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Browsing by Author "Kasser, Jeff, advisor"

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    A very confusing problem: interpreting Keynesian weight
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Brekel, Josh, author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; Shockley, Kenneth, committee member; Prytherch, Ben, committee member
    Initially outlined by John Maynard Keynes in 1921, Keynesian weight is a measure intended to characterize evidence independently of probability. As a concept that is often immersed in confusion, Keynesian weight requires thorough philosophical explication prior to any sort of legitimate use in decision-making, legal proceedings, or scientific inquiry. In this thesis, I attempt to explicate Keynesian weight by arguing in favor of Jochen Runde's relative interpretation of Keynesian weight. The aim of Chapter 1 is to introduce the basic idea of Keynesian weight. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate that Keynes's initial analysis of Keynesian weight creates an interpretative puzzle—two viable interpretations of Keynesian weight exist. Chapter 3 aims to solve the interpretative puzzle by consideration of how the interpretations of Keynesian weight respond to I.J. Good's criticism of Keynesian weight. Ultimately, I argue that Good's criticism demonstrates that the best interpretation of Keynesian weight is the relative interpretation.
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    Epistemic citizenship: a new defense of role-based epistemic normativity
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Kirchner, John J. S., author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; Tropman, Elizabeth, committee member; MacDonald, Bradley, committee member
    One problem facing epistemic deontology is its (apparent) incompatibility with doxastic involuntarism. Intuitively, deontic epistemic evaluations—e.g., blame or reproach for unjustified belief—seem unbefitting if we can't control that which we believe. However, Richard Feldman proposes a solve to this seeming incompatibility, which is a role-based approach to epistemic normativity. When we find ourselves within certain roles, the normativity of performing within one's role appropriately, as one ought, can generate obligations, permissions, duties, etc. If we can rightly conceive of a "believer role," then we can have coherent deontological normativity, even if we, in fact, lack control over our doxastic attitudes. However, Matthew Chrisman advances strong criticisms of the role-based approach, criticisms which I will argue ultimately fail. In response to Chrisman, I will argue that our doxastic role as a believer is akin to our role as political citizens. The upshot of the project will be a revitalized defense of role-based epistemic deontology, and a more apt analogy, i.e., that of epistemic citizen. Chrisman's assertions of the role-based approach's inherent explanatory insufficiencies will be shown to be unfounded once role-normativity itself is understood more precisely.
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    How to prioritize as a citizen of the universe
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Colter, Jackson T., author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; Archie, Andre, committee member; Heineman, Kristin, committee member
    Stoicism has gained a bit of popularity in certain circles recently, and much of this popularity revolves around the way that Stoicism enables and guides moral progress on an individual level, regardless of the circumstances. However, Stoic ethics also features an element of cosmopolitanism - essentially, other-oriented ethical principles that an ideal Stoic would follow. These principles tell us that we are all members of a common rational community, with every agent in the rationally organized universe being a member of this community. Naturally, the human lifespan is not long enough to equally address every rational being in the universe, so some sort of prioritization is required. However, Stoics place two requirements on our actions. We must ground our actions in knowledge, and both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus directly advise us to avoid unnecessary actions. These requirements combined with the other-oriented moral principles lead Stoics to a state of moral paralysis - where the actions that seem to be morally required of them are epistemically unjustified. This paralysis needs to be solved if Stoicism is to serve as a meaningful system of other-oriented ethics. Fortunately, an account of expertise is given in a piece of secondary literature by Simon Shogry which, combined with later Stoic insights, serves to alleviate this paralysis.
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    Proliferative etiological functions in biological systems
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Davis, John, author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; McShane, Katie, committee member; Callahan, Gerald, committee member
    This work will examine functional conceptions in biology, and argue that problems arise when etiological accounts of function are applied to traits contained within a biological system. In the first chapter, prominent analyses of functional language will be examined, with a special interest paid to etiological analyses of biological functions. The second chapter will pose a problem for these etiological analyses that arises out of an aspect of functional traits in biological contexts: functional traits are often nested within containing systems, and etiological analyses of function seem to ascribe the functions of the parts of systems to those systems themselves. There is thus a proliferation of functions at a systemic level as the functions of the components contained within a system are ascribed to the systems that contain them. Furthermore, this proliferation seems to ascribe contradictory functions to systems, and makes more confusing the distinction between the “functions in” a system and the “functions of” a system. The final chapter will examine three possible solutions to this problem: one solution will attempt to prevent the ascription of functions to systems by carefully interpreting what it means to “cause” a system, one will attempt to ground functions in actual influences entities have on their own replication and proliferation, and the final one will reframe the etiological analyses of functions as a specific sort of explanatory project in line with dispositional analyses.
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    The universe works on a math equation that never even ever really even ends in the end: Charles Sanders Peirce's Evolutionary Metaphysics and the Law of Large Numbers
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Jarrott, Joshua, author; Kasser, Jeff, advisor; Gorin, Moti, committee member; Beachy-Quick, Dan, committee member
    Recent work on Charles Sanders Peirce's evolutionary cosmology and scientific metaphysics has revealed a tension between two accounts Peirce gives of the laws of nature. Andrew Reynolds points out that Peirce seems to have thought that the laws evolved both in a statistical way—according to which the laws themselves are the statistical result of the Law of Large Numbers applied to instances of the laws—and also in a more directly evolutionary way, according to which instances of the laws reinforce one another making future instances conform to past ones. By forming "habits". These two analyses are straightforwardly incompatible, since the Law of Large Numbers requires events in the series to which the statistical analysis applies to be independent from one another, whereas the other account explicitly involves future law instantiations depending on past ones. Reynolds calls this problem the Incompatibility Problem. Despite the apparent contradiction, the work of this paper attempts a rational reconstruction of Peirce's evolutionary metaphysics, and on this reinterpretation of Peirce's cosmology, the incompatibility problem does not arise. On this view, the laws of nature remain statistical results of chance property instantiations, including dispositional property instantiations. It is argued, however, that Peirce need not be committed to the idea that instantiations of laws are dependent on one another. Rather, the view according to which habits in nature are formed is argued to apply to properties of the universe as a whole, thereby explaining why the universe contains any regularities at all. The so called "law of habit" is shown to be a special case of the Law of Large Numbers as applied to the world's properties, and the laws of nature are shown to be statistical results of various property instantiations.