Glenn "boomer" Trujillo

Aristotle argued that you need some wealth to live well. The Stoics argued that you could live well with or without wealth. But the Cynics argued that wealth is a hinderance. For the Cynics, a good life consists in self-sufficiency, or being able to rule and help yourself. You accomplish this by living simply and naturally, and by subjecting yourself to rigorous philosophical exercises. Cynics confronted people to get them to abandon extraneous possessions and positions of power to live better. And while the Cynics were experts in living in this way, their ascetic lifestyles made their message curious to some audiences. This paper reflects on Cynic ascetic practices and the ways others perceived them.

This paper does two things. First, it interprets the work of W. E. B. Du Bois to reveal that the meanings of race terms are grounded by both a historical and an aspirational component. Race terms refer to a backward-looking component that traces the history of the group to its present time, as well as a forward-looking component that sets out values and goals for the group. Race terms thus refer to a complex cluster of concepts that involve biological, sociological, historical, moral, and political properties. Second, the paper defends W. E. B. Du Bois’s conservationist thesis about races, which holds that we should maintain race talk and racial distinctions. But instead of offering philosophical evidence, this paper defends the plausibility of the conservationist thesis with evidence from contemporary biology and psychology. It argues that, instead of eliminating race terms or concepts, we should conserve and revise them.

When considering the value of friendship, most philosophers ignore the negatives. Most assume that humans need friends to flourish, and some argue that friendships can be good, no matter the risks entailed. This makes conversations about the value of friendship one-sided. Here, I argue that Cynics and Pessimists have an important view on friendship, despite it being ignored. They hold that: (a) friendship is unnecessary for flourishing, and (b) friendship presents ethical risks, especially to one’s own self-sufficiency. I defend these views. Then I conclude with reflections on why Cynics and Pessimists actually make great friends. By helping people to focus on vulgar human nature and the flaws that humans have, they create an unpretentious basis for friendship.

Emil Cioran offers novel arguments against suicide. He assumes a meaningless world. But in such a world, he argues, suicide and death would be equally as meaningless as life or anything else. Suicide and death are as cumbersome and useless as meaning and life. Yet Cioran also argues that we should contemplate suicide to live better lives. By contemplating suicide, we confront the deep suffering inherent in existence. This humbles us enough to allow us to change even the deepest aspects of ourselves. Yet it also reminds us that our peculiar human ability—being able to contemplate suicide—sets us above anything else in nature or in the heavens. This paper assembles and defends a view of suicide written about in Cioran’s aphorisms and essays.

This paper begins with a vignette of Juan Carlos, an immigrant to America who works to support his family, attends classes at a community college, and cares for his ill daughter. It argues that an Aristotelian virtue ethicist could condone a safe, legal, and virtuous use of cognitive enhancements in Juan Carlos’s case. The argument is that if an enhancement can lead him closer to eudaimonia, then it is morally permissible to use it. The paper closes by demonstrating how common objections to cognitive enhancement fail to undermine Juan Carlos’s justifiable use of the technology. The particularities of his case make it morally acceptable for him to use enhancements in certain situations. The paper, thus, constructs a limited, positive case for the virtuous use of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancements.

This paper begins with a vignette of Juan Carlos, an immigrant to America who works to support his family, attends classes at a community college, and cares for his ill daughter. It argues that an Aristotelian virtue ethicist could condone a safe, legal, and virtuous use of cognitive enhancements in Juan Carlos’s case. The argument is that if an enhancement can lead him closer to eudaimonia (i.e., flourishing, or a good life), then it is morally permissible to use it. The paper closes by demonstrating how common objections to cognitive enhancement fail to undermine Juan Carlos’s justifiable use of the technology. The particularities of his case make it morally acceptable for him to use enhancements in certain situations. The paper, thus, constructs a limited, positive case for the virtuous use of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancements.

In this dissertation, I adapt Aristotle and neo-Aristotelian philosophers to argue that a virtue of playfulness exists, and playfulness is necessary for achieving happiness. Playfulness helps people, uniquely and especially, to use their leisure time to rest, cultivate themselves, and engage their communities. This virtue of playfulness is so important for happiness that a person cannot live a good life without it. This argument offers a framework that can sort good from bad instances of play and playfulness by using the neo-Aristotelian values of virtue and happiness. To make my case, I use philosophy, textual evidence from Aristotle, and empirical evidence from biological and behavioral sciences. I hope that the dissertation serves to fill a gap in contemporary research, which neglects playfulness as a virtue.

This paper begins with a vignette of Juan Carlos, an immigrant to America who works to support his family, attends classes at a community college, and cares for his ill daughter. It argues that an Aristotelian virtue ethicist could condone a safe, legal, and virtuous use of cognitive enhancements in Juan Carlos’s case. The argument is that if an enhancement can lead him closer to eudaimonia (i.e., flourishing, or a good life), then it is morally permissible to use it. The paper closes by demonstrating how common objections to cognitive enhancement fail to undermine Juan Carlos’s justifiable use of the technology. The particularities of his case make it morally acceptable for him to use enhancements in certain situations. The paper, thus, constructs a limited, positive case for the virtuous use of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancements.

This book argues that in order for people to live well, they must develop a virtue of playfulness. Inspired by Aristotle, the book draws on work from philosophy, classics, history, biology, psychology, and media studies to understand the place of play and playfulness in a good life. Many philosophers have written about play, from Presocratics such as Heraclitus to contemporary philosophers such as Bernard Suits. Some champion play as the most crucial value in life. Others deride it and warn strongly against it. This book evaluates the research for how play and playfulness bear on living a good life and becoming a good person. Its main argument is that in order to understand play as an action we must understand playfulness as a virtue in the lives of good people. The author develops a theory of playfulness from an Aristotelian perspective. Like Aristotle sees the virtues as necessary for a happy life, the author argues that playfulness is necessary for living well. And just as Aristotle offers multifaceted characterizations of core virtues, the author argues that playfulness includes aspects of seriousness, creativity, humility, optimism, and sociality. Playful people take play seriously, learn new skills, overcome failure, strive for success, and keep others in mind. As a result, playful people have a better shot at living well. The Virtue of Playfulness is an accessible, empirically-informed, and detailed treatment of the philosophy of playfulness. It will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy and related disciplines who are interested in virtue ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of games, philosophy of sport, and ancient philosophy.

Whereas Aristotle defended the appropriateness of slavery and Seneca derided only its cruelty, Dio Chrysostom vehemently opposed any argument in favor of keeping slaves. And he did it in the 1st Century CE Greco-Roman world, a society comfortable with slavery. This paper analyzes Dio’s dialogue _The Tenth Discourse: Diogenes or on Servants_ to try to understand how Cynics addressed the wrongs of slavery when so many other philosophers did not. The paper argues that Cynic commitments to self-sufficiency, freedom, and nature helped them to recognize the immorality and injustice of owning slaves. And Dio’s work, which derided injustices that most others defended, shows that philosophers should resist excusing thinkers as mere products of their time, especially canonical figures such as Aristotle and Seneca. Not only were Aristotle and Seneca wrong, but so are contemporary philosophers if they do not hold such historical figures to account by acknowledging and discussing their limitations and faults as thinkers in relation to the historical circumstances they faced.