Department of Philosophy

 

Graduate Student

 

Jay Quigley

 

Education:
BA, Truman State University, Philosophy and Religion, 2007

151 Dodd Hall
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1500

Office: 419 A/B Diffenbaugh
Fax: 850/644-3832
Email: jgq07@fsu.edu
Office Hours: T 12:45-1:45, R 3:00-5:00 (Fall 2009)

 

About me:

My old home is Iowa; I came here straight from my undergrad in northeast
Missouri. I miss many things about the midwest, and wish my friends and
family there (suckas) could have Tallahassee's beautiful weather, which
I find ideal for bike commuting and year-round Ultimate. I also enjoy
practicing my Spanish when I can, learning and composing music for
guitar and voices (and sax), and making certain people (ahem) fold their
straights to my ace-high. I also enjoy swashbuckling chess games, and
have come to appreciate the perks of burning cats.

About my philosophical undertakings:

I find myself utterly convinced about certain normative and moral
judgments--for instance, that the Holocaust was morally wrong (to
understate). My research, thoughts, and coursework are much devoted to
developing an account of why I am justified in maintaining that these
judgments are true.

I have several aspects of this matter on which to clarify and focus at
the time I'm writing this. First, it's important that I arrive at
suitable ways of classifying the normative and moral judgments in
question. Second, worries that arise about the reliability of whatever
faculties I use to arrive at these judgments recommend that I provide
some defense of their reliability; this, in turn, recommends that I come
up with some account of what these faculties are, or are like. Third,
it is important to explore whether and why I am justified in maintaining
or defending my moral judgments when faced with disagreements other
people may have about these or similar judgments. Throughout my answers to these problems, it will be good to determine the extent to which the ontological status of the moral properties to which my judgments refer would affect these judgments' justification. And it would seem to be at least a strong advantage for the moral epistemology I'm seeking to provide some strategy or procedure for arriving at justified moral judgments on matters about which I haven't already made up my mind.

Since I'm in year two of five or six in the program, I'm not in a
position to say that this is the exact path that my dissertation will
take, or exactly the topic it will address, or whether this is a
suitable purview of ground for it to cover. But these seem (to me at
least) to be a coherent, interrelated system of questions upon which to
base research in the future, including the immediate future.

Suggestions appreciated!