This thesis is a work of political philosophy. It aims to set out an egalitarian understanding of the promotion of social capital. The first chapter of the thesis is an introduction to social capital, and contains a normative criticism of contemporary social capital policy-making. A typology of theoretical approaches to social capital policies are outlined in the second chapter, including neoliberal constitutionalism, civic republicanism, and egalitarian pluralism. Of these approaches, egalitarian pluralism seems best able to promote social capital while balancing (...) the competing values of freedom and equality. The third chapter builds on the egalitarian pluralist approach and investigates a relational egalitarian strategy for the promotion of social capital. (shrink)

This thesis expands on the model presented in Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s Zoopolis for how companion animals might be treated as co-citizens in a post-Animal Rights world. I will attempt to clarify the distinct political obligations owed to companion animals throughout their lifetimes by individual caregivers and by the state. In particular, I argue that there is nothing in the genetic make-up of most companion animals that precludes them from being “autonomous agents” in adulthood, meaning that if allowed to (...) develop their agency, most animals would be able to lead flourishing lives independent of human companions. I suggest that, for young companion animals, guardians have political obligations to develop the autonomous agency of their dependents, with help from the state. That said, for adult animals which develop autonomous agency, I argue that both a human caregiver and the animal have a right to sever their relationship with each other, just as we give adult children the right to leave their parents’ care and also give parents the “right to kick out” adult children who are capable of supporting themselves. However, while advocating for human caregivers’ rights to sever relationships with autonomous pets, I nonetheless maintain that the state will always retain obligations to its citizens to provide them with a basic level of welfare, and these obligations extend to companion animals as well. Thus, the thesis will consider ways that companion animals can flourish without human companionship. Questions I am concerned with are: Can companion animals lead worthwhile lives without human caregivers? What obligations do caregivers and states have to raise animal young? When and how can these obligations be terminated? And lastly, how might we restructure our public and political institutions to accommodate animals who voluntarily or involuntarily leave relationships with caregivers? (shrink)

In recent years, political legitimacy as a concept distinct from full justice has received much attention. Yet in addition to querying the specific conditions legitimacy requires, there is a more general question: What is legitimacy even about? How ought we identify and conceptualize these conditions? According to the regnant justificatory liberal (JL) approach, legitimate legal coercion is based on reasons all reasonable persons can accept and JL is explicated in terms of a hypothetical procedure. Alas, Part I explains why JL (...) is inadequate. First, I argue that it de-legitimizes all coercion. Second, it undercuts the proposition that there are certain basic rights which must be protected for legitimacy. Third, I suggest that JL structurally involves paternalism. Where should theorists turn? My perhaps surprising proposal is that they turn to the Christian Reformed (CR) tradition of social thought. As I take it, this tradition is composed of such figures as Augustine and Calvin, Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd, and, more recently, Francis Schaeffer. It has long theorized such issues as church-state separation and permissible coercion, and is replete with conceptual resources. Thus, Part II reconstructs an alternative legitimacy framework out of these resources. The central CR insight is this: legitimacy is a function of preventing basic wrongs. Legal coercion is only necessary "by reason of sin". I develop this insight in terms of three ideas. First, those wrongs which must prevented as conditions of legitimacy are objective wrongs, obtaining universally regardless of consent. Second, they presuppose some view of basic teleology. A teleological view is needed to elaborate contentful basic rights non-arbitrarily, but only a basic teleological view insofar as legitimacy is distinct from full justice. Third, I suggest these wrongs are fruitfully understood as constituting an exogenous standard, one that is neither the product of actual nor hypothetical self-legislation. Part III brings JL and CR legitimacy into dialogue. Understanding legitimacy in terms of objective, teleological, and exogenous wrongs, respectively, helps us avoid each of the unacceptable consequences of JL covered in Part I. Legitimacy is better conceptualized in CR terms; preventing such wrongs is what legitimacy is about. (shrink)

