leading them to think seriously about what they can hold in common with their friends throughout their lives without changing who they are. What emerges from Aristotle's account of friendship is a nuanced portrait of human nature that recognizes the authoritative place of the intellect in human beings and how its ability to think about an end and hold its thinking in relation to that end depends upon whether it orders or is ordered by pleasures and pains. Aristotle lays the groundwork for this conclusion throughout the Ethics by gradually disclosing pleasures and pains are not caused solely by things we feel through the senses, but by reasoned arguments and ideas as well. Through this insight, we can begin to understand how Aristotle's Ethics is a work of political philosophy; to fully appreciate the significance of his approach, however, we must contrast his work with that of Thomas Hobbes, his harshest Modern critic. Unlike Aristotle, Hobbes is nearly silent on friendship in his political philosophy, and examining his political works especially Leviathan reveals the absence of friendship is part of his deliberate attempt to advance a politics founded on the moral teaching that pleasure is the good. Aristotle's political philosophy, by way of contrast, aims to preserve the good, and through friendship, he not only disentangles the good from pleasure, but shows a level of human community more suitable for preserving the good than political regimes because these communities have more natural bonds than any regime can hope to create between its citizens.
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Malone, Christopher David. "The foundations of international political virtue." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0f14f2a6-0d49-4c8d-8ebb-cb5af2cc444d.
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This thesis provides the theoretical groundwork for a 'virtue ethical' account of international political conduct. The project begins by investigating the distinct patterns of normative theorising within international scholarship, noting not only that moral philosophical foundations are unpronounced and interchangeable, but that even in this diminished capacity the influence of virtue ethical thought is limited and fragmentary relative to its competitors. Redressing this underrepresentation is thus dually motivated: developing a fresh perspective on important global issues, whilst also subjecting the theory to an atypical angle of scrutiny. Adapting virtue ethics to the international realm requires, most essentially, that we settle the level at which its concepts should be applied. Can the theory’s central focus on character be reconciled with the collective nature of global political interaction? Can we accurately ascribe virtues and vices to governments and states? These questions of group agency form the heart of thesis investigation. Beginning from abstract foundations, the possible justification for such ascriptions is sought in competing theories of joint action and attitude. The 'individualist' accounts of Searle and Bratman are ultimately rejected in favour of Gilbert's non-reductive 'plural subject' theory, and - presenting group-level accounts of intention, motivation, practical wisdom, emotion and disposition around her concept of 'joint commitment' - a general model of collective character is constructed. Allied to additional requirements of moral responsibility, this framework is then used to assess the virtue-capability of actual political bodies, considering the decision-making hierarchy of the United Kingdom as a case study for the modern state. Tracing the route of policy authorisation across cabinet, government and parliament, a sophisticated yet ultimately impermanent picture of group-virtue-ethical agency is established, in tension with the notion of enduring state liability. By shifting focus to the national level, it is argued that this fluctuating footprint of agency can nevertheless be unified, modifying Gilbert’s notion of a 'population joint commitment' to tie institutional virtue and vice to a persisting state identity. This provides a template for international character evaluation.
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Harmon, Justin L. "The Normative Architecture of Reality: Towards an Object-Oriented Ethics." UKnowledge, 2016. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/philosophy_etds/9.
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The fact-value distinction has structured and still structures ongoing debates in metaethics, and all of the major positions in the field (expressivism, cognitivist realism, and moral error theory) subscribe to it. In contrast, I claim that the fact-value distinction is a contingent product of our intellectual history and a prime object for questioning. The most forceful reason for rejecting the distinction is that it presupposes a problematic understanding of the subject-object divide whereby one tends to view humans as the sole source of normativity in the world. My dissertation aims to disclose the background against which human ethical praxis is widely seen as a unique and special phenomenon among other phenomena.
I show that ethical norms, as delimited by utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, etc., derive from an originary proto-ethical normativity at the heart of the real itself. Every object, human and nonhuman, presents itself as a bottomless series of cues or conditions of appropriateness that determine adequate and inadequate ways of relating to it. That is, objects demand something from other objects if they are to be related to; they condition other objects by soliciting a change in disposition, perception, or sense, and for this reason are sources of normativity in and unto themselves. Ethical norms, or values, are the human expression of the adequacy conditions with which all objects show themselves.
In the post-Kantian landscape it is widely thought that human finitude constitutes the origin of ethical norms. Consequently, the world is divided up into morally relevant agents (humans) on one side, and everything else on the other. Adopting a deflationary view of agency, I argue that human-human and human-world relations differ from other relations in degree rather than kind. Thus, instead of a fact-value distinction, value is inextricably bound up with the factual itself. The critical upshot of my project is that traditional subject-oriented ethical theories have served to conceal the real demands of non-human objects (such as animals, plants, microorganisms, and artificially intelligent machines) in favor of specifically human interests. Such theories have also been leveraged frequently in exclusionary practices with respect to different groups within the human community (e.g. women and those of non-European descent) based on arbitrary criteria or principles.
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Cockerham, David M. "Toward a common democratic faith the political ethics of John Dewey and Jacques Maritain /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3238498.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2006."Title from dissertation home page (viewed July 12, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-10, Section: A, page: 3837. Adviser: Richard B. Miller.
