The problem that my dissertation addresses is the connection between modern reason and the ethical failures of modernity. My project is centered against the background of Enlightenment reason's project of rationalization, from which I argue that modern conceptions of ethics are problematic because they involve an abstraction from the reality of suffering individuals. I take up Adorno's response to this problematic and show that ethical reflection needs to be restored to the physical world of particulars in their damaged state. Philosophically, I press the need to reflect on ethical conditions and the values of our moral theories. My overall objective is to show how an Adornoesque ethics can position us in a critical and resistant mode of thinking within actual sites of suffering and damage in late modern conditions.

The Cassandra Complex is a work in the traditions of critical philosophy and psychoanalysis. In The Cassandra Complex, I examine the intersection of violence, racism, and mourning. I hold that analysis of this intersection gives birth to a critical view on the politics of memory and the politics of racism as it operates in its most discreet forms. What makes violence discreet is that it escapes identity or is continually misidentified. I call that structure of violence that escapes being identified as such "White violence" and argue that this structure of violence undermines our normative ways of addressing racist violence in the present. This creates a continual social pattern of misidentification, mistaken memory, and mistaken practices of thinking about the violence of racism, both past and present. The present form of this misidentification could be called post-raciality, but it is specific to how we understand and remember our own history of anti-Black violence. I argue that post-racial memory produces memory only to facilitate forgetting and thus is only seen as a social pathology in the public sphere. The term "Cassandra Complex" provides an identity for the type of social pathology that appears at the critical edge of political discursivity. From the analysis of this social pathology, I argue that aesthetic sorrow, allegorical memory, and a sublime sense of mourning disrupt the normative functioning of the social pathology. Indeed, I argue that aesthetic sorrow makes the present strange by making the politically unbearable aesthetically unrepresentable. This sense of loss constitutes its own history, appearing first as an aesthetics of anesthesia, then as a memory that is also an amnesia. Thus, I hold that a robust notion of allegory that can be translated into the public sphere as a way of exposing the degenerative effects of post-racial memory. Moreover, I hold that allegory allows for a social analysis of those political conditions that make public that which has gone silent. I argue that an understanding of the political significance of that continual movement of silence is the task of understanding the present form of violence in the post-racial.

Submitted by Regina Correa (rehecorrea@gmail.com) on 2016-09-19T19:12:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJPRff.pdf: 954750 bytes, checksum: cf98270f3c7c986f269454fca84cb721 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-21T12:28:41Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJPRff.pdf: 954750 bytes, checksum: cf98270f3c7c986f269454fca84cb721 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-21T12:28:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJPRff.pdf: 954750 bytes, checksum: cf98270f3c7c986f269454fca84cb721 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-21T12:29:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissJPRff.pdf: 954750 bytes, checksum: cf98270f3c7c986f269454fca84cb721 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant seeks to support human action by a rational principle (formal) and not by the search for an order previously established outside the very principle. Therefore, for Kant, human action is good to be determined only by the rational principle, regardless, so, the realization of any order previously determined. It is concluded, therefore, that in Kantian moral which gives moral value to action is our intention to act in accordance which universal principles that can apply to all men, and not the realization of the end pursued by the will. However, even that assign moral value only the intention of action liable of universalization, Kant would, therefore, removed from his moral philosophy once and for all the possibility of some ultimate end? It is important to note that the very GMM Kant introduces the concept of Bestimmung. This concept states that the reason also has a destination, understood as ultimate goal: the production of a good will. Destination, at least output, suggests to us that eventually there would be a kind of end point of reason, which is nothing more than the production of their own good will. So how can we think that point, without ignoring, of course, that is the intention of the action which gives moral value? Kant, having founded his moral philosophy on the intention of the agent that determines its action by a rational formal principle, would have thus prevented any opening to a teleological theory in his moral philosophy? It is intended, based on these issues and their consequences, show not only that Kant did not rule out his practical philosophy a possible reading finalist, but also made it possible to think of a congruence between formalism and purpose. / Na Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes1, Immanuel Kant procura fundamentar a ação humana por um princípio racional (formal) e não pela busca de um fim previamente estabelecido exterior ao próprio princípio. Portanto, para Kant, a ação humana é boa ao ser determinada apenas pelo princípio racional, independendo, assim, da realização de algum fim previamente determinado. Conclui-se, deste modo, que na moral kantiana o que confere valor moral à ação é a nossa intenção de agir segundo princípios universais, que possam valer para todos os homens, e não a realização do fim almejado pela vontade. Entretanto, mesmo que atribua valor moral tão somente à intenção da ação passível de universalização, teria Kant, com isso, suprimido de sua filosofia moral de uma vez por todas a possibilidade de algum fim último? É importante notar que na própria FMC Kant introduz o conceito de Bestimmung. Este conceito enuncia que a razão também possui uma destinação, entendida como fim último: a produção de uma vontade boa. Destinação, ao menos de saída, sugere-nos que haveria eventualmente uma espécie de ponto de chegada da razão, que nada mais é do que a produção da própria vontade boa. Portanto, como podemos pensar esse ponto, sem desconsiderar, obviamente, que é a intenção da ação que lhe confere valor moral? Kant, tendo fundamentado sua filosofia moral na intenção do agente que determina sua ação por um princípio racional formal, teria, com isso, impossibilitado toda e qualquer abertura para uma teoria teleológica em sua filosofia moral? Pretende-se, com base nessas questões e suas consequências, mostrar que Kant não apenas não excluiu de sua filosofia prática uma possível leitura finalista, mas, também, tornou possível pensar em uma congruência entre formalismo e finalidade.

