Matching Items (27)
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- All Subjects: philosophy
- Creators: School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
- Creators: Calhoun, Cheshire
Description
Do emotions help explain our behaviors? Can they condemn us, excuse us, orr mitigate our moral responsibility orr blameworthiness? Can they explain our rationality and irrationality, orr warrant such attributions? Can they be justified orr warranted? Are they constitutive aspects of our consciousness, identity, characters, virtues, orr epistemic status? The answer to these questions, at least to a significant extent, depends on what emotions are. This illustrates the importance of what emotions are to academics across multiple disciplines, as well as to members of governing bodies, organizations, communities, and groups. Given the great importance of emotions to various aspects of our lives, this dissertation is about the relevance of the topic of emotion as an area of study for the discipline of philosophy. This dissertation is also broadly about the need to bridge the interests, concerns, and collective bodies of knowledge between various distinct disciplines, thereby contributing to the process of unifying knowledge across the various disciplines within the realm of academia.
The primary aim in this dissertation is to initiate the unification of the interests, concerns, and collective bodies of knowledge across disciplines of academia. To do so, however, this dissertation aims to bridge some disciplinary divides between the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. I fulfill this aim by first demonstrating that interdisciplinary research and theorizing is needed within the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. I do this by considering how the problem of skepticism arises within these two disciplines. I also derive, propose, and argue for the acceptance of a new foundation for academic research and theorizing in response to the problem of skepticism. I refer to my proposal, in general, as The Proposal for Unification without Consilience (UC).
The primary aim in this dissertation is to initiate the unification of the interests, concerns, and collective bodies of knowledge across disciplines of academia. To do so, however, this dissertation aims to bridge some disciplinary divides between the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. I fulfill this aim by first demonstrating that interdisciplinary research and theorizing is needed within the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. I do this by considering how the problem of skepticism arises within these two disciplines. I also derive, propose, and argue for the acceptance of a new foundation for academic research and theorizing in response to the problem of skepticism. I refer to my proposal, in general, as The Proposal for Unification without Consilience (UC).
ContributorsMun, Cecilea (Author) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Thesis advisor) / Kobes, Bernard (Committee member) / Shiota, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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
Gays identity is usually cast in generics--statements about an indeterminate number of members in a given category. Sometimes these generic statements often get built up into folk definitions, vague and imprecise ways to talk about objects. Other times generics get co-opted into authentic definitions, definitions that pick out a few traits and assert that real members of the class have these traits and members that do not are simply members by a technicality. I assess how we adopt these generic traits into our language and what are the ramifications of using generic traits as a social identity. I analyze the use of authentic definitions in Queer Theory, particularly Michael Warner's use of authentic traits to define a normative Queer identity. I do not just simply focus on what are the effects, but how these folk or authentic definitions gain currency and, furthermore, how can they be changed. I conclude with an analytic account of what it means to be gay and argue that such an account will undercut many of the problems associated with folk or authentic definitions about being gay.
ContributorsBlankschaen, Kurt (Author) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Thesis advisor) / Pinillos, Angel (Committee member) / Creath, Richard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Authenticity has been conceived of in several different ways with various meanings and implications. The existential conception has the advantage of tracking authenticity from the phenomenology of human beings and their lived, social experience. From Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger’s criteria for existentialist authenticity, I develop the argument that authentic, feminist projects are necessarily one mode of being authentic within a patriarchal society. In defining a conception of authenticity out of Sartre and Heidegger’s terms, the question of what qualifies as an authentic feminist project arises as well as the question of what sort of content qualifies as authentic. While Simone De Beauvoir does not focus on authenticity in her ethics, she does give a basis for a value oriented, content relevant aspect of existentialism generally. Insofar as authenticity is an existentialist concept, feminist authenticity is one valuable and worthwhile project within a social patriarchy, as it promotes existence as freedom.
ContributorsScott, Siera Aubrey Lee (Author) / Huntington, Patricia (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Thesis advisor) / Reynolds, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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
Abstract. The term "sex trafficking" can mean many different things, depending on who uses it. To some, it may be synonymous with prostitution. To others, it may equate to slavery. And some may find that sex trafficking differs from both slavery and prostitution. But I find that the term "sex trafficking" is used improperly when referring to phenomena that may not entail the violation of rights of any individual involved. For this reason, various definitions of "sex trafficking" may inappropriately conflate sex trafficking with prostitution. In this essay, I argue against such a conflation through supporting a rights-based approach of defining "sex trafficking," in which every instance of true sex trafficking necessitates a violation of someone's rights. First, I begin by laying the foundation of my discussion with definitions and various government and non-government uses of the term "sex trafficking." Then, I argue for the rights-based approach. I proceed to explore how the rights-based approach relates to consent, force, coercion, deception, and competence. Then, I compile my findings, synthesize a definition, and elaborate on a few questions regarding my definition. Using the term "sex trafficking" correctly, as I argue, means that we necessarily use the term in a context of a violation of rights.
ContributorsMiller, Isaac Jonathan (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis director) / McGregor, Joan (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
I argue that a morally heavy, poorly researched, emotionally powerful piece of non-fiction media with complex subject matter shown to an ill-equipped audience is unethical. I then evaluate methods of avoiding unethical situations from the perspective of media creators. I conclude by calling for a strictly diligence based ratings board anchored in the professional guilds of the entertainment industry.
ContributorsBroderick, Nathan Andrew (Author) / Maday, Gregg (Thesis director) / Watson, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
The globalized food system has caused detriments to the environment, to economic justice, and to social and health rights within the food system. Due to an increasing concern over these problems, there has been a popular turn back to a localized food system. Localization's main principle is reconnecting the producer and consumer while advocating for healthy, local, environmentally friendly, and socially just food. I give utilitarian reasons within a Kantian ethical framework to argue that while partaking in a local food system may be morally good, we cannot advocate for localization as a moral obligation. It is true from empirical research that localizing food could solve many of the environmental, economic, social, and health problems that exist today due to the food system. However, many other countries depend upon the import/export system to keep their own poverty rates low and economies thriving. Utilitarian Peter Singer argues that it would be irresponsible to stop our business with those other countries because we would be causing more harm than good. There are reasons to support food localization, and reasons to reject food localization. Food localization is a moral good in respect to the many benefits that it has, yet it is not a moral obligation due to some of the detriments it may itself cause.
ContributorsGulinson, Chelsea Leah (Author) / McGregor, Joan (Thesis director) / Watson, Jeff (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05