Now showing items 1-20 of 81

  • Absences as causes : a defense of negative causation 

    Hartsock, Michael D., 1979- (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 ...
  • Amoralists, inverted commas, and the puzzle of moral internalism : an essay in experimental metaethics 

    Shields, Kenneth Wesley, 1982- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2016)
    The central question addressed in this dissertation is whether one must have some degree of motivation to comply with their moral evaluation in order to count as genuinely making a sincere moral judgment. Those that view ...
  • 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 ...
  • Aristotle on happiness : a comparison with Confucius 

    Chang, Lily, 1975- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2006)
    In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines the highest good for humankind in terms of happiness. The nature of happiness includes intellectual activity, virtuous activity, and friendship; and certain external goods are ...
  • Attending to our work : a framework for understanding and evaluating the division of labor 

    Thomas, Anthony E., 1979- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2009)
    The division of labor is a pervasive and long-standing feature of human life. Yet there is little consensus--either in philosophy or in other disciplines--regarding its status. Using a contemporary evaluation provided by ...
  • Authoritatively speaking : a speech pragmatic analysis of authority and power 

    Willsey, Alek (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2021)
    A speaker needs authority to perform some speech acts, such as giving orders. A paradigm example of this is when a manager orders their employee to take out the trash; ordinarily, these words will give the employee a ...
  • Born she is the divine Christ child : female figurations of Christ in Black Atlantic literature, theatre, and cinema 

    Mouzet, Aurelia (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2017)
    In order to support and justify the slave trade and the colonial enterprise, Western powers relied heavily on distorted interpretations of Christian scriptures to justify the oppression of black communities in Africa and ...
  • Bounded rationality in games of strategy 

    Sperry-Taylor, Ashton T. (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 ...
  • 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, ...
  • Conscience : toward the mechanism of morality 

    White, Jeffrey Benjamin (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2006)
    Conscience is frequently cited and yet its mechanism is not understood. Conscience is most familiar as a voice protesting against actions which compromise personal integrity. Persons also cite conscience as that which ...
  • The consciousness of visual experience 

    Kang, Seokman (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2018)
    [ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] "This monograph mainly concerns two distinctive features of visual experience. First, visual experience has its own phenomenal dimension. Following the ...
  • Critical pluralism : a new approach to religious diversity 

    Konieczka, Matthew P. (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2007)
    The world's religions provide a wide range of competing religious claims. The problem of religious diversity is that, while many of these claims are inconsistent with one another, they often seem to rest on roughly equal ...
  • 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 ...
  • A defense of Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism 

    Nunley, Troy M., 1974- (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2005)
    Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism it is irrational for a reflective person to hold to the doctrine of naturalism. If naturalism is true, some evolutionary doctrine must also be true and our evolutionary history must ...
  • A defense of moral perception 

    McBrayer, Justin Patrick (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2008)
    I defend the possibility of moral perception and the contentious view that at least some of our moral knowledge is perceptual knowledge. The first part of the dissertation is spent establishing the possibility of moral ...
  • A defense of the relational account of morality 

    Tiwari, Alok (University of Missouri--Columbia, 2023)
    In this essay I shall defend the thesis that morality is an intrinsically relational normative domain constituted by relational claims and corresponding directed duties. On the relational approach to morality, moral ...