Philosophy Department Theses and Dissertations
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The M.A. program offers two tracks: Bioethics and American Philosophy. The two tracks are designed to make optimum use of key strengths of the IUPUI Campus. The first track is developed with the Indiana University Center for Bioethics. Bioethics is a rapidly growing field that requires educated and trained theorists and practitioners. Since IUPUI is home to one of the nation’s largest health-profession complexes, it is well-placed to play a leading role in the academic training of such individuals. The presence of two scholarly editions at IUPUI, the Santayana Edition and the Peirce Edition Project, has led to the accumulation of extensive resources in American philosophy.
MA Thesis in Philosophy Guidelines http://www.iupui.edu/~philosop/ma_thesis_and_research_project.htm
Department of Philosophy at IUPUI homepage http://www.iupui.edu/~philosop/
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Item A Peircean Critique of and Alternative to Intentionalism about Perceptual Experience(2007-02-05T15:50:40Z) Kruidenier, Daniel E.; Houser, NathanMy thesis is broadly construed this way: intentionalism, as a theory about perceptual experience, says that the intentional character of perceptual experience determines the phenomenological character of that experience. In some way, to be explained, phenomenology is determined by intentional content. I will show that intentionalism fails on two accounts. It fails to replace the sense-data theory as an explanation of the content of perceptual experience. It also fails to deal satisfactorily with the problem of perceptual illusion. I will then offer an alternative rooted in the perceptual theory of Charles Peirce. I believe his critical but common sense approach preserves the intuition of sense-data theory, that perception is primarily a relation between perceivers and objects. Peirce’s theory also provides a better solution to the problem of illusion.Item Prenatal Screening: Quality Control and the Genetics Gateway(2007-08-17T18:38:47Z) Huerter, Mary Elise; Eberl, Jason T.; Schwartz, Peter H.; Schneider, William H. (William Howard), 1945-This thesis critically evaluates the progress of prenatal genetic testing, and how it, along with concurrent social pressures (such as the goal of having the ideal child) may have altered parental decision-making, autonomy, and attitudes toward children. Distinctive to this thesis is the analysis of prenatal genetic testing with a view of the eugenic history of genetics and public health initiatives in maternal health. This thesis will describe what current genetic screening pursuits may indicate with this historical understanding. I will discuss the dynamics of these subjects, and how they correspond with current social demands for perfection and the growing commodification of children. With this analysis I will attempt to shed greater light upon how our current prenatal screening technologies can modify the parent/child relationship, and what this may mean as medical science and technology advance. This thesis will be organized in a three-chapter format, providing a historical viewpoint and analysis of salient ethical issues.Item Embryo Adoption: Implications of Personhood, Marriage, and Parenthood(2008-04-14T12:30:19Z) McMillen, Brooke Marie; Brand, Peggy Zeglin; Eberl, Jason T.; Burke, Michael B.One’s personal claims regarding personhood will influence his moral belief regarding embryo adoption. In Chapter One, I consider the personhood of the human embryo. If the human embryo is a person, we are morally obligated to permit the practice of embryo adoption as an ethical means to save human persons. However, for those who do not claim that an embryo is a person at conception, embryo adoption is not a necessary practice because we have no moral obligation to protect them. There are still others who claim that personhood is gained at some point during gestation when certain mental capacities develop. I offer my own claim that consciousness and sentience as well as the potential to be self-conscious mark the beginning of personhood. Embryo adoption raises several questions surrounding the institution of marriage. Due to its untraditional method of procreation, embryo adoption calls into question the role of procreation within marriage. In Chapter Two, I explore the nature of the marriage relationship by offering Lisa Cahill’s definition of marriage which involves both a spiritual and physical dimension, and then I describe the concept of marriage from different perspectives including a social, religious, and a personal perspective. From a personal perspective, I explore the relationship between marriage and friendship. Finally, I describe how the concept of marriage is understood today and explore the advantages to being married as opposed to the advantages of being single. Embryo adoption changes the way we customarily think about procreation within a family because in embryo adoption, couples are seeking an embryo from another union to be implanted into the woman. This prompts some philosophers to argue that embryo adoption violates the marriage relationship. In Chapter Three, I further