This project seeks to deepen the understanding of economic “performativity” – the effects of economic theory and models on the economy - by examining the history of financial markets and the relationship between economic and political forces. Chapter One demonstrates how the culture of finance (and economics, more generally) began changing in 1950 from methods that aimed in the production of epistemologically true, descriptive statements to abstract theories that illuminated the potentials of markets. As a result, economics was able to (...) provide the mechanisms necessary to transform markets for the first time. Chapter Two demonstrates that this departure from orthodox methods birthed a new field of research concerning the ability of economics to construct theoretically described worlds: performativity. This chapter demonstrates that all conceptions of performativity are able to be organized into weak and strong claims, being further united by their depiction of economics as an independent force that comes up against external forces in periods of market emergence and transformation. Interestingly, a dichotomy emerges between performativity and political-cultural approaches to understanding economies: the former claims economics is the force that practically transforms markets and the latter claims transformation occurs through mediation of political and institutional interests. It is the purpose of Chapter Three to unveil a new context to understand economic performativity. It will first be demonstrated that there exists little evidence for the performative claim that economics is a force unto itself: instead, economics is utilized as tool to provide organization and stability for actors in periods of market transformation and as such, relies on external forces for performative success. Reconceptualizing performativity in this way addresses many critiques against variations of the performative thesis and suggests that the dichotomization between performative and political-cultural approaches may be reconciled, illuminating a more plausible account of how economics interacts with its objects. It is concluded that performative accounts of economics ought to be subsumed within political-cultural approaches to understanding economic organization. (shrink)

This dissertation explores a family of theoretical models of humanitarian military intervention. A number of recent theorists, including Tesón, Caney, Buchanan, Orend, Moellendorf, and Wheeler, build their models from a perspective called ‘cosmopolitanism.’ They offer arguments based on the moral supremacy of human rights, the arbitrary character of territorial boundaries, and the duty to protect individual human beings exposed to serious and systematic violence by their own governments. I develop a model of intervention that recognizes the moral significance of political (...) self-government. To the extent that international society should countenance a ‘duty to protect’ human rights, the duty ought to be constrained by a commitment to the values of self-government. The model developed in this dissertation also recognizes the significance of international law enforcement. Insofar as we should permit a role of enforcement for international human rights, that role should be constrained by formally accepted global principles and in particular by positive obligations to prevent and punish actions regarded as international crimes. These other global values are viewed with suspicion by cosmopolitan theorists, who tend to construe them in stark contrast to the vision of global responsibility for human rights protection. But I will show how these other values emerged simultaneously with cosmopolitanism and share many of its underlying intuitions. Because self-government and law enforcement are linked politically to the cosmopolitan vision, these two distinctive global values can be utilized as tools to fortify or expand cosmopolitanism by enlarging the global sense of responsibility for human rights. The aim of this project is to explain how these other values came to be neglected by cosmopolitan theorists, and why they should not be forgotten. (shrink)

When it comes to potential children, is to love them to leave them be (nonexistent)? I examine the possibility of virtuous reproduction, as well as some more basic theoretical issues surrounding the nature of moral goodness and obligation generally. Currently, there is a large body of literature in the field of reproductive ethics on questions of what considerations and practices ought to guide reproductive decision-making. The appropriate use of testing technologies to inform such decision-making, for instance, has been widely debated. (...) Much smaller and less visible is the debate surrounding the prior question of whether reproduction itself is morally appropriate or desirable. I am particularly interested in how consequentialist strategies for including considerations of beneficence in reproductive decision-making have shaped moral approaches to reproduction. The principle of procreative beneficence (PPB), which mandates potential reproducers to select the best possible child, highlights the problematic nature of these strategies. The limited conceptual resources and problematic normative foundations of such strategies have stymied the development of a robust discussion on the ethics of reproduction itself. Other types of ethical approaches, loosely defined as deontological, offer superior accounts of what is at issue in reproduction, but also draw on some flawed background assumptions regarding, for instance, the nature of the moral agent and the scope of the moral sphere. The question of the morality of reproduction itself thus leads to an examination of far more basic issues in ethical theory: namely, the significance of meta-ethical commitments, and the desirability of a normative framework that offers a rich and agent-focused account of moral goodness and badness. I argue that a virtue-centred ethics, grounded in neo-Aristotelian naturalism, accomplishes just that. And it is well-equipped to provide a meaningful and helpful analysis of the morality of reproduction, both holistically, in terms of the potential virtuousness of reproduction generally, and in terms of how the virtues of courage and benevolence may be expressed in reproduction. I conclude that a virtue-centred assessment of reproduction offers a sound and practical form of evaluation and that a virtuous character may indeed be expressed through reproduction. (shrink)