Trata-se de uma investigação ou análise de cunho lógico-argumentativo da Dedução dos Juízos Estéticos Puros da Crítica da Faculdade do Juízo de Kant. Isso com a intenção profunda de avaliar a viabilidade de um princípio de comunicabilidade estética segundo os limites impostos pela própria teoria kantiana do conhecimento. Partindo-se das proposições sobre estética do Kant pré-crítico e perpassando-se cada momento de sua estética madura (Analítica do Belo), se verá eleito como princípio a priori e universal do gosto em Kant o conceito de sensus communis, o qual deveria então ser provido de uma dedução transcendental; isto é, deve-se legitimar o direito de um sujeito referir-se a priori e universalmente aos estados de ânimo de outros sujeitos. O métron avaliador é o próprio modelo de dedução transcendental empregado na Crítica da Razão Pura, também porque o filósofo pretende deduzir a universal comunicabilidade dos juízos de gosto puros a partir da universal comunicabilidade do conhecimento em geral. Para tanto, tomaram-se as múltiplas tentativas de dedução espraiadas pelo texto inconcluso e mosaicamente redigido por Kant na terceira Crítica,todas insatisfatórias, afinal. Os resultados apontam uma redefinição do princípio kantiano do gosto puro, o sensus communis, em direção a um estatuto fraco e apenas regulativo, agora sim, não só compatível, como também atrelado, como uma roda dentada, ao modelo kantiano de dedução desse último tipo de princípio._________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT: It is an analysis or a logical-argumentative investigation of the Deduction of the Pure Aesthetic Judgements of Kant ́s Critique of Judgement, w ith the profound interest in evaluating the viability of a principle of aesthetic communicability according to the limits imposed by the proper Kantian theory of knowledge. Starti ng with the Kantian pre-critical propositions on aesthetics and staying in full detail at every moment of his mature aesthetics (Analytic of the Beautiful), the concept of sensus communis is erected as the a priori, universal principle of taste. This concept s hould be then provided of a transcendental deduction; that is, the right of a subject to refer universally (a priori) to the mental states of other subjects must be legitimated . The appraiser metron is the proper model of transcendental deduction employed in the Critique of Pure Reason, because the philosopher also intends to deduce the universal communicability of pure judgements of taste starting from the universal communicability of knowledge in general. In order to do this, we examine the multiple deduction at tempts spread in the unconcluded and mosaicly written text of Kant in the third Critique, finding them all unsatisfactory. The results point a redefinition of the Kantian principle of pure taste, sensus communis, towards a weak and just regulative statute, now not only compatible, as well as harnessed, like a jagged wheel, to the Kantian model of deduction of this latter sort of principle.

