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Restoring The Balance: Setting Aside Naturalism In Favor Of Personhood In Extreme Cases, Brian Joseph Buckley
Restoring The Balance: Setting Aside Naturalism In Favor Of Personhood In Extreme Cases, Brian Joseph Buckley
Dissertations
This dissertation addresses a simple question: Is an anencephalic child a person? These children are born with only a brain stem, and, as such, cannot experience any type of consciousness. If personhood is understood as an articulable moral category, particularly distinct from DNA membership, reasonable evidence would be required to attribute any such moral category in these cases. That is, to claim that children who may never think or feel are persons carries a philosophical burden that extends beyond mere Homo Sapiens membership. This dissertation accepts that burden and answers that anencephalic children are persons. To do this, I first …
Religion, Science, And The Conscious Self: Bio-Psychological Explanation And The Debate Between Dualism And Naturalism, Paul J. Voelker
Religion, Science, And The Conscious Self: Bio-Psychological Explanation And The Debate Between Dualism And Naturalism, Paul J. Voelker
Dissertations
This dissertation approaches metaphysical and metaethical questions concerning the nature of the human person, the existence and nature of God, and the nature of moral judgment through contemporary neuroscience, cognitive science, scientific moral psychology, and analytic philosophy of mind. Contrary to proposals that seek a harmonious integration of "religion and science" this dissertation argues that contemporary bio-psychological sciences give one ample reason to be skeptical of many of the metaphysical and metaethical claims embedded in religious traditions like Christianity and Buddhism. The first three chapters of the dissertation focus on the metaphysical issue of mind-body dualism while the fourth chapter …