Mischief as a virtue.
Item
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Title
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Mischief as a virtue.
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Identifier
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AAI3204957
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identifier
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3204957
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Creator
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Stephenson, Jeffrey Earl.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Michael Levin
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Philosophy
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Abstract
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Traditional uses of the word "mischief" indicate that mischievousness as an attitude is morally bad, filled with the worst of humanity: mean-spirited intentions, negative energy and falsehoods.;In this dissertation, I argue that in this instance tradition is mistaken. Indeed, through use of intuition pumps and a series of analyses of historical and contemporary uses of the word "mischief" and its cognates, I argue two things. The first argument I make is that mischief and mischief making are fundamentally communicative. One obvious way of understanding mischief as a communicative act is to view mischief through Grice's schema and account of meaning. I take Grice's three-part definition of meaning and then substitute the proper mischievous elements into Grice's schema. The result is a definition of mischief that functions also as an explanation of the communicativeness of mischief. The second argument I make is the prima facie contradictory claim that mischief---or more precisely, the content of the mischievous attitude---is an Aristotelian-style virtue. That is to say, while a case might be made that mischief is a virtue in the strongest sense a disposition can be a virtue under Aristotle's theory, in the end I will limit my claim to the proposition that mischief is a virtue in the spirit of Aristotle's understanding of virtue.;Finally, through a consideration of some of the work of John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche, I consider contemporary mischief making. The conclusion is that mischief maker is morally praiseworthy member of society because he is engaged in society in a public way, yet he still maintains a sense of individualism adequate to the task of countering the influence and power of mass society.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
