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That police have special moral obligations to protect others is an important moral consideration which is largely absent from discourse about the moral permissibility of police killings of civilians in self-defence. I argue that police officers, at least when acting ex officio, face a special justificatory burden such that the set of conditions under which a police officer may permissibly kill a civilian in self-defence is more tightly constrained than the set of conditions under which a civilian may kill a fellow civilian in self-defence. In other words, police officers' right to kill in self-defence is attenuated by their special moral obligation to protect others. I provide three arguments for this claim. First, police have a special obligation to protect others, even at risk to themselves. Thus, there are some situations in which, compared to a civilian, an officer must tolerate an elevated level of risk of harm to herself before she is justified in resorting to defensive harm. Second, police have a derivative obligation to minimise imposing harm on those whom they have undertaken to protect. It is a greater wrong to harm those to whom one has special moral duties. Thus, compared to the civilian, the police officer must give greater moral weight to the possibility that she is facing an innocent or non-responsible threat. The third argument rests on the view that the right to self-defence derives from the right protect oneself. I show that the special moral obligations of police officers attenuate this right and, derivatively, attenuate their right to self-defence as well. Master of Arts Discussions about the morality of police killings of civilians in self-defence lack an important consideration; they fail to take into account the fact that police have special moral obligations to protect others. I argue that this special obligation interferes with police officer’s self-defence rights. Because of this, the set of conditions under which it is morally permissible for a police officer kill a civilian in self-defence is more tightly constrained than the set of conditions under which it is morally permissible for a civilian may kill a fellow civilian in self-defence. I provide three arguments for this claim. First, police have a special obligation to protect others, even at risk to themselves. Because of this, there are some situations in which, compared to a civilian, an officer must tolerate an elevated level of risk of harm to herself before she is justified in resorting to defensive harm. Second, police have an obligation to minimise imposing harm on those whom they have undertaken to protect. This obligation is derived from police officers’ obligation to protect others, because it is a greater wrong to harm those to whom one has special moral duties. Thus, compared to the civilian, the police officer must give greater moral weight to the possibility that she is facing an innocent or non-responsible threatener (that is, an individual who threatens harm but who is either innocent, or is not responsible for the threat that they pose). The third argument rests on the view that the right to self-defence derives from the right protect oneself. I show that the special moral obligations of police officers attenuate this right and, derivatively, attenuate their right to self-defence as well.

Error theorists about race face a challenge from the occurrence of diseases and other health ailments that, appear, to be tracked by groups that are carved out by racial terms. If race does indeed allow us to make useful medical distinctions, then it would seem foolish or even a form of medical injustice to deny its reality. This paper provides a response to the stated challenge. First, by primarily using the work of Anthony Appiah, I will describe the error theorist position and its arguments for the non-reality of race. From here, I demonstrate the extent to which medical professionals grant the race is a scientifically arbitrary term and give arguments for accepting race as an alternative that may even be more medically useful. Finally, I advance an eliminativist argument to further motivate the notion that race, if it is truly not necessary, should be eliminated from use. Master of Arts Error theorists about race face a challenge from the occurrence of diseases and other health ailments that, appear, to be tracked by groups that are carved out by racial terms. If race does indeed allow us to make useful medical distinctions, then it would seem foolish or even a form of medical injustice to deny its reality. This paper provides a response to the stated challenge. First, by primarily using the work of Anthony Appiah, I will describe the error theorist position and its arguments for the non-reality of race. From here, I demonstrate the extent to which medical professionals grant the race is a scientifically arbitrary term and give arguments for accepting race as an alternative that may even be more medically useful. Finally, I advance an eliminativist argument to further motivate the notion that race, if it is truly not necessary, should be eliminated from use.

