▼ The two main goals of this dissertation are to provide a clear and practical conception of desert that is applicable across distributive contexts and to provide a detailed account of the role that desert can and should have in different contexts on different levels of a just society. This dissertation advances the view that desert is an important, but not the only important, conceptual component of justice. In addition to offering a defense of the concept of desert itself and its use as a distributive criterion, the dissertation provides a detailed conceptual account of desert. The dissertation advocates a conception of desert in distributive contexts that is based on a person's efforts and performances, and it includes important distinctions between different types of desert and between desert and other important distributive concepts. A main contention in this work is that, since desert is an important conceptual component of justice, it should always be considered when questions of justice arise. John Rawls has written about the basic structure of a society, which he understands to be the structure of a society's major political and social institutions. Rawls rejects the idea that desert is an important criterion that must be accounted for in basic-structure principles of justice. While giving special attention to Rawls's difference principle, the dissertation examines certain difficulties surrounding his rejection of desert as an important component of basic-structure justice. The opposing view of this dissertation is that, if they are to be just, basic-structure principles must leave room for desert in various contexts so that it is not trumped by some overarching social concern. In addition, the dissertation advances the view that the use of desert as a distributive criterion is most appropriate in local contexts. The dissertation ends with an examination of the role of desert in certain issues of local justice, such as employment and university admissions decisions, and with an examination of the extent to which the use of seniority and affirmative action policies track, and can be justified on the basis of, desert. Advisors/Committee Members: Wall, Steven.

▼ The origin of altruistic behavior has long been a puzzle for evolutionary biologists, beginning with Darwin. Although group selection was first favored to explain cooperative and altruistic behaviors, the forces of individual selection came to be seen as far more prevalent, powerful, and responsive to change. The theory of group selection was replaced by other explanations for altruistic behavior such as kin selection (inclusive fitness theory) and game theory. Recently, however, group selection has been regaining credibility in evolutionary biology. This resurgence is largely due to the work of two of the most prominent proponents of group selection David Sloan Wilson, a biologist, and Eliot Sober, a philosopher of science, who believe evolutionary arguments not only explain the origin of altruistic behaviors but also help resolve the psychological egoism versus altruism debate by providing evidence that natural selection favors altruistic motivations (psychological altruism). While there is no necessary link between the existence of group selection and altruistic motivation, if Sober and Wilson are right that group selection pressures are nearly ubiquitous for social organisms, this additional selection pressure would mean that cooperative strategies, including true altruism, would be beneficial more often than under a scenario that only includes selection at the individual level. Their argument rests on two evolutionary principles: the direct/indirect asymmetry principle, which posits a mechanism that triggers a fitness-enhancing response by directly detecting a fitness-relevant situation, and the two are better than one argument, which posits that an organism that has multiple mechanisms that serve the same function has a fitness advantage over an organism that has only one of these mechanisms. While both of these principles are valid, the evolutionary arguments that incorporate them are flawed and the evolutionary arguments arising from them should instead lead to the conclusion that psychological altruism is improbable. Psychological hedonism is a more likely trigger for the most fitness-enhancing degree of behavioral altruism had the chance to become firmly entrenched before psychological altruism could have ever even made an appearance. Advisors/Committee Members: Bradie, Michael.

▼ The thesis of this essay is that, because human organisms have the specific sorts of capacities that they do, they have the sort of moral status (which I call “serious” moral status) that includes, as one of its components, a strong moral presumption against being killed. The main argument of this essay has three steps: if an entity is human, it has a set of typical human capacities; if an entity has a set of typical human capacities, it has serious moral status; therefore, if an entity is human, it has serious moral status. Typical human capacities include both “active” capacities and “passive” capacities, and also include both “lower-order” capacities and “higher-order” capacities. Although both distinctions are somewhat rough, I have an active capacity to raise my arm on purpose, a passive capacity to feel pain when pricked, lower-order capacities to do both of these things right now, and higher-order capacities to obtain these lower-order capacities when asleep, anesthetized, or temporarily comatose. Whereas most writers who focus on the moral relevance of capacities tend to ignore an entity’s higher-order capacities, or its passive capacities, or both, I argue that an entity’s passive higher-order capacities are relevant to its moral status. The five chapters of this essay are structured as follows. Chapter One explains the concepts of the main argument in more detail, and explains why personal pronouns such as “you” and personal names such as “Ronald Reagan” are applied to human organisms throughout the essay. Chapters Two and Three defend the first and second premises of the main argument, by focusing on human organisms who undergo temporary changes involving “incapacitation” of one sort or another. Chapters Four and Five relate the main argument to two controversial arguments in contemporary applied ethics: the Argument From Potential, which focuses on normal human organisms at the beginning stages of life (such as human infants, fetuses, and embryos), and the Argument From Marginal Cases, which focuses on abnormal human organisms (such as human organisms that are disabled, diseased, or genetically deficient in some way). Advisors/Committee Members: Frey, R. G.

