Browsing by Author "Bradford, Gwen"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    In Defense of Sufficiency as the Distributive Ideal for Political Power
    (2013-09-16) Tune, Dustin; Sher, George; Brody, Baruch; Bradford, Gwen; Davidson, Chandler
    Many people think that political equality is obviously a good thing, an ideal toward which any decent political system should strive. Despite this -- or perhaps because of it -- some basic questions about political equality remain unanswered. What is political equality? What is good about it? Could some other ideal(s) take its place? My aim here is to answer each of these questions. In regards to the first question, I argue that political equality obtains when political power is distributed equally. Two people are political equals if, and only if, they have the same amount of political power. By 'political power' I mean (roughly) the ability to get what one wants in the political arena. Conceiving of political equality in this way allows us to accommodate both the moral and amoral dimensions of politics. What is good about political equality, so conceived? Political equality is good insofar as it leads to the equal advancement of everyone's interests. There are several reasons to think that advancing everyone's interests is important. It may be a fundamental requirement of morality, a principle of social justice, or a necessary condition of political legitimacy. Of course, an equal distribution of political power is not unique in its ability to advance people's interests equally. Indeed, I argue that an unequal distribution of power will almost always lead to a moral equal advancement of everyone's interests. This is because different people have different interests, and, depending on the circumstances, different amounts of power may be needed in order to advance different sets of interests to the same degree. Thus, it is a mistake to assume that an equal distribution of power will lead to the equal advancement of everyone's interests. If the equal advancement of interests is our ultimate goal, then political power should be distributed in accordance with a principle of sufficiency, not equality. Everyone should have whatever amount of political power they need in order for their interests to be advanced to the same degree.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemEmbargo
    Living Reflectively: Authenticity and Justifiability
    (2019-04-09) Kao, Ya-Yun; Bradford, Gwen; Brody, Baruch
    “What makes your life go well for you?” Subjective and objective theories of well-being answer with a certain appeal—the subjective theories pay attention to what you feel about or what you want for your life, whereas the objective theories remind us that there are objective goods we should pursue. However, each has its own drawbacks. Arguably, pleasure is not the only thing that matters in living a good life. Neither is the thing you desire always justifiable. The objective goods might be alienated from your perspective, given that objectivists’ major claim that what makes your life go well is independent of your attitudes. Value fulfillment theories strike the middle path, capturing the best of both sides and avoiding the worse. My account situates itself in this category. In this dissertation, I develop and defend the following novel account of well-being: to live a good life, one must fulfill values and commitments that are authentic and justifiable after critical reflection. Call my account “well-being as authentic and justifiable.” My account avoids objections leveled against the subjective and objective theories of well-being in the following way: The authenticity requirement avoids the alienation problem that objective theories face, whereas the justifiability requirement responds to the underlying problem faced by objectivists and subjectivists alike, that is, why the thing one claims to be good is good. I argue that an agent can satisfy the authenticity requirement by reflecting on values and commitments to ensure that they are consistent, affirmed by the agent, and compatible with the agent’s aspirations. And the agent can satisfy the justifiability requirement by engaging in interpersonal dialogue and ensuring that the agent’s values and commitments are defensible. I also distinguish my account from existing views. Unlike Valerie Tiberius who use virtues to counterbalance reflection, I focus on reflection itself. Unlike Jason Raibley who advocates functioning well as robustly realizing one’s values, I focus on ensuring the quality of values through reflection. I conclude by showing how my account is well-equipped to avoid objections leveled against all value fulfillment theories and thus showing that my account is a promising new account of well-being.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Value of Achievements
    (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2013) Bradford, Gwen
    This article gives an account of what makes achievements valuable. Although the natural thought is that achievements are valuable because of the product, such as a cure for cancer or a work of art, I argue that the value of the product of an achievement is not sufficient to account for its overall value. Rather, I argue that achievements are valuable in virtue of their difficulty. I propose a new perfectionist theory of value that acknowledges the will as a characteristic human capacity, and thus holds that the exercise of the will, and therefore difficulty, is intrinsically valuable.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Wonderment: A Philosophical Analysis of Its Nature and Its Attending Virtue
    (2024-04-18) Smith, Joshua Tyler; Schroeder, Timothy; Bradford, Gwen; Fanger, Claire
    This dissertation delves into the emotion of wonderment and proposes that it serves as a foundation for a neglected virtue: openness to wonderment. I divide this work into two parts. In the initial part, Chapters 2 and 3, I present my account of wonderment and its close connection with the perception of a beautiful mystery. In order to motivate this account, I provide sketches of what beauty and mystery are and how responding to them constitutes wonderment. This account nicely captures the cognitive and emotional engagement that is recognizable in wonderment and how wonderment is both inviting and daunting. In the second part of this work, detailed in Chapters 4 and 5, I transition to consider the virtue of openness to wonderment. In this second part, I have two broad aims. First, to show that this neglected virtue is, in fact, a virtue. Second, to show that this virtue is valuable for human life. Openness to wonderment is characterized not simply by passive receptivity but also equally by active cultivation of our attention and appreciation for wonder-inducing experiences. I consider several features of familiar virtues, like being a dispositional state, involving emotion and deliberate choice, and orienting actions to a noble end and I show that openness to wonderment has all of these familiar features of virtues. I highlight that not only is this virtue’s value grounded in it being a virtue, but it is also valuable in that it enhances one's capacity for transformative contemplation of the world. I end by discussing further avenues for future research that explore its connection to contemplation and one's worldview.