Even when given the exact same moral dilemma, equally rational peers, colleagues, and friends will disagree about the right course of action. Pro tanto principles are one way to resolve moral conflicts such as these. When broadening the conflicts to real life situations, such as those seen in public policy, pro tanto principles prove to be an extremely useful tool. This paper explores the difference between the way that the individual interacts with pro tanto principles and the way that public policy interacts with such a moral system. In the end, difficulties in public policy attempt to be resolved by using this framework.

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.

John Rawls developed principles of justice to guide the fair allocation of resources in a society. However, his principles did not take into consideration a society’s differing health needs. Norman Daniels attempted to extend Rawlsian principles of justice to apply to the allocation of health resources. In Just Health, Daniels argued that, under certain circumstances, an age-based allocation of health resources can be prudent. He proposed the Prudential Lifespan Account (PLA) to defend age-rationing against claims that it would lead to favoring one age-group over another. In this paper, I analyze Daniels’s PLA and argue that societal aging poses a significant threat to its effectiveness. I then examine and critique alternate theories to extend Rawlsian principles of justice to account for health, specifically those proposed by Dennis McKerlie and Hugh Lazenby.

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.

In this paper, I have examined the political philosophy of a left-libertarian, Michael Otsuka from his book Libertarianism Without Inequality, and a libertarian socialist, Nicholas Vrousalis from his article Libertarian Socialism: A Better Reconciliation between Equality and Self-Ownership. The goal of this examination is partially to explore and present a variety of positions on distributive justice within libertarian theory as well as defend libertarian socialism as a plausible form of libertarianism. The main question motivating this defense is “Can libertarian socialism be truly libertarian in its conception of self-ownership and autonomy?”. In this examination of both left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism I compared both theories to the works of prominent right-libertarian philosophers, primarily John Locke and Robert Nozick, to determine if the theories meet the standards set by traditional libertarianism in promoting individual autonomy as well as to determine if these standards can be reconciled with substantial material equality, either in terms of opportunity or welfare. The results of this examination showed that not only are left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism plausible theories of libertarianism, even exceeding potential for individual autonomy found in right-libertarian theory, but that they both successfully reconcile this autonomy with equality. In defending libertarian socialism, it was determined that it is a successful reconciliation of self-ownership and equality, though this comes at the expense of the potential for minor decreases in self-ownership among individuals when compared to Otsuka’s left-libertarianism. This was defended, however, as libertarian socialism seems more promising a theory for those who hold stronger commitments to equality as well as additional commitments, namely a commitment to democracy.

In this paper I explore the philosophical implications of decision theory and deliberation on ethics, paying special attention to how vicious individuals yearn for a separate philosophical account. Drawing largely on Fricker, McDowell, Paul, and Nussbaum I discuss how transformative experiences open a window for understanding moral development in terms of habituation in the Aristotelian sense, and further how the vicious individual’s failure to deliberate may be remedied via a transformation through art.

In the recent political climate, the debate regarding undocumented immigrants and what, if anything, they are entitled to in the US has been incredibly contentious. In the bioethics portion of this thesis, I examine two of the major frameworks for distributive justice, cosmopolitanism and the political conception, address the criminal aspect of undocumented immigration, and suggest a switch from a focus on criminality to focusing on the forces that incentivize undocumented immigration to determine the type of claim undocumented immigrants have to health resources. In the biology portion, I examine three case studies: respiratory tract infection, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis to illustrate health disparities among undocumented populations. I conclude that based on their participation in shared social cooperation and the unspoken shadow contract of companies incentivizing undocumented immigrants to come to the US to provide cheap labor, undocumented immigrants do have a right to access healthcare in the US. However, we should account for risk factors such as other marginalized identities, country of origin, and rate and methods of disease transmission when determining exactly what that care should look like.

