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Browsing by Author "Archie, Andre, committee member"

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    David Hume's theory of justice: an examination of the possibility of an instinctual concept of property and natural virtue of justice
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Maimone, Charles L., author; Rollin, Bernard, advisor; Archie, Andre, committee member; Hickey, Matthew, committee member
    In this work I argue that David Hume's classification of the virtue of justice as artificial is mistaken, and propose that the possibility of the existence of a natural virtue of justice should be taken seriously within Hume's moral framework. In the first chapter of this work, I present Hume's moral theory, with a focus on Hume's distinction between natural and artificial virtues. In the second chapter, I argue that Hume's certainty concerning the classification of justice as an artificial virtue is mistaken, and offer a positive account of the possibility of a natural origin, and ultimately a natural virtue of justice. In the third chapter I will entertain possible objections Hume might offer to my argumentation, and offer responses accordingly.
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    How to prioritize as a citizen of the universe
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Colter, Jackson T., author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; Archie, Andre, committee member; Heineman, Kristin, committee member
    Stoicism has gained a bit of popularity in certain circles recently, and much of this popularity revolves around the way that Stoicism enables and guides moral progress on an individual level, regardless of the circumstances. However, Stoic ethics also features an element of cosmopolitanism - essentially, other-oriented ethical principles that an ideal Stoic would follow. These principles tell us that we are all members of a common rational community, with every agent in the rationally organized universe being a member of this community. Naturally, the human lifespan is not long enough to equally address every rational being in the universe, so some sort of prioritization is required. However, Stoics place two requirements on our actions. We must ground our actions in knowledge, and both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus directly advise us to avoid unnecessary actions. These requirements combined with the other-oriented moral principles lead Stoics to a state of moral paralysis - where the actions that seem to be morally required of them are epistemically unjustified. This paralysis needs to be solved if Stoicism is to serve as a meaningful system of other-oriented ethics. Fortunately, an account of expertise is given in a piece of secondary literature by Simon Shogry which, combined with later Stoic insights, serves to alleviate this paralysis.
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    Legalism reconsidered: Weberian problems and Confucian solutions in the Han Feizi
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Smith, Jackson T., author; Harris, Eirik Lang, advisor; Archie, Andre, committee member; Blanchard, Nathaniel, committee member
    After a thorough analysis of the political-philosophical climate of Warring States era China, I argue that Han Feizian Legalism is ultimately untenable on account of its necessarily sprawling bureaucratic apparatus which precludes adaptability and rapid response in the face of both internal and external crises. I show further that while Han Fei's criticisms of Confucianism are serious problems for the Confucian theorist, they are not vicious to generally cultivationist political theory. I go on to offer, through a synthesis of Confucian and Legalist doctrines, a solution which manages to patch the holes in both accounts and ultimately forge a broadly neo-classical approach to political organization, Legalism+, which relies on an epistemic naturalism à la Plato as the synthetic ground for Confucian and Legalist theory.
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    "The Japanese" in Colorado's racial discourse: fear, anxiety, and spectacle in the reporting of the Denver Post during the interwar years (1919-1941)
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Tenn, Christopher, author; Henry, Todd, advisor; Jones, Elizabeth, committee member; Archie, Andre, committee member
    This thesis is comprised of two principle sections. The first two chapters examine the experiences of Japanese immigrants residing in Colorado during the sixty years prior to the onset of World War II. These chapters describe the characteristics of Colorado's Japanese communities, the circumstances which drew them to Colorado, and the demographic changes the community underwent in the decades preceding the Second World War. The way in which the racial background of these individuals shaped their experiences in Colorado is of central importance to this work. Chapters 1 and 2 analyze the ways in which race intersected with transnational politics, local economic contingencies, and cultural attitudes to influence the responses of Colorado's Euro-Americans to their Japanese neighbors, profoundly shaping the experiences of Japanese immigrants in Colorado. The latter half of this work analyzes racial discourses circulating in the Denver Post during the interwar years. During the two decades leading up to the Second World War, the Denver Post was the predominant regional newspaper and regularly featured articles on Japanese Americans, Japanese nationals, Japan, and Japanese culture and society. I argue that the sentiments expressed within the paper were representative of a popular racial discourse that was ultimately essentializing and dehumanizing. The language employed within this discourse lumped together a complex and diverse group of people into the racial category of "Japanese," attributing to that category a series of essential and universal characteristics. In my critique of this language, I reveal that this discourse was often multi-faceted and expressed sentiments that varied from fear and anxiety, to awe and fascination. The result was the production of numerous and varied stereotypes which served as representations of the "Japanese" to readers of Colorado newspapers. Regardless of what characteristics it projected upon the "Japanese," however, this discourse continued to homogenize all individuals of Japanese ethnicity into a singular racial entity, problematically reinforcing the legitimacy of race as a valid means of social categorization in the process. I am critical of such a category and, in this work, seek to demonstrate how the process of constructing a "Japanese" racial identity during the interwar years was in fact a process of othering that contributed to the ease with which negative, vilifying stereotypes were later projected upon Japanese Americans during the Second World War.