Travis J Rodgers
I am Professor of Humanities and Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. I work on Ancient Philosophy, Ethical Theory and Applied Ethics, Practical Logic, and Social and Political Philosophy.
My dissertation, Accounting for Character, is an attempt to produce an empirically adequate account of character that captures the importance of character to ethics. This account serves as the beginning of a sketch of moral education and as a framework for exploring the extent to which we are responsible for our character.
I also have an interest in epistemology, in particular in virtue epistemology and internalism.
I am currently working on the following:
A close reading of Plato's Republic, Book I, focusing on the (rest of the) Socratic Method.
Critiques and responses to various problems that arise for Anarchists and Libertarians.
Some stuff on character: psychopathy, valuing, and moral responsibility question.
Supervisors: Randolph Clarke, Allan T. Back, and Howard Curzer
My dissertation, Accounting for Character, is an attempt to produce an empirically adequate account of character that captures the importance of character to ethics. This account serves as the beginning of a sketch of moral education and as a framework for exploring the extent to which we are responsible for our character.
I also have an interest in epistemology, in particular in virtue epistemology and internalism.
I am currently working on the following:
A close reading of Plato's Republic, Book I, focusing on the (rest of the) Socratic Method.
Critiques and responses to various problems that arise for Anarchists and Libertarians.
Some stuff on character: psychopathy, valuing, and moral responsibility question.
Supervisors: Randolph Clarke, Allan T. Back, and Howard Curzer
less
InterestsView All (11)
Uploads
Papers by Travis J Rodgers
Drafts by Travis J Rodgers
According to a long-standing view, one fleshed out in Plato’s Republic, justice centrally involves helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies. Even if some crude version of this view is plainly false and held by almost no one, there seems a commonly held and plausible view that is not much different. Namely, the view that we deserve something good for our good deeds and something bad for our bad deeds is widespread. It occupies a central position in the discussions of free will and judicial punishment. Questions of justice and desert seem somehow intimately tied, so we might think that if one falls, the other falls as well. While we may have strong pre-theoretical commitments to desert-language, our commitments might reveal a lack of unifying principle when tested. Is there, for instance, something specific that we deserve for our good or bad deeds? Or is there a range of things we might deserve? Is there perhaps nothing we deserve? I consider the “traditional desert thesis”: that we deserve good for our good deeds and bad for our bad deeds, raising difficulties for three versions of this thesis. In the end, I profess agnosticism on how to proceed with the desert question, but it may be that the way many of us think about desert is ill-suited to questions of justice.
According to a long-standing view, one fleshed out in Plato’s Republic, justice centrally involves helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies. Even if some crude version of this view is plainly false and held by almost no one, there seems a commonly held and plausible view that is not much different. Namely, the view that we deserve something good for our good deeds and something bad for our bad deeds is widespread. It occupies a central position in the discussions of free will and judicial punishment. Questions of justice and desert seem somehow intimately tied, so we might think that if one falls, the other falls as well. While we may have strong pre-theoretical commitments to desert-language, our commitments might reveal a lack of unifying principle when tested. Is there, for instance, something specific that we deserve for our good or bad deeds? Or is there a range of things we might deserve? Is there perhaps nothing we deserve? I consider the “traditional desert thesis”: that we deserve good for our good deeds and bad for our bad deeds, raising difficulties for three versions of this thesis. In the end, I profess agnosticism on how to proceed with the desert question, but it may be that the way many of us think about desert is ill-suited to questions of justice.