Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Common morality'

The idea of common morality is not a new idea. Philosophers have been engaged with it from the very early days. Many modern philosophers intend to perceive it when they compare or contrast it with the implications of ethical theories for genuine understanding of moral facts. They believe that without having any reference to what common people think, believe and practice, it is preposterous to construct a complete set of abstract norms and postulate them as relevant to practical life. In this work, proceeding with a motive of understanding the characteristic strength of common morality and to see how meaningfully we can designate the relevance of common moral beliefs in our applied ethical discussion, I am basically exploring two different accounts common morality view. The first one is the universalistic account which emerges from the works or Bernard Gert and Tom Beauchamp (including their colleagues), and the other one, I believe, sets its journey from the wombs of the critics of the first one. In this work, in order to properly designate the relevance of common morality, I am intending to develop the second account.

Much modern moral philosophy has conceived of its interpretative and critical aims in relation to an entity it sometimes terms 'common-sense morality'. The term was influentially used in something like its canonical sense by Henry Sidgwick in his classic work The Methods of Ethics (1874). Sidgwick conceived of common-sense morality as a more-or-less determinate body of current moral opinion, and traced his ('doxastic') conception through Kant back to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and the practice of Plato's Socrates before him. The Introduction to this thesis traces the influence of Sidgwick's conception both on subsequent (mis)understandings of Socratic practice as well as on the practice of moral philosophy in the twentieth century. The first essay offers a challenge to Sidgwick's understanding of Socratic practice. I argue that Socrates' questioning of his interlocutors, far from revealing some determinate body of pre-existing beliefs, is in fact a demonstration of the dynamic and partially indeterminate quality of common-sense morality. The value for the interlocutor of engaging in such conversation with Socrates consisted primarily in its forcing him to adopt what I term a deliberative stance with respect to his own practice and dispositions, asking himself not 'what is it that I believe?' but rather, 'what am I to believe?' This understanding of Socratic practice gives us a way of reconciling the often puzzling combination of conservative and radical elements in Plato's dialogues. The second essay is a discussion of the reception of Sidgwick's conception of ethics in twentieth-century Oxford, a hegemonic centre of Anglophone philosophy. This recent tradition consists both of figures who accepted Sidgwick's picture of moral philosophy's aims and those who rejected it. Of the critics, I am centrally concerned with Bernard Williams, whose life's work, I argue, can be fruitfully understood as the elaboration of a heterodox understanding of Socratic practice, opposed to Sidgwick's. Ethics, on this conception, is a project directed at the emancipation of our moral experience from the many distortions to which it is vulnerable. Williams's writings in moral philosophy, disparate and not entirely systematic, are unified by these emancipatory aims, aims they share with strains of psychoanalysis except in that they do not scorn philosophical argument as a tool of emancipation: in this respect among others, I claim, they are fundamentally Socratic.

The dissertation explores the question of the possibility of a moral theory compatible with common sense morality. Common sense morality is limited to its two fundamental features, or suppositions: moral judgements are truth apt and practical, i.e. they are at the same time in some sense objectively right or wrong and necessarily action guiding. In contemporary philosophy, the two fundamental features of common sense morality seem to be incompatible: only descriptions can have truth values, but descriptions are not prescriptions, or, to put it otherwise, from the way the things are, it does not follow straightforwardly how the things should be. However, analyses of the methodological, ontological, epistemological and semantic possibilities of moral theories enable a positive answer: a moral theory which embodies the two fundamental features of common-sense morality is possible, only if it makes coherence its constitutive value and uses the approach of rationalist internalism. In this research, the main controversies and distinctions of contemporary meta ethics (moral realism/anti realism, motivational internalism/externalism) are discussed and an account of rationalist internalism is explicated and enforced.
Disertacijoje nagrinėjama su sveiko proto morale suderinamos moralės teorijos galimybė. Sveiko proto moralė apribojama dviem pamatinėm prielaidom, arba savybėm: moraliniai sprendiniai turi teisingumo reikšmes ir yra praktinio pobūdžio, t.y. jie yra kažkuria prasme objektyviai teisingi arba klaidingi ir būtinai kreipia mūsų veiksmus. Šiandienėje filosofijoje šios dvi pamatinės sveiko proto moralės savybės atrodo esančios nesuderinamos: juk teisingumo reikšmes gali turėti tik deskripcijos, o deskripcijos nėra preskripcijos, arba iš to, kaip yra, tiesiogiai neseka tai, kaip turėtų būti. Vis dėlto nagrinėjant metodologines, ontologines, epistemologines bei semantines moralės teorijų galimybes, disertacijoje į pagrindinį klausimą atsakoma teigiamai: abi pamatines sveiko proto moralės savybes įkūnijanti moralės teorija yra galima, tik jei ji padaro koherentiškumą savo konstituojančia vertybe ir naudoja racionalistinio internalizmo prieigą. Darbe aptariamos pagrindinės šiandienės metaetikos kontroversijos bei skirtys (moralinis realizmas/antirealizmas, motyvacinis internalizmas/eksternalizmas), išskleidžiama bei papildoma racionalistinio internalizmo teorija.

