Philosophy

In its Honors Program, the Philosophy Department awards one level of Honors to student research projects. Prior to 2021, a student could recieve Honors, High Honors, or Highest Honors. The projects listed below have been defended successfully, and a copy of the thesis deposited in Swem Library.

Key:

• Student, "Thesis" (Honors level)
  Committee Chair + Other Committee Members

2024-2025

• Rafael Mathias Albolote, "Public Justification and Religious Liberty: A Convergence-Based Reformulation of the Argument from Respect" (Honors) 
  Chris Tucker + Victoria Costa, Randi Rashkover
• Eric Tan Huang, "The Aesthetics of Liberation: a Critique of Art Under Capitalism" (Honors) 
  Timothy Costelloe + Aaron Griffith, Brett Brehm
• Zachary Jordan Moore-Litt, "Ontological Perfection, the Rex, and the Principle of Path Maximization" (Honors) 
  Laura Guerrero + Paul Davies, Randi Rashkover
• Marshall Samuel Roach, "The Race Debate without Metaphysics: A Neopragmatist Intervention" (Honors) 
  Aaron Griffith + Josh Gert, Jackson Sasser
• Ruini Wu, "Reconsider Eternal Recurrence: A Nietzschean Re-evaluation of Death" (Honors) 
  Timothy Costelloe + Aaron Griffith, Adam Potkay

2023-2024

• Juntong Gu, "In the Fabric of Experience: Exploring Time and Self" (Honors) 
  Aaron Griffith + Matthew Haug, Brian Rabinovitz
• Ryan Taylor Kopelman, "Philosophy of 'As If': Contemporary Applications and Defense" (Honors) 
  Aaron Griffith + Laura Ekstrom, Robert Barnet 
• Benjamin Whitmore Lee, "A Comparison of Neo-Hobbesian Social Contract Theory and Anthropological Accounts of Socio-Political Complexity" (Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Paul Davies, Victoria Costa, Chandos Brown
• Kia Morawetz, "A New Metaphysical Approach to Intersectionality" (Honors) 
  Aaron Griffith + Laura Ekstrom, Francesca Sawaya
• Yi Shao,  "The Self in the Mirror of Despair: Søren Kierkegaard on the Authentic Christian Life" (Honors) 
  Timothy Costelloe + Aaron Griffith, Alexander Angelov

2022-2023

• Preston Scott Budd, "On Conditional Reasons" (Honors) 
  Chris Tucker + Josh Gert, Akshay Gupta 
• Tanja Rounds, "On Certain Antinomies of Freedom: Divine Foreknowledge and Immutability" (Honors)
  Phillip Swenson + Noah Lemos, Alexander Angelov
• Ruyu Wang, "Exploring Moral Saints" (Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Noah Lemos, Rebecca Farber

2021-2022

• Hengyun Yang, "Indeterminacy, Disagreement, and Reasonable Reference Magnetism" (Honors)
  Joshua Gert + Paul Davies, Talbot Taylor
• James Forte, "Free Speech and Its Limits: An Exploration of Tolerance in the Digital Age" (Honors)
  Christopher Freiman + Joshua Gert, John Lombardini
• Jared Jones, "Negation & Acosmism: Hegel's Acosmist Reading of Spinoza" (Honors)
  Timothy Costelloe + Aaron Griffith, Robert Leventhal
• Nickolas Boylan, "Cultural Evolution and the Intuitionist Paradigm in Ethics: Ethics as Creation" (Honors)
  Paul Davies + Philip Swenson, Margaret Saha

2020-2021

• Jacob Beardsley, "Gender in Time" (Honors)
  Aaron Griffith + Joshua Gert, Alicia Andrzejewski
• Yuan Dong, "A Neopragmatist Understanding of Mathematics" (Honors)
  Joshua Gert + Matthew Haug, Pierre Clare
• Sihan Feng, "Weight of Words: Moral Responsibility and Freedom of Speech" (Honors)
  Philip Swenson + Jennifer Bestman, Timothy Costelloe
• Neal Going, "The Metaphysics of Sexual Orientation: A Pluralist Account" (Honors)
  Aaron Griffith + Victoria Costa, Elizabeth Losh
• Elissa Gosling, "Addressing Systemic Harms Through Restorative Justice Principles" (Honors)
  Christopher Freiman + Aaron Griffith, Cheryl Dickter, Christopher Freiman
• Yongkang Li, "Welcoming the Game Changer of Human Society: A Defense of the Moral Permissibility and Obligations of Human Genetic Engineering" (Honors)
  Christopher Freiman + Maria Victoria Costa, Dana Lashley
• Brett Restrick, "Theories of Responsibility and Punishment in a Causally Determined World" (Honors)
  Philip Swenson + Laura Ekstrom, Claire McKinney

2019-2020

• Luke Erdahl, "'Poverty of Particularity:' Reconciling Divine Transcendence and Imminence Using Gregory Palamas' Essence-Energies Distinction" (High Honors)
   Aaron Griffith + Kevin Vose, Noah Lemos
• Elisabeth Holmes, "Euthyphro, Non-Conditional Valuing, and the Possibility for Evaluative Error: A Humean Approach to Animal Ethics" (Honors)
   Christopher Freiman + Joshua Gert, Caitlin Brown

