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Meliorism in the 21st Century

Charles, Nicholas
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586687311049744

Abstract Details

2020, MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy.
Meliorism is the belief in the possibility of progress—a possibility whose actualization is dependent on, but not guaranteed by, both our efforts and our belief regarding the possibility of the success of those efforts. In this thesis, I have two joint goals: first, to explicate the philosophy of meliorism and its justifications; and second, through this elucidation, to demonstrate why and how one is to become a meliorist. To this end, I undertake the development of the intellectual, moral, and existential organization of meliorism. In the first chapter, concerning meliorism’s intellectual organization, I develop and justify the definition of meliorism as the belief in progress. In the second chapter, I extend this to meliorism’s moral organization—the issue of what counts as “progress” or “betterment”—by expounding John Dewey's ethics. In the third chapter, in regard to meliorism’s existential organization, I attempt to estimate what I call the existential weight of meliorism and sketch out ways in which meliorists can go about managing this weight. Throughout this undertaking I relate the various aspects of meliorism to the issues of our contemporary society to establish a concrete sense of the ways in which I believe this philosophy can help us in our lives as we grapple with challenges such as climate change, corruption in politics, and navigating competing ideals and values in political discourse.
Frank Ryan (Advisor)
74 p.
Philosophy
American Pragmatism Meliorism William James John Dewey Optimism Pessimism Evidentialism Agnosticism Epistemology Ethics Metaethics Existentialism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Charles, N. (2020). Meliorism in the 21st Century [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586687311049744

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Charles, Nicholas. Meliorism in the 21st Century. 2020. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586687311049744.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Charles, Nicholas. "Meliorism in the 21st Century." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1586687311049744

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1586687311049744
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This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.