▼ The goal of this dissertation is to answer two questions: Is global poverty unjust, such that coercive remedies may be imposed to alleviate it? And if so, does it justify global redistribution as a remedy? This dissertation takes up the same task initiated by Thomas Pogge in his 2002 book, World Poverty and Human Rights, in that the theory of justice from which these questions are answered assigns priority to negative duties of non-interference, rather thanpositive duties of assistance. More specifically, the theory of cosmopolitan justice underlying this evaluation is that of natural rights liberalism in the tradition of John Locke and Robert Nozick. According to this theory, global poverty could be unjust only if it was the result of violating individual rights. The first half of the dissertation explores the ways in which Pogge claims poverty is the result of rights violations, "that such poverty is the result of a tainted global history and that the current distribution of global resources violates the right to fair shares," ultimately denying that these ground the injustice of poverty. Instead, I argue that global poverty is unjust because a distribution of resources that contains severe poverty violates the minimal access proviso, a constraint on property rights that takes the deprivation of others to limit the property rights of some. The second half of the dissertation, then, addresses the sorts of remedies that are justified given this injustice. Specifically, I explore why global redistribution is not the appropriate remedy for the deprivation faced by the global poor. Instead, I argue that the remedy should affect the underlying causes of such poverty and, hence, recommend institutional reforms, such as the liberalization of trade and the movement of people across borders. Advisors/Committee Members: Wall, Steven.

▼ The publication of works such as Why Race Matters, by Michael Levin (1997) and The Bell Curve, by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994) suggests that despite broad agreement that racism is unacceptable, racial thinking is still a powerful force in moral and political decision making. These authors work from a racialist perspective, arguing that biologically distinct races do exist, that the races differ from each other in socially important ways, that these differences are difficult if not impossible to attenuate, and that these differences should thus be considered in social policy decisions. This dissertation documents some of the reasons for rejecting each of those claims, and argues that the concept of the racial contract as developed by Charles Mills provides a useful framework for understanding why the positions defended by Levin, et al, remain influential despite their many flaws. Advisors/Committee Members: Bradie, Michael.

▼ John McDowell’s work (in Mind and Worldand elsewhere) has largely been devoted to two main objectives: 1) defending a non-traditional form of empiricism; and 2) articulating a revised conception of nature. McDowell sees these two objectives as connected. He wants to defend a conception of experience as involving the reception of conceptual “impressions” from the world. But, he sees that such a conception of experience seems to be blocked by a dominant form of naturalism which views nature as devoid of value and meaning. Such a “disenchanted” view of nature makes it impossible to combine the idea that impressions are impacts from the world with the idea that impressions are conceptually structured (by human minds). McDowell’s solution to this problem involves “re-enchanting” or revising naturalism so that nature can be understood as incorporating a “second nature”. McDowell’s notion of second nature is intended to “make room” (in nature) for the idea that the world’s impacts on the sensory faculties of concept-using human beings can be already imbued with intentionality. I agree with McDowell that both our concept of experience and our concept of nature are in need of revision. But, I disagree with (and critique) the revised conceptions that McDowell proposes. McDowell’s view is that experience should be conceived in terms of “subjects” passively receiving conceptual contents (or “impressions”) from the world. I criticize McDowell’s conception of experience for focusing on “subjects” who are passively acted upon by the world. Instead, I argue that experience needs to be conceived as an agential interaction, which involves organisms actively doing and undergoing things. Because McDowell conceives of experience in terms of being subject to passive transactions, his revision of naturalism does not challenge the widespread conception of nature as exhausted by passive relations, a conception which, I argue, extrudes agency from nature. Instead, he advocates for the idea of a second nature that simply “makes room” in nature for passive relations to be concept-involving. In this dissertation I charge that McDowell’s re-conception of nature does not go far enough. Nature, I argue, needs to be re-enchanted with more than just concepts; it needs to be re-enchanted with active relations. Thus, I argue for a different idea of second nature, one which includes all living organisms, not just concept-using creatures. I argue that the sort of relations that occur in the world of the living—i.e. my conception of second nature—are fundamentally distinct from the inanimate, passive relations that occur in first nature. Relations in second nature are “active” because they involve organisms doing things to their environment in an effort to utilize energy for the process of living. Experience, accordingly, must be understood as an agential relation; thus I argue that “experience” is a term that essentially refers to the doings and undergoings of living organisms. Advisors/Committee Members: Bradie, Michael.

