Savannah Bagwell

Instructor: Dr. Nathan Sasser

In reflecting on my accomplishments during my time in Greenville Technical College’s Honors Program, I began thinking about what I’d like to accomplish in my final semester at Greenville Tech… Which led to my discovering the Creative Inquiry Program. Chief to my academic career in the Honors Program is the development of a robust curriculum vitae — to which Creative Inquiry lends itself very nicely. I knew immediately that I wanted to conduct my research in Philosophy, as it was during my time at Greenville Tech that I discovered my passion for philosophy in academia and chose to pursue it as a career.

Dr. Sasser has been a mentor to me for most all my career at Greenville Tech, and when I approached him with this project he was more than happy to assist. We both saw Creative Inquiry as an opportunity for me to develop and utilize my research skills in a way comparable to the level of research I’ll be undertaking as both an undergraduate at a four-year institution and as a graduate student. As such, we developed a research plan and goal to be completed with the caliber of a senior/graduate level research thesis.

My Creative Inquiry research will explore the role of the humility in John Stuart Mill’s account of just relations between the sexes in The Subjection of Women. My research will pay special attention to two things: first, what Mill deems one of the greatest hindrances in ending the subjection of women, man’s “self-worship,” and second, Mill’s proposed remedy: the “ideal marriage,” or marriage as friendship. The vice of pride and the virtue of humility thus extend themselves to Mill’s idea of just relations between the sexes; however, Mill never directly explores these character traits in The Subjection of Women. As such, my research will consider how a more developed conception of the virtue of humility might strengthen, nuance, or even change Mill’s position in The Subjection of Women. The expected outcome of my research is a 3,000-4,000 word paper addressing this question.