Arbetet redogör för konsekvensers inverkan på spelares agerande i moraliska dilemman i dataspel. Arbetet försöker även underlätta framtida debatt inom området genom att definiera begreppen svart-vita dilemman, grå dilemman, moraliska konsekvenser och praktiska konsekvenser. Tidigare statistik visar att ungefär 15 % av spelare agerar omoraliskt i spel som inte ger några incentiv till att göra så, arbetet testar hypotesen att andelen spelare som agerar omoraliskt ökar om spelet uppmuntrar omoraliskt beteende. Arbetet lät åtta testpersoner spela ett spel där de ställdes inför åtta svart-vita dilemman, undertiden samlades data in om deras agerande i spelet. Resultatet visade att testpersonerna agerade omoraliskt 17 % av gångerna, alltså ingen signifikant ökning från 15 %. Slutsatsen blev att ungefär 15 % av alla spelare agerar omoraliskt i moraliska dilemman och att den siffran är svår att förändra, även när omoraliskt beteende uppmuntras genom praktiska konsekvenser. Slutligen diskuteras svagheter med arbetet och potentiell framtida forskning, inklusive liknande arbeten med större fokus på skillnaderna mellan könens agerande i moraliska dilemman.

Understanding Kant’s account of desire is vital to the project of evaluating his views about moral psychology, as well as his account of freedom qua autonomy. In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant claims that “Desire (appetitio) is the self-determination of a subject's power through the representation of something in the future as an effect of this representation” (7:251). My goal is to clarify which of the subject’s specific capacities Kant means by the “subject's power,” and what role this capacity plays in desire. I argue that the subject's power cannot be her capacity to act. Rather, the subject's power is best understood as her capacity to generate the psychological states that cause action. I call these motivational states 'activation signals'. Desire consists in the self-determination of the subject’s capacity to generate activation signals by her representation of the object of desire together with an accompanying incentive.

Denna uppsats kommer att utforska de etiska begränsningar skämt har när det kommer tillreligiöst laddade skämt. För att besvara detta syfte kommer det krävas att en teoretisk inriktad metod används. Metoden kommer inte att vara riktad mot att beskriva religion, utan istället hur religion bör bemötas. Arbetet kommer därför att bearbeta moralfilosofiska texters arguments hållbarhet. Metoden är alltså kraftigt normativ och inte bara deskriptiv. Utifrån en nytolkning av Immanuel Kants de ontologiska etik visar resultatet att pliktetik kan vara en vägledande utgångspunkt för att bemöta andra trosuppfattningar på ett empatiskt och lyhört sätt som strävar efter samtycke. Samtidigt finns möjligheter till att tolka skämt på ett nyanserat sätt vilket tillåter ett stort spelrum för personer att använda kontroversiella former av humor, särskilt när skämten riktar sig mot orättvisor.

What we encounter in painting is not so much the authentically revealed self of the painter, but rather signs that insinuate that this absent self is somewhat present in it. /Isabelle Graw/ So, then what is a painting? Perhaps it is all about time, a certain amount of time in the constant murmuring stream of consciousness and the unconscious. A shape cut out of the amorphous. A recording of time spent in uncertainty, not knowing what is going to present itself. To bear the contradiction of in one hand allowing the permission of having an aim versus the absolute requirement of at some point let go of the model, the aim. And thus, submit to painting. In the glitch between distance and sensibility, an utterance, a pronouncement takes place. This text reflects a thinking process that revolves around painting as will and resistance, concepts regarding aesthetics, subjectivity and perception.

