Now showing items 1-18 of 18

  • An analysis of the State 

    Tomhave, Alan (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
    What the state is remains far from clear in political philosophy. However, the state is also a key concept at work in many discussions in political philosophy. For example, there is a debate about anarchism, the question ...
  • Choice, ownership and responsibility 

    Liu, Xiaofei (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)
    My dissertation is to answer these two questions: "Does moral responsibility require choice?" and "If not, what does it require?" Classic accounts of moral responsibility, such as libertarian accounts, assume a volition ...
  • Citizenship goes to the dogs 

    Howe, E. Alexander (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
    The conclusion I defend is that "domestic animals" have a moral claim to what I refer to as "basic citizenship rights," and that they do so for the same reason that "non-autonomous humans" do. I define each of these key ...
  • Clarifying relational egalitarianism 

    Rowse, Eric (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] I clarify the nature of relational egalitarianism, a theory in political philosophy that concerns equality. Relational egalitarians understand equality ...
  • Compensation as the moral foundation of Jus Post Bellum 

    Koszela, Adam (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
    Given how much harm can be done after the fighting part of wars end, and given recent failures to secure lasting peace after conflicts (e.g. in Afghanistan and Iraq), developing an account of the conditions of a just peace, ...
  • Defending an indirect normativity of belief 

    Perinchery-Herman, Stephen (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2019)
    In this dissertation, I seek to answer the following questions: is there such a thing as deontic epistemic normativity -- obligations, permissions, and prohibitions to act in a certain way based on epistemic grounds -- and ...
  • Defending states and protecting individuals : a critical examination of the principle of nonintervention 

    Nelson, Dustin, 1982- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016)
    It is widely accepted that individuals have rights. It is also widely accepted (though less so) that states have rights, including a right against intervention. Yet, sometimes the rights of individuals become threatened ...
  • Epistemic democracy and political legitimacy 

    Zhang, Sheng (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
    My dissertation aims to answer two questions: (1) Is democracy epistemically valuable? (2) Is the epistemic value of democracy, if it has any, necessary for justifying its legitimacy? I argue that democracy in certain form ...
  • A justified system of intellectual property rights 

    Trerise, Jonathan, 1977- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
    I argue that weak type-protection is the form our legal intellectual property rights should take. Other intellectual property regimes - specifically, strong type-protection (like that of our current American patent system) ...
  • Justifying war : an account of just and merely justifying causes for war 

    Allen, Crystal (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] My project is to offer a new answer to the traditional question: What can justify the resort to war? I defend substantive accounts of the Just Cause ...
  • Moral wrongness and reactive attitudes 

    Fan, Wenwen, 1984- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
    In my dissertation, I examine the relationship between moral wrongness and negative reactive attitudes. In particular, I inquire (1) whether moral wrongness is conceptually connected to the empirical disposition to hold ...
  • Preventing unjust wars, and lesser aggresson 

    Wagner, Isaac A. (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation addresses two issues in the philosophy of war: the prevention of unjust wars, and the moral justification of lethal defense against ...
  • Preventing unjust wars, and lesser aggresson 

    Wagner, Issac A. (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation addresses two issues in the philosophy of war: the prevention of unjust wars, and the moral justification of lethal defense against ...
  • A proprietarian theory of custodial rights over children 

    Schmidly, Brandon, 1975- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] I defend a view that individuals have custodial rights over children in virtue of being the genetic parents of the child and that those rights are ...
  • A revised Hobbesian argument for conflict among humans 

    Quintaneiro, Arcangelo Sforcim Pereira (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2023)
    Thomas Hobbes believed that a state of nature (that is, a state without a society) is a miserable condition for humans because human individuals have a natural inclination to fight each other. In addition, Hobbes argued ...
  • Standing and status : a dissertation on the necessary and sufficient conditions for moral standing and an analysis of moral status 

    Griffith, Selwyn C (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2023)
    Moral standing is the property by which an entity is considered to be capable of being wronged or is morally considerable. For example, when I kick a rock, I do not do anything wrong, nor is the rock wronged. On the other ...
  • Using and coming to own : a left-proprietarian treatment of the just use and appropration of common resources 

    Roark, Eric (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
    How is it that people come to appropriate (privately own) and justly use resources in the world that initially exist within conditions of "common ownership"? The historical story in our world is surely that the strong ...
  • Why preferences can be optional 

    Asper, Jon Marc (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2020)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] In practical deliberation, your aim should not always only be to promote objective goodness. Rather, I argue, you should use your own practical ...