ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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Description
I present in this dissertation a theory of moral disillusion. In chapter 1 I explain moral innocence and its loss. I show that becoming morally responsible requires shattering the illusion that one is not an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes. The morally responsible individual must understand that she can be an agent of wrongdoing. In chapter 2 I explore the nature of the understanding that accompanies the different phases of disillusion. I show that moral disillusion is an ability, not to follow moral principles, but to question them. In chapter 3 I argue that another phase of disillusion involves an acquaintance with evil. One shatters the illusion that only malicious individuals can be evildoers. Morally good people can also bring about evil. I conclude that evil is the exploitation of the extremely vulnerable. In chapters 4 and 5, I analyze more complex phases of moral disillusion. These stages are characterized by an understanding that one can be an agent of unchosen evil, that one might bring about evil even when pursuing the morally best course of action, and that one can be morally responsible for doing so. In order to understand unchosen evil and the tragedy of inescapable moral wrongdoing, the individual sees that moral responsibility ought to track what we care about, rather than what we believe. In chapter 6 I show that Kierkegaard's conception of the self is a philosophy of moral disillusion. I argue that his prescription that we shatter moral illusions is congruent with Harry Frankfurt's prescription that we ought to care about some things and not others. From this discussion emerges the explicit distinction between moral disillusion and moral goodness. Moreover, I conclude that the morally disillusioned are morally accountable for more than those still harboring moral illusions. Although moral disillusion does not entail becoming morally good, by acquiring the ability to raise questions about moral principles and to affect the content of one's cares, one acquires the ability to take responsibility for, and potentially minimize, evil. To have and understand these abilities, but not to care about them, increases one's moral accountability.
ContributorsGoldberg, Zachary J. (Author) / French, Peter A. (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Matustik, Martin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation puts forth an account of moral responsibility. The central claim defended is that an agent's responsibility supervenes on the agent's mental states at the time of the action. I call the mental states that determine responsibility the agent's quality of will (QOW). QOW is taken to concern the agent's action, understood from an internal perspective, along with the agent's motivations, her actual beliefs about the action, and the beliefs she ought to have had about the action. This approach to responsibility has a number of surprising implications. First, blameworthiness can come apart from wrongness, and praiseworthiness from rightness. This is because responsibility is an internal notion and rightness and wrongness are external notions. Furthermore, agents can only be responsible for their QOW. It follows that agents cannot be responsible for the consequences of their actions. I further argue that one's QOW is determined by what one cares about. And the fact that we react to the QOW of others with morally reactive emotions, such as resentment and gratitude, shows that we care about QOW. The reactive attitudes can therefore be understood as ways in which we care about what others care about. Responsibility can be assessed by comparing one's actual QOW to the QOW one ought to have had.
ContributorsKhoury, Andrew (Author) / French, Peter A. (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Portmore, Douglas W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This paper examines the strength of a recent argument made against democracy. The notion of epistocracy, a system of government where the wise or the knowers rule, has garnered some attention of late. These theories of epistocracy have traditionally struggled with questions of political legitimacy and authority. In Against Democracy, Jason Brennan articulates an alternative theory for epistocracy which may prove more promising. Brennan argues instead that democracy faces objections of political legitimacy which epistocracy avoids because democracy either harms or violates rights as a result of granting political power to the incompetent. This negative argument against democracy hopes to make epistocracy the preferable option in comparison. I will argue, however, that if we take this comparative approach then we ought to prefer democracy---or, rather, democratic reform---over epistocracy as the best solution in addressing the concerns which Brennan raises. It is not enough to merely point to flaws in democracy. For this argument to be successful, it must also be shown that epistocracy avoids those flaws at an acceptable cost. I claim that, upon examination, epistocratic theories fail to make this case. Rather, it is evident from this examination that there are various institutional mechanisms available with which democracy may manage the risks and harms which might arise from imbuing the incompetent with political power. This in turn suggests ways by which we might reform democracy to achieve similar results hoped for by epistocrats without the effort, risk, and cost of tearing down and rebuilding our fundamental political institutions.
ContributorsZhang, Alexander (Author) / Brake, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Portmore, Douglas (Committee member) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
In their criticism of various approaches to upbringing and related American family law jurisprudence, liberal theorists tend to underweight the interests of parents in directing the development of children’s values. Considered through the lens of T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism, providing a good upbringing is not a matter of identifying children’s “best interests” or acting in accordance with overriding end-state principles. Rather, children should be raised in accordance with principles for the general regulation of behavior that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement. The process of ascertaining such principles requires an understanding of relevant values; a good upbringing is what children receive when parents properly value their children, enabling them to appropriately recognize what it is that they have reason to do given the roles that they play. By developing the account of upbringing hinted at in Scanlon’s contractualist monograph, What We Owe to Each Other, this project identifies and responds to some common mistakes in contemporary liberal theorizing on childhood, suggests that contractualism yields a more plausible account of upbringing than alternative approaches, and along the way identifies some implications of contractualism for public policy where individuals properly value the children of others in their community.
ContributorsPike, Kenneth (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Brake, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Over thirty years after the passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the meaning of disability accessibility and justification for accessibility measures remains unclear. Connecting work in social and political philosophy to scholarship in disability studies and disability law, this project offers an account of what access is and why access is often owed to disabled people. This project argues that disability access is necessary both for the same reasons access is considered necessary for the non-disabled, and for counteracting harmful narratives about disability and disabled people. These narratives and stereotypes originate from a particular ideology, termed “the ideology of abledness.” This ideology informs the way policies are formed and the ways they are received; it also explains why considerations of disability are often absent in general policies, and why unique provisions for disability accessibility are necessary. In its effort to clarify disability access, the project tackles difficult questions such as the nature of accessibility, issues of cost and who is obligated to pay for accessibility measures, how all people with disabilities can be included in a social contract theory, and how disability accessibility relates to and can even expand the way non-discrimination is understood.
ContributorsLevit Ades, Rachel (Author) / McGregor, Joan (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / de Marneffe, Peter (Committee member) / Francis, Leslie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023