The conversation to which my dissertation belongs is that which preoccupied John Rawls in Political Liberalism, namely: (1) how it is possible that a religiously and morally pluralistic culture like ours lives cooperatively from one generation to the next, and (2) The extent to which religious or moral convictions are appropriate bases for political action. My three-essay dissertation is about aspects of this investigation that affect minority or non-mainstream religious and cultural groups, since legal institutions, and theoretical models of them (such as Rawls’s and Ronald Dworkin’s) are in many ways ill-suited to accommodate their ways of life. In the first essay, I consider Rawlsian obstacles to developing a religiously impartial conception of “substantial burdens” on religious free exercise within First Amendment jurisprudence. I apply this question to federal cases in which Native American tribes sought to prevent government uses of land that would be, they claimed, catastrophic to their cultural survival and all citizens’ safety. I propose a jurisprudential model that places a heavier burden on judges to listen and perhaps translate such views, counting non-mainstream forms of reasoning as legally cognizable and sufficient to create a prima facie constitutional case, where current models would not. In the second essay, because few conceptions of justice require that law be cognizable and justifiable to everyone, I review liberal conceptions of what makes a cultural group or person “irrational” or “unreasonable.” With a focus on public education, and cases like Wisconsin v. Yoder and Mozert v. Hawkins in mind, I argue that approaches to “unreasonableness” from the likes of Rawls, Charles Larmore, Jonathan Quong, and Stephen Macedo are well-intentioned but unduly restrictive, insofar as they tend to, by definitional fiat, exclude citizens who embody widely recognized civic virtues, or who at least pose no threat to a stable democracy. In doing so, I argue that they instantiate the sort of social circumstance that Herbert Marcuse calls one-dimensionality. In the third essay, I consider whether a meaningful and practical model for “group rights,” which would include the right of peoples to preserve their cultures, can be developed within American jurisprudence. This argument is largely inspired by a paper from political scientist Vernon van Dyke, and considers overcoming challenges to this notion wrought by contemporary forms of liberalism and vehement public disagreement over recent, pertinent Supreme Court decisions involving associational rights, like Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Citizens United v. FEC.

In the last few decades, some scholars have questioned the moral value of forgiveness. They have argued that in order for a victim to preserve his self-respect, to not condone the wrongdoing, and to avoid unjustly pardoning the offender, he must consider forgiving only after the offender has satisfied specific conditions that have been demanded of him. Forgiveness, they claim, is morally permissible only when it is given conditionally. Unconditional forgiveness cannot be virtuous. This dissertation addresses the issues surrounding this claim. I argue that Forgivingness, which is the virtue associated with forgiving, causes its possessor to reliably offer unconditional forgiveness to every person who offends him. Further, I contend that instances of forgiveness, arising from or contributing to the development of this virtue, are never morally impermissible even though their moral quality may not be ideal. To support my thesis, I develop a model of Forgivingness that represents it as a multi-faceted virtue of cognitive, affective, motivational, and action components that, independently of the actions and attitudes of the offender, produce unilateral, unconditional forgiveness. I describe Forgivingness’s dependency on the characteristic of moral love—a quality that values an offender’s ultimate moral good and ideal self, displays good will towards him, and assimilates the virtue of self-forgetfulness into the possessor’s deliberations, desires, and actions—and explain the virtue’s relationship to ancillary or homologous emotions including hope, humility, magnanimity, and anger. I then defend the forgiveness that multi-faceted Forgivingness produces against criticisms that are commonly levied against unconditional forgiveness. In doing so, I reinforce a theme that runs throughout the entire work—that is, that virtuous forgiveness is distinct from minimal forgiveness. When relevant, I show the weaknesses in minimal forgiveness so as to emphasize the moral strength and beauty of virtuous forgiveness. Further, I distinguish virtuous forgiveness from forgetting, reconciliation, and excuse-making and explain how it can be compatible with disciplining the offender. Consequently, I demonstrate why virtuous forgiveness that is given according to my model of the virtue is immune to the criticisms that may be relevant to other forms of forgiveness.

What are a person’s core beliefs? What do they hold dear and to be true? How does one go about examining their ideals and challenging them risking discovering there is a different way of living, thinking, or showing up? These questions and more are what drove me to enroll in the University of Vermont Graduate College and the Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) program. I probably could have attended a few self-help seminars, paid a life coach or seen some type of counselor to help me explore these issues. Doing the exploring via higher education and the IDS program seemed much more meaningful, especially as the program progressed. Through Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) I have been able to closely examine myself, my life stories, with a different lens, even different then using the advantage of hindsight, in hopes of finding a path toward different self-realization. Important to note I said different, not better, as each person’s experience is valid, something you will see as you read the thesis. In so doing, you will be exposed to three basic explorations, my personal stories, my professional stories, and my political stories. All intertwine and relate to each other, but each have their own narrative to contribute to this journey. By the end, you, as the reader and consumer of these stories, may find similar paths to search for yourself in whatever place you currently find your life.