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Duffey, Maura. "The Non-Identity Problem: Finding a Narrow-Person-Affecting Solution to a Narrow-Person-Affecting Problem." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/879.
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The non-identity problem attempts to explain the moral permissibility of certain procreative acts that determine a future individual’s existence. If we accept that this individual’s life is worth living, than we must also accept that these procreative acts are permissible. However, this is not the case. In this paper, I will argue against the permissibility of these acts and explain why our intuition, that these acts are morally wrong, is in fact correct. Because the non-identity problem affects particular persons, those whose existence is brought about, I argue in favor of a solution that explains that moral impermissibility in terms of the wrong done to this particular person. I do so by demonstrating why solutions offered by Derek Parfit, Elizabeth Harman, and Justin McBrayer have failed, whereas solutions offered by James Woodward and Gregory Kavka successfully explain moral impermissibility of non-identity acts in terms of wronging future individuals.
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Greene, John A. "Nietzsche's Genealogy: An Historical Investigation of the Contingency of Moral Values." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2017. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/417.
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This work examines how values seem to be contingent on various factors which affect their growth and development. This study is based around the ethical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, On the Genealogy of Morals serves as the foundation for my thesis. This book contains three essays which purport to show how moral values originated as a result of certain human phenomena rather than, as many people take for granted, from moral “truths.” This contribution to ethics is important because it leaves many questions regarding the value of morality untouched. In the Genealogy, there are numerous themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy which are important to note such as anti-realism and naturalism. However, one of the difficulties of reading Nietzsche is that his writing has been misinterpreted, and it can be difficult to reach a consensus on how to properly understand his meanings. In the paper, I argue that to properly interpret Nietzsche one must recognize that his Genealogy serves two purposes: 1) to shake our faith in morality as “given” or “factual;” and 2) to provide us reasons that moral values might have detrimental effects on human flourishing. To fully appreciate these aspects of the Genealogy, I argue that the historical form of the text is a crucial component which cannot be ignored. Ultimately, if Nietzsche is successful in demonstrating these factors, then it will be shown that morality is contingent upon a plethora of historical factors.
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Ryg, Matthew A. "Toward Better Knowledge: A Social Epistemology of Pragmatic Nonviolence." OpenSIUC, 2015. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/1034.
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The dissertation takes as its central problem the priority and value of nonviolent and pragmatic social epistemology. Many concede the desirability of nonviolent problem solving, but quickly and unreflectively assent to violence when the imagination fails to procure viable alternatives. Moreover, the kind and quality of knowledge gained through the use of nonviolence, it is argued, is far superior to the kind and quality of knowledge gained through the use of violence. This dissertation attempts to settle the discussion of the priority and value of nonviolence as a social epistemology by arguing for, and ultimately proving with the use of rationale and empirical evidence, that pragmatic nonviolence has more social-epistemological and/or value as knowledge than the available violent alternatives. Neither modern nor post-modern violence are able to produce knowledge with quite the same staying power, lasting effects, and high quality than that which is generated through what I call "pragmatic nonviolence." Traditionally, for a variety of biased reasons, classical American pragmatism has not taken a stand for either philosophical or methodological nonviolence. This unfortunate situation will, I hope, change with the argument in this dissertation. The issue of whether or not the social-epistemological value of pragmatic nonviolence, as a philosophical movement, has the potential to steer the course of contemporary social, political, and moral pragmatism into the 21st century, has largely been settled. The discussion and analysis offered in chapter one focuses primarily on the logic of domination, violent knowing, and violent realism. Historical context is provided to situate the central problems, compare sources of knowledge, and explore the relationship between violence and knowledge. The views of Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, The United States Military Academy, Wendy Hamblet, Crispin Sartwell, Judith Bradford, and Aaron Fortune receive primary attention in chapter one. Chapter two focuses primarily on the development of a radically empirical social epistemology and theory of concept formation. I examine the roots of social epistemology and describe the problem of learning theory and concept formation through notions of habit, conduct, and struggle. The views of John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and Leonard Harris receive attention in this section of chapter two. I conclude this chapter by outlining concepts of peace and social justice as they demonstrate how social knowledge is created pragmatically. The views of Martin Luther King, Jr., Duane Cady, and Steven Lee receive attention in the latter section of chapter two. The analysis offered in chapter three centers on what I claim generates better knowledge: pragmatic nonviolence. The first section of chapter three describes the kind of normative epistemology I advocate and how pragmatic nonviolence offers qualitatively better knowledge than the alternatives. The views of C.S. Peirce, John Dewey, and Edgar Sheffield Brightman are considered in this section. The second section details the extent and value of uniting pragmatism and nonviolence, the need for a distinctly pragmatic conception of nonviolence, prophetic pragmatism, and American personalism. The views of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cornel West, and Randall Auxier are treated in this part. The third and fourth sections of chapter three applies the theories advanced in previous sections and chapters to demonstrate how pragmatic nonviolence generates better knowledge. The views of Myles Horton and Bob Moses are considered at length.
