Browsing by Subject "Political theory"
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Item An analysis of Plato's Meno(2015-10-16) Duggan, Nicholas James; Stauffer, Devin, 1970-; Pangle, Thomas LThis thesis offers an analysis of Plato’s Meno, in which the Greek philosopher addresses more directly than in any other dialogue the character of human virtue. Believing that Plato has considerable guidance to offer us in respect to the question of what virtue is, I attempt to approach his writing with considerable care and attention to the details and the structure of the argument. I argue that the dialogue ultimately presents a complicated teaching about virtue’s character, and the way that virtue comes to be present, which ultimately culminates in the claim that virtue is knowledge – and in the thoughtful consideration of the alternatives to, and the nuances of, that claim.Item Ancient and modern approaches to the question of punishment : Hobbes, Kant and Plato(2010-08) Shuster, Arthur; Pangle, Thomas L.; Hankinson, Robert; Muirhead, Russell; Pangle, Lorraine; Stauffer, Devin; Tulis, JeffreyThe modern criminal justice system is experiencing what may be called a moral crisis brought about by a fundamental disagreement regarding the just and humane treatment of criminals and the purpose of punishment. This crisis has been addressed by contemporary scholarship without much success. The most serious defect of these scholarly attempts has been a failure to grasp how the apparently clashing aims of punishment—deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation—relate to the fundamental principles of modern politics. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to begin to understand how these different penal aims may today be compatible and how incompatible, or even to appreciate what is at stake in each of them. In order to gain a firmer grip on the problem, this dissertation returns to the original arguments for modern punishment by examining crucial moments in its theoretical development. In Hobbes, modern punishment theory attains its first and most consistent articulation. Hobbes shows that the principles of modern politics limit the scope of justice to the protection of private freedom and property, and thus necessitate that deterrence should be the dominant aim of punishment. In his reaction against Hobbes, Kant affirms the importance of human dignity and argues that a penal system of pure deterrence would threaten the humanity of the criminal. Kant presents retribution as a more noble aim of punishment and tries to defend it on modern grounds, although he ultimately fails in this task. In light of the aporetic conclusion of the examination of modern punishment theory, this dissertation turns to investigate the classical approach to the question of punishment as it is expressed in the proposal for humane penal reform in Plato’s 'Laws.' In the 'Laws,' the highest aim of punishment, as the city understands it, is shown to be moral rehabilitation, although retribution and deterrence are also incorporated into the city’s actual penal code as a concession to necessity and to the limitations of the thumotic civic outlook. The most humanizing feature of the penal reform proposal in the 'Laws' is, however, its philosophical analysis of the nature of crime.Item Barack Obama and the rhetoric of a black president(2013-12) Young-Johnson, Connie; Brummett, Barry, 1951-This dissertation analyzes the discourse of Obama’s speeches to argue my thesis that Obama won election by virtue of his rhetorical speechmaking but more specifically, his ability to manage race in those speeches. I define and refer to Obama’s rhetorical handling of race in his speechmaking throughout the campaign as the rhetoric of race management. By rhetorical race management, I mean the strategic use of race (or obfuscation of race) in one’s discourse to manage or affect the audience’s beliefs or opinions of the listener. From a communication-based standpoint, understanding how race operated in this election requires us to examine the history of racism in the United States as well as critical scholarly work on the subject. Understanding how Obama was able to manage race in his rhetoric is necessary because it forces us to perhaps reexamine and scrutinize the 2008 Presidential election more carefully for several reasons. As rhetorical scholars, if we are in the business of understanding how our icons and politicians can potentially manipulate and use our rhetorical signs and symbols against us—or in spite of us--it is in our best interest to understand why the process occurred and why we allowed it to happen. I suggest that Obama’s deliberate attempt to weave ideological constructs like patriotism and the American Dream into his campaign strategy obfuscated his representation as the marginalized “other” and created a new political identity that has little to do with marginalization. By examining the theories of scholars like Kenneth Burke, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Walter Fisher, and Dana Cloud, I outline how race and racism historically operated in our political elections, from both a sociopolitical, or quantitative perspective, as well as a critical perspective. By using a multimethod analysis, we are better positioned to understand how Barack Obama successfully played the race card in the Presidential Election of 2008. More importantly, I argue in my conclusion why his use of rhetorical race management, was absolutely necessary if he were to become the first African-American president in a