The philosophies of Kant and Hegel have experienced a renaissance for the past thirty years, and a debate continues as to whether Hegel's objections to Kant's moral philosophy are sound, and/or whether Hegel's ethics are an improvement on Kant's. This debate takes many forms, and most recently, theorists have been interested in measuring Hegel's objections against contemporary theories following in the Kantian tradition. 'Critics,' (theorists defending Hegel's moral point of view) suggests such reconstructed theories leave themselves open to identical criticisms Hegel wielded at Kant almost 200 years ago. 'Defenders,' (theorists supporting Kant's moral philosophy, or a revised version) reply in one of two ways. They either suggest that Hegel's criticisms of Kant are unwarranted, meaning Hegel misinterprets Kant's ideas and/or purposes; or, they maintain that Kant's ethics are vulnerable to Hegel's objections, however some newer version of Kant's ethics is not because it has been purged of those Kantian elements which Hegel attacks. Clearly, both views render Hegel's critique of Kant obsolete. So, why are we witnessing such an aggressive resurgence of Hegelian-styled arguments in the contemporary literature? In seeking to answer this question, this thesis reconsiders Hegel's actual critique of Kant. In this way, the thesis falls into a specific category of political philosophy. It is a study in the 'history of ideas.' Rather than considering the question of whether contemporary Critics or Defenders have the better argument concerning the merit of reconstructed Kantian theories, I intend to re-evaluate the soundness of Hegel's objections to Kantian ethics. Kant's moral and political thought on the proper ordering of society is deeply embedded in the pluralist democracies of the western world. As such, those Kantian ideas/elements should be defendable against Hegelian criticisms. Following an in-depth consideration of Hegel's critique of Kant, I argue that whereas Hegel accurately identifies weaknesses in the system of Kant's moral philosophy, his critique does not successfully achieve its goal. It does not show that Kant's ethical theory is an inadequate prescription for the rational agent seeking to act morally. Rather, it serves as a warning of the dangers inherent in democratic liberal theory.

States regularly use fear of terrorist threats to gain support for domestic political agendas and promote geostrategic interests. Consecutive U.S. presidents have cited the theory of the just war to defend these policies and particular violations of national sovereignty. Those doubtful of whether existing threats justify violations of privacy and territorial integrity also use fear -- of corruption, mission creep, and unintended consequences -- claiming that such interventions are a cure worse than the disease, yet one about which domestic audiences are easily misled. To combat abuse of moral arguments for the use of force, some in peace and conflict studies advocate military force be restricted to self-defense, per strict interpretation of the United Nations Charter (as in international legal positivism), or restricted completely (as in pacifism). Because the goal of reducing violent conflict is nearly universally acceptable, these varieties of noninterventionism are rarely scrutinized. In social psychological peace research (SPPR) on public opinion, however, positivism and prescriptive pacifism mask the diversity of opinion on whether and when intervention is necessary to curb aggression, prevent atrocity, and/or restore stability in failed states. This project critically examines SPPR's positivistic premises and the political implications of moral skepticism generally. In an intellectual history of the discipline, I contrast scientific emphasis on certainty in the formulation of threat and risk-avoidance with the humanities' appreciation of the ethical implications of uncertainty, also at the heart of just war theory. Taking Albert Bandura's social cognitive theory (SCT) of moral dis/engagement as a case study, I argue that SPPR skepticism of individual citizens' moral judgment implicitly endorses elite or consensus-driven models of social and political change. The determinism, consequentialism, and institutional gradualism of SPPR approaches, I argue, contradict stated progressive aims and the egalitarian individualism behind liberal conceptions of the rule of law and international human rights regime. Using just war's ethical framework and a non-consequentialist Kantian theory of moral judgment, I construct a reasoning model and coding manual for use in public opinion research on international conflict. These instruments operationalize moral dis/engagement in a manner consistent with political liberalism and humanitarian law, including the Responsibility to Protect.