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Finneron-Burns, Elizabeth Mary. "What we owe to future people : a contractualist account of intergenerational ethics." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5f49ca7a-2498-4786-8cfa-c3ce2be2d960.
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This thesis applies T.M. Scanlon's version of contractualism to the problem of future generations. I begin by analyzing Rawls' contractarian account of just savings and find that there is no plausible composition of the original position that can deal with the inclusion of future people. I then examine Scanlon's contractualism and some objections to it before moving on to applying it to future people. I argue that the disanalogies between the intra- and inter-generational contexts do not preclude including future people in the contractualist framework, and that the theory avoids the non-identity problem. Part II of the thesis applies contractualism to three intergenerational topics and develops principles governing them: resource conservation, procreation, and population size. To conclude, I address how to deal with the fact that, in the case of future generations, we often have imperfect knowledge of what they will need, how our actions will affect them, and how many of them there will be.
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Hurtado, Emmanuel. "Nietzschean Ethics: One's Duty to Overcome." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1342.
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In this paper, I will analyze Nietzsche’s argument for a moral error theory and examine the implications of his view. In order to arrive at the best possible interpretation I will heavily incorporate many passages from Nietzsche’s original works so that I can delve into a textual analysis of Nietzsche. Because Nietzsche is notoriously vague at times and often contradictory, I recognize that this is far from the only appropriate interpretation. However, I hope that it is one which has at least some intuitive appeal. Eventually, I hope to prove that despite his rejection of moral truths, Nietzsche’s theory of value can lead us to a sound ethical theory.
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Owens, Jerry. "The Proper Role of Religious Conviction in Moral-Political Discourse." W&M ScholarWorks, 2001. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626287.
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Kurtulmus, A. Faik. "Justice, constructivism, and the egalitarian ethos : explorations in Rawlsian political philosophy." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2d9cde4b-a7fd-4c39-9e6b-dd10d81d6ff4.
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This thesis defends John Rawls’s constructivist theory of justice against three distinct challenges. Part one addresses G.A. Cohen’s claim that Rawls’s constructivism is committed to a mistaken thesis about the relationship between facts and principles. It argues that Rawls’s constructivist procedure embodies substantial moral commitments, and offers an intra-normative reduction rather than a metaethical account. Rawls’s claims about the role of facts in moral theorizing in A Theory of Justice should be interpreted as suggesting that some of our moral beliefs, which we are inclined to hold without reference to facts, are, in fact, true, because certain facts obtain. This thesis and the acknowledgement of the moral assumptions of Rawls’s constructivism help to show that Rawls does not, and does not need to, deny Cohen’s thesis. Part two defends the characterization of the decision problem in Rawls’s original position as a decision problem under uncertainty. Rawls stipulates that the denizens of the original position lack information that they could use to arrive at estimates of the likelihood of ending up in any given social position. It has been argued that Rawls does not have good grounds for this stipulation. I argue that given the nature of the value function we should attribute to the denizens of the original position and our cognitive limitations, which also apply to the denizens of the original position, their decision problem can be characterized as one under uncertainty even if we stipulate that they know that they have an equal chance of being in any individual’s place. Part three assesses the claim that a true commitment to Rawls’s difference principle requires a further commitment to an egalitarian ethos. This egalitarian ethos is offered as a means to bring about equality and Pareto-optimality. Accordingly, I try to undermine the case for an egalitarian ethos by challenging the desirability of the ends it is supposed to further or by showing that it is redundant. I argue that if primary goods are the metric of justice, then Pareto optimality in the space of the metric of justice is undesirable. I then argue that if the metric of justice is welfare, depending on the theory of welfare we adopt, an egalitarian ethos will either be redundant or will have objectionably paternalistic consequences.
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Davanzo, Anthony P. "Practical Paradise: Ethics for a Modern Age." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1248.
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This play demonstrates an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy in practice. The main character experiences loss and confusion, however, through this struggle arrives at a discovery of profound truth. If you've ever wondered how to live your life in the best way possible, the main character believes he's found the answer.
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Toussi, Seyyed Khalil Alaghebandi Hosseini. "Ethical and political thought in Mulla Sadra's philosophy." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.445439.
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Vereb, Zachary T. "The Case for the Green Kant: A Defense and Application of a Kantian Approach to Environmental Ethics." Scholar Commons, 2019. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7980.
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Environmental philosophers have argued that Kant’s philosophy offers little for environmental issues. Furthermore, Kant scholars typically focus on humanity, ignoring the question of duties to the environment. In my dissertation, I turn to a number of underexploited texts in Kant’s work to show how both sides are misguided in neglecting the ecological potential of Kant, making the case for the green Kant at the intersection of Kant scholarship and environmental ethics. I build upon previous literature to argue that the green Kant matters for both sides. Rather than a liability, Kant is indeed a conceptual resource. Though many conceive of Kant’s philosophy as environmentally problematic, I argue that underappreciated evolutionary, aesthetic, and holistic sides of Kant’s philosophy can provide conceptual resources for issues in climate change and environmental ethics. Some aspects, such as the pre-critical view of nature, are quite green and merely require an application, while others, such as Kant’s philosophy of history, require a green appropriation to be relevant. The theoretical foundations I develop in these texts will allow Kantians to articulate duties regarding nature and duties for sustainability. This re-thinking of Kant redresses the complaints environmental thinkers hold against Kant. By means of a philosophical interpretation, defense, and application of particular texts from Kant’s works such as Universal Natural History, Critique of Judgment, and Idea for a Universal History, I show how the greening of Kant is not only helpful for contemporary issues, but also defensible. This will make the green Kant agreeable to Kant scholars yet all the while relevant for today with regard to environmental ethics and, more importantly, climate change.
