Recent literature in religious epistemology has overlooked a significant debate in mainstream epistemology. In short, theories in religious epistemology have failed to consider the value problem. This essay, then, hopes to rectify this omission by arguing that one of the most influential accounts of religious epistemology - reformed epistemology - fails to adequately account for the value of knowledge. I argue, however, that a reasonable way out for the reformed epistemologist comes by way of endorsing the achievement thesis. The achievement thesis, put simply, states that knowledge is valuable because it is a cognitive achievement - unlike, for example, mere true belief. The central question of this essay, then, is this: Is Knowledge of God a Cognitive Achievement? In order to better answer this question I highlight two different ways in which one can understand the nature of cognitive achievements. First, a cognitive achievement can be understood as success from ability that is always primarily creditable to the agent. Or, second, a cognitive achievement can be understood as success from ability that is jointly creditable to the agent. Both, I argue, are compatible with knowledge and the achievement thesis. Whether knowledge of God is primarily or jointly creditable, however, will depend on the way in which one understands the role the agent plays in the belief forming process. Given the nature of reformed epistemology, I argue that knowledge of God is the kind of achievement that is jointly creditable. Further, and central to the argument, I argue that the reformed epistemologist is in a good position to meet the requirements for the strong achievement thesis. The strong achievement thesis argues that an achievement should be understood in terms of overcoming some obstacle whereby the agent's belief is the result of some ability that can be credited to the agent. The account I propose not only meets the requirements of the strong achievement thesis, but also retains a distinctive feature of reformed epistemology - namely, that the belief in God can be said to overcome the obstacle of cognitive malfunction that, as the reformed epistemologist argues, is brought about by sin. It's an achievement becasue it overcomes an excessively hostile environment (what I call the maxi-environment) that is not conducive to belief in God given the cognitive consequence of sin. In the end, it is possible to provide an account of reformed epistemology where the value of knowledge (over and above mere true belief) is adequately demonstrated.

The aim of the present thesis is to reconcile two opposing intuitions; one originating from mainstream individualistic epistemology and the other one from social epistemology. In particular, conceiving of knowledge as a cognitive phenomenon, mainstream epistemologists focus on the individual as the proper epistemic subject. Yet, clearly, knowledge-acquisition many times appears to be a social process and, sometimes, to such an extent—as in the case of scientific knowledge—that it has been argued there might be knowledge that is not possessed by any individual alone. In order to make sense of such contradictory claims, I combine virtue reliabilism in mainstream epistemology with two hypotheses from externalist philosophy of mind, viz., the extended and distributed cognition hypotheses. Reading virtue reliabilism along the lines suggested by the hypothesis of extended cognition allows for a weak anti-individualistic understanding of knowledge, which has already been suggested on the basis of considerations about testimonial knowledge: knowledge, many times, has a dual nature; it is both social and individual. Provided, however, the possibility of distributed cognition and group agency, we can go even further by making a case for a robust version of antiindividualism in mainstream epistemology. This is because knowledge may not always be the product of any individual’s cognitive ability and, thereby, not creditable to any individual alone. Knowledge, instead, might be the product of an epistemic group agent’s collective cognitive ability and, thus, attributable only to the group as a whole. Still, however, being able—on the basis of the hypothesis of distributed cognition—to recognize a group as a cognitive subject in itself allows for proponents of virtue reliabilism to legitimately apply their individualistic theory of knowledge to such extreme cases as well. Put another way, mainstream individualistic epistemologists now have the means to make sense of the claim that p is known by S, even though it is not known by any individual alone.

