This dissertation is a study of Plutarch's portrayal of military leadership in his Parallel Lives. I investigate Plutarch's use of extended military narrative to provide examples of good generalship for his readers, his conception of the importance and dangers of a military education, his attitude toward the moral use of deception in warfare, and the importance of synkrisis to the reader's final assessment of a general's military ability. I conclude with a case study of the Pyrrhus-Marius, in which I examine how Plutarch uses military narrative throughout the pair to compare the generalship of the two men. I demonstrate that Plutarch's conception of generalship in the Parallel Lives is nuanced, consistent, and often significant to the interpretation of a pair. Plutarch constructs his military narratives in such a way as to identify specific acts of generalship through which the military leaders among his readership could evaluate and improve their own generalship. Plutarch's treatment of the morality of generalship is consistent with his views on education and character; while he accepts the necessity and appreciates the effectiveness of military deception, he also recognizes its limitations and holds up for criticism those generals who do not use it appropriately. I also examine the importance of the formal synkrisis at the end of each pair of Lives to the structural integrity of the Plutarchan book and the evaluation of military leadership in each pair. These concluding synkriseis demonstrate that Plutarch had a consistent set of criteria for evaluating the generalship of his subjects, and encourage the reader to make similar judgments on military ability themselves. This process of evaluation and comparison of military leadership is particularly important to my reading of the Pyrrhus-Marius, as comparing the military careers of its subjects allows for a more complete reading of the pair than is otherwise possible.

Through a tour of the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica, and its territories destined for the sex trade by men for men, we have arrived at the National Park, where this research is produced based on a study of the formation of masculinity between sex workers who go that place. In that sense, we inspired ourselves from the theoretical contributions that come from several aspects of post-structuralism besides theories of gender and "queer" theory of performativity in discourses on the formation of subjectivities, among others. In terms of methodology, we try to approach the contributions of the ethnographic method, operating with interviews with young sex workers themselves, among other places, participant observation, reading news published in newspapers, questioning of speeches and performances on sex tourism in the country, among others. When we investigate a matter that involves the formation of masculinity and sex work, possibly, it is the metaphor of who walk through mined areas, routes through tension, where circulate discourses of hegemonic sexual culture that is fundamentally "heteronormative" and is based on the values of Catholic Christianity and intersect with testimonies of struggle, solidarity, violence, decisions, projects of future life once ends sex work and other experiences that relate to the biographies of the boys who prostitute themselves in the National Park of San José, Costa Rica. / A través de un recorrido por las calles de San José, Costa Rica, y sus territorios destinados para el comercio sexual de hombres para hombres, hemos llegado al Parque Nacional, en donde se produce esta pesquisa basada en un estudio de la formación de masculinidades entre trabajadores del sexo que acuden al lugar. En ese sentido, nos inspiramos a partir de los aportes teóricos que provienen de diversas vertientes del posestructuralismo, además, de las teorías de género y la teoría queer sobre la performatividad en la formación de discursos sobre subjetividades, entre otros. En términos metodológicos, procuramos aproximarnos a los aportes del método etnográfico, operando con entrevistas a profundidad con los propios jóvenes trabajadores del sexo, entre otras poblaciones, observación participante, lectura de noticias publicadas en periódicos, problematización de discursos y representaciones sobre el turismo sexual en el país, entre otros. Cuando investigamos una cuestión que envuelve la formación de masculinidades y el trabajo sexual, posiblemente, sea la metáfora de aquel que anda a través de territorios minados, atraviesa rutas de tensión, en donde circulan discursos de la cultura sexual hegemónica que es fundamentalmente heteronormativa, se basa en los valores del cristianismo católico y se cruzan con testimonios de luchas, solidaridades, violencia, decisiones, los proyectos de vida futuro una vez que acabe el trabajo sexual y otras experiencias que se relacionan con las biografías de los muchachos que se prostituyen en el Parque Nacional de San José, Costa Rica.

This work examines how values seem to be contingent on various factors which affect their growth and development. This study is based around the ethical writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, On the Genealogy of Morals serves as the foundation for my thesis. This book contains three essays which purport to show how moral values originated as a result of certain human phenomena rather than, as many people take for granted, from moral “truths.” This contribution to ethics is important because it leaves many questions regarding the value of morality untouched. In the Genealogy, there are numerous themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy which are important to note such as anti-realism and naturalism. However, one of the difficulties of reading Nietzsche is that his writing has been misinterpreted, and it can be difficult to reach a consensus on how to properly understand his meanings. In the paper, I argue that to properly interpret Nietzsche one must recognize that his Genealogy serves two purposes: 1) to shake our faith in morality as “given” or “factual;” and 2) to provide us reasons that moral values might have detrimental effects on human flourishing. To fully appreciate these aspects of the Genealogy, I argue that the historical form of the text is a crucial component which cannot be ignored. Ultimately, if Nietzsche is successful in demonstrating these factors, then it will be shown that morality is contingent upon a plethora of historical factors.