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Romaya, Bassam. "Philosophizing War: Arguments in the War on Iraq." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2010. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/78961.
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PhilosophyPh.D.
I set out to analyze four main philosophical arguments which have dominated the Iraq war debate. Each of these arguments has been used by philosophers to varying degrees to assess the circumstances surrounding the war. The discussions customarily focused on four key issues: just war theory, humanitarian intervention, democratization, and preventive war. In each case, I examine the argument's methods, shortcomings, and implications, to conclude that each fails to satisfactorily address, explain, or elucidate the highly controversial war. I argue that we simply cannot rely on a meager set of arguments to provide us with greater insight or genuine understanding of this war, as well as new or postmodern wars more generally. First, arguments that focus on the just war tradition overlook key events and underemphasize developments that have effectively eroded the tradition's defining concepts, such as the distinctions between combatant/noncombatant, states/non-states, victories/defeats, armies/non-state or non-nation actors. Second, theoretical analyses are routinely misappropriated or misapplied; this is especially evident in calls for humanitarian intervention, implemented for past harms committed, using backward-causing logic intended to make up for past inaction, rather than halting ongoing or imminent harm. Third, the focus on forcible democratization overlooks the high probability for failure in such pursuits and readily dismisses moral, legal, economic, educational, and cultural obstacles to democratic national building. Fourth, arguments which focus on preventive war suffer from similar problems encountered with the previous three, especially since it is unclear that the event could be characterized as a case of preventive war. The relationship between belligerent state and target state was not one in which the target state posed a future or distant threat to the belligerent state. Collectively, the arguments err in their uncritical acceptance of methodological analyses that have no genuine application to the matter at issue; that is, each misunderstands the nature of new or postmodern wars and clings to concepts relevant to modern wars, which do not factor in developments such as non-state actors, the spread of global capitalism, economic and cultural globalization, strategic objectives or military preeminence, imperialist aims or empire-building.
Temple University--Theses
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Hardy, Carter. "A Phenomenological Approach to Clinical Empathy: Rethinking Empathy Within its Intersubjective and Affective Contexts." Scholar Commons, 2017. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6855.
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This dissertation contributes to the philosophy of empathy and biomedical ethics by drawing on phenomenological approaches to empathy, intersubjectivity, and affectivity in order to contest the primacy of the intersubjective aspect of empathy at the cost of its affective aspect. Both aspects need to be explained in order for empathy to be accurately understood in philosophical works, as well as practically useful for patient care in biomedical ethics.
In the first chapter, I examine the current state of clinical empathy in medicine including professional opinions about empathy, the dominant definition being employed, and the problems that arise from this definition. By trying to define empathy in a way that is useful to the current presuppositions in medicine, clinical empathy aligns with simulation theory, which has three problems: the discrepancy between the way empathy is defined and the way it is explained, the lack of diversity that this theory of empathy allows in our understanding of others, and the lack of affective understanding and affective engagement involved in the patient-physician interaction. These three problems are used to derive three questions that are important for any theory of empathy: (1) What is the phenomenon being explained? (2) What is the intersubjective context of empathy? (3) What is the affective dimension of empathy? The best theory of clinical empathy can be formulated by answering these three questions as they relate to phenomenological theories, which are more attuned to overcoming presuppositions.
Chapters two and three each examine a different phenomenological approach to empathy from opposite extremes in their theories of intersubjectivity. Husserl and Stein begin from an isolated, transcendental subject that needs empathy to bridge the gap between itself and others, while Scheler begins from a primary intersubjectivity in which self and other are undifferentiated, making empathy a largely unnecessary skill. Despite their strongly opposed positions, and the acknowledgement that their theories of intersubjectivity necessitate their theories of empathy, I argue that both fail to understand the affective dimension of empathy. Husserl and Stein leave no room in empathy for it to be an affect, while Scheler prioritizes affects that reunite subjects, but leaves empathy itself as a non-affective skill.
Chapter four explains Gallagher’s interaction theory as a more moderate approach to the relation between empathy and intersubjectivity. He draws on the insights of the other two theories, but conceives of empathy as a multi-leveled phenomenon that allows for an understanding of others. While this theory does aid in addressing the intersubjective context of empathy in a way that best solves the first two problems with clinical empathy, interaction theory still fails to fully address the affectivity of empathy, maintaining empathy as a largely cognitive ability. Gallagher does acknowledge the affective core of empathy, but he does not explain the way in which it is affective. In response to this problem, I explain Anya Daly’s application of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of reversibility to affectivity as a possible solution to the problematic gap in Gallagher’s theory.
