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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Toward A Thomistic Environmental Ethic: How Aquinas's Metaethic Provides The Groundwork For An Environmentally And Zoologically Responsible Moral System, William Merle Green Sep 2016

Toward A Thomistic Environmental Ethic: How Aquinas's Metaethic Provides The Groundwork For An Environmentally And Zoologically Responsible Moral System, William Merle Green

Masters Theses

While the trend in contemporary discussions of environmental ethics is often to dispense with traditional anthropocentric conceptions of morality in favor of more biologically and ecologically inclusive perspectives, I will argue that Natural Law Theory and Virtue Ethics, both integral components of the moral philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, provide the groundwork for an ecologically and zoologically responsible ethic. Thus, utilizing the core of Aquinas’s ethical system, I will attempt to construct a robust moral framework that is Thomistic in every important sense while at the same time satisfies the sufficiency conditions for a successful environmental code of conduct.


“What Does Philosophy Of Religion Offer To The Modern University?”, Michael Jones Aug 2016

“What Does Philosophy Of Religion Offer To The Modern University?”, Michael Jones

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.


Die Phantasie Gottes: An Analysis Of The Divine Ideas In Deity Theories And Brian Leftow, With A Proposed Synthesis, Nathaniel Dowell Jul 2016

Die Phantasie Gottes: An Analysis Of The Divine Ideas In Deity Theories And Brian Leftow, With A Proposed Synthesis, Nathaniel Dowell

Masters Theses

This thesis was on how God is related to the truth-values of propositions on possible worlds - specifically, those propositions that do not seem to be about Him and constitute His ideas for what to create. It opened with a survey of some historical positions with special emphasis on Aquinas, Leibniz, Spinoza and Kant. Next, some criticisms were given for these so-called deity theories (i.e., the belief that possibilities are dependent on God and God must, by nature, recognize the necessary truths He does) with the most space given to Brian Leftow’s critiques. The second chapter detailed Brian Leftow’s theological …


Sources Of Dignity For Persons: Capacities, Friendship, Love And Subjectivity, Matthew Nevius Jun 2016

Sources Of Dignity For Persons: Capacities, Friendship, Love And Subjectivity, Matthew Nevius

Masters Theses

Many people seem to understand the term 'dignity' as applying to all human persons regardless of their race, creed, sex, or religious beliefs. As to what the concept 'dignity' means is a difficult and complex problem. Is the concept 'dignity' an empty concept, void of meaning? What does it mean when we say that this or that person has dignity? Most of the current philosophical literature has very little to say as to what dignity is. I will argue that what we need to find is a concept of dignity that accounts for both the infinite and the irreplaceable value …


A Case For A Husserlian Willardarian Approach To Knowledge, Joseph Gibson Jun 2016

A Case For A Husserlian Willardarian Approach To Knowledge, Joseph Gibson

Masters Theses

This thesis introduces certain aspects in the thought of Dallas Willard and Edmund Husserl as a new way forward in the internalism externalism debate. Husserl’s detailed analysis of cognition has application to epistemology and addresses in great depth an area which in the current discussion is often tertiary and shallow at best. It is argued that in both internalist and externalist camps there is a common assumption about cognition which Husserl argues forcibly against. This assumption is that thought, or cognition, is essentially linguistic. (The notion that ‘thought is essentially linguistic’ means that thought requires the use of language.) Whatever …


Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, John Molinari Jun 2016

Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, John Molinari

Masters Theses

How should one's beliefs be affected by one's knowing that other people, who are equally well-informed, rational, and intelligent – in other words, persons who are epistemic, or intellectual, peers – believe differently? In this thesis I look at a certain answer to this question. Richard Feldman argues that when two persons who have (roughly) the same level of intelligence and who are (roughly) equally well-informed disagree, the only rational response is for both persons to give up their disputed beliefs and suspend judgment. I look at two objections to Feldman’s view, one from Ernest Sosa and the other from …


Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, John Molinari Jun 2016

Peer Disagreement And Rationality: An Analysis Of Richard Feldman's Conciliatory View, John Molinari

Masters Theses

How should one's beliefs be affected by one's knowing that other people, who are equally well-informed, rational, and intelligent – in other words, persons who are epistemic, or intellectual, peers – believe differently? In this thesis I look at a certain answer to this question. Richard Feldman argues that when two persons who have (roughly) the same level of intelligence and who are (roughly) equally well-informed disagree, the only rational response is for both persons to give up their disputed beliefs and suspend judgment. I look at two objections to Feldman’s view, one from Ernest Sosa and the other from …


The Problem Of Evil And The Probity Of Theodicy From William Rowe's Evidential Evidential Of Evil, Olaoluwa Apata Jun 2016

The Problem Of Evil And The Probity Of Theodicy From William Rowe's Evidential Evidential Of Evil, Olaoluwa Apata

Masters Theses

In this research, we discussed the types of evil: moral and natural, which are cited by atheistic philosophers as evidence against the existence of God. The so-called evidence from evil has been used by the atheistic and other non-theistic scholars to raise hypothesis on evaluating the possibility or likelihood that an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God exists in a world that is littered with evil. Moral evil is evil that arise from the misuse of free will by moral agents, while natural evils are natural disasters such as: earthquakes, famine, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. We discussed moral evil and …


“Recognizable Goodness” A Response To Beversluis’ Understanding Of God’S Goodness, Emily Mccarty May 2016

“Recognizable Goodness” A Response To Beversluis’ Understanding Of God’S Goodness, Emily Mccarty

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

In her rebuttal to John Beversluis’ C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, Emily McCarty makes the following arguments. Lewis maintains throughout these three works that God’s goodness is recognizable. In The Problem of Pain, what seems unlike or even not good to us, is upon reflection, good. In fact, there are similar human examples that show God’s goodness is not so very unlike our own. In “The Poison of Subjectivism,” Lewis does not empty good of meaning: rather he sources that meaning in the divine so that our morals have enduring meaning. In A Grief Observed …


A Case For Monistic Idealism: Connecting Idealistic Thoughts From Leibniz To Kant With Support In Quantum Physics, Erik Haynes May 2016

A Case For Monistic Idealism: Connecting Idealistic Thoughts From Leibniz To Kant With Support In Quantum Physics, Erik Haynes

Masters Theses

Through the analysis of idealistic arguments and evidence from physics, it will be demonstrated that monistic idealism has a great deal of explanatory power as a metaphysical system for the reality that one experiences. Some of the arguments that support this claim include the inadequateness of Cartesian matter, the seemingly infinite divisibility of atoms, matter being reducible to sensations, the unnecessary aspect of matter, and simplicity. Evidence from quantum physics includes such factors as the necessary role of an observer in the collapse of a quantum wave function and the element of nonlocality. Psychological experiments including nonlocal communication, the power …