historically racist country.Item Dusting off dirty hands(2013-05) Murphy, Hart Hamilton; Tulis, JeffreyThis paper revisits one of the more frequented stops at the crossroads of politics and morality in contemporary ethical theory, Michael Walzer’s essay “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands.” The aim is to provide a fresh assessment of Walzer’s project, and to evaluate the tenability of its core notion of “dirty hands.” In pursuit of this aim, the effort is made to reopen the paths which take Walzer to his celebrated impasse, from two directions. The first of these resituates Walzer’s analysis in the context of the debate within Anglo-American ethical theory in which it is originally expounded. The second route seeks to recapture the trail of thinkers who guide Walzer to his conclusions from more remote locations in intellectual history, in order to determine the reliability of his intriguing constellation of Machiavelli, Weber and Camus as lodestars. Writing thirty years later, one of Walzer’s friendliest interpreters, Jean Elshtain, in the midst of her enthusiasm for ‘dirty hands,’ renews doubts about his recommendation of “casuistry.” Hints from throughout Walzer’s essay, incompletely elaborated there, are parceled together into closing suggestions as to an alternative approach to so-called ‘dirty hands’ situations.Item Item The person and society Rawls, Maritain, and the concept of personhood in politics(2015-08) Stuart, Kevin Ethridge; Budziszewski, J., 1952-; Koons, Robert C; Martinich, Aloysius P; Elkins, Zachary; Stoner, Jr., James RJohn Rawls, a titanic figure in political philosophy in the 20th century, thought he could make politics independent of metaphysics, that he could work up a neutral, coherent, and compelling account of justice free of controversial elements of a particular "worldview." I am not the first critic to claim he failed--Theory of Justice is the book that launched a thousand dissertations. Unlike nearly all other critics, however, I will focus on the metaphysical account of personhood, and will offer a critique from a Thomistic standpoint. Personhood is the focus because it's the most fundamental and important part of a political theory: politics is about people and mistakes about what a person is will have great consequences. Political philosophy is, in a manner of speaking, the second-person plural form of one's view of personhood, an unfolding of an account of people living in groups with other people. This dissertation shows that Rawls inevitably incorporates metaphysically laden claims in his argument. But more than a series of "gotchas" it also shows that the attempt to ignore metaphysics is a bad way of proceeding not just because it’s bound to fail, but also because it only succeeds in adopting a metaphysical view that is both confused and mistaken. This is where the Thomistic tradition, a rival of Rawls's liberal tradition, can help. I bring to bear some of the resources from the rich tradition of Thomistic philosophy to highlight two essential features of personhood for political philosophy: the inclination of the intellect towards truth and the primordial importance of love for the will. The centrality of truth and love for the human person illuminate a richer and more adequate starting point for political philosophy.Item Political ambition and piety in Xenophon's Memorabilia(2013-05) Fallis, Lewis Bartlett; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Thomas L.This thesis analyzes Books III and IV of Xenophon’s Memorabilia. The Memorabilia is Xenophon’s defense of Socrates or the philosophic life against Athens or the political community as such. In Book III, Xenophon presents six portraits of ambitious young men. These portraits, read closely, unveil the psychological nature of ambition and convey important lessons about the Socratic understanding of healthy politics, as a realm that is necessarily pious. Book IV’s four Socratic conversations with a dim-witted youth named Euthydemus both underscore the lessons of Book III and explore piety itself, as a phenomenon that is necessarily political. These sections of the Memorabilia may be read as an argument for the necessity of a fissure between healthy politics and philosophy – and as a bridge from the one to the other.Item Politics, religion, and philosophy in Al-Farabi's Book of Religion(2014-08) Siddiqi, Ahmed Ali; Pangle, Thomas L.This thesis offers an interpretation of Al-Farabi’s Book of Religion, in which the tenth- century philosopher addresses more directly than in any of his other works the relationship between human and divine wisdom. Believing Farabi to be a philosopher in the full sense of the term, I attempt to approach his writing in the spirit of his own approach to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. I argue that the discussions of religion, philosophy, and political science found in the text constitute a single teaching, through which Farabi addresses some of the most fundamental questions facing man as both a political and spiritual animal.Item Randomness and legitimacy in selecting democratic representatives(2011-12) Parker, Joel Matthew; Muirhead, Russell, 1965-; Levinson, Sanford, 1941-; Braybrooke, David; Gregg, Benjamin; Jacobsohn, Gary J.; Woodruff, PaulThe addition of random selection to our arsenal of methods for selecting political officials would enhance performance against norms of representative democracy. I employ historical and analytic methods to explore the nature of sortition and its relation to political equality, rational