Browsing by Author "Murphy, Gaelan"
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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.Item The civic republican response to "Liberalism and Its Critics"(2019) Mascarenhas, D. M.; Barkalow, J. B.; Trosky, A.; Murphy, Gaelan; Westler, B.Political theory instructors are often familiar with the syllabus themed "Liberalism and its Critics." Liberalism, however, is often narrowly and teleologically defined as the progressive expansion of human freedom. Further, counter or alternative narratives leave students as mere critics without constructive insight into the balance of individualism and cosmopolitanism. With these problematic approaches in mind, this article offers a civic republican viewpoint to supplement the limited approaches in "Liberalism and its Critics." The course proposed by the authors reframes common methodology to include civic republicanism as a parallel and sympathetic intellectual development to liberalism, at times intertwined, and at others anticipating and supplementing its deficiencies. This article first shows the deficiencies of the inadequate narrative/counter-narrative approach and highlights why civic republicanism presents a novel approach to teaching theory. The authors then provide a possible course description with specific learning outcomes, a recommended course structure with suggested readings, and some concluding considerations on implementing such a course.Item The promise of Socratic irony: a medium for understanding (noesis) in Platonic dialogues(2024) Hollas, Eva; Murphy, GaelanThis exegesis on Platonic dialogues is inspired by Jacob Klein’s (1965) discussion on Socrates' irony. Specifically, Klein's statement that “[Socrates] is not ironical to satisfy himself. Everything about Socrates’ irony depends on the presence of other people who are capable of catching the irony, of hearing what is not said.” By noticing instances of Socratic irony in the texts, Klein’s remark seems to suggest that the reader can “hear what is not said” i.e. the reader (us), can unlock a form of understanding that is not explicitly mentioned in the text. The task of this exegesis, therefore, is dedicated to the so-called “noticing” of irony in Platonic dialogues. Guided by a desire to make Plato’s innovative use of Socratic irony intelligible, the structure of this exegesis will explore the form (dialogue and irony), content (dialectics and meaning), and context (space and time) of Platonic dialogues in their varying levels of interaction - i.e. the interaction between the interlocuters in the dialogues, the interaction between the dialogues themselves, and the interaction between the dialogues and us (the readers).Item Two visions of a paper(2023) Belanger, Simon; Murphy, GaelanTwo Visions of a Paper guides students on how to write correctly for academic purposes based on principles and ideas from Plato's Gorgias and Meno. The paper contrasts the dialectical with the rhetorical methods of speech that appear throughout Plato's works and relates these methods to the paper writing process to illustrate which mode the student should pursue. The paper plays with ideas such as Socratic irony, when persuasive verbiage is essential, the movement between part and the whole and other ideas from Plato.