Chapter five focuses on theories of clinical empathy in order to address the neglected affective aspects of empathy, and respond to the problem of detached concern. The problems caused by detached concern are explained, as well as why the theories discussed in the middle chapters are still unable to solve them. This is done in two parts. In the first part, I explain the basis of this issue in the cognitive/feeling divide, as explained in the philosophy of emotion. Then, I give a brief overview of the phenomenology of affectivity to be used as a guide to the affectivity of empathy. In the second part, I examine three theories of clinical empathy that attempt to solve the problem of detached concern, noting their strengths and weaknesses based on their similarities to phenomenological approaches to empathy and affectivity.
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Spence, Clay W. "Population Ethics: A Metaethical Comparison." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1268.
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In this thesis I establish a hitherto unseen parallel between John Rawls’ theory of justice and utilitarian accounts with respect to population ethics; I argue that the absurd conclusions which plague utilitarianism also plague Rawls’ theory. These are the repugnant and preposterous conclusions. I then argue that Kant's political philosophy offers the resources to escape these absurd conclusions because of a crucial metaphysical difference between theories governed by outcome-oriented considerations and those governed by freedom-oriented constraints.
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Ott, Emily K. "Comparing Consequentialist Solutions to the Nonidentity Problem." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/635.
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This paper explores the nonidentity problem, an influential puzzle in modern ethics which addresses the nature of our moral responsibilities towards future generations. I begin by laying out the two conflicting intuitions comprising the problem and providing several examples to illustrate how we conceive of the moral status of future people. I then examine two versions of consequentialism, averagism and totalism, which circumvent the nonidentity problem. However, these two solutions each pose their own respective problems; thus, I argue that a modification of totalism – the critical level view – is the most viable consequentialist answer to the nonidentity problem.
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Simpson, Justin T. "Quasi-Subjectivity and Ethics in Non-Modernity." UNF Digital Commons, 2015. https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/557.
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The inspiration behind this philosophical endeavor is an ethical one: interested in what it means to flourish as a human being – how to live well and authentically. Similar to medicine and how the ability to prescribe the appropriate treatment depends on first making a diagnosis, the focus of this work will to be understand the human condition and the ways in which subjectivity, one’s sense of self, is constituted. Given the general dissatisfaction with the modern metaphysical picture of the world, which analyzes the world in terms of the mutually exclusive and completely separate categories of nature/objects and society/subjects, I proceed from an alternative conceptual perspective, that of non-modernity, offered by Bruno Latour. By focusing on the actual practice of the sciences Latour develops one of his central concepts: mediation. From this understanding of the practices of mediation the world is revealed as an ontological continuum of hybrids – mixtures of human and nonhuman elements – that ranges from quasi-object to quasi-subject. Rather than being separate, nature and society are intimately interwoven and co-constituted, forming a nature-culture collective that is connected and defined by the network of relations between existing hybrids. Given this philosophical landscape of mediation, hybrids and networks, the question that I seek to address is how does this effect what it means to be human? What does it mean to human living in a hybrid world? I answer this question by articulating and developing Latour’s concept of quasi-subject. This will ultimately amount to saying that as humans, our sense of self and agency is co-constituted through our networks of relations with both humans and nonhumans. I conclude the paper by exploring some of the ethical implications that naturally emerge from such an understanding.
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Bennett, Frederick Joseph. "The Virtuoso Human: A Virtue Ethics Model Based on Care." Scholar Commons, 2011. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3007.
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The goal of this thesis is to develop the foundation and structure for a virtue ethics theory grounded in a specific notion of care. While there has been a recent revival of interest in virtue ethics theory, the theory has its roots in Aristotle's work as well in the medieval writings of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas worked out many of Aristotle's ideas in much more detail. However, while Aquinas offers a very rich and compelling ethical theory, it is problematic because it is very tightly wrapped in his theology. A key component in Aquinas's theory is charity. Charity is one of Aquinas's theological virtues, which express the relationship between humans and God. Charity is the love of God and of neighbor and he construes it as the foundation for all the other virtues. My thesis explores the idea of replacing charity with the virtue of care. The virtue of care to be used in this essential role is primarily based on recent work on the ethics of care by Nel Nodding. The virtue of care, as I develop it, combines three interrelated parts: instinctive, maternal and relational care. By comparing and contrasting care and charity, I demonstrate that the virtue of care can fill the role of charity. In this capacity care can serve as a naturalistic foundation for a virtue ethics theory. Since the ethics of care is relatively new, it has yet to take shape. I propose building a care-based virtue ethics theory on the structure of Aquinas's theory. This new care-based virtue ethics theory also benefits from utilizing many of the components of Aristotle's theory which are found in Aquinas's work. My argument is that care can fulfill the role of charity in Aquinas's theory. Care-based virtue ethics theory is a completely naturalistic version of Aquinas's virtue ethics theory. My thesis contains both the foundation for this different kind of care-based virtue ethics theory and some direction for future work on revising Aquinas's theory using the virtue of care. The essence of this care-based virtue ethics theory is captured in the notion I outline of a virtuoso human.
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Schwartz, Melissa Rachel. "Embodied Ethics : Transformation, Care, and Activism Through Artistic Engagement." UNF Digital Commons, 2012. https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/398.
