Public health is widely regarded as one of the most important societal and medical objectives, yet what constitutes health? While on the surface this may appear to be a simple question with a straightforward response, there is no universal consensus. Considering there is no universal accepted definition of health, how does health manifest itself in reality?
Recent years have seen an increase of awareness being paid to mental health, and it appears reasonable to conclude that this will result in positive outcomes. Although this may be true, this paper contends debates on mental health development are unlikely to produce solutions. This is due to the fact that most western societies adhere to a doctrine of morality known as emotivism.
As a first step, it is necessary to provide a brief overview of two definitions of health. Since there is no universal consensus on the definition of health, this becomes problematic in the mental health debate. Referencing MacIntyre, the second section of this paper will argue that the existing moral language has been fragmented and essentially lost, thereby rendering moral claims arbitrary in nature. The notion of human flourishing will be discussed in the middle of the paper in order to develop, not only debates on mental health but, the mental health of the collective. Next, it will challenge thinkers like Kant, Hume, and Pascal who reject the teleological aspect of human nature. Additionally, this paper presents MacIntyre’s reformulation of Aristotle’s notion of human flourishing in modern terms, introducing three aspects, namely, the concept of practice, the narrative unity of human life, and a living tradition.
Category: 2022
An insight into the key questions and thinking that surround the philosophy of music; An outline of the relationship between sound, noise, and music; and the changes that have occurred for music and the philosophy of music over recorded history.
The societies we consider free also appear unable to resolve the free speech question. I attempt, in this project, to examine the type of speech we consider valuable, and our motives for doing so; whilst also hoping to point out a number of institutions that, for their very telos, heavily restrict the expression of individuals. I discuss the nature of the truth itself, and the value in it, whilst also arguing latterly against the Platonic ‘logos’, in favour of a Nietzschean perspectivism. The project hopes, too, to highlight and add to the discourse around ideological conformity in the 21st century.
Samuel Beckett’s Nineteen-Sixty-One play Happy Days is best understood as a parody of the human condition. Beckett seeks to reflect the experience of what it means to be human in stage directions, set design, and language. His methods of confinement and parody also allow for a vivid portrayal of existence. A philosopher who also wrote on the human condition was Martin Heidegger. For Heidegger, this experience is regulated entirely by his concept of “Dasein”. My essay centres around seeking to attribute an overlap between Heidegger’s and Beckett’s human condition through its possible representation on the stage of Happy Days. Although Beckett is notoriously difficult to analyse and attribute a specific philosophical framework, I have uncovered evidence of possible Heideggerian influence and inherent similarities. The themes of Heidegger analysed include: world disclosure, anxiety, death, and authenticity. I have also highlighted Beckett’s use of optimism in the play as a potential counterpoint to the outwardly pessimistic philosophy of Heidegger. My aim is to show how the performance medium of theatre can be an effective tool in communicating philosophical ideas, as opposed to text on a page.
How do Waldorf schools compare to other educational philosophies? – Hollie Donnithorne
This project is centred around multiple differing educational philosophies, and will analyse how they compare to that of Rudolf Steiner and his Waldorf schools in an attempt to see how these schools may affect wider society and the individual. By using Steiner’s texts such as Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, Steiners approach to education will be dissected in order to properly understand the background to Steiner’s educational philosophy. As part of this, the project will seek to properly understand ‘anthroposophy’, Steiner’s spiritual philosophy, and how these beliefs effect his approach to education and its influence on the individual.
Once Steiner’s approach is fully understood, the aim of the project becomes understanding it in comparison to other schools of thought within the philosophy of education. By using primary texts such as John Dewey’s Democracy and Education, the project seeks to understand other dominant education philosophies of the 20th century not only to give context to Steiner’s ideas, but also to understand how Waldorf schools differ from other thinkers and how this is thought to affect the individual child and the wider society. As well as looking at other 20th century thinkers, the project will compare Steiner’s thoughts to that of philosophers such as Plato by looking at The Republic and seeing how Plato sets out a drastically different educational philosophy from that of Steiner. By looking at this, the project is able to weigh up both schools of thought and dive into how they individually may have an impact on the child and wider society.