Thesis advisor: Lisa Sowle Cahill / Contrary to current transhumanist, medical, and cultural perspectives that aging is something solely to lament or even eradicate, this work explores the meaning of aging and death from the perspective of Christian theology, particularly within the schema of St. Augustine and Karl Barth. Both authors describe the complexity of aging in terms of our curse and calling as creatures aimed at participation in God through union with Christ. Locating Christology as central to our understanding of aging illuminates the ways in which the God revealed in Christ enters our humanity, sharing in our vulnerability, dependency, frailty, and even passivity. By turning to the incarnation, Christ's nature and work not only give us future hope, but transforms the daily aging experience - both active and passive waiting within our present, temporal reality for aging individuals and their surrounding communities. By maintaining union with God through contemplation and action, Christ dignifies our status as receptive and active agents. Thus, building from these two authors, I argue that aging serves as a sign and preparation for Sabbath rest by which aging persons might enact virtue through their specific vocation before God. Likewise, those persons surrounding the aging are called to enact virtues that reciprocally respond through interdependent communities that give and receive in union with Christ. Chapter One opens with preliminary questions on the meaning of death and aging while Chapter Two delineates Augustine's view on these realities as a result of the fall and original sin. However, even in Augustine's negative view of death and aging, he highlights the good in the soul/body relation and resurrected bodies. His position legitimizes grief and the human emotions, thus offering an ethics of compassion in loss. Finally, I constructively locate the positive view of aging and death is its sign and preparation for eternal Sabbath rest. Chapter Three considers Barth's analysis of death and aging as both negative and positive, evil and good through his dialectical lens. While death is a sign of judgment, finitude constitutes human identity as good in our temporal end. His ethics mirrors his anthropology in protecting life while accepting limits. He ends by describing the three stages of life including youth, middle age, and old age as composing our vocation. Each stage includes our call before God that legitimizes agency for the old as well as interdependent relationships. Chapters Four and Five explore the Christology of Augustine and Barth. Christ's divine and human natures bring together wisdom and knowledge for Augustine in Chapter Four. Aging persons grow in wisdom and knowledge through contemplation and action in union with Christ. Not only does union with Christ become the foundation for moral agency, but Christ also achieves the benefits for aging persons through his incarnation and atoning work. Christ experiences psychological anguish and forsakenness before God as the Totus Christus. Aging persons also receive the benefits of Christ's person and work that reverses the consequences of aging and death. Chapter Five claims that participation in Christ serves as the key to understanding Barth's Church Dogmatics. God's movement to humanity and our movement to God are embodied in the hypostatic union. Here we see Christ's active agency in his divine humility/obedience through the incarnation and atoning work. Christ's passive agency or human response perfectly embodies gratitude, prayer, and obedience through union with the Spirit in fulfilling his vocation in time. Moreover, in congruence with the work of W.H. Vanstone, Jesus' passive agency that receives the activity of the world legitimizes dignity and worth for those aging stages of life involving decline and dependence. Aging persons are agents who are active and passive, giving and receiving through a mixture of contemplation (prayer) and activity in union with Christ. Finally, Chapter Six synthesizes the Christology and participation present in the theologies of Augustine and Barth as the foundation for a moral virtue theory as it applies to aging persons and their surrounding communities. By emphasizing union with Christ in Augustine's virtue theory and union with Christ in Barth's morality of `vocation,' I argue moral agents are contemplative/acting persons intended for union with God. By receiving and giving in relationship with God and others, aging persons and their communities embody virtues that reciprocally benefit one another. Virtues for the aging include humility, gratitude, generosity, wisdom, prudence, memory, friendship, fortitude, and hope. Virtues for those communities surrounding aging persons entail respect, justice, mercy, and love. