Political Science - Student Works
Permanent link for this collection
Browse
Browsing Political Science - Student Works by Author "Murphy, Gaelan"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Applied political philosophy: combatting the dangers of transhumanism by placing human dignity in the battle over bioethics and human enhancement in America(2018) Mailloux, Cole; Murphy, GaelanThe desire for human enhancement dates back to the initial conception of human civilization. For thousands of years we have continuously attempted to enhance physical and mental capabilities through various means, sometimes with inconclusive, comic, or even tragic results. The industrial and technological revolutions alleviated many of our social and individual health requirements, but also intensified our desire for enhancement. However, up until this point in human history, most biomedical advances, whether successful or not, merely attempted to restore things that were perceived to be deficient, such as vision, hearing, or mobility. Inventions that have attempted to improve on nature, such as anabolic steroids or Ritalin, have been relatively modest, incremental, or detrimental to overall long-term human health. Regardless, recent scientific and technological developments in areas such as biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology, humanity appears to be on the cusp of an enhancement revolution (Masci, 2016, para 3). If, or more likely when it comes, this societal transformation will be prompted by continuous efforts to aid people with disabilities and heal those who are diseased. While biomedicine is constantly making rapid progress in new restorative and therapeutic technologies, these could in turn have immense implications for human enhancement.Item Behaviourism and governance: a world bereft of freedom and politics(2017) Ziegler, Micheal; Murphy, GaelanToday’s world is a world of bureaucratic governance and not of politics. In this context, the purpose of a government is not to engage in politics, but rather to engage in control and order, and to create a world in which people follow and appear to be free. This paper explores the notion that a dominantly bureaucratic state is not one in which the people are free. Through a hermeneutic analysis of certain texts that discuss how such a form of governance comes from and why it does not allow for freedom. Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue. Rorty’s text focuses on the benefits of behaviourism as a means of knowing the way in which people are and MacIntyre’s work focuses on the shortcomings of behaviourism and the social predictive sciences, and how they effect bureaucracy and government. With a hermeneutic analysis on these texts I have developed a proper and substantive defence of behaviourism and its relation to bureaucratic governance. Once the argument has been properly established, the fallacies within it can be examined and the fundamental argument that people can be controlled as animals, removing their freedom and eliminating politics, can be properly critiqued and dismissed.