Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- All Subjects: philosophy
- Creators: Economics Program in CLAS
and evidential decision procedures. It will also be argued in turn that the updateless decision procedure dominates the timeless decision procedure. The difficulties of formalizing a modern variant of the ”smoking gene” problem will then be briefly examined.
Stoicism is a philosophy that emerged in the Hellenistic Age, between 323 BCE and 30 BCE in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (Irvine, 2009). Stoicism was born into an exceptionally transitional social and political time period, and three major philosophers, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, rose to fame and established this manner of interacting with the world around them. These teachings and writings, still read throughout the world today due to their practicality and effectiveness, provide a major framework for “(It is [Stoicism]) the power of the mind to be unconquerable,” (Seneca, The Stoic Letters). Stoicism can be used as a tool in the pursuit of perseverance, wisdom, self control, and self mastery, which can ultimately lead to a more fulfilling and happy life. This philosophy is a practical one, and is designed with the intention to help those who practice it live well rather than just provide a theoretical understanding of the teaching of the world. Stoicism is a way to interact with others and the world in a way that reduces the amount of suffering experienced and can increase the capacity for joy. As a high achieving college student, it may not be feasible or entirely practical to live as Stoics did in the ancient world. Yet, aspects of ancient Stoicism can still be applied to modern-day living and can be used to make college students more resilient, happier, and allow them to live a fuller, more satisfied life. In this 7 week asynchronous program designed for high achieving college students, we will explore the most common barriers to happiness that college students face and explore what Stoic philosophies offer to help remedy these barriers.
This thesis proposes an extension of David Lewis's causal influence account of causation, providing a method to calculate the `degrees of causal influence.' By providing a quantitative approach to causal influence, I find that that the influence approach can assess statements that involve causal redundancies, allowing the assessor to attribute primary causal responsibility to the contending cause with a higher net influence value. The causal influence calculation also addresses criticisms towards Lewis's influence account, namely those involving `inert zones' of influence, the use of the term `might,' trumping versus symmetric overdetermination, and Lewis's clause requiring stepwise influence. This thesis also compares the results of causal influence in multiple toy cases including Two Rocks, both the asymmetric and symmetric variants, demonstrating that causal influence overcomes many of the core issues in Lewis's initial counterfactual account of causation. Using the asymmetric Two Rocks variant, this thesis also provides a detailed example of how to use the calculation and a discussion of the calculation's limitations. The main drawbacks of the quantitative method for causal influence seems to be the effort that it requires and issues in finding measurable qualities to compare the similarity/difference between possible worlds. Using the Two Rocks case, however, the causal influence calculation reaches the same conclusions as what Lewis suggests. A primary remaining issue is applying the calculation to instances of causation by omission, however this seems to only be a problem in using the equations rather than a problem within the idea of causal influence itself. Also, there may still be issues in justifying comparative overall similarity. However, this is an issue that both the counterfactual and influence accounts face.
Four-dimensionalism is a popular philosophical view of how we persist through time. However, some philosophers, such as Mark Johnston and Eric Olson, argue that four-dimensionalism has perverse implications on our practical ethics. This is because, if four-dimensionalism is true, then there exist entities called personites. And if personites exist, then many of the ordinary prudential, social, and moral habits we engage in, like present self-sacrifice for future benefit, promising to do something painful in the future, or being held responsible for something the we did in the past, subjects personites to suffering without sufficient compensation, consent, or desert. And this would be immoral according to our common-sense morality. In this paper, I argue that if four-dimensionalism is true, and personites exist, then we are still morally permitted to engage in the above practices. If four-dimensionalism turns out to be true, it has no perverse implications on how we ought to live.