▼ This dissertation presents an answer to the question of why modern legal institutions and the idea of citizenship are important for leading a free life. The majority of views in political and legal philosophy regard the law merely as a useful instrument, employed to render our lives more secure and to enable us to engage in cooperate activities more efficiently. The view developed here defends a non-instrumentalist alternative of why the law matters. It identifies the law as a constitutive feature of our identities as citizens of modern states. The constitutivist argument rests on the (Kantian) assumption that a person’s practical identity (her normative self-conception as an agent) is the result of her actions. The law constitutes these identities because it maintains the external conditions that are necessary for the actions performed under its authority. Modern legal institutions provide these external prerequisites for achieving a high degree of individual self-constitution and freedom. Only public principles can establish our status as individuals who pursue their life plans and actions as a matter of right and not because others contingently happen to let us do so. The first part of the dissertation looks at a competing account of the modern state. Chandran Kukathas’s book The Liberal Archipelago calls into question the importance of being a citizen of a legal system. Law conflicts with pluralism about the right and the good and imposes its norms on all subjects, whose conscience might command otherwise. The remainder of the dissertation is an attempt to challenge Kukathas’s account. In the second part the constitutivist account is developed as the two Neo-Kantian conceptions of practical identity and self-constituting action are discussed and combined. The result is the public identity claim, which submits that the external principles that make our actions possible are a necessary part of our identity as practical agents in the presence of others. The third part applies this abstract claim to the institution of the law. The modern state, with its genuine feature of creating and administering publicly established and enforceable norms, exemplifies the external principles in a way that allows self-constitution to take on a particularly advanced form. Advisors/Committee Members: Miller, Fred.

▼ Research by neuroscientists has begun to clarify some of the types of brain activity associated with mystical experiences. Neuroscientists disagree about the implications of their research for mystics’ beliefs about the nature of reality, however. Persinger, Alper, and other scientific materialists believe that their research effectively disproves mystics’ interpretations of their experiences, while Newberg, Hood, and others believe that scientific models of mystical experiences leave room for God or some other transcendent reality. I argue that Persinger and Alper are correct in dismissing mystics’ interpretations of their experiences, but that they are incorrect in asserting mystical experiences are pathological or otherwise undesirable. Advisors/Committee Members: Belzer, Marvin.

▼ A generally recognized feature of morality, discovered through experience, is that it makes demands on us, requiring us to do or not do certain things. It thus seems to have authority. A distinctive feature of this kind of demand is its independence of the agent’s own ends or desires. If an authority commands you to do x, you are required to do it, end of story. A way to describe this feature is inescapability, indicating these requirements apply to you in a way you cannot escape. Another distinctive feature of morality’s demands is their weightiness. They are supposed to be such that we always have most reason to comply with them. This alleged property is the overridingness of morality. Thus, in virtue of its authority, morality is thought to be both inescapable and overriding. In a well-known essay, G.E.M. Anscombe argues the only viable way to account for this kind of authority is to appeal to God. Is there another possibility? One is to say we do not need an authority; morality can be inescapable and overriding without one. I consider virtue ethics as a view Anscombe herself thought managed without the idea of an authority, but conclude it cannot ground either inescapability or overridingness. Another option is to say we may need an authority, but it need not be God. Inescapability and overridingness can arise from reason, or autonomy, or societal demands. All these strategies fail, however, vindicating Anscombe’s contention. The options for us are either some form of divine command ethics or an abandonment of the thought that morality is inescapable and overriding. Put this way, we may think our only real option is to give up inescapability and overridingness. It is widely thought there are insurmountable difficulties with the idea that morality can depend upon God. After showing a nuanced understanding of divine command ethics can avoid them, I conclude it is at least a conceptually satisfying way to account for inescapability and overridingness. The ultimate conclusion is that divine command ethics or the abandonment of the two features are the most plausible ways forward. Advisors/Committee Members: Frey, Raymond G.