consider the impact of embryo adoption on the family as an extension of the marital relationship as well as the impact of embryo adoption on the traditional roles of motherhood and fatherhood. I examine motherhood by looking at how some philosophers define motherhood and when these philosophers claim a woman becomes a mother. After considering these issues regarding motherhood, I examine the same issues surrounding fatherhood. Peg Brand, PhD., ChairItem HIV Positive Foster Children in Medical Research: Ethics of Disclosure and Assent(2008-08-22T14:26:49Z) Popov, Diana Dimitra; Gunderman, Richard B.In the early nineties, large numbers of HIV positive children entered the foster care system. At this time, there was no medical treatment available for use in children. A large number of these HIV+ foster children were placed in medical research trials in an attempt to find a safe effective treatment. Medical research conducted on HIV+ children has transformed a once life-threatening illness into a chronic manageable disease. Because children are not always capable of assenting to this research it is important that an independent advocate consents for them. The children should, at a minimum, understand the nature of their illness and that what they are participating in is medical research. Therefore, in order for medical research to occur with foster children who are suffering from a life-threatening illness, the children must know their health status and be allowed to participate in the assent process.Item Towards an Ethical Community Response To Pandemic Influenza: The Values of Solidarity, Loyalty, and Participation(2008-08-22T14:31:48Z) Klopfenstein, Mitchell Leon; Eberl, Jason T.Influenza pandemics are a fact of nature. Our human history is marked by global influenza outbreaks that have stricken large numbers of people with illness, caused many deaths, and disrupted the social and economic life of many communities, states, and nations. A novel influenza virus spreading efficiently human to human and causing severe illness causes an influenza pandemic. In the last three hundred years there have been at least ten influenza pandemics (IOM 2005; Osterholm 2005a). The twentieth century alone experienced three pandemics in 1918, 1957, and 1968 (HHS 2005). There is no single ethical framework robust enough to adequately address the various issues that arise in pandemic planning and response. Pandemic influenza is a social problem that requires a social effort in planning, preparedness, and response. The values of participation, loyalty, and solidarity are fundamental social values that are critical to sustain the life of communities. The study of these values will assist local officials with an ethical approach for developing pandemic response plans that ensures community participation, incorporates fundamental values, and minimizes conflicting obligations in the planning stages, which in turn inspires loyalty to the response effort and fosters an attitude of solidarity in the community during the pandemic.Item Equipoise and Skepticism: Past, Present and Future(2008-08-22T14:35:30Z) Witt, John R.; Meslin, Eric Mark; Tilley, John J.; Lyons, Timothy D.Currently, the predominant view in research ethics maintains that physicians can morally justify offering randomized clinical trial enrollment to their patients only if some form of equipoise is present. Thus, the physician must experience (either individually or communally) a state of reasoned uncertainty concerning the relative merits of two or more competing treatments for a given disease before she may recommend that her patient participate in a clinical trial. Increasingly, however, this position has been subject to critical attention and considerable negative scrutiny. My argument engages this trend by turning to the history of philosophy; here I claim that the use of the term “equipoise” in the medical research context is extremely similar to terms and concepts from the philosophical tradition of skepticism, and as a result of this similarity it is possible to understand the principle of equipoise’s vulnerability to already published criticisms. A comparison of the criticisms of equipoise within the medical research literature to criticisms of philosophical skepticism reveals a potentially grim future for equipoise as a legitimate guiding principle for the ethical conduct of clinical research.Item Who are you calling normal!: the relationship between species function and health care justice(2008-10-13T17:37:34Z) Morrell, Eric Douglas; Schwartz, Peter H.For the past 2,000 years, the medical and philosophical communities have been unable to formulate a clear conception of function. Yet, I argue that this debate has become of central importance to Western bioethics due to the role the concept of function plays within emerging health care justice models, and more broadly, within the debate surrounding universal health care in the United States. My thesis focuses on the relationship between species function and health care justice. Specifically, my position is that any workable formulation of just health care that is justified from a Rawlsian or politically liberal perspective must utilize conceptions of normal species function