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What type of ownership do we have over ourselves? And what are the different ways in which we ought to be permitted to subject our bodies to the market? Giving blood or selling one’s hair are uses of the body which assume rights of disposal over parts of the person which are similar to, or perhaps indistinguishable from, those we have over property. Such cases pose a puzzle: intuitively we both want to treat some aspect of the body as property, and strongly resist doing so. For example, the thought of a person having the right to cut off her hair and sell it does not strike us as particularly problematic. But if a stranger were to sneak up on her and cut off a length of her hair, it would be wrong for us to treat that assault as a case of theft. In response to this sort of puzzle, I propose a negative argument: that theories of property or self-ownership which are based in some fundamental natural right are unable to provide an adequate explanation of how we should treat these cases. The positive contribution of the thesis is to argue that an institutional theory of property can give us answers as to when to treat the body as property. By an an institutional theory of property, I mean one that rejects the idea that property is fundamental, but does not rely on an underlying natural right to justify the institution of property. This institutional approach provides a robust theoretical basis for distinguishing ourselves as inalienable, some aspects of our bodies as potentially alienable, and external objects as straightforwardly so.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide an account of what the relationship between an agent and her will (conceived in terms of her effective desire) must be if she is to be considered autonomous with respect to her actions. I argue that an agent's desires are only related to her in the pertinent sense if she has them because she values their objects, believing those objects to have features giving her reason to d~sire or pursue them. Implicit in this conception of autonomy is the requirement that the agent perform an action because, of the actions available, it is the one she views herself as having most reason to perform. Moreover, the good must be seen in objective terms. This account of autonomy appears to rule out the possibility of weak-willed action as standardly conceived. On the standard conception, not only does the weak-willed agent act intentionally despite the knowledge that his action violates his own better judgement, he also acts freely. I argue that the standard conception is one we should reject. Weak-willed action ought not to be considered free action despite the fact that the desire motivating the weak-willed agent is resistible. Resistibility is not a sufficient condition of free action. Towards the end of the thesis, I raise the question of how one ought to view the relationship between autonomous action and moral responsibility. I argue that if moral responsibility requires the fulfilment of some sort of ultimate responsibility condition, then autonomy as here conceived is not sufficient for moral responsibility. I go on to question whether there is such a condition. I argue that although intuitively plausible, much of this plausibility may stem from conflating moral responsibility with causal responsibility, and that if we are to resolve the issue, then we must restructure the debate.

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Philosophers, and theorists in other disciplines, have disagreed over the character, function and mechanisms of emotions. Amongst the persistent issues that have arisen is the question of what exactly emotions are. Are they a vivid perceptual awareness of physiological processes? Evaluative judgments? Dispositions? Neurophysiological states? Or perhaps an aggregate of some or all of the above? Typically, theorists who study the emotions have tended to divide into two camps. On the one hand there are those who adopt a broadly biological / adaptationist perspective, which emphasises the corporeal nature of emotions. On the other side of the divide are those who adopt a socio-constructivist perspective, which emphasises the cognitive nature of emotions. Proponents of the biological stance have tended to favour universal, basic emotions whilst socio-constructivists tend to favour the more exotic. In support of the latter approach a significant literature has emerged from ethnography, anthropology and cognitive linguistics. This literature adopts a “lexicocentric” perspective on the emotions. The biological/adaptationist perspective seems to capture something important and right about the essential nature of emotions. However, the aim of my thesis is to demonstrate that the basic emotions theory, as characterised by Ekman, is weakened by its failure to pay attention to, and fully to engage with, the literature regarding the effect of language on our emotional landscape, an area which has ostensibly been the domain of the social constructionist. I argue that what is required is a linguistically inclusive theory of emotion. Such a theory acknowledges that any coherent and comprehensive theory of emotion must include a robust linguistic and cultural element.

In recent years the philosophical texts of Nick Land have begun to attract increasing attention, yet no systematic treatment of his work exists. This thesis considers one significant and distinctive aspect of Land's work: his use of a psychoanalytic vocabulary, which is deployed to try and avoid several problems associated with metaphysical discourse. Land's larger project of responding to the Kantian settlement in philosophy is sketched in the introduction, as is his avowed distaste for thought which is conditioned by anthropocentricism. This thesis then goes on to provide a genealogical reading of the concepts which Land will borrow from psychoanalytic discourse, tracing the history of drive and desire in the major psychoanalytic thinkers of the twentieth century. Chapter one considers Freud, his model of the unconscious, and the extent to which it is anthropocentric. Chapter two contrasts Freud's materialism to Lacan's idealism. Chapter three returns to materialism, as depicted by Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus. This chapter also goes on to consider the implications of their 'schizoanalysis', and contrasts 'left' and 'right' interpretations of Deleuze, showing how they have appropriated his work. Chapter four considers Lyotard's works from his 'libidinal period' of the late sixties to early seventies. These four readings, and the various theories of drive and desire they contain, are then contextualised in relation to Land's work in chapter five. This final chapter considers Land's theory of 'machinic-desire', and evaluates if his construction of the concept, via psychoanalysis, offers a superior approach to anti-anthropocentric positions constructed in metaphysics. The role of psychoanalytic thought in constructing Land's cosmological theory of thermodynamic entropy and extropy is also considered.

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My aim in this work is to provide a comprehensive analysis of Hume’s theory of time as it is set out in the Treatise. Mirroring Hume’s own division into two parts, this will involve a careful look at both the epistemology of time he presents, that is, the idea of time and how this idea is formed, and the metaphysics, such as it is, of time itself. I look at two sets of motivating problems, for the metaphysics and the epistemology respectively: as regards the epistemology of time, I focus on the charge that Hume’s account is circular, that he cannot explain the acquisition and formation of the concept of time without presupposing the very idea he seeks to explain. This concern cuts to the heart of traditional empiricist theories and for many highlights a fundamental inadequacy. The second set of problems relate to the temporal structure of the world that emerges from his denial of the infinite divisibility of space and time. Specifically, whether the simple, durationless moments which act as the fundamental constituents of time are capable of playing the role Hume requires of them. I propose a unified response to both sets of challenges, and defend Hume’s claim that the two parts of his system are “intimately connected” (T.1.2.4.1; SBN 39). I argue that to gain a fully satisfying interpretation and understanding of either part we must look to, and be informed by, the other. What emerges is a complex theory of mind and a cautious but powerful metaphysics guided and informed by his epistemology. His theory of time remains grounded in empiricism, but of a form that is more resilient in the face of historic charges of inadequacy.

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No description available.