Arts and Humanities Commons^™

On Beliefs "Worth Risking" In Plato, Clayton Willis Carden

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I ask and answer the question “What is a belief ‘worth risking’ in Plato?” This question arises in light of some peculiar passages in the dialogues, particularly in the Meno and the Phaedo, in which Plato’s Socrates appears to advocate for adopting certain beliefs specifically in virtue of their goodness rather than their likelihood of being true. I claim that the reason for this is that Socrates regards the meaningful possibility of successful inquiry as being uncertain given certain challenges: namely, Meno’s paradox (which threatens the possibility of inquiry as such) and the formidable threat of …

The Epistemic Value Of Resonance: Intuitive Thinking In Theoretical Understanding, Claire Dartez

Doctoral Dissertations

We commonly say that an explanation for something we do not quite understand ‘resonates’. And we seem to take the resonance of the explanation to count epistemically in its favor. What is resonance and what is its epistemic value? I propose that resonance is a psychological state in which a consciously considered explanation coheres with the unconscious representational content in the mind of an individual, and that this psychological state is metacognitively signaled by a feeling which we also call ‘resonance’. This account of resonance implies that theoretical understanding, rather than knowledge, is the epistemic domain of its functioning. That …

Content Externalism And Self-Knowledge, Donnie Gene Barnett Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

There appears to be a tension between two widely held philosophical theses: content externalism and what is often called “privileged access”. The first is the metaphysical thesis that the contents of many propositional attitude-types are at least partially determined by properties external to the thinking subject. The second is the epistemological thesis that we have a priori access to the contents of our own propositional attitudes. Those who hold that at least one of these theses must be false are called incompatibilists. My goal is to show that the incompatibilists are wrong, that content externalism and privileged access can both …

Dignifying Decisions: The Role Of Dignity In Surrogate Decision-Making, Jeffrey Pannekoek

Doctoral Dissertations

Dignity refers, broadly speaking, to a kind of status that is intrinsically connected to certain norms. Often, we think of dignity as the status of having inherent value, which entails that certain kinds of treatment are morally impermissible. References to dignity are pervasive in clinical ethics, where the concept is called on to do a broad variety of work, including bolstering claims about patient-focused health care, advocating in favor of and against euthanasia, and supporting an infinite number of particular medical decisions. In stark contrast to its pervasiveness, the conceptualization of dignity is still an unsettled issue, in particular in …

Resituando El Cuerpo Femenino A Través De La Memoria Histórica Y La Ficción: Carlota De Bélgica Y Eva Perón En Las Novelas Noticias Del Imperio De Fernando Del Paso Y Santa Evita De Tomás Eloy Martínez, Krysheida Ayub - Unzon

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the body and the memory of Charlotte of Belgium and Eva Perón in the historical novels Noticias del Imperio (1987) by the Mexican writer Fernando del Paso and Santa Evita (1996), by the Argentine Tomás Eloy Martínez. Through the conformation of these historical characters as literary protagonists, we observe how both are endowed with a new historical meaning from the articulation of fictional narratives that differ from traditional historiographical texts. From the analysis of the corporality and the memory of the female characters, we will attend to the resignification of the historical texts and their fictional ramifications …

Stability And Resilience In Rawls's Political Liberalism, Grace Campbell

Doctoral Dissertations

Stability and resilience are complementary attributes in John Rawls’s most developed liberal system. In his early theory, stable cooperation is guaranteed by liberal society’s single, shared conception of justice. Rawls’s more pluralist theory introduces a possibility of cooperation without a consensus about justice, but it does not explain stable cooperation. If citizens are committed to a family of reasonable, liberal conceptions of justice, a pluralist liberal system can be stable because it is also resilient. Though pluralism increases discord in dynamic conditions, citizens can appeal to a shared family of ideals to adapt and restore allegiance. This adaptive capacity is …

Oppression, Civility, And The Politics Of Resistance, Alex M. Richardson

Doctoral Dissertations

Oppression based on social group membership has been and remains a major injustice which thrives in modern liberal democracies like the United States. Organized political resistance to oppression and the structures that perpetuate it has taken many forms throughout history, from the early acts of revolution that founded the United States, to the nineteenth century abolitionist movement against slavery, to the New Deal-era labor struggles and Black civil rights movement of the twentieth century and the LGBTQ+ rights movement of recent history. The moral and political legacy of these historical struggles, as well as the extent to which the surrounding …

A Critique Of John Mcdowell's Theory Of Moral Perception, Edward Ray Falls

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines an argument that John McDowell’s view is structurally analogous to Protagoreanism, and that arguments structurally analogous to Plato’s arguments against Protagoreanism apply to McDowell’s view. Through philosophical investigation, the dissertation shows that Plato’s arguments do not perfectly apply to McDowell’s view, but that the view nevertheless is unable to address the metastasized problem of constraint. The metastasized problem of constraint arises in at least two kinds of circumstances: situations where cultural relativism is a concern, and situations where there is pressure to adapt to unforeseeable natural developments.

