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Moral wrongness and reactive attitudes
(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 ...
Epistemic duties and blameworthiness for belief
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
People sometimes believe things they shouldn't. Tommy believes in Santa Claus, Rev. Jones believes that the world is ending, and Adolf believes that some ethnic groups are superior to others. But are they somehow at fault ...
A solution to skeptical puzzles
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
In this dissertation, I aim at resolving the skeptical puzzle. An instance of this puzzle is as follows: (1) I know that I have hands. (2) I don't know that I am not a brain in a vat (being stimulated to experience having ...
Epistemic democracy and political legitimacy
(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 ...
Niche construction and the role of environment : towards a new logic of natural selection explanations
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Biological systems may move in, feed on, socialize with, and change the world around it. How should we explain how these systems develop, act, think, ...
Niche construction and the role of environment : towards a new logic of natural selection explanations
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] I argue that natural selection explanations are not necessarily externalist, i.e. they don't always cite features of the environment as explanans. In ...
The division of moral labor : prospects, problems and progress in examining the moral status/social category relationship
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This thesis outlines a theoretical framework that yields testable predictions concerning how social categorization impacts moral regard. According to ...
If matter matters : navigating the moral implications of panpsychism
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
When you gaze at a sunset or taste a peach, there is a subjective feel to be had. This subjective "feel" is referred to as the qualitative character of experience. My goal is to argue that a certain ontological theory of ...
Compensation as the moral foundation of Jus Post Bellum
(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, ...
A salience account of explanatory power
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] When we ask questions like "why won't my car engine start?" or "why is John late?" we are searching for explanations. We search for explanations in a ...
Absences as causes : a defense of negative causation
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2010)
In this dissertation, I confront the issue of negative causation, (i.e., causation by or of absences). I investigate the causal status of absences with regard to particular philosophical concerns and argue that absences ...
The metaphysics of content : towards a minimalist account of propositions
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Propositions appear to be needed as the objects of belief and other propositional attitudes, the primary bearers of truth and falsity, and the semantic ...
Epistemic virtue and knowledge attribution
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2015)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] What factors influence whether we may rightly attribute knowledge to a subject? It is uncontroversial that factors like whether a subject has a given ...
Toward a virtue account of science
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2014)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation argues for a virtue account of science in which foundational scientific goals are achieved by scientists' employment of virtuous tools ...
Determinism : as the ground of moral faith
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 1911)
Determinism is a theory about the occurring of events, or the existing of Phenomena: and I interpret the theory to mean that all events, all phenomena, occur or exist in a state of necessary dependence on other Phenomena. ...
Justifying war : an account of just and merely justifying causes for war
(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 ...
Optimality explanations : a new approach
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Despite its importance, philosophers have found it difficult to say precisely what constitutes a scientific explanation. One of the most prominent ...
Van Fraassen and a defense of inference to the best explanation
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2011)
Inference to the best explanation (IBE) is an inductive argument type that takes advantage of the fact that explanatory considerations serve as an epistemic guide to believing what is the case. Bas van Fraassen has presented ...
A new defense of the knowledge norm of assertion
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2012)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Recent work in both the philosophy of language and epistemology has relied on the premise that there is a norm of assertion, that there are certain ...
Bounded rationality in games of strategy
(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2011)
[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Traditional game theory predicts behavior contrary to how real people actually behave. And what traditional game theory prescribes as the rational ...