The project also makes use of thinkers such as Karl Marx and his thoughts about how education currently works in line with capitalism in order to uphold class structures as well as maintain a lack of class consciousness. By analysing and applying Marx’s thoughts to Waldorf schools the project is better able to understand them within the context of capitalism. The project is then able to analyse Waldorf education in many different contexts and therefore better understand how they function as part of a larger society.
My project is set in the domain of existential fashion, particularly the rise of apocalyptic styling following the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects, both positive and negative. I have drawn philosophical concepts from the works of Jacques Derrida, including his ‘Of Grammatology’. Alongside this, I have referred to Ulrick Beck’s ‘Risk Society’, Risikogesellschaft (1986), in relation to people becoming increasingly preoccupied with a sense of impending doom that has been brought about by the pandemic: portrayed through recent fashion choices and explorations. To support my discussion further, I have incorporated the works of Marilynn H. Johnson in her Adorning Bodies (2022), in which she explores the philosophical implications of bodily adornment. Johnson notes that existential feelings and thoughts inspiring people’s fashion decisions, are not uncommon. As we have seen previously, different trends and popularity of statement pieces of clothing, rise following grand world events, such as in the 1960s in response to the Vietnam war and adjacent Civil Rights movement. The rise of apocalyptic fashion serves as proof of the determination and adaptability of human beings, along with our willingness to persevere through difficult situations, and it is this that I have delved into in this project.
The aim of my research was to provide a rounded explanation of the different forms that ‘love’ can be seen within. I explored my search for love into three perspectives; eros, philia, and agape. While looking at Eros, I provide a more detailed account of what romantic love is really considered to be, mainly defined by Plato in his Symposium. I then explored love within traditional monogamous relationships and the less traditional idea of ‘open relationships’ which two philosophers, Simone De Beaviour and Sartre were a part of. I then continued on to explore Philia. This outlines the love one feels within a friendship. While investigating the idea of friendship, I researched what Aristotles considers to be the three types of friendships, a friendship of utility, a friendship of pleasure and a perfect friendship. While doing this I looked at the similarities and differences between Eros and Philia. Finally, I spoke about Agape, which refers to the paternal love to and from God, as well as the love for humanity as a whole. This led me to question whether our ‘love’ for our religious leader is the same kind of love we experience in our physical relationships and friendships and whether Agape is something that we depend on more or less than a relationship or friendship.
I ask myself what links all three components? My hypothesis is that self love is what links all three. I argued that without self love, one would struggle to give and receive love from others. As mentioned by De Beavouir in relation to Ero’s, people are often brought together by “their weakness rather than in their strength”. From this, I take that they lack self love so look to those around them in order to feel loved. Within philia, it is said that “The wish to be friends can come about quickly, but friendship cannot”, meaning that we are quick to desire the love from a friend, sometimes before making a genuine friendship. I believe we would not be so quick to form meaningless friendships if we were content with our own company, content with the self love we have. Within Agape, the relationship is not measured by physical contact or quality time but through the belief that God’s love transcends anything physical. This draws a parallel with self love, as again it is, for lack of a better word, an “intangible” relationship but still remains very important. I believe one who has a strong sense of self love, would find it easier to give love as passionately and as selflessly as God does, to forgive and love those that have wronged them.
This project focuses on Celebrity power with respect to the sexual objectification of women in the fraternity of Bollywood. Using the likes of John Rawls, Rae Langton, Martha Nussbaum and Catherine Mackinnon, the project goes into an in depth analysis of the kinds of objectification women are subjected to both within movies as well as in the culture that surrounds the social institution of the Hindi film industry. The project finds many problematic instances of the portrayal of women as tools and commodities, victim to oppression with the power majorly in the hands of Men when it comes to male vs female gender dynamics in society. Langton and Nussbaum demonstrate various forms of objectification and assert that the problem is severely ingrained in culture. MacKinnon shows that the issue is with regards to Power where the state perceives women through the viewpoint of Men and discusses the idea of the projection of ones own desires onto women. Lastly, the project uses Rawls theory of Justice, more specifically, his theory of fair and equal opportunity and applies it to the concept of celebrity power and gender dynamics in Bollywood. The findings show that Bollywood has for centuries been a breeding ground for sexism and misogyny, which its movies have normalised greatly over the decades and contributes majorly (though not solely) to South Asian culture being highly plagued with the degradation and oppression of women.
