As it is discussed in philosophy, economics, and some other social sciences, well-being is very commonly conceived of and treated in quantificational terms. However, it is difficult, if not impossible to make room in the quantificational conception of well-being for any notion of sufficiency––of having enough in a sense that it is especially ethically significant that people attain. This difficulty with sufficiency is encapsulated by the Threshold Problem: that of non-arbitrarily specifying a sufficiency level on a scale of well-being. This thesis takes this difficulty and this problem as an opportunity to investigate deeper problems with the quantifying approach. One line of inquiry pursued is whether a theory of needs could solve the Threshold Problem. To this end existing theories of needs are surveyed, but found wanting. The central element of the thesis, however, is a critique of the quantifying account of well-being emerging from a discussion of value incommensurability––which in turn provides resources for the development of an account of the structure of well-being. This account presents a new theory of needs, and analyses well-being in terms of needs. It avoids the Threshold Problem, because well-being is no longer a level at which a person is, nor an amount of anything they have. Rather, both having enough and being well are to have everything one needs.

There are three broad possibilities regarding the basic ontology of mind. It could be a property of matter that reduces to the properties that are studied in physics. It could be a property of matter different from those that are studied in physics. It could be nothing to do with matter. The second of these, known in the literature as non-reductive physicalism, is generally considered by philosophers in limited form with mental states, albeit nonreducible, fully determined by other properties of matter (taken to be ‘emergent from’, and ‘supervening on’, the properties of matter studied in physics). My thesis puts the case for the ontological status of mind being similar to that of the other properties of matter, those studied in physics. The approach lends itself to the proposition that mental states can be causally effective per se, since that is the case for the other properties of matter. This proposition runs counter to the usual assumption in the philosophy literature relating to mental causation known as “the completeness of physics”, which requires that all physical events are fully caused by purely physical (non-mental) prior histories. However, theoretical physicists often propose new phenomena for a variety of reasons. There is a lot in favour of this approach. None of the three anti-physicalist arguments (the knowledge argument, the conceivability argument and the hard problem) cause it difficulties. Effective mental causation means that the reason why creatures with consciousness abound in our world could be that consciousness enables effective decisiontaking and so has been selected for by the pressures of survival. Effective mental causation would also explain why people feel as if they have freedom of the will: if mental states are causally effective there would be a sense in which people do have free will.

This project concerns one overall question: are individual citizens morally responsible for policy outcomes? The aim of this project is to answer this question, in order to resolve a tension between the commonly held ideal that policy outcomes represent the will of the people on the one hand, and a seeming reluctance to hold our fellow citizens morally responsible for these outcomes on the other. In order to resolve this tension, I examine various accounts of moral responsibility to see whether the individual citizen is responsible in light of these. I focus primarily on whether the individual can be morally responsible in light of her political participation via her voting action. Firstly, I examine whether the individual is morally responsible in light of her direct contribution to the voting outcome. I conclude that she is not, because she fails to make a relevant causal contribution. I then examine indirect accounts (mainly shared responsibility), i.e. accounts of moral responsibility which do not require that the individual makes a direct contribution. I ultimately show that none of the examined accounts are successful. Therefore, I develop an account which can be successfully applied, based on observations made throughout this project. Specifically, I argue that the individual can be morally responsible for policy outcomes, if she performs her unilateral part in constituting or sustaining the particular project which brings about the policy outcome. She does this – roughly – if she through her voting action was an interdependent part of the project that brought about the outcome. She is an interdependent part even in the event where she fails to make an actual contribution to the voting outcome and thus the policy outcome itself. Lastly, I apply this account to a high stakes just war scenario, and show that it explains our intuitions of responsibility.