This thesis considers the relationship between the ontology of time and the passage of time, and concludes that the best way to understand this relationship is found in the combination of eternalism with the view that the passage of time is an objective, irreducible fact about the spatio-temporal world. The steps I take to reach this conclusion are as follows: first, I propose that eternalism is the best ontological basis from which to consider temporal passage; second, I argue that the (...) moving spotlight theory, which attempts to reconcile eternalism with temporal passage, is an inadequate representation of the relationship between eternalism and temporal passage; third, I suggest that temporal passage is best understood as a mind-independent phenomenon. I argue that eternalism is preferable to presentism insofar as presentism suffers from inconsistencies that eternalism both avoids and easily solves. I then defend the rejection of the moving spotlight theory by an appeal to the incoherency of the moving now. Finally, I dismiss mind-dependent temporal passage in favour of mind-independent temporal passage based on the irreducibility of temporal passage in and of itself. (shrink)

The work of Nelson Goodman has significantly impacted the philosophical landscape of the latter half of the twentieth century. In this thesis I critically assess Goodman’s later metaphysics, particularly his ontological relativism and multiple worlds hypothesis. I argue that, while Goodman’s view is interesting and important to philosophic thought, it critically fails as a tenable metaphysical position. This failure is twofold: first, Goodman’s argument for ontological relativism rests on the representational fallacy and is therefore unsound; and second his position, when (...) considered as a self-standing metaphysical doctrine, is incoherent. My conclusion is that Goodman must admit some mind-independent structure of reality, otherwise his view should be rejected. However, while I do not argue for any specific form of realism, once some mind-independent structure is admitted, a general realist position becomes preferable to Goodman’s anti-realist, relativist, and constructivist view. (shrink)

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-04 13:22:27.876.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-18 13:18:41.928.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-07 20:05:36.934.

Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2010-07-05 16:42:43.601.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-11-25 16:01:42.585.

Thesis -- Queen's University, 2008-09-26 17:06:38.455.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-22 21:48:39.206.

Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-31 12:18:30.156.

Thesis - - Queen's University, 2008-12-01 14:58:51.95.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-02-02 16:07:34.355.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-18 12:30:30.758.

Thesis - - Queen's University, 2008-10-16 16:19:46.617.

Thesis - - Queen's University, 2009-09-24 16:19:49.145.

Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-07-21 10:11:07.921.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-24 23:40:45.915.

Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-30 09:40:15.276.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-29 15:55:54.312.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-28 11:57:18.196.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-12 17:41:13.204.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-10-09 00:53:12.467.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-15 19:10:03.993.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-30 14:55:33.895.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-08-27 00:43:24.991.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-25 19:19:43.637.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-28 12:27:20.415.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-27 17:11:17.45.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-10-09 00:24:44.795.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-11-19 19:16:04.362.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-18 17:05:35.143. -/- Human Genetic Enhancement (HGE) has the potential to provide great benefits to a large number of people in terms of alleviating inherited disease and disability and maximizing individual liberty. There are many arguments against research and application of this new technology based on a variety of grounds, including both deontological and consequentialist objections. In this thesis I examine arguments from both of these positions and argue that neither offers a satisfactory justification (...) for prohibiting research into HGE nor do they demonstrate that the application of the knowledge gained from such research is necessarily wrong. I also suggest that there is a strong argument in favor of HGE in that it may offer a way to reduce the amount of disadvantage currently present in our society as a result of genetic disease and disability by addressing the genetic causes of these conditions. Further, I argue that the pursuit of HGE is necessary in order to promote individual liberty and promote equality of opportunity. Finally, I argue that by examining principles that require us to promote individual liberty we can establish the categories of enhancements which we should publicly fund and those that should merely be permissible. (shrink)

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-14 14:36:23.511.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-21 10:53:33.232.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-24 12:31:06.391.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-27 08:36:48.049.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-19 12:00:15.908.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-22 16:42:44.821.

Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-05 10:41:44.771.