Browsing by Author "Gorin, Moti, committee member"
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Item Open Access A rationally-rooted responsibility toward nonhuman animals(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Webber, Matthew J., author; Rollin, Bernard, advisor; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Edwards-Callaway, Lily, committee memberHow should humans treat nonhuman animals? One answer to this question arises from the belief that humans are superior to nonhuman animals, thereby giving humans a right to treat nonhuman animals however humans desire. In this paper, I argue that, while perhaps not superior in all categories, humans can be understood as rationally superior to nonhuman animals. To do this, I rely on Immanuel Kant's definition of practical rationality as the ability for an individual to set for oneself one's own ends or telos. Granting this type of rational superiority to humans, I argue that being rationally superior does not entail that humans have a right to treat nonhuman animals however humans desire, but that humans are limited by certain natural teleological factors. These teleological factors may be general to all animal life—both human and nonhuman as characterized in the Kantian notion of tierheit—or specific to each species and embodied by individuals of a species. Nonhuman animals deserve to be treated accordingly, and treating a nonhuman animal in a manner contrary to the embodied telos not only violates their telos, but is itself unreasonable, irrational, and immoral. I conclude by demonstrating what responsible treatment of nonhuman animals would look like when rooted in human rationality, as well as the motivation behind such morally responsible actions.Item Open Access Attitudes and beliefs about older adult suicide and about older adults who died by suicide, and the role of ageism(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Kulish, Bailee, author; Canetto, Silvia Sara, advisor; Prince, Mark, committee member; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Tompkins, Sara Anne, committee memberBackground: In most countries, individuals age 65 years or older have the highest suicide rates (World Health Organization, 2018). However, suicide is not uniformly common among all older adults (Canetto, 1992, 2017). For example, in the United States (U.S.), European-descent men age 65 years or older have high suicide rates while African-descent women age 65 years or older have low suicide rates (Canetto, 2021). These patterns suggest cultural influences on older adults' suicide. Studies indicate that cultural factors like suicide attitudes and beliefs predict suicide. For example, a U.S. longitudinal study found that suicide acceptability predicted subsequent suicide in the general population–in some cases, by a twofold increase (Phillips & Luth, 2020). Most studies of attitudes and beliefs about older adults' suicide have been conducted in Anglophone-countries. This study explored attitudes and beliefs about older adults' decision to suicide and about older adults who died by suicide in a non-Anglophone country, Israel. Specifically, this study examined Israeli attitudes and beliefs about older adult suicide/female and male suicide, attitudes and beliefs about older adults who died by suicide/females and males who died by suicide, and the role of ageism in these attitudes and beliefs. Methods: Attitudes and beliefs about older adult suicide (as compared to younger adult suicide) as well as female and male suicide, and attitudes and beliefs about older adults who died by suicide (as compared to younger adults who died by suicide) as well as females and males who died by suicide, depending on one of five precipitants (1. A Chronic Nonfatal Debilitating Physical Illness; 2. A Terminal Debilitating Physical Illness; 3. An Achievement Failure; 4. Widowhood; 5. Economic Hardship) were measured. A modified version of the Suicide Attitude Vignette Experience (Stillion et al., 1984) form A was used as the stimulus material. Participants were asked to evaluate the suicide using Deluty's (1988-1989a, 1988-1989b) 7-point scales of suicide acceptability, permissibility, and agreement, as well as Stillion et al.'s (1989) 5-point scale of sympathy for the suicide, expanded to seven points to match Deluty's scales. To assess attitudes and beliefs about the person who died by suicide, participants responded to a 7-point scale about how emotionally adjusted they thought the person who died by suicide was (Lewis & Shepeard, 1992, as modified by Dahlen & Canetto, 1996). In addition, respondents expressed their view about the seriousness of the suicidal intent of the person who died by suicide via a 7-point scale (Dahlen & Canetto, 1996). Lower scores on these 7-point scales indicated less acceptability, permissibility, agreement, emotional adjustment, and seriousness. Ageism was measured using the 6-point scale, Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) (Fraboni et al., 1990), as revised by Bodner & Lazar (2008). Ageism was the average of the 21 FSA items scores, as done in a study by Gamliel and Levi-Belz (2016). Low scores on this 21-item measure indicated less ageism. The sample was 1,107 individuals: 551 older adults ages 61 to 91 (Mage = 72.06, SD = 6.77) (276 females and 275 males) and 556 younger adults ages 21 to 37 (Mage = 25.82, SD = 3.94) (285 females and 271 males). The older adult participants were recruited from community day centers and the younger adults from university campuses and workplaces. Results: The decision to suicide, across sex and age of the person who died by suicide and across suicide precipitants, was rated as follows: acceptability (M = 5.656, SD = 1.779), permissibility (M = 5.466, SD = 1.912), agreement (M = 5.826, SD = 1.661), sympathy (M = 5.337, SD = 2.104). The person who died by suicide, across sex and age of the person who died by suicide and across suicide precipitants, was rated as follows: emotionally adjusted (M = 5.535, SD = 1.712), seriousness of suicide intent (M = 2.681, SD = 2.035). Older adult suicide was rated as relatively less acceptable, less permissible, less agreeable, and as eliciting less sympathy than younger adult suicide. Younger adult suicide following achievement failure was considered most permissible and acceptable and received the most