This thesis concerns pluralism about truth: roughly, the theory that there is more than one way to be true. Where ‘Grass is green’ might be true in one way, ‘Eating meat is wrong’ or ‘7 > 3’ might be true in another. I am interested in showing this theory in its best light. This requires casting a critical eye over extant incarnations of pluralism, formulating new, stronger motivations in its favour, and defending it from objections. Where most pluralists try to motivate the theory by assuming an underlying ontological diversity – in what different truthbearers are about, e.g., grass vs. wrongness vs. numbers – my arguments assume an underlying diversity, not in the world, but in our thought and talk. While ordinary discourse like ‘Grass is green’ expresses representational states (the belief that grass is green), I assume with metaethical expressivism that moral discourse like ‘Eating meat is wrong’ expresses desire-like states (e.g., disapproval of eating meat). Given this metasemantic pluralism, I provide a direct argument for thinking that truth within ordinary discourse consists in corresponding with reality, while moral truth is epistemically constrained; and I develop a novel theory of moral truth. I go on to argue that the most prominent objections to pluralism – which concern cases where truthbearers apt for different properties are “mixed” together – in fact pose no special problems for the pluralist. I provide a pluralist-friendly metaphysics of truth for complex truthbearers that dissolves the appearance of difficulty, arguing that the truth of a complex consists in a distinct property that is grounded in the truth properties relevant for its components. And in the final chapter, I show how this independently motivated metaphysics of truth can in turn be used to dissolve the liar paradox.

In this thesis, I argue that humans and sentient animals have equal moral status in the sense that they ought to have like interests equally considered. Furthermore, they are owed strong pro tanto duties to be free from having pain inflicted upon them, having their lives ended and having their liberty restricted. I argue for these claims by developing and defending an account of moral status grounded in agency. This account takes agency, understood as the capacity to act on motivating reasons, to be the necessary and sufficient condition for moral status. Further, I argue that agency is sufficient to have interests in liberty, continued existence and freedom from pain. As such we pro tanto wrong agents when we frustrate these interests. I show that sentient beings necessarily possess agency in the relevant sense, because the best account of the nature of sentience, entails that sentient beings have the psychological resources to form and act upon motivating reasons. Thus, I argue that sentient animals must possess interests in liberty, continued existence and freedom from pain, just as autonomous agents do. Therefore we should take all agents, regardless of further facts about their abilities, to possess equal moral status and be owed pro tanto duties to be free from having pain inflicted upon them, having their lives ended and having their liberty restricted.

A metaphysical naturalist could find the following combination of claims attractive. First, part-whole and composition in physics are sui generis and lack some of the ‘core’ features we ascribe to these concepts and their worldly satisfiers in first-order metaphysics. Second, having agreed that some physical objects of interest satisfy sui generis concepts and/or relate by sui generis relations, none among these objects satisfies a classical concept or relate by a classical part-whole relation (e.g. the concept or relation of mereological part). The first claim I read as one of ‘appropriation’: the structural relations between physical objects of interest are sui generis and yet they pertain to the mereological kind. The second I read as one of ‘elimination’: metaphysically abstracted part-whole (or composition) has no instances in well- regarded physical domains. The dissertation argues for appropriation and against elimination. For appropriation, because current physics sanctions relata of part-whole relations (or at least satisfiers of part-whole concepts) that clash with intuitive, seemingly analytic principles for part-whole, e.g. the Antisymmetry postulate (x and y are mutual parts only if identical). Against elimination, because whether these objects of interest to physics also relate by ‘canonical’ part-whole (with the intuitive principles) is largely a question of parsimony. One removes instances of the canonical relations because these are not needed to account for the composition of objects that already relate by the non-canonical ones. But some of these relations at least (such as mereological part-whole) resist the pressure from parsimony, for they come at no cost once the objects already relate non-canonically (e.g. in opposition to the Antisymmetry postulate). The latter we can argue for in (at least) two ways: 1. canonical and non-canonical part-whole are members of a single kind, 2. canonical part-whole is of a kind with identity. Given either view and a preference for theories with minimal kinds, instances of the canonical relation do not increase a theory’s profligacy, because their kind is already instanced in a theory of objects that relate non-canonically. My preference is for the latter view.

