Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Doing Without Desiring, Steven E. Swartzer

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation defends a cognitivist alternative to the Humean belief-desire theory of motivation against standard philosophical arguments.

Moral judgments influence our action. For instance, someone might donate to charity because she believes she has a duty to give back to her community. According to the Humean orthodoxy, some additional state—some passion or desire—is needed to explain her action. She may want to donate the money, to give back to her community, or to fulfill her duty. Yet there must be something she wants, the Humean insists, because only desires are capable of moving us. Even moral judgment is no more …

Epistemic Contextualism: A Defense And Analysis, Sruthi R. Rothenfluch

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Epistemic contextualists maintain that the truth conditions of knowledge ascriptions and denials change according to the context of utterance. In this dissertation, I defend this view against one of its main rivals, classic invariantism, which holds that the contents of such statements remain fixed across contexts. While epistemic contextualists provide a straightforward semantic account of the variability in our knowledge-ascribing behavior, classic invariantists cannot, and therefore must offer some explanation as to why it seems as though the standards for ‘knowing that p’ shift from one context to the next. To this end, classic invariantists draw a distinction between what …

Strategies For Defusing The Demandingness Objection, Justin J. Moss

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Bernard Williams’s formulation of the Demandingness Objection holds that living a moral life, as the consequentialist understands it, is incompatible with living a life that is good for human beings. This is because the demands of consequentialist morality threaten to overwhelm the life of the person who cares about being moral, thus leaving no time for their own projects and interests. Several prominent consequentialists have responded to the Demandingness Objection by seeking a more moderate and indirect form of consequentialism that does not require as strong a duty of beneficence as classical utilitarianism. I review and criticize three prominent moderate …