CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Legamo, Abdulhakim Yohannes |
|---|---|
| Title | Government Propaganda and Autonomy |
| Summary | This thesis analyzes the nexus between propaganda and personal autonomy. There are two important questions that this thesis will address: First, does propaganda infringe individuals’ autonomy? Secondly, can a state be justified in trading off its citizen’s autonomy for a greater good? I argue that propaganda uses techniques that diminish critical thinking and independent reasoning. Those techniques have the power to control the belief, attitude, and perception of the audiences. They manipulate audience’s ways of thinking towards the intended objectives of the propagandists, and they make the targets do things for the reasons that the propagandist wants them to do. I argue that those techniques treat the audiences as a mere means to the ultimate objective of the propagandists and consequently, infringes personal autonomy – which I consider as a fundamental element of a human being in order to live a worthy life. That makes propaganda a bad thing to have. However, I also argue that there are conditions that make propaganda survive normative questions – states can be justified for employing propaganda where propaganda happened to be the only or the better option. |
| Supervisor | Rippon, Simon |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/legamo_abdulhakim.pdf |
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