that are as neutral and stable as possible. I conclude by showing that Larry Wright’s evolutionarily-based teleological account of function is the most neutral and stable account of function within the philosophical canon, and utilize two case studies – idiopathic short stature and obesity – to help illustrate the applicability of Wright’s account to liberal health care justice formulations.Item Ergon and the Embryo(2008-10-13T19:05:03Z) Brown, Brandon Patrick; Eberl, Jason T.Ethical considerations of the human embryo have involved heated dispute and seem always to result in the same interminable debate. A history of this debate, however, shows a shift in the language used to distinguish between degrees of moral status – while the debate once focused on the presence or absence of “human life,” now it is more likely to hear whether the qualifications for “personhood” have been met. In other words, any member of the human species may deserve some level of respect, but only the “persons” deserve full moral respect. This leaves open the possibility for a human being who is not actually a person – a “nonperson human being.” As an answer to the question of exactly what kind of respect to give the human embryo, Aristotelian moral philosophy offers a unique perspective, one which is distinctive from the familiar debate. Aristotle’s concept of ergon, or function, is a key to understanding what is essential in any human being, because it reveals the importance of potentiality to our nature as rational beings. A philosophical view of function, combined with the data of modern embryology, makes the case that our proper function is the vital part of who we are as human beings, and that a disruption of human function constitutes a true harm. This thesis contrasts Aristotelian proper human function with the modern understanding of a “nonperson human being,” especially as articulated within the ethical theory of Peter Singer. This understanding of function, revealing the essence of human potential and linked with human development, offers a sort of “common-sense morality” response to modern views on personhood.Item Poetry "Found" in Illness Narrative: A Feminist Approach to Patients' Ways of Knowing and the Concept of Relational Autonomy(2009-10-29T14:29:25Z) Kauffman, Jill Lauren; Brand, Peggy Zeglin; Capshew, James H.; Gunderman, Richard B.; Schultz, Jane E.This project contributes to the improvement of the healing encounter between physician and patient and broadens the scope of medical ethics via application of a methodology that creatively communicates patient experience. Contemporary medical training and socialization can create emotional distance between patients and physicians, which has both positive and negative effects. A physician’s “detached concern” often renders patients’ ways of knowing irrelevant to their care. This has a negative effect on patient autonomy, trust, and the healing encounter in general. Herwaldt (2008) developed a pedagogical tool of distilling patient interviews in narrative form into “found poems,” in which the patient experience is expressed in verse; Herwaldt contends that the resulting poems hold the possibility of cultivating empathy in medical practitioners. My research extends Herwaldt’s work with a new set of ten patients currently in cancer treatment, translating their stories of illness into verse. The resulting poems have the potential to empower patients by legitimizing their narrative or experiential ways of knowing as complementary to physician perspectives and approaches to treatment. Clinical and feminist ethics are similar in their attention to case context, empathy, and legitimacy of narrative. However, there are aspects of feminist ethical theory that are not thoroughly delineated in clinical ethics—specifically, attention to power imbalances in medical structures and variations in ethical perspectives. When the poems are examined using a feminist bioethical framework, patients are empowered by expanding both the idea of justice and the principlist definition of autonomy to include the feminist conception of relational autonomy.Item Vagueness and Its Boundaries: A Peircean Theory of Vagueness(2010-02-26T18:35:42Z) Agler, David Wells; De Waal, Cornelis; De Tienne, André; Houser, NathanMany theories of vagueness employ question-begging assumptions about the semantic boundaries between truth and falsity. This thesis defends a theory of vagueness put forward by Charles S. Peirce and argues for a novel solution to the sorites paradox based upon his work. Contrary to widespread opinion, I argue that Peirce distinguished borderline vagueness from other related forms of indeterminacy, e.g. indefiniteness, generality, unspecificity, uninformativity, etc. By clarifying Peirce’s conception of borderline vagueness, I argue for a solution to the sorites paradox based upon his logical semantics. In addition, I argue for this theory against the epistemic theory of vagueness, which makes controversial claims concerning the sharp semantic boundary between truth and falsity, and against the supervaluationist theory of vagueness, which is committed to the in principle impossibility of sharp semantics boundaries for propositions with vague terms.