Titles of Senior Research Papers

Philosophy 497 (Senior Research Seminar) is a course in which graduating philosophy majors work on extended research projects on topics of their choice. Collaborative learning is required and team projects are encouraged. Class meetings focus on research methodologies and on students discussion of their projects. The following are the titles of the research papers written by our majors in the recent past.

Spring 2009

• Knowledge of the Future
• The State vs. Anarchy
• Christian Love
• Panpsychism
• Epistemic Externalism
• Chinese Room Argument
• Skepticism
• Utilitarianism
• Relativism of Thomas Kuhn
• Ethical Egoism
• Cosmic Design Argument
• Four-Dimensionalism
• Memory
• The Non-Rational
• G.E. Moore and Skepticism
• Sportspersonship

Fall 2008

• Dignity Denied
• An Analysis of John Rawls' Reflective Equilibrium
• The Fall of Darwin
• Motions in Ethics
• When Torture Should Be Justified
• Justification of Drug Laws: Defer to the Medical Community
• Responsibility of Users
• Suicide: A Choice, A Right, A Moral Discussion
• Four Desiderata and the Forever Unfuliflled Promise of Modern Epistemic Tradition
• It's Internalism and Externalism, not Internalism versus Externalism
• Hick on Evil
• Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Spring 2008

• Are Faith and Reason Compatible?
• The Problem of Evil and Subjectivity
• Just Punishment
• Curious Doubts: Some Thoughts on Skepticism and Metaphor
• Being and Racelessness: Examination of Racial Identity and Jean-Paul Sartre
• Is Regret Rational or is Regret Irrational?
• Neural Nets and Intentionality
• Wolf and Moral Luck
• The Philosophy of Graffiti
• Difference Between the Mind and the Brain ... or Not
• The Chicken and the Limit: Using Mathematics to Solve Philosophy’s Paradoxes
• Humanism: An Exercise in Feminist Metaphysics
• Jean-Paul Sartre and Freedom
• For Epistemic Fortitude: A Defense of Constructive Empiricism
• Border Morality
• Existential Quantification and Contextual Underspecification

Fall 2007

• Ethical Sex
• Desert and Distributive Justice in Rawls
• The Dualism of States in Warfare: Just War Theory and Realism
• Physician Assisted Active Euthanasia
• Animal Ethics: An Overview of Singer, Regan, and Rollin
• A Defense of Nozick’s Just State Theory
• Superheroes
• Consciousness

Others

• Happy Housewives and Oppressive Socialization: Assessing Standards for Autonomy
• Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?
• What is Wrong with Pornography?
• Physician-Assisted Suicide
• Terrorism