An Ethics Of Amusement, Ashley Caroline Mobley

Doctoral Dissertations

Human beings often hold one another morally responsible for what we find funny or fail to find funny. Though this practice is common and so demands philosophical attention, it remains underexplored in the literature. The purpose of this project is to devote attention to this practice by developing an ethics of amusement.

In chapter 2, I argue for why amusement is an emotion according to incongruity theory—the dominant theory of humor and amusement. With this in mind, I argue in chapter 3 that we are responsible for our emotions insofar as we have emotional agency. In particular, while we cannot …

Linearly Preconditioned Nonlinear Solvers For Phase Field Equations Involving P-Laplacian Terms, Wenqiang Feng

Doctoral Dissertations

Phase field models are usually constructed to model certain interfacial dynamics. Numerical simulations of phase-field models require long time accuracy, stability and therefore it is necessary to develop efficient and highly accurate numerical methods. In particular, the unconditionally energy stable , unconditionally solvable, and accurate schemes and fast solvers are desirable.

In this thesis, We describe and analyze preconditioned steepest descent (PSD) solvers for fourth and sixth-order nonlinear elliptic equations that include p-Laplacian terms on periodic domains in 2 and 3 dimensions. Such nonlinear elliptic equations often arise from time discretization of parabolic equations that model various biological and physical …

The Significance Of Rousseau’S Concept Of Amour-Propre In Rawls, Xinghua Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation defends the view that there is a Rousseauvian interpretation of Rawls’s political philosophy by focusing on the significance of amour-propre in Rawls’s political philosophy. In the first chapter, I introduce my central thesis and chapter arrangements and compare my Rousseauvian interpretation with other interpretations of Rawls. In the second chapter, I introduce Rousseau’s concept of amour-propre and try to defend Rawls’s wide view of amourpropre, according to which, amour-propre has both a positive and a negative form. In the third chapter, I argue that Rousseau’s concept of amour-propre plays a significant role in Rawls’s conception of justice as …

Population, Consumption, And Procreation: Ethical Implications For Humanity’S Future, Trevor Grant Hedberg

Doctoral Dissertations

Human population growth is a contributing factor to a number of significant environmental problems. My dissertation addresses both the negative environmental effects of human population growth and what ought to be done to curtail them. Specifically, I defend two main claims: (1) we have a duty to reduce human population, particularly those of us with large ecological footprints, and (2) morally permissible social policies can satisfy this duty.

I begin by addressing three well-known issues in population ethics that could serve as the basis for objections to reducing population: the Repugnant Conclusion, the Non-Identity Problem, and the Asymmetry. I then …

The Beauty Of Understanding: Aesthetic Methods Of Theory Evaluation, Devon Craig Bryson

Doctoral Dissertations

Philosophers use a variety of methods to evaluate theories, theories that are sources of greater understanding. My dissertation argues that judgments of beauty are a justified part of how we evaluate theories. That is, I argue that beauty is part of what makes a philosophical theory better. I reach this conclusion by analyzing two powerful and popular methods of theory evaluation: reflective equilibrium and simplicity. The literatures on both reflective equilibrium and simplicity clarify how these methods work and why they are justified methods of theory evaluation. But I argue that the going accounts of reflective equilibrium and simplicity have …

Sketches, Impressions And Confessions: Literature As Experiment In The Nineteenth Century, Andrew Ragsdale Lallier

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue for the existence and critical relevance of a program of experimental literature in the long nineteenth century, developed in the aesthetics of German Romanticism and adapted in a set of texts by Thomas De Quincey, Charles Dickens and George Eliot. My introduction positions this argument in context of larger debates concerning form, theory and literary capacity, provides points of connection between these authors, and outlines the most prominent features of experimental literature. In the first chapter, I present an unorthodox reading of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, accompanied by a brief account of the literary-critical …

Virtue, Evidence, And Epistemic Justification, Alexander Steven Hallam

Doctoral Dissertations

Evidence is a central concept in epistemology and more narrowly, theories of epistemic justification. Evidence is commonly thought to be what justifies our beliefs. On this view, a belief is justified for a person if that belief fits that person’s total body of evidence. But it is also commonly thought that evidence isn’t the only thing that justifies a belief. Some epistemologists even think that evidence isn’t what justifies a belief at all. Virtue epistemologists give epistemic or intellectual virtues an important and fundamental role in theories of epistemic justification. On such views, for a belief to be epistemically justified, …