agreement and sympathy across precipitant conditions. Younger adults whose suicide followed an achievement failure were rated as more serious in suicide intent than older adults whose suicide followed a terminal debilitating physical illness. However, older adults whose suicide followed a terminal debilitating physical illness were rated as more serious in suicide intent than younger adults whose suicide followed a terminal debilitating physical illness. Male suicide was considered more permissible than female suicide. Female and male suicide was evaluated similarly in terms of acceptability and sympathy. No difference was found between the perceived emotional adjustment of females and males who died by suicide, although males who died by suicide were believed to be less serious in their suicide intent than females who died by suicide. No differences were found in suicide acceptability and permissibility, agreement with, or sympathy for older adult suicide across respondents' characteristics such as their sex or age. The average ageism score, independent of respondent characteristics (i.e., their sex and age) was M = 2.966, (SD = 0.683). Younger adults (M = 2.891, SD = 0.716) held less ageist beliefs than older adults (M = 3.044, SD = 0.629). Ageism did not predict acceptability, permissibility, agreement, or sympathy with the older adults' decision to suicide, nor the perceived emotional adjustment or the perceived seriousness of suicide intent of the older adult who died by suicide. Discussion: This study's findings on attitudes and beliefs about older adult suicide, and about older adult suicide precipitated by a terminal debilitating physical illness, did not align with the findings of similar U.S. studies. A main finding of this study was that older adult suicide was rated as less acceptable, less permissible, and less agreeable than younger adult suicide. Older adult suicide following a terminal illness received the lowest amount of sympathy when compared to other conditions involving both older and younger adults, except for younger adult suicide following a terminal debilitating illness. Further, older adults whose suicide occurred after a terminal debilitating physical illness were rated as more serious in their suicide intent when compared to younger adults whose suicide followed a terminal debilitating physical illness, but not to younger adults whose suicide followed an achievement failure. In fact, younger adults whose suicide followed an achievement failure were rated as most serious in their intent relative to all other precipitant conditions. This study's findings on attitudes and beliefs about persons who died by suicide were both similar to, and different from U.S. findings about attitudes and beliefs about persons who died by suicide. This study found no difference in attitudes and beliefs about older adult suicide depending on respondent characteristics (i.e., their sex and age), in contrast to some U.S. studies. Furthermore, in this study ageism was not a predictor of, or a moderator for attitudes and beliefs about suicide, in contrast to a prior Israeli study's findings that ageism moderates suicide attitudes and beliefs. Possible explanations for the divergent findings across studies include differences in national context and culture, and method issues, Recommendations for future research include using a broader range of attitude and belief questions, examining ageism via qualitative methods, and studying suicide attitudes and beliefs across a diversity of national and cultural contexts.Item Open Access By their own standards: a new perspective for the question of moral agency in animals(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Grattan, Douglas, author; Rollin, Bernard, advisor; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Volbrecht, Vicki, committee memberMuch of the history of ethology, philosophy, and psychology has been a sort of tug-of-war between those claiming that animals have certain capacities and others claiming that such science is unverifiable and amounts to anthropomorphizing. While resistance to such positive claims has certainly fallen off over the past few decades, the idea that animals can be moral is one of the last bastions of human uniqueness to which many tenaciously hold. Yet in the light of newer research involving emotion and cognition, such claims against morality in animals become harder to defend. However, even those who do claim that animals can possibly act morally still hold back from making the stronger claim that animals can be held responsible for their behavior. I view such attitudes against morality (or moral agency) in animals and against anthropomorphizing in this case as incorrect for the same reason: combined, they assume that 1) if animals are truly moral, they must be moral in the same ways we are, and 2) if they are moral, then they must be viewed in the same way we view humans and therefore treated as such. In short, both claims involve anthropocentrism and worries of anthropomorphism. This work will be dedicated to showing that this point of view is conceptually flawed and suggesting a new avenue to pursue this line of thought, one that keeps in mind both animal uniqueness-- by invoking the subjective lived experiences of the animals themselves, coupled with what they have reason to know—and, surprisingly, human uniqueness.Item Open Access Constructivism and the phenomenology of moral deliberation(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Ponzo, Alexander, author; Tropman, Elizabeth, advisor; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Cleary, Anne, committee memberIn this thesis I claim that constructivism is an attractive positon when it comes to explaining the nature of moral facts. The central tenet of constructivism is that moral facts are a function of what actual (or hypothetical) people think. According to constructivism, if it is true (for example) that murder is morally wrong, it is because some actual (or hypothetical) person or group of people under certain conditions thinks that murder is morally wrong. A primary competitor to constructivism is realism. Realism denies the central tenet of constructivism and instead holds that moral facts are objective; this means that the truth of moral facts does not depend on any person's or group of persons' attitudes