2018-19

• Nathaniel Anderson, "Egoism and the Repugnant Conclusion" (High Honors)
  Philip Swenson + Committee: Noah Lemos, Molly Swetnam-Burland
• Riley Covert, "Ghosts of the Anthropocene" (Honors)
  Aaron Griffith + Philip Swenson, Adela Amaral
• Bryce Herndon, "On the Divergence of Schopenhauerian and Schweitzerian Ethics-of-Will"
  Timothy M. Costelloe + Aaron M. Griffith, Robert S. Leventhal
• Qiuyang Shen, "The Methodological Puzzle of Phenomenal Consciousness: What it is, and Why it is Still Unsolved"
  Matthew Haug + Joshua Gert, Paul Kieffaber
• Taro Shirakawa, "Individual Responsibility for Structural Injustice" (High Honors)
  Victoria Costa + Noah Lemos, Amy Quark
• William Siegmund, "Difference without Deference: An Individualistic Theory of Group Accommodation" (Highest Honors)
  Christopher Freiman + M. Victoria Costa, Rebekah Sterling

2017-18

• Yuanchen Lu, "Perceptual Experiences Cannot Be an Inference’s Conclusion" (Honors) 
  Christopher Tucker + Joshua Gert, Noah Lemos, Nathaniel Throckmorton 
• Yonghao Wang, "Towards an Interactionist Dualism" (High Honors)
  Matthew Haug + Joshua Gert, Robert Leventhal
• Hannah Winckler-Olick, "Citizenship and Partiality: Group Membership and the Bounds of Morality" (High Honors) 
  Christopher Tucker + Christopher Freiman, Joel Schwartz 

2016-17

• Kristen Ekstrom, "Dignity and Self-Respect" (High Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Aaron Griffith, Christopher Ball
  
• Hunter Gentry, "A Threefold Defense of Perceptual Dogmatism" (Honors) 
  Christopher Tucker + Noah Lemos, Matthew Hilimire
  
• Samantha Kim, "A Defense of Retributivism as a Theory of Punishment" (Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Victoria Costa, Christine Nemacheck
  
• Cody Turner, "The Combination Problem: Russellian Monism, Panpsychism, and Panqualityism" (Highest Honors) 
  Christopher Tucker + Kate Harrigan, Paul Davis
  

2015-16

• Delaney Berman, "On Animal Rights, Speciesism, and the Nature of Social Change" (High Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Joshua Gert, Melvin Ely
• Connor Dantzler, "A Psychological Approach to the Special Composition Question (Honors) 
  Chad Vance + Jonah Goldwater, Christopher Ball
• Jackson Eskay, "Addressing the Problems in American Drug Policy: A Case for the Legalization of Drugs" (Honors) 
  Victoria Costa + Christopher Freiman, Tracy Sohoni
• George Rudebusch, "Political Liberalism and a Theory of Justice: Recasting Justice as Fairness as a Political Conception of Liberal Justice" (Highest Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Victoria Costa, Julie Agnew

2014-15

• Jose Lopez, Jr., "A Battle for Rights Justification: Millian Utilitarianism vs. Scanlonian Contractualism" (Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Timothy Costelloe and Ross Carroll
  

2013-14

• No Honors students this year

2012-13

• Grace Mendenhall, "Mozi: the Man, the Consequentialist, and the Utilitarian" (Honors) 
  Christopher Freiman + Maria Costa, Timothy Costelloe, Kevin Vose 

2011-12

• Dustin Crummett, "Approaching the Problem of Evil" (Highest Honors) 
  Laura Ekstrom + Adam Potkay, Neal Tognazzini 
• Adam Lerner, "Rehabilitating the Consequentialist View of Moral Responsibility" (Highest Honors)
  Matthew Haug + Lee Kirkpatrick, Neal Tognazzini 

2010-2011

• Devin Curry, "All Heads Gently Nodding: How Naturalism Dissolves the Problem of Other Minds" (High Honors)
  Paul Davies + Alan Goldman, Matt Haug, Chris Ball
• Carolyn Fisher, "Remas(k)ulating the American Man: Fear and Masculinity in the Post-9/11 American Superhero Film" (Honors)
  Colleen Kennedy + Fred Corney, Arthur Knight

2009-10

• Daniel Homer, "Clarifying Intuitions about Moral Responsibility and the Self" (Highest Honors)
  Matthew Haug + Neal Tognazzini, Michael Green

2008-09

• Sean Dalby, "Turning the Fly Around: The Relationship between Wittgenstein's Discussion of Meaning and the Self: An Exegesis and Defense" (High Honors)
  Matthew Haug + Jim Harris, Rob Leventhal
  

2007-08

• Devin DeBacker, "Harmful Offense to Others: A New Liberty-Limiting Principle and the 'New' Child Pornography" (Honors)
  Tim Costelloe + Alan Fuchs, Michael Green
• Samuel Thacker, "Ressentiment and Nietzsche's Determinism" (High Honors)
  Tim Costelloe + Laura Ekstrom, Rob Leventhal

2006-07

• Stephen Chanderbhan, "An Analysis of Theistic Replies to the Evidential Problems of Evil" (Honors)
  Laura Ekstrom + Jim Harris, John Drew
• Andrew Schwarm, "Choice Criterion of Value and the Liberty Principle" (High Honors)
  Alan Fuchs + Noah Lemos, Joel Schwartz

2005-06

• Andrew Penman, "The Austere Reading of the Tractatus: a Critique" (Highest Honors)
  Maximilian DeGaynesford + Gideon Manning, Rob Leventhal
• Jason Swartwood, "Pain and Peace in Wittgenstein: John McDowell on the 'Private Language Argument'" (Highest Honors)
  Maximilian DeGaynesford + Gideon Manning, Talbot Taylor

2004-05

• Michelle Saint-Payne
  James Harris + Maximilian de Gaynesford, Josh Erlich, Marc Sher