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In what follows, I highlight negative environmental perspectives and actions based on traditional patterns of Western dualist thought with the ultimate aim of developing an alternative way of relating to the environment and the ‘other’, in general. In pursuit of such an alternative, I utilize embodied artistic practices in order to present the notion that one can engage more holistically with one’s environment, and the other. Through habitual, lifelong ‚Ways‛ cultivating specific practices generally necessary to creating and to viewing art, I argue, one can refine one’s ethical awareness and action. Following the aims of care ethics’ more context and experience-oriented approach to moral concern and to treatment of the other, as well as the philosophies of Japan, and feminist philosopher, Irigaray, I show how these artistic practices form a new awareness and stance that encompasses components of care. Finally, I briefly highlight how art has been used for positive activism.
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Correm, Tal. "From Force to Political Power: Frantz Fanon, M. K. Gandhi, and Hannah Arendt on Violence, Political Action, and Ethics." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2014. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/285388.
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PhilosophyPh.D.
This dissertation analyzes the problem of political violence in popular struggles for freedom and regime change. It seeks not only to explicate the different arguments for and against the use of violence in political struggle, but also the extent to which these various ways set the conditions for the political landscape after the struggle. To do that, I engage the arguments of Frantz Fanon, M. K. Gandhi, and Hannah Arendt. While these authors diverge with regard to the role of violence in popular struggles, all three conceptualize ways to achieve nonviolent politics or at least to reduce the role of violence in normal everyday politics. While Fanon and Gandhi offer viable diagnoses of the problem of violence and liberation, by stressing the structural and affective dimensions of political violence, Arendt challenges the traditional equation between political power and violence and offers an institutional alternative in her theory of a federated council system. My analysis reconstructs the link between the critique of violence (state, colonial, or mass violence) and the constructive theory of foundation and preservation of stability and effective relations of trust. These relations of trust are necessary to prevent recurring violence and escalation in the period following the struggle. By analyzing the intersections of violence, political action, and ethics in the work of Fanon, Gandhi, and Arendt, I provide a theoretical framework for understanding the role of violence in popular struggles and everyday politics, while avoiding the limitations of each theory. The aim of this study is threefold: first, to provide an alternative to the prominent positions of realism and moralism in political philosophy through an evaluation of ethical argumentation in politics regarding the problem of violence; second, to contribute to debates about political freedom, and sovereignty in democratic theory through examination of different solutions for the conservation of power and freedom in the transition from struggle to ordinary politics; and third, to develop a critical lens with which to examine situations of conflict and popular struggles, the place of violence, and the transition to ordinary politics. By way of conclusion, I demonstrate the relevance of this study through examination of a concrete case from the Middle East: the Egyptian revolution of 2011. The theoretical framework set by the multifocal debate provides a resource to analyze the promise and the ensuing crisis of the Egyptian project.
Temple University--Theses
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Wissa, Matthew T. "The Case Against Redistribution: F.A. Hayek on Social Justice." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2012. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/512.
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In this thesis, F.A. Hayek's argument is against social justice is given context, discussed, and evaluated. Hayek was one of the leading voices of libertarian ideology in the Twentieth Century. While Road to Serfdom is his most popular work, Hayek's philosophy is most fully expressed in his three volume set, Law, Legislation and Liberty. His thoughts against social justice are found the in the second volume, entitled The Mirage of Social Justice. It is the conclusion of the author that Hayek's argument against social justice, in the form of redistribution, falls short as it depends on a presupposition that an evolutionary moral and legal process will necessarily end in securing a libertarian style of government. The only possible means of salvaging the argument would to accept inherent and inviolable human rights, which Hayek fundamentally rejects as he claims the Kantian tradition.
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Baek, Hyeon Sop. "Benevolent Politics: A Proposal for Maternal Governance." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent161913342452055.
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Nichols, Victoria. "Re-Calculating the Strength of Reason Not to Kill When Potentiality is Not Enough." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/941.
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Morality of abortion is a topic that tends to prompt heated politic debates. Setting politics aside, it is useful for one to contemplate certain questions if they wish to understand the complex moral dilemmas which abortion poses. One can philosophize and grapple with some of the following questions: Does the human embryo have moral status? Is the human embryo a person? Is it owed the same rights to life protection that a human baby or human adult have? Do we have a strong reason not to harm it? These questions often do not have definitive yes or no answers which apply universally to all cases yet; exploring them will allow one to gain a better understanding of one’s position on the issue of morality of abortion. If one’s intuition tells them that it is morally wrong or morally permissible to kill an early human embryo therefore, ending its potential to experience a future life similar to ours, grappling with these philosophical questions pertaining to the ethics of killing will provide insight that will either validate or contradict these intuitions.
This thesis examines morality of abortion by analyzing theories proposed by Don Marquis and Elizabeth Harman in effort to get a sense of what characteristics are necessary for an entity to experience significant levels of harm, be granted moral status and have a strong reason not to be killed. These characteristics help one determine whether or not it is morally permissible to end the life of a developing human organism such as a human embryo.