For my object I have chosen the story of humanity’s fall from grace found in the third chapter of Genesis. I will be investigating my object in the territories of theological anthropology and Psychoanalysis. In Saint Paul (1997), Alain Badiou notes a conceptual similarity between the apostle Paul’s description of sin as found in the book of Romans and the psychoanalytic concept of the substantive unconscious. The apostle laments; ‘I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… so that it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells in me’ (Rom 7: 15-17). The subject or ‘I’ of the statement is decentred by ‘sin’ which now assumes the ‘seat of agency’ as kind of foreign object lodged in the heart of subjectivity (Badiou 1997, 79). ‘All kinds of covetousness’ (Rom 7:8) which once lay dead and inactive have become autonomous, occupying the place structurally appropriate to the living subject (who now lies in the place of the dead), giving rise to a new subjective configuration with respect to agency which can be called ‘sin’. With this structural understanding of sin, a topographic and economic picture of the Christian subject becomes possible, one subject to the demands and pressures of an impersonal primary process. However, it must be remembered that Badiou’s analysis concerns the book of Romans and not Genesis where the originality of the first sin would be at issue. A reading of sin as desire that is ‘revived’ and awoken into autonomy by the negative naming of the law (Badiou 1997, 80) lends itself easily enough to the story of Genesis where there is likewise a prohibition; ‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.’ (Gen 2.17) However, a purely psychological reading of Genesis would neglect the metaphysical aspect of the first original sin, which for Saint Augustine is essential to a faithful interpretation of Genesis. Therefore Badiou’s insights, while helpful, must be built upon. I now turn to discuss my objectives in the investigation of my object.
Philosophical discourse surrounding time travel traditionally engages with concepts such as the Grandfather Paradox, the possibility of time travel, issues surrounding causation, and the effects such concepts have on the nature of the metaphysics of time and change. However in this project, time travel will be assessed by its ethical consequences through contemporary pieces of popular culture, namely Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Philosophically, this project will engage with Jean Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and his essay Existentialism is a Humanism in addition to Baron d’Holbach’s The System of Nature, as the two will be presented in direct opposition to one another as representatives of philosophies of free will and hard determinism. The objective of this project is to assess whether ethical judgements are justified or necessary in the depictions of time travel I will be referencing by evaluating whether characters are free to act responsibly or predetermined to act in ways in which they have no influence over. The object of this project will therefore be time travel, assessed through the philosophical concepts of Sartre and d’Holbach, in the context of ethics. The position this essay wishes to argue in favour for is that Sartre’s philosophy of freedom allows one to manifest one’s own moral character, and this moral character is the ultimate determinant in ethical dilemmas. There does however exist vast amounts of overlap in the two opposing philosophers’ theses however the difference lies in Sartre’s notion of bad faith which highlights d’Holbach’s refusal of his ability to choose as problematic. Therefore, the overarching argument of this project is that it is one’s own moral character that dictates their future decision making, and the formulation of such character is done through choice and freedom. Due to the philosophies of Sartre and d’Holbach hugely predating the idea of time travel, I will first give a brief description of the scientific underpinnings of the procedure of time travel, then discuss d’Holbach’s and Sartre’s philosophies, before finally applying the latter to the former.
Traditional forms of political protest have failed us so a new process of resistance against oppressive systems is needed and this project presents that this is literature.
