Volume 2: Spring 2017

Erica Lord with group

Home The Roger Mudd Center for Ethics Mudd Undergraduate Journal of Ethics Volume 2: Spring 2017
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Table of Contents

Introductions

Papers Presented at the Conference

Additional Papers

Editing Team

Editor-in-Chief

Zachary Taylor ’17 is a senior from Syracuse, New York. He has majors in Philosophy and Classics and a minor in Poverty and Human Capability Studies. Zachary is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa, serves as a hearing advisor for Washing­ ton and Lee’s student government, as secretary of the Virginia-Mu chapter of Phi Sigma Tau philosophy honor society, and as a community assistant as part of the Residen­tial Life staff. He is also involved in peer tutoring and DJs a weekly show for 91.5 FM WLUR. Zachary hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in religious ethics after graduation.

Associate Editor

Austin Piatt ’17 is a senior from Dayton, Ohio. A Politics and Philosophy double-major, Austin will work in Washington, D.C. upon graduating from Washington and Lee and eventually plans to attend law school. Austin is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Omi­ cron Delta Kappa, and is also the 2016-2017 Head Resident Adviser and president of the Virginia-Mu chapter of Phi Sigma Tau philosophy honor society. He has served on Wash­ington and Lee’s Mock Convention Platform Committee as well as its White Book Review Committee.

Assistant Editors

Shaun Soman ’17 is a senior from Rewey, Wisconsin. They have a major in Philosophy and minors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Film and Visual Culture Stud­ies. Shaun is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Sigma Tau philosophy honor society, and is one of the two music co-directors at 91.5 FM WLUR. They have published work on The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Film Matters and intend to pursue careers in film and music journalism.

Spencer Payne ’17 is a senior from Davenport, Iowa. He is an Economics major and a double-minor in Mass Communications and Education Policy. Spencer is one of the founding members of Washington and Lee’s Leadership Education and Development program and has served on the Faculty Executive Committee. He is also a member of the men’s golf team and is very involved in his Greek organization, Lambda Chi Alpha. Spen­cer will be working for M&T Bank after graduation and, in his spare time, enjoys playing pool, ping-pong, and badminton.

Kassie Scott ’18 is a junior from Pennsville, New Jersey, with majors in English and Anthropology and a minor in Poverty and Human Capability Studies. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa. On campus, Kassie serves as a writing center tutor, peer counselor, university ambassador for Washington and Lee Admissions, head career fellow for Washington and Lee’s Career and Professional Development, communi­cation facilitator for the Gender Action Group, and outgoing co-director and co-founder of Friday Underground, a weekly coffeehouse event run by students. Off campus, she has served abroad as a human rights intern in Romania and a cultural ambassador in Lon­don through the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission. Kassie plans to study applied eth­ics and promote human well-being after graduation.

Parker Butler ’18 is a junior from Mobile, Alabama. A Journalism major and Creative Writing minor, Parker is also a class representative for Washington and Lee’s Development Ambassadors. She is a member of the local sorority, Delta Society, a writer for the stu­dent magazine “inGeneral,” and a volunteer at Campus Kitchen, a volunteer organization at Washington and Lee. After graduation, Parker hopes to pursue a career in magazine publications.

Alex Farley ’19 is a sophomore from Houston, Texas. He is a pursuing a double major in Philosophy and Economics. Alex is a member of University Singers, Washington and Lee’s premier choral ensemble, and General Admissions, the university’s premier coed a Capella group. Alex is also co-director of Friday Underground and will serve as a Peer Counselor next year. This summer, Alex is researching how social networks impact ethical leadership. After college, Alex hopes to either attend law school or graduate school for philosophy.

About the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics

The Roger Mudd Center for Ethics was established in 2010 through a gift to the university from award-winning journalist Roger Mudd. When he made his gift, Mudd said that “given the state of ethics in our current culture, this seems a fitting time to endow a center for the study of ethics, and my university is its fitting home."