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Dimmick, Jeremy Neil. "Patterns of ethics and politics in John Gower's 'Confessio Amantis'." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2002. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272295.
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Jones, Kevin B. "Ethical Insights of Early 21st-Century Corporate Leaders." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/413.
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From 2001 to 2010, a lack of documented standards within ethics programs inhibited decision making, management practices, and corporate strategies for corporate leaders in the United States. Seminal theories in transformational, charismatic, servant, spiritual, and ethical leadership formed the conceptual framework for this phenomenological study, whose intent was to explore how senior leaders of Fortune 500 companies in Washington, DC integrated ethics into daily business decisions and the role in organizational performance. A convenience sample of 20 Fortune 500 leaders participated in face-to-face semistructured interviews to explore the assessment, definition, and documentation of various ethical standards in the company; the different mechanisms for ensuring ethical standards influenced decision making; and whether a senior leader's moral code influences the development of a code of ethics, ethical standards, or organizational culture. Using Saldana's coding process as an exemplar, 6 themes emerged from this investigation: ethical standards, organizational culture, ethics training, role modeling, values, and moral dilemmas. Findings revealed the need for scenario-based ethical training to guide senior leaders through dilemma-oriented problems. Implications for positive social change include benchmarks for ethical integration successes in business strategy that improve corporate social responsibility and change hiring practices to help build ethical corporate cultures.
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Blumenfeld, Mark R. "Divide and Defend: a New Ethical Approach to State Sponsored Terrorism." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/739.
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The scope of war has changed dramatically in the recent part of the 20th and 21st centuries, in particular, with regard to state sponsored terrorism (“SST”). The responses of nations too have changed as they seek to protect both their sovereignty and the rights of their citizens. This paper will address possible ethical responses to SST through the view of contemporary Just War Theory (“JWT”) as Michael Walzer describes it. I will begin by arguing for an ethical approach to war, and why JWT is the best ethical approach. Then I will outline the basics of JWT in addition to some of the main concepts that will be drawn upon throughout this paper. Next, I will put forth a spectrum of possible responses to acts of aggression and in so doing provide the framework for what constitutes a legitimate threat. Then I will critique Walzer’s interpretation of a legitimate state, followed by my own proposal. Following this, I will define ‘terrorism’ and considering various scenarios of SST with direct reference to the arguments made prior in the paper. Finally, I will conclude by restating the argument made in short, and illustrate the implications of this new ethical approach.
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Amisano, David. "The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Sustainability in Small Businesses." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3273.
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Since the 2008 financial crisis, business leaders' ethical behaviors have been under scrutiny. These leaders face uncertainty regarding ethical leadership behaviors and their impact. Because small business leadership involves multiple facets of behavior and decision-making, small business leaders may have an insufficient understanding of the impact of ethical leadership behaviors on the sustainability of their businesses. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between ethical leadership and financial, social, and environmental sustainability in small businesses. Integrated social contracts theory was the theoretical framework. The participants consisted of 80 members of a chamber of commerce located in Miami, Florida who had experience with ethical leadership and more than 1 year of ownership or management of a business. The data collection instrument was a self-designed Likert scale survey with items based on the research literature and also included financial measures such as return on assets, net profit margin, and net revenue. Correlation analysis and Bonferroni corrected significance calculation indicated significant relationships (p < .001) between some ethical leadership behaviors and social and environmental sustainability; however, no statistically significant correlations were identified between ethical leadership and financial sustainability. The implications for positive social change include small business leaders partnering with local leaders to implement ethics and sustainability into community programs to create a basis for increased trust in local business leaders to improve consumer confidence.
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Vogel, Kai. "Unveiling the Burqa Ban: An Examination of Humanitarian Intervention in Martha Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2007.
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In Martha Nussbaum’s book Frontiers of Global Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership, she presents the capabilities approach, a new theoretical framework that in her view better responds to the urgent problems of social inequality than existing theories of social justice. This thesis evaluates her descriptive claim by applying the capabilities approach to the French burqa ban and assessing whether the ban is unjust, and if so, what forms of intervention are most appropriate. In doing this, I will argue that Nussbaum’s theory is unsatisfactory unless she extends it to include the obligation to criticize in cases where we are certain that an injustice is being committed.
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Banerjee, Amrita 1979. "Re-conceiving "borders": A feminist pragmatic phenomenology for postcolonial feminist ethics and politics." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11556.