'Paraphilia' is the term used by professionals to indicate that a sexual fetish is severe enough to warrant being called a mental health disorder. Even after the release of the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5) paraphilias remain controversial. Although philosophers and scientists alike have argued that some paraphilias are just a way to medicalize sexual behavior that is simply abnormal by society's standards, these arguments typically target paraphilias that do not involve immoral or illegal behaviors. To my knowledge, philosophers have largely ignored the 'criminal paraphilias' (like pedophilia) in their arguments. In this paper, I attempt to fill this gap. I argue that the diagnostic criteria for some paraphilic disorders allows for criminal behavior to serve as a sufficient condition for diagnosis, blurring the line between criminal behavior and psychopathology. I argue that such an equivocation is undesirable in at least three ways: it is contrary to the goals of psychiatry; it allows for the rights of individuals being diagnosed to be routinely violated; and it perpetuates mental illness stigma. These objectionable aspects of including criminal behavior as a diagnostic criterion for criminal paraphilias, coupled with the lack of empirical evidence that shows criminal behavior is a legitimate symptom of paraphilic disorders, provide a strong argument in support of removing the criterion. Once removed, there will effectively be no difference between diagnostic criteria for the noncriminal and criminal paraphilias, and philosophers providing critiques of the former group will be pressed to also address the latter. Master of Arts ‘Paraphilia’ is the term used by mental health professionals to indicate that a sexual fetish is severe enough to warrant being called a mental health disorder. Even after the release of the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5) paraphilias remain controversial. Although some have argued that a subset of paraphilias are used inappropriately to medicalize sexual behavior that is simply abnormal by society’s standards, these arguments typically target paraphilias that do not involve immoral or illegal behaviors. To my knowledge, philosophers have largely ignored the ‘criminal paraphilias’ (like pedophilia) in their arguments. In this paper, I attempt to fill this gap. I argue that the diagnostic criteria for some paraphilic disorders allows for criminal behavior to serve as a sufficient condition for diagnosis (meaning that criminal behavior is all that is needed to warrant a diagnosis of a criminal paraphilic disorder), blurring the line between criminal behavior and psychopathology. I argue that such an equivocation is undesirable in at least three ways: it is contrary to the goals of psychiatry; it allows for the rights of individuals being diagnosed to be routinely violated; and it perpetuates mental illness stigma (negative beliefs about the mentally ill that cause fear, dislike, and avoidance). These objectionable aspects of including criminal behavior as a diagnostic criterion for criminal paraphilias, coupled with the lack of empirical evidence that shows criminal behavior is a legitimate symptom of paraphilic disorders, provide a strong argument in support of removing the criterion. Once removed, there will effectively be no difference between diagnostic criteria for the noncriminal and criminal paraphilias, and philosophers providing critiques of the former group will be pressed to also address the latter.

Epistemologists and those involved in feminist philosophy have expanded philosophical analyses of epistemic injustices and its subparts over the last decade. In doing so, such authors have thoroughly discussed the role of credibility deficits and the harms they cause for those receiving the deficits. In this literature, however, credibility excesses have not received as much attention owing to their tendency to be socially advantageous for those receiving them. In this paper, I show that epistemic justice relies in part on taking these excesses into account. More specifically, I illustrate how adjusting only credibility deficits leads to a two-fold problem. On the one hand, it leads to an epistemic harm insofar as not taking the excesses into account can cause us to draw the wrong conclusion from furnished testimonies. If one persons testimonial excess is still greater than another's corrected deficit in a certain way, then the person with the excess will be favored over the other person even once the deficit is corrected. On the other hand, it can also lead to a moral harm that wrongs the person who received the eventually corrected deficit in their capacity as a knower. It does so in instances when it undermines the person's self-trust. As such, if we are willing to adjust credibility deficits up in the project of epistemic justice we also have to be willing to adjust credibility excesses down in at least some cases. Master of Arts

Consider the following scenario: A mother chooses to marry off her 10 year-old daughter, not because she doesn’t know the harmful effects of child marriage, nor because she thinks that it is good that her daughter marries when she is 10 years old. Rather, she is unable to feed her daughter and realizes that her daughter’s survival depends upon her marrying a financially stable man. This is an apparent example of what human development practitioners and political philosophers call an adaptive preference (AP): a preference, formed under oppressive circumstances, that seems to perpetuate the agent’s own oppression. Prevailing opinion is that forced tradeoffs—especially following Serene Khader’s taxonomy—, like the case presented above, are a type of AP: one in which a person makes a decision because of a limited option set. In this paper I argue that no paradigm cases of forced tradeoffs should not be classified as APs. Instead, I offer a revised definition of adaptive preferences where I argue that adaptive preferences are psychological traits that cause the agent with adaptive preferences to make irrational or uninformed decisions that perpetuate their own oppression. I defend this new definition by exploring the implications of changing the definition. In particular, forced tradeoffs involve different kinds of interventions from other kinds of adaptive preferences and including forced tradeoffs risks committing testimonial injustice against those who have limited option sets. Master of Arts