“Our society is quickly reaching a point where notions of right and wrong have become so binary as to virtually eliminate all areas of grey. One result of increased regulatory and enforcement pressure is the suppression flexibility and creativity.” Kenneth S. Phillips Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) HedgeMark International, LLC An Affiliate of BNY Mellon

The problem undertaken is a study of the political philosophy of Fyodor Dostoevsky to determine to what extent Dostoevsky was a political thinker.

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the political philosophy of Arnold Brecht in order to determine the positive contributions which his thought offers to a practical science of politics and to a more rational view of the relationship between fact and value. As a political scientist, he has embodied a unique capacity for doing and teaching and for making the past meaningful for the present.

Thesis advisor: Susan M. Shell / One does not typically join the name of Thomas Hobbes with God or theology. Yet, much of what Hobbes says within his magnum opus, Leviathan, contains many thoughts and ideas on theology, especially God. By employing close textual analysis of Leviathan, I seek to uncover what Hobbes intends regarding his thoughts on God, and what role God plays, if any, in Hobbes’s political commonwealth. Understanding Hobbes’s thoughts on God contributes to a greater comprehension of what Hobbes intends with his political philosophy as well as his political theology. This thesis contributes to the growing literature of Hobbes’s thoughts on religion and political theology. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Trata-se de um estudo sobre a filosofia política de Aristóteles, sobretudo no que toca à divisão dos regimes políticos. Como se sabe, segundo Aristóteles seis são os regimes políticos, três justos (realeza, aristocracia e república) e três corruptos (tirania, oligarquia e democracia). O autor se propõe a demonstrar que a distinção entre essas seis formas de constituição, no pensamento político aristotélico, não é primeiramente pelo número dos que exercem o mando ou pela finalidade com que governam, mas resulta da aplicação de certos princípios à distribuição do poder pelas diversas partes da comunidade política. Assim, a distribuição do poder segundo o estado de liberdade constituiria a democracia; a distribuição segundo o critério da riqueza, a oligarquia; a distribuição segundo o critério da virtude, a aristocracia e a realeza; a exacerbação dos princípios da democracia e da oligarquia culminaria na tirania; e a república ou governo constitucional seria constituída pela combinação harmônica de instituições democráticas, oligárquicas e aristocráticas, resultando no regime mais apropriado à maioria das comunidades políticas. / The subject is a study of the political philosophy of Aristotle, particularly regarding the types of political regimes. According to Aristotle there are six political regimes three righteous (Kingship, Aristocracy and Republic) and three corrupt (Tyranny, Oligarchy and Democracy). The author intends to demonstrate that the distinction between these six forms of constitution in the Aristotelian political thinking is not defined primarily by the number of those who exer command or by the purpose to which they govern. It is, however, the result of how power is distributed by the political community. Thus, the distribution of power according to the state of liberty would constitute the democracy; the distribution according to the criteria of wealth, oligarchy; the distribution according to the criteria of virtue, aristocracy and kingship. The excess of the principles of democracy and the oligarchy would culminate in tyranny. The republic, or constitutional government, would be constituted by the harmonious combination of the democratic, oligarchic and aristocratic institutions, resulting in the most appropriate regime for most political communities.

This thesis analyzes and evaluates the scheme for civil education discussed in Thomas Hobbes’ political works. Hobbes argues in The Elements of Law, De Cive, and Leviathan that the preservation of political order requires that all subjects learn the rationally grounded principles of political theory. Some contemporary scholarship on this aspect of Hobbes’ political philosophy has confined its understanding of “Hobbesian education” to this: the sovereign’s system of true civil doctrines and the means for their dissemination. I argue that for the system of Hobbesian civil doctrines to function as it is intended, a public must also receive instruction in formal argumentation, a skill Hobbes calls “acquired wit” (L viii.13). I will show that the subjects’ cultivation of their individual reasoning abilities is required so the subjects are able to (1) understand the philosophical foundations of the sovereign’s power, (2) sufficiently resist the allure of obfuscating eloquence and other falsehoods, and (3) conduct themselves in accordance with Hobbes’ natural laws. Civil peace in a Hobbesian system requires that the public be able to tell the difference between sound and unsound inferences. If Hobbes did intend for the sovereign to instruct the public in “acquired wit,” contemporary scholars who have offered sympathetic appraisals of Hobbesian education are further vindicated.

Unethical behavior is prominent in the business world and typically leads to negative consequences for people and the environment. Business ethics education acknowledges that ethics teaching has a positive effect on business decisions; however, the problem was the lack of information that is specific to the factors and strategies required to best educate students in business ethics. This lack of information is demonstrated by continued ethical lapses. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to research what is known and unknown on the subject of teaching business ethics through a design intended to understand the lived experiences of ethics instructors. The ethical framework for this study was based on the virtue and justice approaches as a technique for analyzing ethical aspects of a decision, with the goal of improving ethical outcomes. Data collection was completed via interview questions regarding a successful strategy of teaching business ethics. To accomplish this goal, 15 business ethics instructors were interviewed individually to record their lived experiences relating to teaching ethics. Information relating to ethics course design, along with missing components, was the topic of questions. Data analysis using open and axial coding generated 7 major theme clusters that include highlighting character and virtue ethics, increasing concern for stakeholders, and employing the teachings of Socrates and other classic scholars as a basis. The implications for positive social change point to an opportunity for business schools to produce socially conscious leaders who engage in ethical conduct.

This paper explores the nonidentity problem, an influential puzzle in modern ethics which addresses the nature of our moral responsibilities towards future generations. I begin by laying out the two conflicting intuitions comprising the problem and providing several examples to illustrate how we conceive of the moral status of future people. I then examine two versions of consequentialism, averagism and totalism, which circumvent the nonidentity problem. However, these two solutions each pose their own respective problems; thus, I argue that a modification of totalism – the critical level view – is the most viable consequentialist answer to the nonidentity problem.

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This dissertation examines the political thought of Cicero in order to shed light on the question of the extent to which politics is or can be made rational. Much of modern political science and policy-making treats citizens as calculating pursuers of interests and preferences, if not as consistently rational. But this view has been powerfully challenged by evidence that human beings are far less adept at the determination and pursuit of our preferences than we believe ourselves to be. As a result, political scientists and policy-makers alike have begun to grapple with the question of how regimes committed to self-government ought to address the limits of our rational capacity, not only in the crafting of particular policies, but also in the rethinking of foundational and constitutional principles and institutions. By considering Cicero’s presentation of virtue and republican politics together with his analysis of the popular philosophical schools that were widely influential in his day, I show that Cicero recognizes and reflects on the pervasive irrationality in human decision-making. Like our modern critics of the irrationality of republicanism, the popular philosophical schools of Cicero’s day both deprecated politics for its inherent unreasonableness and sought to make the world as they experienced it conform to strict rules of reason. Through a reading of Cicero’s evaluation and critique of the schools in De Finibus, De Natura Deorum, and De Officiis, this dissertation aims to shed light not only on his account of the limits of reason in the political arena and the danger of attempting to overcome them, but also on his insistence that the irrational parts of human nature are the source of much that is beneficial in republican politics. Only by understanding this aspect of Cicero’s thought can we understand his reflections on the virtues of republicanism. / text