Browsing Philosophy by Title
Now showing items 48-67 of 134
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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. ... -
A Framework for Analyzing Broadly Engaged Philosophy of Science
(Cambridge University Press, 2022-01-01)Philosophers of science are increasingly interested in engaging with scientific communities, policy makers, and members of the public; however, the nature of this engagement has not been systematically examined. Instead ... -
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 ... -
From Objects to Individuals: An Essay in Analytic Ontology
(University of Waterloo, 2008-12-05)The brief introductory chapter attempts to motivate the project by pointing to (a) the intuitive appeal and importance of the notion of an object (that is, a “paradigmatic” individual), and (b) the need – for the sake of ... -
From the Standpoint of The Reasonable Person: Epistemic Ignorance, Culpable Dispositions, and the Objective Standard
(University of Waterloo, 2022-05-16)The concept of reasonableness is both vital to the law and frustratingly vague. Efforts to articulate the concept often rely on “common sense” community-based notions of what counts as reasonable. While using common sense ... -
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 for Corporations
(University of Waterloo, 2020-09-04)When corporations set out to do good for the environment and society, they usually do so under the banner of corporate social responsibility. This approach has become commonplace among the public, in business schools, and ... -
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 ... -
How Prejudice Affects the Study of Animal Minds
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-24)Humans share the planet with many wonderfully diverse animal species and human-animal interactions are part of our daily lives. An important part of understanding how humans do and should interact with other animals is ... -
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 ... -
Individual Human Rights: Reconciling Rights with Value Pluralism
(University of Waterloo, 2007-10-01)Abstract: This thesis examines the foundations of individual human rights. The general thought that informs the discussion is that rights and values are two different kinds of moral discourse. Hence, any attempt to simply ... -
Inferential Role Semantics for Natural Language
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-22)The most general goal of semantic theory is to explain facts about language use. In keeping with this goal, I introduce a framework for thinking about linguistic expressions in terms of (a) the inferences they license, (b) ...