Stance: An International Undergraduate Philosophy Journal

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights lists what have come to be called “first” and “second” generation rights. First generation rights are civil and political; second generation rights are social, economic, and cultural. Western and Asian nations are in disagreement about whether each of these rights is universal. While Western nations strongly believe that first generation rights should be universal, many “Confucian” nations insist that second generation rights precede first generation rights. After analyzing the Confucian values in detail, I conclude that Confucianism supports both generations of rights.

This paper argues for retaining the concept of “wilderness” as a significant ethical category and considers arguments by J. Baird Callicott and William Cronon for abandoning it. Counters by Paul M. Keeling and Scott Friskics are evaluated and defended. Lastly, the paper recommends thinking of the term “wilderness” as belonging to a certain range of meanings on a spectrum of naturalness.

I argue that the “But Everyone Does That” (BEDT) defense can have significant exculpatory force in a legal sense, but not a moral sense. I consider whether legal realism is a better theory of the law than the more orthodox view of respecting the law as it is written. I next examine what the purpose of the law is, especially attending to how widespread disobedience is treated. Finally, I attempt to fit BEDT within Paul Robinson’s framework for categorizing defenses. I conclude that, first, BEDT can have significant exculpatory force; second, a BEDT plea does not comport with either Robinson’s definition of an excuse or other commonly held conceptions and so needs its own classification; and finally, BEDT does not exonerate the offender in a moral sense—only in a legal context.

In this paper I examine the merits of a “division of moral labor” regulatory system for dual-use research. I borrow an argument from Thomas Douglas against scientific isolationism to show that researchers must be morally responsible for resolving at least some dual-use problems. I then argue that there are key benefits of scientific isolationism that are preserved in a position I call scientific minimalism. I then demonstrate that scientific minimalism, in a division of moral labor system, succeeds in maximizing both scientific freedom and moral efficiency, which I hold to be an essential aim for any proposed alternative regulatory model.

This paper explores the possibility of music to transform the way we understand each other. In particular, it looks at the genre of hip-hop and the ways in which it can serve as a vehicle for understanding black experience. I argue that hip-hop’s structural elements allow artists to convey their living narrative in a way that recognizes, challenges, and changes our conceptual understanding of the black body. Using the works of Darby English and Harry Nethery, I examine hip-hop and apply their arguments to two specific rappers in order to illustrate my argument.

This paper grants the hard determinist position that moral responsibility is not coherent with a deterministic world view and examines hard determinist alternatives to traditional punishment. I claim that hard determinist accounts necessarily involve consequentialist reasoning and discuss problems stemming from them. I also argue that a revised model of traditional consequentialism called complex consequentialism, a view in which multiple values may be considered as ends, provides the best moral framework for a hard determinist account. Ultimately, I examine a criminal justice model that draws heavily on public health ideals and argue that it should considered a complex consequentialist account.

The “Spiritual Animal Kingdom” is an often-misunderstood section of G.F.W. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Many scholars interpret the ‘Spiritual Animal Kingdom’ as being analogous to intellectual life. While the intellectual life analogy is useful, the restrictive account takes it to be the sole content of this section. In this essay, I argue that the restrictive account misidentifies what Hegel means by die Sache selbst (in English, “the matter in hand”). Such a mistake will affect the ability of consciousness to progress to absolute knowing, the ultimate project for Hegel’s Phenomenology.

Most arguments for moral vegetarianism rely on the premise that non-human animals can suffer. In this paper I evaluate problems that arise from Peter Carruthers’ Higher-Order Thought theory of consciousness. I argue that, even if we assume that these problems cannot be overcome, it does not follow that we should not subscribe to moral vegetarianism. I conclude that we should act as if non-human animals have subjective experiences for moral reasons, even if we cannot be certain that they do.

In this paper, I draw on the principles of Aristotelian ethics, the work of modern virtue ethicists, and previous feminist critiques of purity balls to interrogate the effects of this practice on moral development. I argue that purity balls discourage young women from making autonomous, informed, and virtuously motivated decisions regarding their sexuality. While most critiques of purity balls are rooted in the explicitly patriarchal structure of these events, my analysis emphasizes the negative impact they have on moral agency. I conclude that purity balls are unethical because of the detrimental effects they have on the becoming of virtuous agents.

In this paper, I argue that the contemporary relationship between children and advertising can be seen as illustrative of Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power and docile body production. I contend that, within the context of a consumption-based economy, an individual’s prime utility is her rate of personal consumption. Therefore, the subjection of children to ubiquitous advertising can be seen as the discipline through which the utility of personal consumption is maximized.

The main character of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot is a devout Orthodox Christian named Prince Myshkin. Friedrich Nietzsche, who is intensely critical of Christianity, and Myshkin share the same views on shame and pity despite their apparent ideological differences. They condemn the damaging effects of shame and praise the redeeming quality of pity for people who are put to shame. Nietzsche and Myshkin criticize the moral aspect of Christianity, but Nietzsche generalizes it for all of Christianity and Myshkin limits it to the Catholic Church. In the end, they both advocate a philosophy of love for humanity.

I argue that there are no genuine disagreements about whether something is funny. My argument rests largely on the premise that something is funny only if someone experiences it as funny. The bulk of this paper is spent supporting this premise, primarily through an analysis of the meaning of “funniness.” The rest of the paper is spent demonstrating how my conclusion follows from this premise.

This paper examines cases when compensation follows from necessary actions that cause harm. I posit that we can determine when compensation is due in instances of necessity by referring to the distribution of benefits and losses that result from the action.

In this paper, I analyze Simone de Beauvoir’s goals for women expressed in The Second Sex and compare these goals to the opportunities created by the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. Though the contraceptive mandate advances Beauvoir’s goal of concrete equality by supporting economic independence and recognizing women’s sexual freedom, there are social and political limitations to these advancements.

By using Sharon Street’s Darwinian Dilemma, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer attempt to show that Sidgwick’s duality of practical reason, whereby an agent has equal reason to act in their own interests or act impartially for the benefit of all, is not actually a duality; rather, reasons for action are solely impartial due to the unreliability of intuitions favoring self-interested behavior. I argue that Lazari-Radek and Singer fail to accomplish their goal. I argue that Singer has previously provided an account of impartiality that makes it just as unreliable on the same grounds as self-interested tendencies. Sidgwick’s duality remains unresolved.