State interaction is a variable that each governing authority has to examine and judge in relation to individual welfare. After examining a variety of political philosophers and their beliefs on state interaction, I propose this thesis. While there is an argument for minimal state interaction, the most optimal way to promote individual welfare is through the level of state interaction that John Rawls proposes in A Theory of Justice. More state interaction than this is detrimental to individual welfare as it infringes on individual rights, and less state interaction than this has the potential to create vast inequalities within communities.
Baruch de Spinoza was an important and influential philosopher, born into a Jewish community in Amsterdam. He was issued a herem however early on in his life, as the elders deemed his ideas to be heretical. This work looks at Spinoza’s philosophy not as a heresy, but instead as reminiscent of a more modern, secular Judaism.
Within this work, I will examine how several influential Jewish figures interacted with Spinoza’s thought. I aim to show that one can track the increasing secularisation of Judaism through time, through the change in reactions these figures had. These figures include the German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and Polish/American author Isaac Bashevis Singer.
I will mainly employ both an interpretive and a historical methodology. In terms of interpretive methodology, I will be analysing the written work of Spinoza, as well as the Jewish figures of focus, and several Jewish religious texts. In terms of historical methodology, I will take into account the historical context behind each Jewish figure, and Spinoza himself.
What is it to be a Self?
• My objective is to explore personal identity by using film and television as thought experiments. I want to further my own understanding of my ‘self’, as well as that of others around me.
• Body theory: Our personal identity persists because we have the same body from birth until death. Challenged by ‘Star Trek’ Transporter thought experiment.
• Soul theory: The soul houses our identity, supported by Plato and René Descartes. Challenged by films such as ‘Still Allice’, how does Alzheimer’s damage the soul?
• Memory theory/ psychological continuity: John Locke’s Memory Theory. We have memory links to different stages in our lives, and they are all connected. Films such as ‘Total Recall’ and ‘Blade Runner’ call into question the role false memories can have in shaping our personal identities.
Society and the Self
• Zygmunt Bauman: Timeline of personal identity. We are in Liquid Modern Times, technology dictates personal identity. Explored in films such as ‘The Social Network’ and ‘Her’.
• Friedrich Nietzsche: Flux, we are in a constant state of becoming, so there is no fixed self that persists through time. Christian values of the past should be rejected, instead we should practise Amor Fati.
• Fixed identity: Exists in the Pre-modern Era and in Social Frameworks, i.e. institutions such as the Christian Church. Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho’ undergoes an identity crisis in response to the fixities in his life.
• Fluid identity: The transition from Walter White to Heisenberg in Breaking Bad is fluid identity in action. Supported by Bauman and Nietzsche, as it can make for a more tolerant society. However, lacking a solid sense of self can be dangerous.
My aim of this project was to investigate the impacts that the platform OnlyFans has had on the sexual emancipation of women. I did this by providing an analysis of Pier Pablo Pasolini’s work on sexual emancipation and capitalism, thereby applying these concepts to the context of OnlyFans. I discussed the works of Rae Langton and Martha Nussbaum on objectification and pornography and applied these concepts to the concept of OnlyFans.
I discovered through my research and analysis of Pasolini and OnlyFans that OnlyFans can have a detrimental effect on women’s sexual emancipation in a capitalist society as it contributes to consumerism. The concept is that consumerism perpetuates the concept of ‘false tolerance’, introduced by Pasolini in his work Trilogy of Life Rejected. This is the idea that the lower classes and minorities are encouraged to be sexually emancipated, however, it is in fact all a commodity. This means that OnlyFans contributes to consumerism and therefore, does not actually emancipate women, but uses their bodies as a commodity.
In the context of objectification, Langton and Nussbaum provided an understanding that tradition pornography objectifies women and denies them of their autonomy. I concluded that because OnlyFans is done completely autonomously by the women who created the content, OnlyFans does not objectify women to the same severity as traditional pornography. Therefore, suggesting that OnlyFans is a healthier and safer alternative for women to traditional pornographic material.
