Lawrence Bonjour supported coherentism in the early period, but turns to foundationalism in the later period. In this paper I shall focus on two sides in relation to his epistemology. To understand his early and later positions, first, I shall explain his coherentism and foundationalism. Second, I shall consider what objections have been raised to each position. Thus we can evaluate why Bonjour abandoned his coherentism and why his foundationalism succeeds as a plausible theory for empirical justification.

This thesis addresses two interpretative questions concerning the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first is to ascertain the primary objection that Nietzsche has to a morality that he describes as decadent. The conclusion reached is that Nietzsche’s objection to decadent morality is based on the harm it does to a class of “higher” individuals who have valuable work to perform in achieving a desirable future for humanity. The second question is to determine the manner in which Nietzsche’s own values are to be understood based on the skepticism he expresses concerning the objectivity of value. The conclusion reached is that Nietzsche’s values are objects of the same analysis he applies to human values generally. The values Nietzsche endorses, including the valuing of “higher” individuals, are to be understood as symptoms of a particular physiology and its relationship to living.

This essay is an exploration of the debate between John Finnis and Stephen Macedo on the value of homosexuality. In “Is Natural Law Theory Compatible with Limited Government?” Finnis, a natural law theorist, rejects value-neutralist arguments, stating that the political community can and should make value judgments about its members’ life-choices and that such normative evaluations are compatible with liberalism. Particularly, Finnis argues that homosexuality is in its essence always harmful and degrading, thus unable to participate in the basic human goods it imitates. Furthermore, he argues that the political community in liberal democratic societies is justified in discouraging homosexual conduct as a viable way of life. Macedo, while also rejecting pure value-neutralist liberalism, carefully considers but rejects Finnis’s argument, which rests on an unrealistic description of value and ends of human sexual activity.

What I dub the “worst-result” principle is a criterion that identifies civil war and tyranny as the worst evils that could befall a state, and prescribes their prevention. In this thesis, I attempt to define the worst-result principle’s concrete prescriptions and institutional arrangements to meet these. To do so, I explore different understandings of the worst-result principle, that each contributes to the general argument. Montesquieu’s crucial insight concerns the separation of powers to prevent the state from collapsing into despotism. Judith Shklar shows that ‘damage control’ needs to be constantly performed so as to minimize chances of governmental brutality. Roberto Unger points at the importance of encouraging citizens’ involvement in the political process to safeguard freedom. I finally argue, in the light of historical evidence, that it would be unreasonable to think that the task of preventing tyranny can be effectively performed in the absence of courts entrusted with checking powers.

This thesis provides one component of a greater defense of Christian ethical relativism, or the notion that what is a morally allowable action for one Christian may be wrong for another and both could be correct in their assertions. This essay does not develop such a Christian relativism, but merely defends the idea that a relativistic view could be developed in an academically rigorous manner and may be able to explain the diversity of Christian ethical traditions in a simpler manner than that offered by the ethical absolutist. As such, the thesis argues that a relativistic view ought to be developed.

George Klosko attempts to solve a problem put forth by Rawls, namely how to create a persisting, just and stable liberal democracy in light of pluralism. He believes Rawls has failed at this task through the employment of political constructivism. Klosko claims that since Rawls does not utilize actual views within the existing public to form principles of justice, his method would fail to reach an overlapping consensus. As an alternative, Klosko proposes the method of convergence, which utilizes actual societal views to find overlapping concepts that inform the principles of justice. My argument is that Klosko misconstrues the method and aims of political constructivism. Klosko seems to incorrectly believe that stability is primary to establishing a liberal democracy, whereas it is secondary to the achievement of justice. Because of this error, Klosko’s method of convergence potentially has the consequence of creating a society which is stable but unjust.

Several contemporary virtue ethicists have provided systematic presentations of normative virtue ethics. The virtue ethical literature, however, does not contain much information on the meta-ethical roots of virtue theories. The present paper seeks to address this deficiency by examining the neo-Aristotelianism of Rosalind Hursthouse in an effort to ascertain what meta-ethical commitments are most consistent with her theory; these commitments are shown to be cognitivism, objectivism, and (in some form) naturalism. These positions are then put into dialogue with Moore’s seminal metaethical arguments against naturalism and agent-relative value. Ultimately I show that the literature on normative virtue ethics is rich enough to provide powerful responses to Moorean criticisms.

Kant attributes the power to awaken one from dogmatic slumber to skepticism and to the antinomy of pure reason; in his accounts of his own awakening and the origin of the critical philosophy, he credits the antinomy and his memory of David Hume. This essay suggests that Kant’s primary aim in the first Critique was to find a resolution to the antinomy; an examination of this resolution shows Kant’s memory of Hume critical to Kant’s enterprise. Kant’s resolution to the antinomy exploits metaphors of war, jurisprudence, slumber, and historical development, as well as his Transcendental Deduction and explanation of transcendental illusion, to unravel the riddle of metaphysics and provide for both the possibility of objective knowledge and the possibility of freedom.

Of the questions concerning the many great minds of the European Enlightenment, the question of what constitutes right and proper government perhaps had the most enduring influence on the world stage. Both Thomas Jefferson and Immanuel Kant attempted to answer the question of what constitutes right government, in particular by basing the system upon the idea of human freedom as an inalienable right. This project is an attempt to compare the systems proposed by these two authors, as well as to critique each on its ability to protect and foster individual freedom. It is my opinion that neither manages to do what it is constructed to do, as each fails to fully protect individual freedom, and each has as part of it a component which conflicts with individual freedom.

Mental causation between the material and the immaterial has been problematic for interactionist substance dualism ever since its first major proponent René Descartes. The contemporary philosopher Jaegwon Kim believes he has found an argument that shows exactly why an immaterial event cannot be said to cause a material event; he calls this the pairing problem argument. This thesis will argue that there is actually sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that Kim’s argument is unsuccessful due to one of its premises being false. Furthermore, this thesis will also argue that interactionist substance dualism is actually a philosophically viable alternative, and lastly ways are sketched of how one might go about constructing such a view responsibly.