Category: Stage 2

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2021 Abstracts Stage 2

An analysis of British Journalism’s evaluation of Marxism, with emphasis on the BBC.

This project aims to analyze the concepts of state capitalism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, anarchism, and the idolization of revolutionary figures through a Marxist lens. It takes into consideration both the theoretical and practical sides of revolutionary history provided by theoreticians such as Marx, Engels and Parenti and leaders such as Lenin, Castro, Mao and Xi.

Doing so, with a heightened focus on communist nations and communities, it is intended to be a response to the BBC’s, and the general British Media’s, own claims about Marxism.

In discussing the true intentions of the media in regard to its portrayal of Marxism, I intend to highlight the obvious, and subtle, shortcomings of the British media. This project will focus on Marxism due to its decisive nature and extensive history, which allows ample opportunity for analysis and evaluation of journalistic sources.

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2021 Abstracts Stage 2

Why Did The Duck Cross The Line? An Exploration of Offensive Humour, Laughter as a Response, and DuBoisian ‘Double Consciousness’

This project aims to explore the nature of offensive humour, using readings of W.E.B Du Bois’ theory of ‘double consciousness’ (a duel perspective originally felt by black Americans) as well as the three laughter theories (as told by Hobbes, Kant and Freud) as a framework for presenting the main arguments regarding taboo topics within the comedic realm, these being 1.) in support of censorship within humour, with the exception of oppositional satire from the oppressed, and 2.) in support of a freedom within laughter and comedy, as per their supposed nature. I aim to ultimately offer a new perspective regarding this argument, expanding on ideas seen within my chosen concepts.

OBJECT: Offensive Humour and laughter as a response, and how this may link to censorship/freedom of speech

TERRITORY: Ethics. (Analysing whether offensive humour is ‘right’ to use)

CONCEPTS: Interpretations of DuBoisian ‘Double Consciousness’, laughter theories (as stated by Hobbes, Kant, Freud)

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2021 Abstracts Stage 2

To establish whether or not news companies have a responsibility to adhere to impartiality when reporting on political issues?

In my project I will be exploring and researching the concept of media impartiality, specifically in regard to political news stories, and whether news companies have a responsibility to produce impartial reports, or whether they have a right to express their opinion on their platform.

I analyse data and surveys conducted around the world in order to emphasise how present news media impartiality is in this day and age, and how detectable it is by the readers of the newspapers. This is an incredibly important subject as the news is more accessible now more than ever hence, it is more influential.

It will then be brought to light now influential the news is in the political world, seen in the images above, the Sun and Fox News, both owned by Rupert Murdoch. The Sun’s article claims responsibility for the 1997 United Kingdom election results, Fox news’ article states that the Unites States election of 2020 was rigged for Democrat Joe Biden. Both of these claims, made by the top newspapers in the country, sent tremors around the country causing backlash and violence, and ultimately mistrust in the media.

My approach in my essay is to cover the topic of media impartiality with reference to both 21st century philosophers and 17th/18th century philosophers.

I have chosen to do this, so the subject is widely covered by philosophers who address media impartiality directly; Diana Mutz and Joseph Mazor, and those who I apply their philosophical theorems to media impartiality; Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

‘Journalism is the first draft of History’

I will conclude that partisan news companies do not need to adhere to as strict impartiality as non-partisan news companies as their reputation should reflect the view point the journalists will be taking when reporting on political issues. Whereas news companies who claim to be impartial must strictly follow this claim as people will rely on them for an even-handed report on political issues.

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2021 Abstracts Stage 2

What is the most morally acceptable and workable solution, regarding the method of imprisonment as a means of punishment?

What is the most morally acceptable and workable solution, regarding the method of imprisonment as a means of punishment?

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2021 Abstracts Stage 2

How Free Am I to Shape an Identity Through Consumerism?

