Browsing Philosophy by Title
Now showing items 57-76 of 134
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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) ... -
An Inquiry into Mental Variation
(University of Waterloo, 1995)Although there are both common and specialised senses of the term variation, (the OED lists dozens) there seems to be no well defined use of this term in philosophy. The main task of my thesis is to demonstrate that ... -
Intentionality as Methodology
(University of Waterloo, 2012-01-25)In this dissertation, I examine the role that intentional descriptions play in our scientific study of the mind. Behavioural scientists often use intentional language in their characterization of cognitive systems, making ... -
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, ... -
Knowledge, Justice, and Subjects with Cognitive or Developmental Disability
(University of Waterloo, 2019-09-20)This thesis includes four research papers, each devoted to a topic in philosophy of cognitive disability and its intersection with other areas of philosophy. Three focus on issues of cognitive or developmental disability ... -
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. ... -
Logic In Context: An essay on the contextual foundations of logical pluralism
(University of Waterloo, 2013-10-02)The core pluralist thesis about logic, broadly construed, is the claim that two or more logics are correct. In this thesis I discuss a uniquely interesting variant of logical pluralism that I call logical contextualism. ... -
Logic in Pictures: An Examination of Diagrammatic Representations, Graph Theory and Logic
(University of Waterloo, 1994)This thesis explores the various forms of reasoning that are associated with diagrams. It does this by a logical analysis of diagrammatic symbols. The thesis is divided into three sections dealing with different aspects ... -
Mathematical Actualism: An Alternative Realist Philosophy of Mathematics
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-23)The present thesis argues for a philosophy of mathematics, herein dubbed Actualism, which is contrasted with several existing views on the philosophy of mathematics. It begins with a brief introduction to the classical ... -
Mature Minor Eligibility for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD): An Ethical Analysis
(University of Waterloo, 2021-08-24)Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was legalized in Canada on June 17, 2016, following a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision, Carter v. Canada (2015). Currently, the law controversially denies three groups access to ...