abstract: ABSTRACT Although the US government has been using remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), more commonly referred to as drones, to conduct military strikes against terrorists and insurgents since at least 2001, only around 2011 did media outlets and polling organizations began assessing the attitudes of Americans towards the use of drones as a weapon of war. Initially, public support for drone strikes was robust with nearly 70 percent of Americans expressing approval. As the discussion of drone strikes intensified however, public support declined over 10 percentage points. Only a handful of studies have examined public opinion and drone strikes, and all have focused exclusively on explaining support. This study seeks to fill this gap in the literature and explain opposition to drone strikes. The primary argument put forth in this dissertation is that people’s beliefs determine their opinions, and their morality determines their beliefs. Although independent opinion formation is often considered a cognitive process, I argue that, at least in the case of drone strikes, the opinion formation process is largely an affective one. By examining media coverage and elite discourse surrounding drone strikes, I isolate three narratives which I believe communicate certain messages to the public regarding drone strikes. I argue that the messages produced by elite discourse and disseminated by the media to the public are only influential on opinion formation once they have been converted to beliefs. I further argue that conversion of message to belief is largely dependent on individual moral attitudes. To test my arguments, I conduct a survey-experiment using subjects recruited from Arizona State University’s School of Politics and Global Studies student subject pool. My research findings lead to two key conclusions. First, opposition to drone strikes is largely the product of the belief(s) that drone strikes are not necessary for protecting the United States from terrorist attack, and that drone strikes kill more civilians than do strikes from conventional aircraft. Second, whether an individual expresses support or opposition to drone strikes, moral attitudes are a relatively good predictor of both beliefs and disposition. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Political Science 2019

This content analysis examined the portrayal of refugees in the United States by comparing four online news outlets—two conservative outlets: Fox News and Breitbart; and two liberal outlets: CNN and The New Yorker. Fox News and CNN are the most popular outlets among conservatives and liberals, respectively, while Breitbart and The New Yorker are the most polar. The study explored whether the frames used by online U.S. news outlets differ based on the ideological leaning of the outlet, specifically in regards to stories about refugees. Media outlets can influence the public opinion by controlling what they publish and how often they publish it. They can also present information in ways that can alter the way the consumer processes it. For this content analysis, the search term "refugee crisis" was used to collect articles from each outlet's online page. Two online news articles from each of the four news outlets were randomly selected from each month of the year 2016. The frames used to report on refugees were identified and compared between all outlets. The five frames coded for were the responsibility frame, conflict frame, human-interest frame, morality frame, and the economic frame. The difference in the use of the five frames by the four news outlets was analyzed. Breitbart, the most conservative outlet of the four, used the human-interest frame significantly less than CNN and The New Yorker. Breitbart scored the lowest on the human-interest frame while The New Yorker scored the highest. CNN scored higher than Fox News and lower than The New Yorker; however, no significance was established. Comparing the score of the human-interest frame items between groups showed that Breitbart used less personal vignettes and adjectives that generate feelings of empathy-caring, sympathy or compassion than CNN and The New Yorker. On the other hand, The New Yorker used significantly more visuals that generated feelings of empathy-caring, sympathy, or compassion than Fox News and Breitbart. No significant differences between any of the outlets were found in their use of the responsibility, economic, conflict, and morality frames. However, when the mean scores of the 20 items were individually compared between outlets, significant differences were found. Breitbart and The New Yorker scored significantly lower on (morality) item-2 than both CNN and Fox News. This suggests that the coverage of the refugee crisis by highly polarized news outlets on both sides are less likely to reference morality, God, or other religious tenets when compared with more central news outlets.

Although empathy has been implicated in both academia and pop culture as nearly analogous to morality, some philosophers and psychologists have taken issue with this assessment. It has been argued that from an ethical perspective, empathy is biasing, myopic, and perhaps more trouble than it is worth. In this paper, I first address whether empathy is a necessary baseline trait for having some degree of ethical motivation. Based on the differing moral experiences of sociopaths and autistic individuals, as well as empathy’s unique ability to motivationally bridge the gap between self and other, I conclude that empathy is a required trait for the moral agent. Assuming empathy is present in the moral experience, I then delineate the negative and positive effects empathy has on the ethical outcome of actions. Empathy does appear to cause prejudiced biasing and derogation of self-respect, but it also acts as a powerful motivator for other-oriented action and provides ethically valuable information about mind-states. Ultimately, I conclude that empathy cannot be a standalone ethical trait, but when filtered through reason, it can be invaluably useful.