I will be exploring the relationship between consumerism and identity. I will ask if people are free to create an identity and control the way in which they express themselves under the social order of consumerism. I will argue that rather than being emancipatory, consumerism instead imposes restrictions on people in ways that will be explored in this essay. The main philosophical ideas used to engage with this thesis will be drawn from works of Jean Baudrillard. I will primarily be drawing from Baudrillard’s The Consumer Society and will later incorporate some ideas from his Simulacra and Simulation. Baudrillard’s philosophical analysis of consumerism provokes much thought about identity, and the freedom that we possess to manipulate this identity. These ideas will be fundamental to my argument.

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2021 Abstracts Stage 2

An investigation into the ways in which consumer behaviour has changed as a result of the pandemic, how big tech companies are using this change for profit and the social implications of this.

The aim of this project is to look at consumerism, specifically consumer behaviour during the coronavirus pandemic and how it has evolved. The project will also explore how big tech companies such as Microsoft and Google are planning on using this for their own profit and power gain, whilst finally looking at some of the social and critical philosophy of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to highlight how this might be problematic and the potential implications it holds for society as a whole.

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2020 Abstracts Stage 2

Investigating the Effects of Academic Pressure on Students Using the Philosophy of Judith Butler and Georges Bataille

The project aims to illustrate the normalised academic expectations and pressure placed upon students in the South Korean contemporary society. It is evident that there are historical implications that alluded to the emphasis on academic achievements, as well as obeying parental decisions. To produce an analysis of the effects of academic pressure, the project mainly refers to the Korean Drama ‘Sky Castle.’ The philosophy of Judith Butler and Georges Bataille helps us to obtain a philosophical perspective of the consequences.
Sky Castle provides us with an understanding of the concept of ‘tiger parenting’, whereby a high percentage of South Korean parents are motivated to fulfil their ambition of sending their children to superior universities, making sure they have a successful future in high-ranking jobs, thus having extreme expectations in their education. There is a sense of competition amongst friends and family, further displaying the importance of education and ‘bragging rights.’ The aim of the project is to show the extent to which this academic pressure results in a myriad of negative consequences, involving mental illness and becoming distant from the family.
Furthermore, the project uses the ethical teachings of Confucianism and the tradition of respecting one’s elders as part of the virtues. It leads to the collectivist thinking of the community expecting disciplined youths, who obey their parents. As a result, children have no other option but to listen to their parents, even if it means obeying certain rules that have detrimental effects on their mental health. In this section, we can, further, see how people’s actions are affected by Butler’s notion of radical dependency on the other, which are the collective norms and traditions, as well as the community. Young students have lost their freedom to choose as they are affected by their parents, and the parents are affected by the community. This suggests how these individuals have lost their own subjecthood because of the other. Moving on, Bataille’s concepts intends to display how these collectivist norms, that place an emphasis on the students working to go on producing for the economy, further affecting their individual choice and desires. As the rules limit the behaviour, the students transgress and rebel.
The Hegelian concept of the ‘master and slave’ display this loss of individuality and control, making the children the slaves that the parents rely on, fulfil their own ambitions and be recognised as successful parents with successful children. One’s conformity to such pressure will lead to a life that is non-satisfactory, thus the young students will struggle to obtain happiness for the sake of academic achievement placed in their heads. It can, consequently, lead to the students trying to escape through rebellion or suicide if the priority of academia is more emphasised than the needs of the student.
The project shows the significance of others in our lives and how much they have an effect on our behaviour and mindset. In a sense, our individual subjecthood may be lost but we still try to regain it by making our own decisions, even if it is the result of other people. We try to regain our freedom and that is important, otherwise, there will be various mental health problems as the feelings of having no control have detrimental effects.