regarding the object of moral evaluation. For realists, then, if murder is morally wrong it is not because any (actual or hypothetical) person or group of people thinks that it is wrong; for realists, this fact obtains regardless of what anyone thinks about it. I argue in Chapter One that there is a significant epistemological problem with the claim that moral facts are objective; namely, that it is hard to see how we could have moral knowledge if the truth of moral facts is not a function of what we think. I argue in Chapter Two that constructivism does not share the epistemological problem that realism has. This problem is significant and it should be enough, I submit, to push us into accepting constructivism over realism. While I devote the first chapter (and some of the second) to explaining what constructivism is and how it compares to other competing theories, this is not the only task of this thesis. My other central task is to examine two specific versions of constructivism—namely, the respective theories of Christine Korsgaard and Sharon Street—and find out whether each theory can maintain a plausible phenomenology of moral deliberation. In other words, I am interested in finding out whether each version of constructivism can give a plausible account of what it is like for people to engage in moral deliberation. Since it's possible to study the phenomenology of moral deliberation empirically (or by plausible speculation), we can compare how moral deliberation is actually experienced—or at least how it seems to be experienced—with how it would likely be experienced if the theories in question were true. Ultimately, I argue that the phenomenology of moral deliberation occasioned by Korsgaard's position is more plausible than the one occasioned by Street's because Korsgaard's position does a better job of preserving what we tend to think the experience of moral deliberation is like. A summation of this thesis can be given in the following way: I make a presumptive case for constructivism and, specifically, I argue that Korsgaard's constructivism is more attractive than Street's because, among other things, the phenomenology of moral deliberation occasioned by Korsgaard's position is more plausible than the one occasioned by Street's.Item Open Access Inclusive Just War Theory: Confucian and Mohist contributions(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Davidson, Lake Andrew, author; McLeod, Alexus, advisor; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Harris, Peter, committee memberWarfare has permeated humanity across cultures and through time. It is a human activity that often carries with it large-scale consequences. However, even if it does not, human lives are always lost, and the effects of war are devastating. Because of this, thinkers from around the globe have given accounts regarding the ethics of war. Can war ever be justified? If so, how? What entity has the authority to declare war? What actions are permissible in a justified war? These are only a few of the questions that are often raised, and the answers to them are perhaps as numerous as their developers. This project serves to explain and examine some of these theories. I begin by describing three major positions as they have developed in the West: realism, pacifism, and Just War Theory. Using the categories and conceptions described here, I look to classical Chinese approaches to war from the Confucian and Mohist traditions. Ren xing, “human nature”, is important to Confucian thoughts on the ruler. I use this account to craft a more robust notion of Just War Theory’s “legitimate authority” condition. Jian ai, “impartial care”, is a Mohist concept that I argue informs a type of pacifism and may also play into thoughts on justification for going to war, especially in cases of humanitarian intervention. The latter part of this project applies these theories and new formulations to specific examples of warfare, hoping to show their relevance. Upon this examination, and overall, I hope to increase our understanding of the ethics of war by looking to forgotten or less popular approaches to thinking about the conducting of military affairs.Item Open Access The universe works on a math equation that never even ever really even ends in the end: Charles Sanders Peirce's Evolutionary Metaphysics and the Law of Large Numbers(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Jarrott, Joshua, author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Beachy-Quick, Dan, committee memberRecent work on Charles Sanders Peirce's evolutionary cosmology and scientific metaphysics has revealed a tension between two accounts Peirce gives of the laws of nature. Andrew Reynolds points out that Peirce seems to have thought that the laws evolved both in a statistical way—according to which the laws themselves are the statistical result of the Law of Large Numbers applied to instances of the laws—and also in a more directly evolutionary way, according to which instances of the laws reinforce one another making future instances conform to past ones. By forming "habits". These two analyses are straightforwardly incompatible, since the Law of Large Numbers requires events in the series to which the statistical analysis applies to be independent from one another, whereas the other account explicitly involves future law instantiations depending on past ones. Reynolds calls this problem the Incompatibility Problem. Despite the apparent contradiction, the work of this paper attempts a rational reconstruction of Peirce's evolutionary metaphysics, and on this reinterpretation of Peirce's cosmology, the incompatibility problem does not arise. On this view, the laws of nature remain statistical results of chance property instantiations, including dispositional property instantiations. It is argued, however, that Peirce need not be committed to the idea that instantiations of laws are dependent on one another. Rather, the view according to which habits in nature are formed is argued to apply to properties of the universe as a whole, thereby explaining why the universe contains any regularities at all. The so called "law of habit" is shown to be a special case of the Law of Large Numbers as applied to the world's properties, and the laws of nature are shown to be statistical results of various property instantiations.