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Mary Jo Iozzio / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: Stephen J. Pope / This dissertation provides a multidisciplinary analysis of acedia, a vice that misdirects the natural human love for God and disorders the mind and social structures. Acedia—from the Greek a- + kedos, “lack of care”—is a vice that rejects moral agency, disorders love, and distorts thinking, resulting in a range of psychological effects (such as despair, anxiety, hyper productivity, etc.) and the creation of social structures that hinder human flourishing. This vice was widely discussed as a moral and spiritual problem until the modern period, when three factors led to its neglect: (1) the equation of acedia with laziness in post-Reformation theological literature, (2) the medicalization of acedia as depression in the emerging psychological literature, and (3) the contention that moral and spiritual concepts were out of place in psychological reflection. And as morality, spirituality, and mental health became bifurcated, psychologists began to claim that the Christian tradition discovered depression, but spiritualized it as the vice of acedia. An integrative approach that connects moral theology with the biopsychosocial sciences clarifies the nature of acedia and provides practices to reorder individuals languishing or struggling with its effects. This approach resists the bifurcation of morality and spirituality from mental health; rejects reductive accounts of acedia as slothful laziness, anomie, boredom, melancholy, or depression; and demonstrates the areas of overlap between vices and mental disorders. Beginning with a statement of the problem of acedia, this dissertation indicates how the moral, spiritual, and mental health elements of acedia became separated. Then the strengths and weaknesses in the biopsychosocial literature on mental health and vice is discussed, and it is argued that the sciences can be supplemented with a theological account of vices as habits that result from choices to act, love, and reason which disorder the mind and social structures. This integrative account reveals how vices like acedia can be factors in mental health since they disorder crucial capacities of the mind like agency, love, and reasoning. Nevertheless, vices like acedia are distinct from sloth, anomie, boredom, melancholy, and depression. While vices and disorders involve intentions, choices, habits, and actions, vices may or may not impact neural functioning or cause neural malfunction as mental disorders do. Acedia and these various disorders are distinct even though they may overlap in certain cases. Consequently, vices like acedia can be one of several factors—including biological, psychological, and social ones—involved in the development course of mental disorders, but need not, and will not always be so involved. Recognizing this avoids moralizing mental disorders (by making mental disorder into a purely moral problem with a moral remedy), and medicalizing vices (by affirming that moral problems are at root medical ones requiring a medical remedy). Removing acedia, therefore, requires the adoption of practices that can be tailored to foster the virtue of gratitude, which remove acedia, redirect its disordered inclination to love God, and reorder individuals struggling with its effects. Thus, to discuss acedia adequately, one needs to integrate insights from morality, spirituality, and mental health. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Stephen F. Brown / The study of Thomas Aquinas generally focuses on theological questions in his work, and ignores certain aspects of what might be called his "spiritual life." Though there are exceptions to this rule, there are numerous themes in the writings of Thomas Aquinas which have not been given their due. In light of this fact, this dissertation seeks to provide an extended treatment of two components of the work of Thomas Aquinas which receive little attention: the role of spiritual exercises in his writing, and the form of reflexivity--one's understanding of and relation to one's self--he recommends. As a way of approaching these issues, I draw from the work of two historical philosophers, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, using the methodological questions they employ in their writings on the classical world. Both Hadot and Foucault argued that there was something different about the way philosophy was accomplished in the antique world, something which was lost as philosophy shifted in the modern period. Hadot's work focuses, in particular, on the use of spiritual exercises in the formation of the person--that is, how a person becomes the ideal form they ought to be. Foucault, on the other hand, focused on the alternative form of reflexivity as found in the work of classical philosophers, and used it for fruitful comparison and critique of the contemporary forms of reflexivity found in the modern world. Both of these thinkers, however, never included in their study the medieval period, or at least not in an extended and meaningful way. Their questions, however, are particularly relevant to the work of Thomas Aquinas, as he offers both an extended treatment of spiritual exercises, as well as a form of reflexivity similar in many ways to classical forms. As a way of highlighting these two topics in Thomas Aquinas, I first provide an overview of the work of Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault as it relates to these topics. I then move onto a discussion of the current state of scholarship on "spirituality" in Thomas Aquinas, and suggest the ways in which this dissertation can improve on this current state. In the subsequent chapters, I begin a discussion of the concept of virtue as found in Thomas Aquinas, and its relation to both spiritual exercises and reflexivity, the description of which in Thomas forms the basis for the next two chapters. Finally, I turn to an in depth application of these methodological questions by turning to two different works of Thomas; first, I turn to his De perfectione spiritualis vitae, a short and rarely read work in which Thomas explains the practices which accompany the formation of a person in charity. Second, I turn to the Summa Theologiae and the cardinal virtues, drawing attention to the presence of spiritual exercises in a work typically treated as merely expositional. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / This dissertation addresses a specific problem, which is that the Catholic ethical tradition lacks an adequate normative approach to social anger as a potentially constructive resource in the pursuit of social justice. In response to this issue, this dissertation advances the thesis that social anger is a cognitive interruption of the ideologies and structures of oppression, which is to say, an evaluative judgment that the members of a vulnerable social group suffer systemic deprivation of one or more of the social goods constitutive of basic human flourishing. I propose that the civic virtues of justice, solidarity, and prudence may be used as a normative anthropological heuristic for determining whether agents have rightly realized their social anger in regard to particular instances of structural participation, such as political resistance and institutional reform. In order to defend this thesis, the argument first diagnoses the main causes of the problem. In attempting to address social justice concerns, Catholic ethicists have generally retrieved the Thomistic virtue ethic of temperance or moderation in anger, which was designed for damaged interpersonal relationships in a premodern context, and applied it to the contemporary context of structural injustice in sociopolitical and socioeconomic relationships. This normative ethic, however, fails to observe the qualitative difference between the moral agency of individuals in relation to one another and the agency of structural participation. Moreover, this anthropological issue is exacerbated by an uncritical characterization of anger as impulsive and non-cognitive in itself, a problem that can be traced to the lack of an adequate philosophical psychology of emotion. In light of this diagnosis, I argue that Catholic ethicists should critically engage with the cognitive theory of emotion offered by Martha Nussbaum as well as her feminist account of universal human capabilities. Once combined with the contextual anthropology of human agency in history found in modern Catholic social thought, these resources can provide the basis for an inductive natural law methodology appropriate to the task of understanding social anger in relation to the pursuit of social justice. Employing this methodology, I explicate the moral significance of social anger as cognitive interruption and offer a critically reconstructed normative ethic appropriate to the contemporary context of political resistance and institutional reform in public life. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: John F. Baldovin / This dissertation argues that the eucharistic theology found in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae is not a Christocentric, static, hierarchical economy of grace production. Rather, it is a deeply Trinitarian, dynamic, communal drama of graced participation. Based on Aquinas's insistence that grace is a participation in the Divine Nature that is signified by the sacraments, I turn to the Secunda Pars in order to explicate the relationship between grace and human action that is presupposed in the sacramentology of the Tertia Pars. Insofar as the res tantum of the Eucharist is the unity of the mystical body of Christ, special attention is given to the relationship between grace, theological virtue, and moral virtue. Through close examination of the process through which charity is said to increase in the subject, the unity of the mystical body is seen, not as a mystical state, but as a graced action that is simultaneously God's action (insofar as grace formally moves us through charity) and the Church's action (insofar as the moral virtues dispose us to receive the presence of God as the extrinsic principle of our actions). The unity of the mystical body of Christ is, then, rightly called the grace of the Eucharist because the spiritual life affected by the Eucharist is the active presence of charity in the Church. The result of the Eucharist is the Church's participation in the Divine Nature. This project aims at providing a grammar that allows for fruitful dialogue in modern sacramental theology. Within Catholic Eucharistic theology, the scholastic language of metaphysics is regularly given place of privilege to such an extent as to view other grammars of the Eucharist with suspicion. This dissertation provides a Thomistic grammar of the Eucharist that largely avoids the traditional scholastic grammars. It is the hope that such retrieval is a catalyst for constructive dialogue between modern grammars (of all denominations) and traditional scholastic grammars. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Bruell / This study of Xenophon’s Memorabilia investigates the famous Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge. Specifically, it is an attempt to understand the claim that anyone who knows what the right thing is to do, automatically chooses to do it. I concentrate on Socrates’ view of one particular virtue, namely moderation. This is both because moderation is the virtue that Xenophon’s Socrates most often identifies with knowledge, and because it is the virtue that Xenophon associates most closely with Socrates himself. The first part of the dissertation considers whether the thesis that virtue is knowledge is an accurate description of ordinary moral life. The first task is to articulate the ordinary moral outlook. I examine the presentation of this outlook in seven conversations about political ambition in Book Three of the Memorabilia. I conclude that according to Xenophon’s Socrates, the moral outlook is based on two beliefs. One belief concerns the content of the moral law. It is the belief that we are obligated to do good for others, and in the first place to be good citizens and serve our country. The second belief is that morality is good, and the greatest good, for the individual who obeys the moral law, regardless of the apparent sacrifices that it requires. This second belief seems to be the basis for the view that virtue is knowledge: obedience to the moral law is so good that anyone who knew this would automatically obey the law, and anyone who resists obeying it must be ignorant of how good it is. The moral outlook combines these two beliefs. It holds that that what is best for the political community is also best for the individual, or that the law that directs us to do good for others and the law that discloses to us what way of life is best for ourselves are the same law. This belief is so fundamental to the moral life that the question, whether what is good for the individual really coincides with what is good for the community, is not a legitimate question to raise, and it cannot be raised without departing somewhat from the ordinary moral attitude. On the other hand, once the fundamental assumption of moral life comes to light as a mere assumption, it is impossible to avoid investigating it, and to continue to assume that we know what virtue is. Accordingly, the second half of the dissertation attempts to clarify this question, by examining Xenophon’s presentation of the Socratic education in Book Four of the Memorabilia. I argue that this part of the Memorabilia does not assume that virtue is political virtue, and rather shows how Socrates investigated what virtue is without this prior assumption. The last part of the dissertation is a preliminary effort to follow Socrates’ investigation of this question. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / For a variety of reasons, in the field of biblical ethics, Scripture scholars do not use much ethical theory, while theological ethicists do little actual exegesis. Even those recent attempts to bridge better Scripture with Christian ethics have either stressed the importance of the scriptural text or the importance of ethical hermeneutics. Throughout this entire work I advocate for a more integrated approach for a Scripture-based Christian theological ethics. In so doing I first propose using Allen Verhey's distinction of Scripture as 'scripted' and 'script': The former refers to exegesis and the latter to admonitions for ethical living. A more integrated approach will therefore treat Scripture as both 'scripted' and 'script', taking exegesis seriously and interpreting the text by using a sound hermeneutical framework. Subsequently, we can both acquire a more accurate understanding of the original meaning of the text and obtain a more complete and consistent interpretation of the text for today. From the perspective of Christian ethics, I further suggest virtue ethics as a worthy hermeneutical tool in treating Scripture as 'script'. Virtue ethics complements principle-based ethical theories by emphasizing practices and the importance of exemplary models. It also attends to the character formation and identity of both individuals and the moral community. Moreover, as I argue, there exists an explicit link between Scripture and virtue. Both the biblical link and the uniqueness of virtue ethics make it suitable as the hermeneutical tool for doing Scripture-based Christian ethics. In order to demonstrate concretely how the methodological shift into a more integrated scriptural ethics as such leads to actual benefits and improvements, I offer a three-step illustration. I begin with treating the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12 as first `scripted'; that is, I exegete the text. Then I look at the text as 'script' through the hermeneutics of virtue ethics. I identify a new set of core virtues (and corresponding practices) not just for personal formation but also for the formation of the community and the larger society. Third, I then bring the fruits of this treatment forward by exploring the possible reception of the Beatitudes and its core virtues by the Confucian tradition. Methodologically speaking, Confucianism goes to its own texts in its search of ethical teachings; and Confucian ethics is primarily the fruit of careful interpretation of their 'sacred' texts. In other words, it is both text-based and interpretative, and shares a common methodological approach with the Scripture-based Christian ethics proposed here. Subsequently, we find significant parallel virtues in Confucian texts although dissimilarities (such as worldview) exist between the two traditions. As a whole, the proposed methodological shift into a Scripture-based Christian ethics produces a more accurate, complete and consistent interpretation of the biblical text for our contemporary audience and makes Christian ethics more explicable to Confucian society and more supportive of cross-cultural dialogue with Confucian ethics. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.