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2020 Abstracts Stage 2

Reading the Psychological Implications of Brutalist Architecture through J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise

This paper intends to question the extent to which brutalist architecture produces negative environments through their adverse psychological impact on those who inhabit them. Equally, it will explore how such environments can be overcome. The object these aims will centre around is J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise, a dystopian narrative that critiques the modernist tower block, by providing a hyperbolic account of the potential ramifications it can have on the human mind. This paper intends to question the extent to which brutalist architecture produces negative environments through their adverse psychological impact on those who inhabit them. Equally, it will explore how such environments can be overcome. The object these aims will centre around is J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise, a dystopian narrative that critiques the modernist tower block, by providing a hyperbolic account of the potential ramifications it can have on the human mind.The consideration of how negative environments can be overcome will draw on the positive elements of Deleuze’s Nietzsche – his concept of the eternal return and the Overman – and Debord’s psychogeography. These concepts are examined to explore the extent which they can be used as remedial to the negative implications of an environment.

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2020 Abstracts Stage 2

The Ethics of Marriage and Divorce: The Key to Living a Prosperous Life in Contemporary Society

This project is founded upon recent published data which portrays an increased trend in the rate of divorce over the last century. The central thesis of the dissertation involves the question: why has the rate of divorce increased over time and should this be at all a concern or reflection of modern-day society?
Contemporary attitudes omit an attitude of divorce being a less scandalous, daunting concept in comparison to earlier decades, however, this project examines whether the marital benefits may indeed be experienced outside of the marital realm.
The dissertation considers contextual societal components with feminist viewpoints to analyse the sexual, reproductive elements of marriage in regard to monogamy and child bearing to then analyse the material, economic elements of marriage within a Marxist perspective.
I include the philosophical theories of Hegel and Kant to examine the ethical elements of marriage as well as the work of John Finnis to consider a more contemporary standpoint.

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2019 Abstracts Stage 2

Transphobia and Feminist Existentialism An Exploration of Feminist Transphobic rhetoric’s use of Existentialist language and ideas, using Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’

‘Transphobia and Feminist Existentialism’ is an Exploration of Feminist Transphobic rhetoric’s use of Existentialist language and ideas, using Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble.’
In Gender Trouble, Butler theorised that Gender is constructed, rather than natural and therefore performed. Biological sex is also analysed to be a construct, emerging from ideas of gender. Feminist Transphobic rhetoric, or ‘Gender Critical’ or ‘TERF’ ideology puts forward that gender is oppressive to the female sex, and should be abandoned, leaving only biological sex. Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’ is used to demonstrate why this is impossible.

The examination of these ideas will unfold in the following way: first examing the emergence of these Feminist Transphobic ideas, then an analysis of the Feminist Transphobic rhetoric. Next will follow an explanation of Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’. This basic examination will allow an exploration of Butler’s perfomativity theory, applied to a critique of ‘Gender Critical’ ideas, including updating ‘Gender Trouble’ with current understandings of Gender variance, and providing an analysis and criticism of Feminist Transphobia with this updated understanding of ‘Gender Trouble.’ This updated understanding of ‘Gender Trouble’ will reveal how gender in the modern era can progress and expand in a way that allows emancipation from harmful stereotypes surrounding gender.

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2018 Abstracts Stage 2

‘Can a person be born truly evil?’ An analysis of the origin and concept of innate and acquired knowledge, morality and evil in human nature.

Project objectives and aims:
• To critically analyse the debate between rationalists and empiricists in accordance with the origin of knowledge, morality and evil, with reference to innate ideas and knowledge acquired through experience.
• Establish which arguments presented by the scholars prove most convincing as to whether a person is inherently evil or if this is learnt from experience of a person’s upbringing.
• Generate a deeper understanding into the concepts and notions that surround mankind’s nature.

What I hope to receive from the dissertation:
• I hope to develop my research and analysis skills by using a variety of sources from scholars that range from early Greek philosophy, to the enlightenment era and contemporary twenty- first century thinkers.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Can one be a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

Object/Territory: How should we understand the concept of ‘psychopathy’ in relation to political theory and how we should we ought to treat other individuals?

Sources: Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud and Georg Hegel provide powerful theories that can be applied to the idea of psychopathic individuals.

