Browsing FAS Theses and Dissertations by FAS Department "Philosophy"
Now showing items 1-20 of 35
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Acting From Thought About Action
(2016-08-25)Human action is unique. It is metaphysically unique because we can act self-consciously. It is normatively unique because we are subject to prudential, moral, and rational standards in action, whereas other agents are not. ... -
Belief and Ameliorative Epistemology
(2016-08-29)My dissertation is in three parts. In “Evidentialism and Belief Polarization,” I consider the epistemic import of a belief revision process known as belief polarization, in which exposure to a mixed batch of evidence ... -
The Commonwealth as Agent: Group Action, the Common Good, and the General Will
(2013-09-18)In this dissertation, I argue for a Rousseauvian vision of an ideal society: one in which the people constitute a group agent, unified under a collective will, willing action that constitutes the common good. Most have ... -
Conceptualism and Objectivity in Locke's Account of Natural Kinds
(2013-10-18)Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is considered by many to be the locus classicus of a number of influential arguments for conventionalism, according to which there are no objective, privileged ways of classifying ... -
Counsel and Command: An Address-Dependent Account of Authority
(2016-09-14)In this dissertation I develop an account of the concept of authority and the distinction between theoretical and practical authority in terms of their proper forms of interpersonal address. I then exploit the difference ... -
Dependence on Persons and Dependence on Things in Rousseau's Social, Psychological, and Aesthetic Theory
(2018-03-02)Jean-Jacques Rousseau is often associated with a certain political form of relating to another as a person, where a person is seen as a locus of enforceable demands. Nevertheless, as I argue in this dissertation, Rousseau ... -
Duties of Rescue: a Moderate Account
(2013-10-18)This dissertation clarifies a challenge present in Peter Singer's famine-relief argument and offers a new account of our moral duties of rescue. The challenge, in essence, is to differentiate two classes of idealized ... -
Essays on Biological Individuality
(2014-10-21)Much of biology, especially evolutionary theory, makes assumptions about the individuality of living things. A population, for example, is made up of individuals. Those individuals sometimes reproduce, creating new ... -
Formal Analyticity
(2017-05-12)This dissertation consists of three papers that together serve to defend a notion of analyticity for formal languages: A sentence (or rule of inference) of a formal language is formally analytic if understanding the sentence ... -
Global Institutions and Relations among Non-Co-Citizens
(2013-08-14)A common criticism of global institutions is that their rules disproportionately favor the political and economic interests of powerful states over those of weaker states. This dissertation consists of three essays that ... -
Intellectual Property Rights and Institutions: A Pluralist Account
(2014-06-06)Debates over intellectual property's justifications tend to treat natural rights and utilitarian accounts as competitors, but they should be seen as complements instead. Lockean and Kantian theories of intellectual property ... -
Into Question: An Account of Inquiry
(2018-01-09)Inquiry is central to our lives as knowers. From the quotidian ‘where did I leave my keys’ to the most momentous of research questions, we update our beliefs via inquiries large and small every day. Plausibly then, we ... -
Kant's Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity
(2015-08-28)Kant’s Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity Abstract Critics of Kant's moral philosophy often object that it cannot account for moral requirements that are both genuinely objective and contentful. Notwithstanding ... -
Knowledge in Action
(2013-08-12)It is widely acknowledged that an agent is doing A intentionally only if she knows she is doing A. It has proved difficult, however, to reconcile two natural thoughts about this knowledge. On the one hand, the agent seems ... -
Loving, Valuing, Regretting, and Being Oneself
(2015-06-24)A meaningful life involves loving people and valuing things. We typically love our spouses, parents, children, siblings, and friends, and value our projects, activities, causes, and ideals. In virtue of such attachments, ... -
'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics
(2014-10-21)This dissertation provides a defense of the normative intuition known as the Procreation Asymmetry, according to which there is a strong moral reason not to create a life that will foreseeably not be worth living, but there ... -
No Metaphysics within Physics?
(2014-06-06)This dissertation has three parts. In "Quantum Entanglement, Bohmian Mechanics, and Humean Supervenience," I defend David Lewis's metaphysical doctrine of Humean supervenience, and traditional metaphysical reductionism ... -
The Normativity of Structural Rationality
(2014-10-21)Many of us take for granted that rationality requires that we have our attitudes combined only in certain ways. For example, we are required not to hold inconsistent beliefs or intentions and we are required to intend any ... -
Objectivity and Intersubjectivity in Moral Philosophy
(2017-05-05)Many people believe that morality is objective. My dissertation explores whether we have good grounds for this belief, and whether we should find it troubling if we do not. I defend negative answers to both questions. The ... -
On Perception's Role in Aristotle’s Epistemology
(2015-04-28)Aristotle thinks all our knowledge comes from perception. Yet he doesn't say much about the sense in which our knowledge might be based on or derived from the things we perceive. So what exactly does perception contribute ...