Today, the Mudd Center furthers that study of ethics by organizing rigorous, interdis­ciplinary programming. In addition to welcoming distinguished lecturers throughout the year to speak on ethical issues, the Mudd Center also sponsors and organizes ethics-based conferences, professional ethics institutes, and other public events that further discussion and thought about ethics among students, faculty, and staff at Washington and Lee and beyond.

About Roger Mudd

Roger Mudd graduated from Washington and Lee University with a degree in History in 1950. Mudd’s distinguished career in television journalism includes positions at CBS, NBC, PBS, and the History Channel. He has won five Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, and the Joan S. Barone Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting. Mudd serves on the board of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges (VFIC) and helped establish the VFIC Ethics Bowl, an annual competition in which teams from Virginia’s private colleges and universities debate ethical issues. He is also a member of the advisory committee for Washington and Lee’s department of Journalism and Mass Communications, and is an honored benefactor of Washington and Lee.

Letter from the Editor

On March 12, 2017, four undergraduate students traveled to Washington and Lee University to deliver papers on a wide variety of ethical issues, ranging from what our attitudes should be toward death to whether citizens are morally obligated to contribute to their communities’ media outlets. It is not hyperbolic to characterize this second annual Mudd Undergraduate Ethics Conference as a tremendous success, both on account of the students’ excellent papers and their enthusiasm to put forth publicly their own ethical ideas, which they defended with thoughtfulness and intelligence. Perhaps most importantly, each student’s presentation stimulated rich discussions about salient issues that were relatable and of considerable import to those who attended the conference. 

The second annual publication of The Mudd Journal represents our attempt to continue these important discussions among our readers. Essays on abortion and the local media landscape call us to think critically as citizens about current political debates in the public sphere. Essays on our relationship with death and practical-regret cause us to reconceive ethical attitudes in our personal lives. In addition, this second volume of the journal includes two papers from students unable to attend the conference, whose ethical conclusions are no less provocative and noteworthy. Luke Brown asks whether an acclaimed work of contemporary fiction treats embodying responses to the Holocaust, or the Shoah, in an ethical manner. Lorenzo Nericcio admirably combines utilitarianism, one of the foremost moral deliberative theories in analytic philosophy, with existentialism, a notable school of thought in continental philosophy. Despite not being able to listen to their papers at the conference, we are eager to publish their work here. 

The Mudd Journal of Ethics is a product of extraordinary effort on behalf of numerous individuals whom I would be remiss not to thank. Debra Frein of the Mudd Center helped make our conference possible and has been just as valuable to the publication of this journal. Mary Woodson and Denise Watts of the Publications office at Washington and Lee have both been essential in our effort to create an attractive journal that we are proud to publish. I also want to thank Teddy Corcoran, who founded The Mudd Journal, and whose advice I have consistently relied upon throughout this academic year. Of course, I am especially appreciative to the editors of the journal who read each of the paper submissions, provided feedback, and proposed useful edits and alterations. I want to thank each of them: Austin Piatt, Shaun Soman, Spencer Payne, Kassie Scott, Parker Butler, and Alex Farley. They have all been exceedingly helpful in this collective endeavor. 

Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Angela Smith, Director of the Mudd Center for Ethics, who really made the second volume of this journal possible. Thanks to the full support of the Mudd Center and her enthusiastic commitment to this project, we have been able to host a successful conference and publish one of the only undergraduate journals in the country solely dedicated to the study of ethics. I am so appreciative of Dr. Smith’s guidance and profound wisdom. I hope that the reader will enjoy this excellent collection of ethics-based scholarship from undergraduate philosophers across the country. Their ideas are important, and we are honored to present them here, in this second volume of The Mudd Journal. 

Sincerely,
Zachary Taylor ’17
Editor-in-Chief

Mudd Undergraduate Journal of Ethics: Volume 2

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