Project outline: The distinction of ‘criminal psychopath’ and ‘white-collar psychopath’ is crucial for my investigation because the contrast between the two opens up a kaleidoscope of questions about psychopathy. The violent explicit nature of criminal psychopaths and the charming and charismatic character of white-collar psychopaths highlight the disparity of individuals that can be considered psychopaths. Hobbes’ egotistical humanity and Smith’s doctrine of altruism provide interesting material to apply to the elusive behaviour of psychopaths.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Melissa Walker’s Masks: The History of Soldier’s PTSD and its Societal Depiction

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
PTSD is associated with impairments in everyday attention and memory
PTSD is associated with enhanced acquisition of conditioned fears
(S. Taylor, 2017, p. 45)

Panic disorder, and alcohol and substance abuse frequently emerge in conjunction with PTSD and that is not isolated to treatment-seeking populations
(Wilson Friedman & Lindy, 2004, p. 237)

Priory Survey of 1,000 men:
77% said that they suffered from anxiety, stress or depression
40% said that they would only seek help if it got as bad as thoughts of suicide
(Priory Group, Survey: 2004)

I don’t think we are doing enough for our veterans. Their care should be a government priority, and it should not be left to charities like Help For Heroes to subsidise the cost.
(Gregg, 2015)

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Hooliganism Project

Object/Territory: Football hooliganism is organised violence between football supporters and this will be used as a case study to assess whether violence can ever be seen as justifiable.

Philosophy: Sigmund Freud provides a basis for why humans are so interested in violence through his Narcissism of Minor Differences and the Human Inclination for Aggression. This will be used to assess whether this violence is truly inevitable and thus immoral for Kant, or whether the life of a hooligan could possibly provide the affirmative life that Nietzsche preaches is needed.

Outline: If violence is inevitable then it is surely justifiable. However why must this manifest as football hooliganism? And even if violence is taken as inevitable, does this make its morally permissible. Using the contemporary studies in football hooliganism to assess the physical cost, and combining this with the idealisation that hooliganism has, will create an answer to whether this activity is morally acceptable. If the modern conception fails, can a future one succeed?

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

The failures of cosmopolitanism and international intervention in genocide

In this project I investigate why the present institutions and discourse of cosmopolitics frustrate rather than facilitate peace and resolution.

Through improperly structuring reasoning and creating subjectivity, the current cosmopolitic fails to provide the required conditions for the prevention of and intervention in genocide.

Through an examination of Kant’s cosmopolitanism and current cosmopolitical theories, demonstrated with the use of 3 case studies of Rwanda, Kosovo, and Myanmar I intend to highlight the fundamental contradiction at the heart of cosmopolitanism. Systems are either too universal and empty, ignoring important cultural fabric, or too particular and local, resulting in inaction.

As a result of these failures, intervention becomes an expression of ideology, not humanitarian interest.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Can We Own a Vibe? A Philosophical Inquiry into Our Understanding of Music Copyright.

This project aims to look at the concept of private property within the context of copyright. I will investigate current copyright law in the case of music and examples of copyright infringement. Through these cases, I will question the grounds on which they have been ruled guilty of copyright infringement. With Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ (2013) being ruled as infringing the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give It Up’ (1977) due to copying the vibe of this song. With the idea of a vibe having not been previously protected by copyright, this challenges our previous understanding of the copyright of music and what it means to own musical property.

I will also discuss the implications copyright has upon the possibility of creativity within the music industry. Copyright law is in place to protect the original creative works of an individual and therefore protecting creativity as a whole. Through questioning whether copyright helps of hinders creativity in music, I will discuss whether copyright does protect creativity as it sets out to do so.