Anthropocentrism And The Long-Term: Nietzsche As An Environmental Thinker, Andrew Nolan Hatley

Doctoral Dissertations

Nietzsche has been advanced as an authoritative support for nearly every political aim since his death in 1900. Recent work has focused on his potential to contribute to environmental ethics. I defend the view that Nietzsche can contribute to both environmental ethics and aesthetics, and moreover, that his philosophy cannot be fully understood without the conceptual resources of environmental philosophy. Nietzsche’s critique of morality and positive ethical views cannot be understood independent of conceptual distinctions of anthropocentrism and topics such as future generations and biocentric discussions of axiology. Nietzsche’s philosophy of nature emerges from his rejection of both metaphysical and …

Social Systems And Psychic Confluence: Flash Mobs, Communications, And Agency, Nicholas John Hauman

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation involves two components: 1) an analysis of the history of flash mobs including detailed descriptions of specific flash mobs and 2) an exploration of what this analysis elucidates concerning the interaction between individuals and social structure. By focusing on the flash mob as a form of communication, the dissertation displays how the flash mob has communicated multiplicitously through various social systems (e.g. art, mass media, economy, politics) to achieve various and often divergent ends. Within this larger understanding of the interaction between flash mobs and social structure this dissertation also finds, through an application of Luhmannian systems theory, …

Responsibility, Blame And The Psychopath, Matthew William Ruble

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the moral responsibility of psychopaths. I begin with an analysis of the concept of psychopathy by situating it within the context of a central debate in the philosophy of psychiatry over the conceptual nature of mental illness to demonstrate that psychopathy is an inherently value-laden concept. I argue against the disease-model of psychopathy and against their automatic exemption from moral responsibility as argued for by many moral philosophers. Psychopaths possess sufficient agency such that exempting them from moral responsibility is problematic both epistemically and morally. Yet psychopaths frequently offer reasons for their behavior that reveal their distance …

The Green Staff Of Asclepius: Envisioning Sustainable Medicine, Jason Lee Fishel

Doctoral Dissertations

To make society sustainable our institutions must also become sustainable. As an institution, health care contributes to environmental degradation. While unsurprising, contributions to environmental degradation increase risk factors for disease and illness, effectively frustrating the goals of medicine. To find ways to make health care sustainable I begin by reviewing the literature on sustainability from within environmental ethics and two previous attempts at envisioning sustainable health care in order to learn what to include in a vision of sustainable health care. Then I examine problems specific to making medicine sustainable by investigating how sustainability might affect the principles of medicine. …

In Defense Of The Direct Argument For Incompatibilism, Paul Roger Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

Is moral responsibility compatible with the truth of causal determinism? One of the most influential arguments that moral responsibility is incompatible with causal determinism is the so-called ‘Direct Argument,’ developed by Peter van Inwagen in his An Essay on Free Will. Informally put, the Direct Argument goes as follows:

If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But we are not responsible for what went on before we were born, and neither are we responsible for what the laws of nature are. Therefore, we are not …

The "Vast And Terrible" Trauma: American Literary Naturalism, Ethics, And Levinas, Tyler Joseph Efird

Doctoral Dissertations

In an 1896 essay, Frank Norris wrote that the reading world should abandon those “teacup tragedies” to which it had grown accustomed and embrace a new literature that would depict a “vast and terrible drama.” Realism, Norris claimed, could not be used to achieve an earnest portrait of the conditions that mark individual lives under capitalism. Instead, the world needed a romantic wrestling with the forces of existential inscrutability. Also, the perceived need for literature to depict a clear ethical system needed revising from the perspective of American literary naturalism, a school long denigrated for apparent moral vacuity. Through excruciating …

Searching For Consensus: Shared Decision Making And Clinical Ethics, Meghan Estell Bungo

Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation is the search for consensus in the context of clinical ethics—physician-patient interactions, ethics consultations, and ethics committee meetings focused on a particular patient’s care. I argue that consensus, when achieved through a process of shared deliberation that I outline, is the hallmark of the morally correct decision.

While philosophers have generally denigrated consensus as a guide to morally correct decisions, hospital ethics committees and President’s Councils charged with making recommendations about how to resolve moral conflicts in the clinical setting have clearly valued and aimed at the achievement of consensus. Assuming this search for consensus …

Rawls, Religion And The Ethics Of Citizenship: Toward A Liberal Reconciliation, Jeffrey Michael Cervantez

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the conflict between religion and Rawls’s liberalism. Often Rawls’s critics contend that the idea of public reason is hostile to religion or unfriendly to citizens of faith. I argue that this concern is misguided. A careful analysis of Rawls’s work demonstrates that he is far more welcoming to religion than is sometimes claimed. To defend this thesis I put forward what I take to be the best interpretation of Rawls’s idea of public reason, one that I think is immune to most of the standard objections.