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xi, 205 p.As an increasing number of differentially situated women implicated within the global economy continue to come into contact with each other, a host of opportunities and challenges are inaugurated for feminist praxes across borders and differences. The cycles of dependencies accentuated by globalization come hand-in-hand with concerns about unequal distribution, unequal access to resources, and the rise of fundamentalist ideologies. All these together remind us of the urgency of collaboration and cooperation across differences. At the same time, the presence of differences and inequalities threaten to undermine the spirit for collaboration at any given moment. We, therefore, need analytical frameworks that are able to do justice to our identities and agency within interactive spaces. We also need better evaluative frameworks for theorizing ethical responsibility and political concerns about justice within a transnational space that take these realities into account. I argue for the possibility of a new "critical multicultural transnational feminism" and develop a theoretical framework to anchor this vision in my dissertation. The "critical" component emphasizes the vision for a feminism that is, at once, a self-reflective praxis. The juxtaposition of "multicultural" and "transnational" seeks to emphasize the need for recognizing both the limitations and the importance of borders on our lives. To do this, I articulate an alternative logic of "borders" so as to develop an interactive ontology for thinking about transnationalism and transnational identity. I then take up the project of envisioning the ethical-political project of "solidarity" in the light of this ontology. The philosophical framework that I develop is inspired by the philosophical pragmatism of Mary Parker Follett and Josiah Royce, the existential phenomenology of Simone de Beauvoir, and the work of various postcolonial feminists such as bell hooks, Chandra Mohanty, and Ofelia Schutte. This framework is a feminist pragmatic phenomenology for postcolonial feminist ethics and politics, which can serve as a normative paradigm and a framework of analysis. Finally, I use the framework developed in the dissertation to analyze and evaluate aspects of the international industry in surrogacy-related fertility tourism--a paradigmatic instance of incommensurability and inequality among women within the global economy.
Committee in charge: Bonnie Mann, Co-Chair; Scott L. Pratt, Co-Chair; Mark Johnson, Member; Judith Raiskin, Outside Member
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Warnke, Jeffery H. "Civic Education in an Age of Ecological Crisis: A Rawlsian Political Liberal Conception." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1461802361.
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Etinson, Adam. "Human rights and the problem of ethnocentrism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c1a851e2-cca5-4ccc-9c62-97d0ead23392.
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Despite its prominence as a pejorative term in moral and political philosophy, the phenomenon of ethnocentrism has escaped the focused attention of moral and political philosophers. Little sustained effort has been devoted to its in-depth analysis. This thesis attempts to fill in that gap in the philosophical literature, with a particular focus on the analysis of ethnocentrism as a problem, or rather a set of problems, facing the theory and practice of human rights. The thesis begins by drawing a core distinction between ethnocentrism as a moral phenomenon (i.e., a form of moral partiality), on the one hand, and as an epistemological phenomenon (i.e., a mode of judgment), on the other. After singling out the epistemological aspect of ethnocentrism as its main focus, the thesis argues for four interlocking claims. The first claim is that ethnocentrism represents an unwarranted mode of judgment, and thus an epistemic hazard that ought to be avoided if at all possible (Chapter One, §3). This claim is defended at length against the version of political constructivism advanced by John Rawls, which, by grounding political argument exclusively in ideas and values embedded in a common public culture, implicitly justifies a form of ethnocentrism (Chapter Two). The second claim is that moral argument cannot avoid ethnocentrism by grounding itself, as some have thought, in judgments upon which there is broad moral consensus, or rather by avoiding any appeal to judgments that are the subject of marked dissensus (Chapter Three and Chapter Four). Thirdly, the thesis argues that ethnocentrism is, if avoidable, only so to a limited extent (Chapter Six, §2). And fourthly, it offers an outline of how this limited form of avoidance might work (Chapter Five and Chapter Six, §3).
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Claflin, Robert. "The Contradiction of Representation in Levinas's Command of the Other and the Possibility of Responding through the Dialogicality of the Self." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2019. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/481.
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Emmanuel Levinas views the phenomenological tradition as being predicated on an asymmetrical relationship between the self and the other in which the self possesses the power to dominate and represent the other. This leads to the reduction of the other to the same. Instead, he wants to flip this relationship in favor of the other by showing how the very qualities of alterity and infinity enable the other to resist the self’s attempts at representation. Furthermore, he conceives of an ethics in which the self is compelled to listen to the other’s command and respond accordingly. The inherent issue in such an ethics as Levinas’s is that the self is held responsible for responding to a command which it cannot represent in some meaningful way. Thus, either Levinas contradicts himself or there must be some way to respond to the other’s command prior to representation. Levinas himself says that the transcendent relationship itself involves the convergence of the self and the other through language. Language occurs prior to representation and involves the putting in common of both the self and the other’s worlds. It is an ethical donation to the Other. As well, Levinas’s idea of paternity suggests the dialogical nature of the self in the ethical relationship. Using theories of self-consciousness by Hegel, Sartre, and Meade, I show how the dialogical nature of the social self enables it to enter into a transcendent relationship without committing an act of violence.
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Cagle, Lauren E. "Shaping Climate Citizenship: The Ethics of Inclusion in Climate Change Communication and Policy." Scholar Commons, 2016. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6197.
Full textAbstract:
The problem of climate change is not simply scientific or technical, but also political and social. This dissertation analyzes both the role and the ethical foundations of citizenship and citizen engagement in the political and social aspects of climate change communication and policy-making. Using a critical discourse analysis of a policy recommendations drafted by the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, I demonstrate how climate change policy documentation naturalizes a particular version of citizenship I call “climate citizenship.” Based on environmental critiques of liberal and civic republican citizenship, I show how this “climate citizenship” would be more productive and ethical if based on theories of environmental citizenship rooted in an ecological feminist ethic of flourishing. This critique of current representations of citizenship in climate change policy offers a theoretically sound basis for future engaged work in rhetoric of science focused on policy-making.