2010 Winner: Michael Anthony

Michael Anthony is the winner of the inaugural Keenan Prize. He is from the University of Victoria and was one of the many reasons why we instituted a word count maximum for subsequent prize years. Download his (15,000+ word) paper Imminent Humanity and comment on it below.

Imminent Humanity: Re-evaluating individual responsibility, liability, and immunity in times of war from a liberal perspective.

Abstract: What do we owe each other in times of war? Although we may claim to understand our obligations in personal contexts, war presents extraordinary moral problems which are not easily solved by the application of familiar principles. This fact often tempts theorists and philosophers to assume either (a) wars, and the killing done in them, are in principle unethical or (b) wars are outside the realm of moral consideration. This paper takes a broadly liberal approach to examining the principles governing the forfeiture of human rights. Specifically, this paper looks at Igor Primoratz’s claim that liberalism is committed to terroristic implications; this paper also provides a number of key revisions to Michael Walzer’s just war paradigm on issues of the moral equality of soldiers, noncombatant immunity, and the doctrine of double effect. This paper was written in part to demonstrate the importance of philosophical reflection on issues that have been increasingly considered matters of state policy or strict legality.

2010 Short List

Congratulations to the the following applicants whose papers were short listed for the Keenan Prize for 2010!

Pani Sarkis-Michael – Inclusive Legal Positivism vs Exclusive Legal Positivism
Shawn Bartlett – Robert Nozick, Rights, and What We Owe Others
Kajia Eidse-Rempel – Lyotard and Foucault: Condemning Us to the Computerized and Disciplinized Society
Rebecca Vasluianu – Democracy and the Problem of Epistemic Adequacy

2019 Winner: Nelson Guedes

Nelson Guedes is a student at the University of Victoria majoring in Philosophy. He is working on a transdisciplinary theory that provides a strong foundation for knowledge. He plans to use his theory to address a wide variety of social-economic problems. His interests include, inter alia, general systems theory, complexity science, game theory, metaphysics, philosophy of law & political philosophy, Zen Buddhism and Taoism. Law as an Emergent Natural Phenomenon Abstract: Increasing instability in foreign relations threatens to breakdown the decentralized international legal order. In this paper, I examine the natural decentralized emergence of law, the difficulties the international legal order is facing and the sources of instability. I will then tap into insights from decentralized indigenous legal orders and use those insights to address the difficulties the international legal order is facing. Finally, I will briefly present a solution that creates a stable decentralized inter...

2020 Winner: Sophia Whicher

Sophia Whicher recently graduated from the University of Toronto with a double major in Philosophy and Ethics, Society and Law. She is especially interested in Ethics and the Philosophy of Emotions, and their intersection with the public sphere, including our political and legal systems. One of her favourite parts of her degree was being able to teach, and she hopes to incorporate teaching philosophy and the spirit of inquisitive learning it encourages into her future. Outside of her academic life, she enjoys travelling, drinking tea, and annoying her partner by tirelessly asking questions about everything. Legal Positivism and a Dynamic Picture of the Law Abstract: The question of whether there is a necessary connection between law and morality is one which manifests concretely in the aftermath of immoral legal systems. In this paper, I use the post-war German Grudge Informer cases as a lens through which to examine HLA Hart’s defence of the Separation Thesis. In thinking about what ...

2017 Winner: Kelsey Vicars

Kelsey Vicars is both a recent graduate and current student at Simon Fraser University. She completed two bachelor’s degrees at SFU, including an honours degree in philosophy. She has just begun a Master’s degree at SFU. Kelsey has broad interests in philosophy: she is mainly interested in philosophy of science (specifically philosophy of physics, scientific and mathematical explanations, and neurophilosophy), ethics (specifically moral responsibility and the ethical implications of implicit bias), and political philosophy (specifically Indigenous philosophy). Implicit Bias and Emergent Moral Wrongs Abstract: My research will explore the normative structure of implicit bias. This project will focus on the philosophical implications of bias in social cognition, and will address the question of moral responsibility for implicit bias. I will argue that individual implicitly biased behaviours constitute moral harms, but are not themselves moral wrongs. This means that the average person is...

Recipients of the Dr. Brian M. Keenan Prize

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