Nevertheless, there are some lingering challenges to public reason that need …

Just War And Human Rights: Fighting With Right Intention, Todd Allan Burkhardt

Doctoral Dissertations

Under the nonideal conditions of our world, war is sometimes morally permissible, perhaps even required. Just war theory aims to make sense of this. It does so, on my view, by allowing war only if pursued with ‘right intention.’ In order permissibly to go to war, a state must not only have a just cause and limit its war-making activity to that necessary to vindicate the just cause, both required in order to engage in war with ‘right intention,’ but it must also seek to vindicate its just cause in a manner likely to yield a ‘just and lasting peace.’ …

Inscrutable Evils, Skeptical Theism, And The Epistemology Of Religious Trust, John David Mcclellan

Doctoral Dissertations

I argue that the philosophical discussion over William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil needs to take a closer look at the epistemology of religious trust—i.e., the rationality of the theist’s resilient confidence in God’s goodness in the face of inscrutable evils. This would constitute a significant change of emphasis in the current literature away from “skeptical theism,” the in vogue response to Rowe’s argument among theistic philosophers today. I argue that the skeptical theist approach is inadequate for two reasons. First, in trying to defeat even the atheist’s grounds for accepting Rowe’s argument, skeptical theists seem to seriously underestimate the …

Enhancing The Virtues Of Students, Gavin Gearhart Enck

Doctoral Dissertations

Discussions about the permissibility of students using enhancements in education are often framed by the question, “Is a student who uses cognitive-enhancing drugs cheating?” Some argue that students who use these cognitive-enhancing drugs are cheating because these drugs provide an unfair advantage that violates rules of fair competition in education. Others argue that students who use cognitive-enhancing drugs are not cheating because these drugs are merely another progressive educational tool, such as a calculator or computer. While the question of cheating is interesting, it is but only one question concerning the permissibility of enhancement in education. Another interesting question is, …

Minding Nature: A Defense Of A Sentiocentric Approach To Environmental Ethics, Joel P. Macclellan

Doctoral Dissertations

Environmental philosophers allege that philosophical views supporting the animal liberation movement are theoretically and practically inconsistent with environmentalism. While it is true that some animal ethicists argue that we ought to intervene extensively in nature such as the prevention of predation, these views take controversial positions in value theory and normative theory: (i) hedonism as a value theory, and (ii) a view of normativity which places the good before the right, e.g. maximizing utilitarianism, or a rights theory that includes strong positive rights, i.e. animals are entitled to a certain level of welfare or protection from harm. Importantly, environmental philosophers’ …

Collateral: Poems, Joshua Jon Robbins

Doctoral Dissertations

In the lyric tradition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Terrible Sonnets and James Wright’s odes to the Midwest, the poems in Collateral interrogate the complexities of faith and doubt in middle-class America and present a witness compelled to translate suburbia’s landscapes and evangelical banalities into a testimony of hard truths. These poems explore the emotional exhaustion that accompanies language’s broken connection to ideal meaning and how both are unable to fully correspond to our lives. The manuscript is also an exploration of my own corresponding lyric struggle to reconcile what is and what should be, the personal and the political …

When One Should Forgive: Eirenistic Responses To Wrongdoing, David Court Lewis

Doctoral Dissertations

In my dissertation I use Nicholas Wolterstorff’s conception of the good life (eirenéism), which serves as the foundation for his theory of rights, to argue for a new ethics of forgiveness that incorporates the necessary relational features of forgiveness, while at the same time providing substantive normative guidance in regards to when one should forgive. I, then, show that eirenistic forgiveness implies there is an obligation to forgive: a repentant wrongdoer has a right to be forgiven that creates certain obligations for victims to forgive.

I, like Wolterstorff, find such an implication repugnant, and so I spend the majority of …

Justice, Health, And Normal Function: A Political Foundation For Just Health Distribution, Erik Randall Krag

Doctoral Dissertations

Health is a particularly important social good, not least because it protects equality of opportunity: whatever goals we have, we need health to pursue them. Justice requires that we protect equality of opportunity, and so a just society must protect the health of its citizens. However, health resources are scarce; hence, theories of justice must consider how to distribute them fairly. Such distributional schemes must meet two requirements: first, they must fix what counts as a health need, and second, they must determine how to prioritize health needs. Existing discussions often focus on the second requirement alone, but this risks …