The concept of the hero is one that has been debated and discussed sociologically, historically, and even psychologically but not so much philosophically. There is not one singular definition of a hero yet the concept can impart extraordinary knowledge of the wider world and how it has changed, as well as highlight the notable development of the concept of the self throughout the years. The interdependent relationship between the hero and the society can tell us a lot about human nature. Through looking at two antithetical heroes – an Ancient Tragic Hero and a Contemporary Superhero – and the differences between them I have investigated the idea of selfhood and how that has completely changed, alongside how society reflects this relationship. I have used Aristotle’s Poetics and MacIntyre’s After Virtue to analyse in what ways the concept of the hero can teach us these things. It seems as if the self has become something distinct, and that in contemporary society we become who we are through our actions and how we behave, in contrast to the ancients who act and behave in the way they do because of who they are. There are these crucial elements of fate and choice which highlight the complete change in the hero. Through this contemporary understanding, it seems as though it does not make sense to think of morality solely in terms of action and theory but rather in virtue and practice too. Humanity has developed to a point where we should be looking at morality in terms of character, actions, and society in a unified manner rather than just in the actions themselves.
In general, over the past decade, there has been an increase in documentaries about serial murderers to the point where websites are suggesting the top ten to watch. This intrigued me to the point where I wanted to investigate further; I wanted to look at the point time when their morality and ethical viewpoint changed from what would be considered to be an average person to their infamous persona of the killer and assess this investigation through a philosophical point of view. The typical serial murderer is seen to be an intelligent white man from a middle-class background. Still, I wanted to know if I could prove otherwise by looking at people from poorer backgrounds, those of different ethnicities and differing genders. This was achieved by utilising the arguments of Aristotle. How people become virtuous, Luther and Erasmus on the debate of free will to determine whether these people acted of their own volition, and finally, Freud and his concepts of Trauma, Repression and Dream to see whether these influence the people in question too, or if they are born evil. Ultimately, I conclude that all of the areas discussed combined may cause the serial murderer, but trauma and the lack of virtuous people in their lives contribute more than the others. Equally, this has opened more questions regarding these people’s level of responsibility.
The British monarchy has been apart of the political intuition for centuries. Despite being one of the few monarchies left, there is still a great amount of love for the monarch. However, it is unusual that the working class of Britain would support this ideology in comparison to a complete democracy.
Anti-natalism and value creation: should humans continue to procreate?
It is not worth being brought into existence if one can potentially experience
any form of suffering. The philosopher David Benatar argues that whilst life can
consist of pleasures it also always consists of some form of suffering (making
living harmful for people and the world). “while existence brings pains as well
as pleasures, non-existence is a lack of pains and pleasures. While pain is bad,
absence of pain and pleasure is not bad, so it is always worse to be than not to
be” (Brake and Millum, 2021). It means that even if life consists of 99%
pleasure and 1% suffering then it still would have been better to have never
been.
As controversial and counterintuitive it may seem to desire to stop humanity
from bringing more people into the world, it also does not violate the moral
law to live. Kant conveys strong beliefs surrounding the idea of suicide but
never conveys it in a way that would take future generations into
consideration. Implying that as long as the individual had not yet come into
existence then one does not go against basic moral rights. It is not our duty to
consider the life of potential future generations, but it is our duty to live our
lives once we have been born (Philosophynow.org, 2019).
The arguments put forward by anti-natalists challenges common beliefs in
relation to procreation and examines the roots of where various normative
views stem from and whether they are adequate justifications for procreation.
Benatar, D. (2013). Better never to have been : the harm of coming into existence. Oxford, England:
Clarendon Press
Philosophynow.org. (2019). Philosophy Now. [online] Available at:
https://philosophynow.org/issues/61/Kant_On_Suicide.
This project shall investigate the premises of social media to explore how perfection can be portrayed online, alongside the effect that it can have on individuals and society as a whole. Using the concepts the ego, the id and the superego, from the work of Freud, The Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real from Lacanian psychoanalysis and the notion of shame from Sartre, this project seeks to understand how these concepts can be used to understand why an idealised online persona is desired.