My project aims to question how appropriate the concepts grounding our copyright of music are and call into question whether we need to revise our music copyright system.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Are the ethics instilled within the current film ratings still attainable within our modern society? A historical insight into the progression of the rating system and the ethics applied within it

The aim of my project is to provide a historical exploration in the change of films rating system from its first code, The Hays Code, to the current classification of film ratings. In order to do this I will need to understand the ethics implemented in its change and then comment as to whether I believe it to be viable in modern society. Specifically looking at the notion of the Spectacle as a critique.

Key thinkers involved within my project will include John Stuart Mill, Jeremey Bentham. I will specifically take from their works the key idea of the Harm Principle and Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus. An interpretive analysis of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle will help answer whether the ethics within film ratings is sustainable in modern society.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Are humans destined to conform to evil?

Philip Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment

Participants were assigned either the role of guard or prisoner in a prion simulation designed to investigate the behavioural and psychological effects of prison life. From that moment they were treated according to their role and the study commenced. Rebellion, excessive punishment and a mass escape plot.

The findings showed that the guards and prisoners conformed wholly to their assigned role to the point where role and reality were blurred. The participants had lost all sense of reality . Why did this happen? Does it say something about an inherent human nature to conform?

Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil: Arendt claims that evil can occur when someone simply follows orders to the point that they no longer have their own thought process. They become a cog in a well oiled machine. She basis this theory on the trial of the Nazi, Adolf Eichmann, who she claims was not an inherently evil man but someone who “simply followed orders”. What does this mean for moral culpability? Does this change our understanding of human nature?

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Money: A Social Network Ontology, Complimented by the Abstraction of Theoretical Monetary Units Throughout Time.

This project argues for Georg Simmel’s Sociological account of money through two means:

Firstly, its ability to explain changes in monetary theory through time.
Secondly, the fact it can explain a nuanced human economic agent in a social network.

Money in a Simmelite Social Network:

My project explored the account of the human subject in Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money and applied this to the network theory from Dodd’s The Sociology of Money. Thus, the essay was able to create and analyse a framework that could both argue for the creation of money through a tool of desiring subjects, and how this interacts with society at large through a societal network.

Changing Monetary Theory Through Time:
This project explores the history of economic philosophy from the enlightenment onwards through four defined periods.

Smith and Classical Economics – Using An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations I was able to explore monetary theory that is reliant upon substance, and the ways Smith’s economic theory often ends up with a reductionist view of human agency.

Friedman and Neo-Classical Economics – Using Capitalism and Freedom I explored monetary theory and the belief that money is simply an economic lubricant, while also contesting the fact that Friedman truly believes in the imperfect being.

Post-Modern Economics – Using Lazzarato, and his influences, I was able to analyse the idea that digitised economics represent power and the desire of the subjects in this network as the creation of this power.

Bitcoin and the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute – This conception of money is a commodity guided by the rules of blockchain, however Bitcoin itself is only substantiated by ideological belief of a small number of active traders.

Throughout this project I argue that the Framework of the Simmelite Social Network can not only explain the beliefs of these four types of theory through time, but also why the path of history towards further abstraction has occurred.

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2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Artificial Intelligence: What Does It Mean to have consciousness?

I aim to talk about the possibility of consciousness arising within artificial intelligence with reference to two thinkers who have not yet been incorporated into the debate: Immanuel Kant and Andres Bretton. In doing so I hope to uncover new ways of talking about consciousness in less anthropomorphic ways.

Kant: Kant’s transcendental idealism can be used to propose a theory of the minimum requirements for consciousness to arise in artificially intelligent machines. In addition to this, the distinction he outlines between ‘reason’ and ‘understanding’ can be seen as analogous to the Turing Test and the Chinese Room thought experiment and therefore can be used to show the qualitative difference between our human experience of consciousness and any potential consciousness that might arise within artificial intelligence.

Bretton: Bretton’s Surrealist thought is used as a juxtaposition to Kant formulaic and systematic approach. The surrealist practices of automatism raise the question of a difference between human consciousness and potential consciousness within artificial intelligence in that it raises the issues of intentionality and the subconscious, something which artificial intelligence.