abstract: This dissertation consists of three essays, each of which closely relates to epistemic norms for rational doxastic states. The central issue is whether epistemic rationality is impermissive or not: For any total evidence E, is there a unique doxastic state that any possible agent with that total evidence E should take (Uniqueness), or not (Permissivism)? “Conservatism and Uniqueness”: Conservatism is the idea that an agent’s beliefs should be stable as far as possible when she undergoes a learning experience. Uniqueness is the idea that any given body of total evidence uniquely determines what it is rational to believe. Epistemic Impartiality is the idea that you should not give special treatment to your beliefs solely because they are yours. I construe Epistemic Impartiality as a meta-principle governing epistemic norms, and argue that it is compatible with Conservatism. Then I show that if Epistemic Impartiality is correct, Conservatism and Uniqueness go together; each implies the other. “Cognitive Decision Theory and Permissive Rationality”: In recent epistemology, philosophers have deployed a decision theoretic approach to justify various epistemic norms. A family of such accounts is known as Cognitive Decision Theory. According to Cognitive Decision Theory, rational beliefs are those with maximum expected epistemic value. How does Cognitive Decision Theory relate to the debate over permissive rationality? As one way of addressing this question, I present and assess an argument against Cognitive Decision Theory. “Steadfastness, Deference, and Permissive Rationality”: Recently, Benjamin Levinstein has offered two interesting arguments concerning epistemic norms and epistemic peer disagreement. In his first argument, Levinstein claims that a tension between Permissivism and steadfast attitudes in the face of epistemic peer disagreement generally leads us to conciliatory attitudes; in his second argument, he argues that, given an ‘extremely weak version of a deference principle,’ Permissivism collapses into Uniqueness. However, in this chapter, I show that both arguments fail. This result supports the following claim: we should treat steadfast attitudes and at least some versions of a deference principle as viable positions in the discussion about several types of Permissivism, because they are compatible with any type of Permissivism. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Philosophy 2016

The management of health and safety risks in the oil refinery tends to be centred on the collection and simulation of technical data which can then be used to make decisions on the wellbeing of the workforce as well as the refinery installations. While the number crunching in the process is immensely vital, there tends to be a problem of ignoring or, at the very least, side-lining the social-cultural values of the people dealing with health and safety risk assessment processes. The economic driver for the operation of the oil refinery tends to be more important because of the generally huge initial financial outlay, and the eventual high costs of maintenance; hence health and safety risk management should have evidence of ensuring that the installations, as well as the people that work in them, are well catered for. In the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company this problem is more evident in newer installations where lean management processes have been instituted by oil firms so that they can reduce waste in the oil refining process without compromising the occupational health and safety needs of the refinery. Therein lies the initial problem of integrating health and safety risk assessment processes because most approaches concentrate on the technical elements of waste elimination while ignoring the social-cultural factors that impact on the health and safety of the workforce. This is an exploratory piece of research that examines the impact of rational and cognitive decision theories – herein called the psychology of risk – and how they impact on the occupational health and safety systems in the oil and gas refining sector of Kuwait. The research concludes that the application of lean concepts in the oil refining process is noble in itself but it needs to be integrated with the rational and cognitive detection factors that are necessary to incorporate and support the social-cultural tendencies of the workforce. The research recommends a framework for incorporating social-cultural values in the decision making process pertaining to health and safety risk assessment in oil refining process plants. Key Words: occupational health and safety risk assessment; lean management; social-cultural values; rational and cognitive decision making; oil and gas process plants.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:26:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alessandro Rostagno.pdf: 1253275 bytes, checksum: 1e9fce6336767cb51a08cafb750ec6cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-10-04 / The present work has for objective to analyze the juridical nature of the cognitive decision that allows to open the denominated procedural moment of 'sentence execution', in the right brazilian civil procedure, in agreement with the innovations brought by the law n. 11.232/05, that had for presupposition, to allow a larger procedural effectiveness and procedimental concerning the execution of the obligations recognized in sentence that determine the payment of amount. It is looked for, through the study of the historical sources, of comparative right and of the classification of the sentences, and the combination of the effectiveness of the jurisdictional decisions, to obtain conclusion concerning that type of effects will be found in the practical performance of the law that disposes concerning the sentence execution and, above all, as if it executes the conduct of the parts and judge before the procedure imposed by the legal text to the brazilian civil procedural system / O presente trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a natureza jurídica da decisão cognitiva que permite abrir o momento processual denominado de cumprimento de sentença , no direito processual civil brasileiro, de acordo com as inovações trazidas pela lei n. 11.232/05, que teve por pressuposto, permitir uma maior efetividade processual e procedimental no tocante à execução das obrigações reconhecidas em sentença que determinem o pagamento de quantia certa contra devedor solvente. Busca-se, através do estudo das fontes históricas, de direito comparado e da classificação das sentenças, a combinação de das eficácias das decisões jurisdicionais, para se obter conclusão acerca de que tipo de efeitos serão encontrados na atuação prática da lei que dispõe acerca do cumprimento de sentença e, sobretudo, como se efetiva a conduta das partes e do juiz diante do procedimento imposto pelo texto legal ao sistema processual civil brasileiro