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The Grounding Of Effective Aristotelian Law, Kyra Kinnaman
The Grounding Of Effective Aristotelian Law, Kyra Kinnaman
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This paper aims to contribute meaningfully to Aristotelian scholarship by articulating the grounding of effective law. The grounding of law is the reason for which law’s efficacy can be explained. Two popular contenders for this explanation are natural law theory and legal positivism; however, this paper will build off the work of Donald Schroeder to show that neither theory is a tenable explanation for the grounding of Aristotelian law. Although Schroeder rejects natural law and positivism as appropriate interpretations of Aristotle, he fails to articulate what ultimately is the grounding of efficacious law. The final section of this paper will …
The False Intent-Purpose Distinction In Textualism, Aaron Graham
The False Intent-Purpose Distinction In Textualism, Aaron Graham
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Textualism is the theory of legislative interpretation championed most famously by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Textualism adopts twin interpretive commitments: (1) the meaning of a legislative text should be discerned by application of long-established canons of construction, the most important of which is that the text means what its words convey; and (2) a legislative text means what it meant at the time it was enacted. This paper examines the first principle, and in particular Scalia and treatise coauthor Bryan A. Garner’s belief that it mandates that judges forswear any consideration of legislative intent. This paper assess …
Consciousness In Comatose Clowns: No Funny Business, Mary Gregg
Consciousness In Comatose Clowns: No Funny Business, Mary Gregg
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Consider the tragic case of four circus clowns whose pie-to-the-face gag effectively knocks each one into a cream-pie coma. In each of the four cases, motor capacities (voluntary speech, limb movement, etc.) Are not available to the patient's conscious control. Although none of our apparently comatose clowns have voluntary motor capacities, each has a unique set of internal and external activity going on. In other words, each of our clowns (bozo, chuckles, wiggles, and krusty, respectively), now sits in a vegetative state. Now, there's a problem. Sometimes comatose patients are conscious, so there's a big philosophical and empirical issue going …
Persistent Problems In Modified Divine Command Theory, Brandon Trey Jackson
Persistent Problems In Modified Divine Command Theory, Brandon Trey Jackson
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
I argue that there are persistent problems in contemporary modifications of divine command theory. Divine command theory states that God’s commands are moral obligations only because he commands them. Modified divine command theories attempt to add to or amend the justification for God’s commands being moral obligations. The problem is that they aren’t successful at escaping the Euthyprho dilemma, which states the following of God’s commands: they are either a) moral obligations because they are commanded by God, or they are b) commanded by God because they are moral obligations. Modified divine command theories attempt to navigate between these two …