This paper studies the history of just war theory and critiques it from various feminist perspectives. Using a definition of war as inseparable from the system within which it is embedded, the paper contends that just war theory has been incorporated into the realist paradigm that predominates current political thought, making it susceptible to manipulation. Most importantly, this usurpation has shifted just war theory's focus from jus ad bellum to jus in bello considerations, seriously weakening its deterrent effects on war. The paper proposes its replacement with a just peace theory, discussing several existing frameworks and explaining the important part women are playing to achieve its principles. It concludes that although just war principles might still be helpful as a framework for limiting the worst excesses of war, current applications do not adequately meet the presumption against war and for peaceful settlement of disputes that the theory's originators envisioned. Just peace theory is an active theory that promotes practices leading to the reduction of violence in all arenas and at all levels, from fights in the schoolyard to ethnic conflicts and beyond, offering concrete examples that can strengthen the last resort criteria of just war theory.

Why be moral? One possible, and compelling answer is that to act morally is in an agent's self-interest. Such an answer can be either elevationist (broadly speaking the Aristotelian/Platonic approach) where self-interest is elevated to coincide with living the good life, or reductionist where morality is defined as acting in an agent's self-interest. Elevationist moral theories appear flawed. If you are in possession of information that, if divulged, will bring about the deaths of others then it may be virtuous to stay silent. However, if staying silent results in you being slowly tortured to death in an effort to extract the information then it seems bizarre to suggest that in doing so you are flourishing, happy, or acting out of self-interest. Reductionist moral theories, acting for the 'good of self' rather than the 'good of others', are widely considered to be the antithesis of morality. Moral philosophers tend to attack such positions claiming that the doctrine of egoism is unworkable. It is commonly claimed that any theory which recommends 'an agent do x if x is in the agent's best interest' is inconsistent, incoherent, or contradictory and fails to meet the basic requirements of a moral theory (notably the requirement of universalisability). I begin this thesis with an examination of ethical egoism in its most widely known consequentialist form; i.e. an agent ought to act so as to bring about the best consequences for that agent. I examine the major criticisms of this theory and demonstrate that the axioms of egoism can be developed so as to overcome these criticisms. I argue that consequentialist based ethical egoism is coherent, consistent and noncontradictory. However, I go on to argue that while egoism can be formulated in a manner that overcomes all the aforementioned analytic criticisms it is a flawed moral theory in that within certain contexts the action deemed morally correct by egoism is, as a matter of fact, morally pernicious. That a theory contains a flaw is not reason enough to discard the entire theory and I go on to contend that the problem with egoism is the consequentialist approach, not the fact that it is based on self-interest. In Part 2 of the thesis I abandon the consequentialist approach and examine the possibility of a flourishing-based form of ethical egoism. I further develop the axioms of egoism established in Part 1 through an examination of the concept of flourishing (as commonly associated with virtue ethics). Ultimately I tread a path between the consequentialist and elevationist positions. While I do not elevate self-interest to acting virtuously I do contend that an egoist must adopt certain virtues if that egoist is to have the best possibility to flourish. However, I further contend that an egoist ought to act so as to promote that which the egoist values and that this agent-relative hierarchy of values, which necessarily contains certain virtues, determines the manner in which an egoist ought to act.

<p>The attention of this paper would be to assess critically the consequences of any conscious effort to separate morality from politics giving that morality constitutes an essential and integral part of any political culture. With this understanding it becomes controversial and worrisome for any one to suggest that morality can be divorced from politics and still make a success out of the entire business of governance. The concept of Machiavellianism presents a very big challenge to this possibility in politics. I would attempt to show the dangers inherent in such a calculated effort using the Nigerian political experience as a case study</p>

<p>The idea of common morality is not a new idea. Philosophers have been engaged with it from the very early days. Many modern philosophers intend to perceive it when they compare or contrast it with the implications of ethical theories for genuine understanding of moral facts. They believe that without having any reference to what common people think, believe and practice, it is preposterous to construct a complete set of abstract norms and postulate them as relevant to practical life. In this work, proceeding with a motive of understanding the characteristic strength of common morality and to see how meaningfully we can designate the relevance of common moral beliefs in our applied ethical discussion, I am basically exploring two different accounts common morality view. The first one is the universalistic account which emerges from the works or Bernard Gert and Tom Beauchamp (including their colleagues), and the other one, I believe, sets its journey from the wombs of the critics of the first one. In this work, in order to properly designate the relevance of common morality, I am intending to develop the second account.</p>