In the first part of my dissertation I demonstrate that Rorty's neo-pragmatism and Der-rida's openness to the Other give rise, in their practical applications, to the same arbi-trariness as the one usually attributed to a society shaped by Hegelian dialectic. A prob-lem arises, in a deconstructive attitude in decision-making, when we notice that any need, desire and interest of the other is an expression of a preceding arbitrary allocation of wealth, occupations and economic potentialities. This makes such seemingly "spon-taneous" desires a reflection of constrained everyday life economic interests, which are incapable of developing an economic system which really reflects equity and the most open and beneficial manifestation of skills and potentialities. A similar issue concerns Rorty's invoking the neo-pragmatist figure of the "liberal-ironist", which, for the same reasons, is always in danger of coinciding with an authority perceiving arbitrary desires and implementing a pragmatically preferable action according to them. In the second part of my dissertation, I lead the concepts of arbitrariness and authority back to the de-velopment of the self-consciousness of the traditional Hegelian dialectic. I then propose an "instrumental" revision of this latter and an application of the obtained concepts to a socio-economic analysis, in order to really fulfil the necessity expressed by neo-pragmatism and deconstructionism. According to the Hegelian dialectic a consciousness develops its ethical capacities by becoming aware of the necessity of an agreement with the other self-consciousnesses in order to construct what is reciprocally maximally satis-fying and "natural" within the constraints of intersubjective life. Such a recognition has to be understood as the acknowledgement and acceptance of the other's desires, due to the fact that they are seen as having an active role in the recognition and fulfilment of one's own desires. The final goal of this dynamics would be the creation of institutions based on solid reciprocity whose effect is the progress of universal benefit. The accent on reciprocity, nevertheless, also means that a human being acknowledges another indi-vidual's desires only to the extent that she perceives a certain agreement with this latter as being convenient. In order to go beyond this aporia I investigate the utilization and disposition of economic instruments which would favour the highest possible expression of reciprocal satisfaction in crucial social environments instead, such as the organization of roles in capitalist production. I then re-interpret the ethical telos of Hegel to formulate a definition of "credit" which coincides with a language game focused on a maximization and equalization of reciprocity and mutual expectations. I relegate the forms of credit granting which respond to others logics under the category of "arbi-trary". I choose the concept of credit because it is the economic tool which, more than any other, can be directed to discovering and enhancing each individual's potentiality and mutual material improvement.

This thesis entitled "From 'Sacred' to 'Secular'? The Hermeneutical Future of Religion in the Thought of Gianni Vattimo and Charles Taylor" aims at a deconstructive analysis of religion and secularism in order to explore both its postmodern and post-secular implications. It suggests that Vattimo and Taylor's philosophies of religion and secularism exemplify the key features of a defining feature of the post-modern world. Their discussion of 'an emergent religious and cultural sensibility' implies a post-modern, post secular and hermeneutical re-affirmation of religion. Vattimo's philosophy is presented as emerging from its own axiom of "weak thought" which is itself a secularising principle. By way of contrast, Taylor's reflection on the foundation of secularity is delivered in four segments: 1) an historical approach to his concept of secularism, 2) his attempt at overcoming epistemology and its implications for understanding secularism, 3) a re-appraisal of his philosophical sources of secularity, and 4) the development of the concept of secularity commensurable with embracing a non-religious notion of religion. The thesis entails a comparative and dialogical exchange between Vattimo and Taylor concerning their understanding of a post-secular engagement with religion. The thesis proposes that their dialogical engagement with secularism and religion articulates: 1) a process of hermeneutical reflexive re-evaluation, 2) a way of re-evaluating transcendentalism, and 3) a re-worked non-metaphysical notion of transcendence. In addition, this thesis suggests that their dialectical discourse on religion exploits the inexhaustible nature of religion, and its capacity to be more than itself. I shall argue that the philosophical outcome of their hermeneutical deconstruction of both religion and modern secularism (the two are intimately allied) will be presented as: 1) the development of a non-religious conception of religion, 2) a retrieved religion of beingfor-the-other, 3) the precedence of charity over truth, and 4) an understanding of the transition from sacred to secular as a hermeneutical process of both 'an exodus' and 'a transition'. This thesis offers a hermeneutical deconstruction of the'return of religion'. In so doing, it both engages and unfolds aspects of an ongoing philosophical and hermeneutical tradition. Although located primarily in the continental tradition of thought, the thesis is also concerned with responding to articulations of secular and religious dichotomies in other traditions in order to invigorate the re-thinking of religion and problems of secularity across a wide variety of philosophical horizons.

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