▼ The revival of virtue ethics brought the ancient Greek concepts of ‘virtue’ and ‘the virtuous person’ back into prominence. Contemporary virtue ethicists present an attractive picture of virtue, for the virtuous person knows how to act in a morally appropriate way and is reliable in acting accordingly. This portrait of the virtuous person appears to be the type of person one should aspire to be, but problems arise with many of the details. Often, only the end state of the virtuous person is described, and it is left mysterious how an average person could ever achieve such an idealized state. Accounts of virtue have left readers with the impression that the virtuous person is an unattainable ideal or psychologically implausible. This dissertation argues that reviving the ancient Greek idea that virtues are like practical skills, which is rarely discussed in contemporary literature, can help provide a more plausible account of the virtuous person. The moral knowledge of the virtuous person is analogous to the practical knowledge of the expert in a skill. Learning a skill is a process of acquiring practical knowledge, that is, the knowledge of how to do something, like building a house or driving a car. With virtue, the practical knowledge is the knowledge of how to act well, like acting brave or just. The few current discussions of the skill analogy rely on a reconstruction of the ancient account of skills for a comparison to virtue. There are advantages, however, to using a modern account of skill acquisition that has had the benefit of research and application. This dissertation adapts an account of skills developed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus in their research on artificial intelligence. The Dreyfus account displays the features of skills that were relevant in the ancient analogy to virtue: a progress from novice to expert, which begins with following rules and then progresses to being sensitive to the relevant features of particular situations. The skill model of virtue offers the most promising direction for contemporary virtue theory, because it can ground a plausible account of the moral knowledge of the virtuous person. Advisors/Committee Members: Jacobson, Daniel.

▼ One objection to utilitarianism as a public philosophy is that utilitarian political institutions would likely deny people the opportunity to lead autonomous lives. A state guided by utilitarianism, it is thought, would likely resemble that we find in Brave New World: a state that exercises autonomy-denying control of its subjects' lives, but does so in a way that keeps them in a relatively permanent state of bliss. Against this objection, this dissertation argues that, at least in contemporary developed societies, a utilitarian state would have good indirect reasons to secure social conditions which will enable the bulk of its subjects to lead substantially autonomous lives. The aim of the first half of the dissertation is to identify an adequate conception of autonomy. I develop an account of autonomous agency according to which the autonomy of a pro-attitude is a function of (among other things) the number, variety, and degree of viability of the alternatives the agent has had available for rational consideration; and the autonomy of an agent is a function of (among other things) the autonomy of her individual pro-attitudes, with the more central of these weighted accordingly. The second half of the dissertation addresses the social conditions conducive to autonomy and the utilitarian value of those conditions. Because autonomous agency requires the availability of viable alternatives to many, including many of the more central, of an agent's pro-attitudes, conditions of social diversity will be particularly conducive to autonomy. I defend two Millian suggestions as to how such conditions might be of utilitarian value: by better enabling the members of society to identify and adopt appropriate pursuits and by promoting social progress. I argue that, at least in contemporary developed societies, a utilitarian state would thus have good reason to protect and/or promote conditions of social diversity, and outline a collection of policies that would enable it to effectively do so. As such conditions are conducive to autonomy as well as to utility, a utilitarian state therefore would have good, indirect, reasons to secure social conditions which will enable the bulk of its subjects to lead substantially autonomous lives. Advisors/Committee Members: Wall, Steven.