decision-making, and legitimate representation. Sortition both expresses a democratic commitment to political equality and facilitates improved performance under this democratic norm. It can be rational to eschew reasons in the process of selecting political officials, and decision-making bodies chosen randomly can be expected to make good decisions. I also address concerns stemming from representative norms, surrounding random selection of officials, arguing that random selection can enhance the resemblance and responsiveness of representatives. Finally, I detail some possibilities for institutional arrangements that would deliver the benefits of sortition while addressing the challenges it presents.Item The Spanish masters : the 16th century presence in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(2011-08) Hensley, Judge Robert; Budziszewski, J., 1952-; Hooker, JulietThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in 1948 as a response to the atrocities of the Second World War. This analysis seeks to trace the influence of three Spanish masters of the 16th century, Las Casas, Vitoria and Suárez on the rights language and theory presented in the UDHR. Particular attention is given to the debates surrounding the Amerindians and the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, as well as burgeoning discussions of international relations in the emerging modern age. These debates provided the context in which the three theorists developed their understanding of rights and how the rule of the natural law was to be understood in the modern age. While the vision of the UDHR still remains to be achieved, the influence of the three masters is clearly recognized and much credit is due them for laying the foundation of modern human rights theory.Item Toward an Aristotelian liberalism(2011-05) Sherman, James Arthur; Bonevac, Daniel A., 1955-; Dancy, Jonathan; Hurka, Thomas; Martinich, Aloysius P.; White, Stephen A.My dissertation develops and defends a contemporary Aristotelian form of political liberalism. I articulate an Aristotelian interpretation of individual autonomy as excellence in deliberating about ends, and develop a decision-theoretic model for representing this type of deliberation. I then provide a precise characterization of individual freedom, building on Amartya Sen’s neo-Aristotelian theory of freedom as capability. I argue that we should understand individual liberty, the guiding value of political liberalism, as a compound of autonomy and freedom as I have articulated these notions. I then argue that liberty in this sense is the proper focus of a liberal theory of distributive justice. I provide a teleological justification of the state’s authority to pursue a liberty-based program of distributive justice, and argue for a liberty-based interpretation of the harm principle as the appropriate limitation on state action.Item Towards a psychology of recognition : a critical analysis of contemporary multicultural counseling competency models(2011-08) Beaulieu, Gregory René; Sherry, Alissa René; Adams, Mark; Aguilar, Jemel; Cokley, Kevin; Richardson, Frank; Rude, StephanieSince the 1970s multiculturalism has emerged as an important area of scholarship within both academic and applied psychology. Scholars have offered a range of theories to assist psychologists in understanding the ways cultural context impacts psychological development and well-being with the aim of moving the field towards an affirming position on psychological differences that depart from the Eurocentric mainstream. One prominent example is the Multiple Dimensions of Counseling Competency (MDCC) by D. W. Sue (2001) which enjoins psychologists and counselors to acquire knowledge, awareness, and skills (KA&S) for five different racial and ethnic groups to promote culturally affirming work in a variety of professional and societal contexts. KA&S approaches like the MDCC remain the primary mode for conceptualizing multicultural competence today. This dissertation begins with a critical analysis of the extant multicultural competency literature which yields three important areas of concern. First, theorists face a dilemma regarding the definition of culture itself. Race and ethnicity receive stronger emphasis in the multicultural discourse which marginalizes other oppressed voices and perpetuates the invisibility of their unique struggles. In turn, attempts to expand the definition of culture to a non-hierarchical approach to all social identities and contexts draws attention away from race, an area already too easily avoided. Currently, no solution has balanced these two poles in the treatment of the word culture. Second, current models draw no limits to cultural relativism leaving questions of intragroup oppression unanswered. Third, models inadequately conceptualize the multiple social and cultural identities within the same person and offer insufficient guidance to professionals when intrapersonal identities conflict. Each of these three concerns is addressed by drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship in anthropology, political philosophy, and social psychology. These answers yield a new model for work with diverse social identities, Recognition Competency Theory (RCT). This new approach to competency with diverse populations has implications for the ways the psychology of oppression is conceptualized, taught, and treated as a focus of professional policy. Strengths of this new model, its relationship to the MDCC, its limitations, and implications for future research are discussed.