Browsing Philosophy by Type "Master Thesis"
Now showing items 21-40 of 77
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Ethical Pluralism and Informed Consent in Canadian Health Care: Exploring Accommodations and Limitations
(University of Waterloo, 2017-09-26)Vibrant and evolving diversity has become an integral part of Canadian identity. Communities are experiencing an enrichment of new ideas, and unique opportunities to learn about those with whom we share the world. At the ... -
Everything Is Going to Be Okay, Right? Kindness, Compassion, and the Moral Permissibility of Self-Deception
(University of Waterloo, 2012-09-28)Most people seem to have the intuition that self-deception is always and obviously wrong. In this thesis, I make the case that under certain circumstances, self-deception can actually do a great deal of good and ought to ... -
The Evolution of Reason
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-17)Aristotle’s metaphysics bridges the gap between mind and nature explaining how their relationship constitutes development in life. Charles Sanders Peirce’s objective idealism similarly aims to investigate how the principles ... -
Explaining the Mind: The Embodied Cognition Challenge
(University of Waterloo, 2008-05-15)This thesis looks at a relatively new line of research in Cognitive Science – embodied cognition. Its relation to the computational-representational paradigm, primarily symbolicism, is extensively discussed. It is argued ... -
Exploring the Justifications for Human Rights
(University of Waterloo, 2005)In this paper the concept of a ?human right? is analysed and clarified. Some justifications for human rights ? such as natural rights theory, contractarianism, utilitarianism and rights as vital interests ? are explored ... -
Fairness through Legal Literacy: A Case for Active Involvement
(University of Waterloo, 2012-05-04)This thesis started with one question: “how could we make the legal system more fair for more people?” One possible answer is given to that question in the four chapters that follow: we can achieve a more fair and efficient ... -
Ficino's Efforts to Reunite Philosophy and Religion
(University of Waterloo, 2011-09-12)Marsilio Ficino (1433 to 1499) was the first Renaissance philosopher to have access to the full Platonic corpus. He desired to use these ancient writings, plus faith, scripture, and reason to reunite religion and philosophy ... -
Foundations of Deduction's Pedigree: A Non-Inferential Account
(University of Waterloo, 2010-01-05)In this thesis I discuss the problems associated with the epistemological task of arriving at basic logical knowledge. This is knowledge that the primitive rules of inference we use in deductive reasoning are correct. ... -
Fractional-Reserve Banking and the Double-Title to Property Problem
(University of Waterloo, 2020-09-11)This thesis discusses the legitimacy of fractional-reserve banking under the title-transfer theory of contract. Fractional-reserve banking is the practice of banks lending out some of the money that is deposited with them. ... -
The Free Self: What Separates Us From Machines
(University of Waterloo, 2023-08-29)Could a machine ever achieve consciousness? Will it ever make sense to hold a machine morally responsible? In this thesis, I argue that the architecture of SPAUN - the largest WIP functioning brain model currently in ... -
Genetic Renaissance: A Legal, Philosophical, and Ethical Examination of Consent Using Autonomy & Privacy in Genetic Testing
(University of Waterloo, 2023-09-28)Genetic testing has gained traction in the media with the recent Pentagon ban and continuing increases in public consumption of at-home tests. Public discourse surrounding this technology prompts further exploration of the ... -
Harm Reduction is a Social Movement
(University of Waterloo, 2019-09-17)Harm reduction is a label given to a suite of health and social service practices that seek to mitigate the harm associated with illicit drug use without demanding or expecting drug users to abstain. It is also a label ... -
Health Care as a Human Right: A Rawlsian Approach
(University of Waterloo, 2008-05-22)This thesis looks at fundamental disagreements about the role of society in the delivery of health care services. In particular, it develops an argument for viewing health care as a human right, and in doing so, argues ... -
Human Nature and Morality: An invesitgation of the evidence for and implications of genetically-based moral traits
(University of Waterloo, 2007-09-10)In his recent book, Moral Minds, Marc Hauser claims that humans are genetically endowed with a moral faculty operating in much the same way as our linguistic faculty, and that this faculty delimits normative moral systems. ... -
A Hybrid Theory of Evidence
(University of Waterloo, 2013-10-28)In the literature on doxastic evidence, the phenomenon is regarded as either internal (Plantinga 1993, Feldman and Conee 2001, Turri 2009) or external (Armstrong 1973, Collins 1997, BonJour 2008). Though the specifics of ... -
Igniting the Deontic Consequence Relation: Dilemmas, Trumping, and the Naturalistic Fallacy
(University of Waterloo, 2007-09-27)In this work, Kurt Holukoff examines three formal approaches to representing valid inferences in reasoning regarding obligation and its cognates: deontic logic. He argues that an appropriate formalization of deontic logic ... -
In Defense of Moral Responsibility Skepticism
(University of Waterloo, 2015-10-02)Moral responsibility skeptics have often focused on problems involving determinism in order to defend their position. I argue that this defense of moral responsibility skepticism is misplaced given that what really matters ... -
In Defense of the Systems Reply
(University of Waterloo, 2010-09-29)In John Searle’s Minds, Brains, and Programs, he argues against the possibility of a digital computer capable of understanding. In particular, Searle puts forward the Chinese room thought experiment, which appears to ... -
Knowledge, First Aid and the Moral Requirements of Rescue
(University of Waterloo, 2012-09-27)In cases involving the rescue of people in need of immediate medical care, it is often thought that the responsibility to save the lives of the imperilled falls to advanced professionals, such as paramedics, doctors, nurses, ... -
Learning More and Knowing Less: Big Data, Spurious Correlations, and the Problem of Ignorance
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-28)There are few things we can name that surpass big data’s boon for our empirical endeavours. Big data promises an ever-growing source of data that could be readily accessed by researchers in virtually any field of study. ...