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This paper looks at liberal multiculturalism through the lens of its cosmopolitan critics. In particular I examine the arguments of four theorists who issue a variety challenges to the concept of state-sanctioned minority rights. The first two of these theorists, K. Anthony Appiah and David Hollinger, offer cosmopolitan challenges to multiculturalist views on identity (Appiah) and historical critiques of the effects of racial and ethnic political claims-making (Hollinger). My analysis attempts to show how these views are indicative of distinctly a American emphasis on race and immigration which inhibits them from a better appreciation of the Canadian experience with national minorities, one of liberal multiculturalism's main concerns. The third theorist, Patchen Markell, presents a theory of incomplete individual agency the acknowledgment of which he argues is necessary for an adequate political theory yet remains unappreciated by proponents of recognition. I attempt to show that while his concept is useful, it is simply misplaced to the arguments he wishes to criticize. The fourth theorist whose work I examine is Seyla Benhabib. She presents a more substantial account of what cosmopolitan minority claims might look like, relying on a postnational view of world affairs which eschews the state-centric approach of liberal multiculturalism. I largely reject her criticisms, but I argue that this postnational vision is one that could have implications for liberal multiculturalism. I finally offer a modest account of what these implications might be and where the terrain of this multiculturalist-cosmopolitan debate may be headed. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-12 17:41:13.204

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This thesis explores the merits and limits of John Hawthorne’s contextualist analysis of free will. First, I argue that contextualism does better at capturing the ordinary understanding of ‘free will’ than competing views because it best accounts for the way in which our willingness to attribute free will ordinarily varies with context. Then I consider whether this is enough to conclude that the contextualist has won the free will debate. I argue that this would be hasty, because the contextualist, unlike her competitors, cannot tell us whether any particular agent is definitively free, and therefore cannot inform any practices that are premised on whether a particular agent is morally responsible. As such, I argue that whether the contextualist “wins the free will debate” depends on whether it is more important to capture the ordinary understanding of ‘free will’ or more important to inform our practices of ascribing moral responsibility.

Any adequate interpretation of the concept of the will to power, given the radical break with the history of philosophy it presupposes, requires a preceding analysis of Nietzsche’s critique of the history of philosophy as a critique of metaphysics. Only once Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics is properly understood as a critique of, in the broadest sense, any correspondence conception of truth, can the philosophical concept of the will to power, as a product of that critique, be understood as well. Each of the three typical types of interpretative approaches to the will to power (i.e. as a metaphysical concept, as an empirical concept, as an object of interpretive play) will provide a critically constructive opportunity to narrow an acceptable definition of Nietzsche’s positive conception of philosophy as a distinctive and unorthodox type of history, according to which any interpretation rests, not on truths, but on its author’s prejudices or fundamental values. Moreover, using Gilles Deleuze’s largely ignored or otherwise grossly misunderstood Nietzsche et la philosophie, a non-normative, post-metaphysical justification consistent with that critique can then be provided for Nietzsche’s radical reform to the philosophical method. According to Nietzsche, philosophy as a will to power is preferable to philosophy as a will to truth because it is consistent with his profound and unjustified love of life. In fact, the will to power it is the philosophical expression of that love.

In this thesis, I attempt to map a relationship between theories of selfhood and theories of free will. In doing so, I hope to establish that the metaphysical commitments that characterize major branches of libertarian theory entail a commitment to an ‘executive’ model of selfhood as opposed to a ‘psychological’ model. In essence, I argue that there exist two major lines of disagreement between libertarian and compatibilist thinkers. The first disagreement is over the truth of the determinism thesis, and a second disagreement is over the nature of the self or agent. I then argue that while much attention has been given to the first of these disagreements, the most significant problem facing free will has to do with the nature of the self, and that if stronger efforts were devoted to uncovering the nature of selfhood, there would be much to be learned about the possibility of free will. / Graduate / 0422

This thesis constitutes a conceptual inquiry into the nature of social freedom, which is held to be logically distinct from other freedom-concepts although it presupposes free-will/autarchy. The thesis argues for a 'responsibility view' of negative freedom according to which an agent B is socially free to do x iff he is not constrained by another agent A from doing x. A constrains B when A can be held morally responsible for imposing or not removing a real obstacle to choice/action that impedes (to a greater or a lesser extent) B's doing x. This responsibility condition is satisfied when it is appropriate, in the given context, to ask A for a justification of his act/omission. Social freedom is a relational concept. Its irreflexive nature implies that internal bars, for which no other agent is responsible, cannot constrain our own freedom. Moreover, it is argued that autonomy is not a necessary condition of particular cases of freedom; nor is freedom in general a necessary condition of autonomy. Accounts of positive liberty assume that a) a person can constrain his own freedom; b) freedom is an exercise-, not an opportunity-concept. Hence, they are not accounts of social freedom but uphold other, logically distinct, values. The last part of the thesis deals with questions of method. It is argued that the widely held essential contestability thesis is either circular or paradoxical, and that it is methodologically possible to construct an authoritative definition of freedom which is normative and critical but non-relative.