In Haram City, amidst Egypt's 2011-2013 revolutionary period, two visions of the city in the Global South come together within shared walls. In this private suburban development marketed as affordable housing, aspirational middle class homebuyers embellish properties for privilege and safety. They also come to share grounds with resettled urban poor who transform their surroundings to sustain basic livelihoods. With legality in disarray and under private administration, residents originally from Duweiqa - perhaps Cairo's poorest neighbourhood - claim the right to squat vacant homes, while homebuyers complain of a slum in the gated community. What was only desert in 2005 has since become a forum for vivid public contestation over the relationship between morality, ownership, and order in space - struggles over what ought to be common in a compound. This ethnography explores residents' own legal geographies in relation to property amidst public-private partnership urbanism: how do competing normative discourses draw community lines in the sand, and how are they applied to assert ownership where the scales of 'official' legitimacy have been tipped? In other words: in a city built from scratch amidst a revolution, how is legality invented? Like the compound itself, sections of the thesis are divided into an A-area and a B-area. Shifting from side to side, four papers examine the lives of squatters and then of homeowners and company management acting in their name. Zooming in and out within sides, they depict discourses over moral ownership and then interpret practices asserting a concomitant vision of order. First, in Chapter 4, squatters invoke notions of a moral economy and practical virtue to justify 'informal' ownership claims against perceptions of developer-state corruption. Next, Chapter 5 illustrates how squatters define 'rights' as debt, a notion put into practice by ethical outlaws: the Sayi' - commonly meaning 'down-and-out' or 'bum' - brokers 'rights' to coordinate group ownership claims. Shifting sides, Chapter 6 observes middle class homeowners' aspirations for "internal emigration" to suburbs as part of an incitement to propertied autonomy, and details widespread dialogue over suburban selfhood in relationship to property, self-interest, and conviviality. Lastly, Chapter 7 documents authoritarian private governance of the urban poor that centres on "behavioural training." Free from accountability and operating like a city-state, managers simulate urban law to inculcate subjective norms, evoking both Cairene histories and global policy circulations of poverty management. Towards detailing how notions of ownership and property constitute visions and assertions of urban law, this project combines central themes in ethnographies of Cairo with legal geography on suburbs of the Global North. It therefore interrogates some key topics in urban studies of the Global South (gated communities, affordable housing, public-private partnerships, eviction-resettlement, informality, local governance, and squatting), as Cairo's 'new city' urban poor and middle classes do themselves, through comparative principles and amidst promotion of similar private low-income cities internationally. While presenting a micro-history of one project, it is also offers an alternative account of 2011-2013 revolutionary period, witnessed from the desert developments through which Egyptian leaders habitually promise social progress.

In order to appreciate the wider implication of EU foreign policy and the role of the EU as a global actor, it is essential to consider how constructions of EU foreign policy are accounted for, by practitioners, within EU institutions. To examine such constructions is the focus of this thesis. In the remit of European foreign policy, the Common Security and Foreign Policy (CSFP) and the European Neighbourhood Policy's (ENP) strategic engagement is linked with the continuous quest to define a European identity, purpose and borders, especially most recently on its eastern European boundaries. Although there are studies conceptualising identity, by examining European foreign policy, these accounts either focus on EU's capability of developing policy instruments that demonstrate her global actorness (or lack of it), or on the social norms that constitute EU identity, or on evaluating the moral obligations EU policy prescribes. However, there has been little attention in the academic literature on their interdependency. Neither has much attention been paid to consider the eastern European region as a collective. This present study addresses several gaps in the existing research literature. It treats the eastern European region as a collective and focuses on EU practitioners, who formulate the policy vis-à-vis these eastern neighbours. More importantly, it focuses on how identity, normativity, morality and interest formations are actually managed in talk, and their interdependency. Semi-structured research interviews with 62 participants from the Council of the European Union DG Eastern Europe and Central Asia (COEST) policy unit and the presidency secretariat, the Commission's External Relations DG (DG Relex) and the Commissioner's secretariat, and the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee were recorded and transcribed. For the analysis, I applied a form of discursive psychology informed by category membership analysis. This analytical approach, novel to IR and to EU studies, examines the social function of talk in interactions, the personal accountability of the speaker, as well as the categories that practitioners build up. The findings have significant theoretical, methodological and practical implications for IR and for foreign policy practice and research. First, the application of discursive psychology led to new understandings of how EU practitioners construct EU policy vis-à-vis the East, the distinct interest in the region with respect to the cultural and historical ties, border security and energy security, and how these practitioners manage identity, normative, moral and interest concerns. Thus this thesis contributes to the theoretical developments in IR on identity formation through talk. The analysis reveals the relevance of how participants build on various discursive accounts such as: the way they construct the ‘European' (1); they account for the normative role/power the EU plays in the eastern region (2); the way they attend to the vocational or moral aspect of EU policy vis-à-vis the East (3); and justify the EU's collective interests of energy security (4). Furthermore, the analysis reveals a competing construction according to which the closer ties with eastern European countries is not merely a moral concern or is clarifying issues of identity for the EU, but very much a normative one, as it serves the EU's own interest, especially concerning energy security. In short, these notions are connected and exist in parallel to each other, when practitioners consider EU foreign policy, rather than favouring one notion over the other. The findings also demonstrate that in understanding European foreign policy in the East, participants draw upon dichotomised categories combined with various discursive devices that effectively work to fragment ‘European' identity. This will have implications for practices of EU foreign policy as well as perceptions of a ‘European' identity in general. Second, this thesis forms an important contribution to discursive studies in IR and EU studies, by applying a specific analytical approach. I discuss the methodological issues that the application of discursive psychology raises, such as the use of interview data and the ethics of obtaining such data for analysing foreign policy. The introduction of this method to IR also challenges those cognition focused models that have been previously widely accepted. The final set of implications is more of a practical nature. Some of the findings contribute to potential policy recommendations on EU policy vis-à-vis the East, as well as the way EU practitioners manage issues of personal accountability. The findings also allow for the development of specific teaching material to assist with training EU practitioners.

Ce travail propose une interprétation d’ensemble de la théorie du droit et de la théorie du contrôle judiciaire de constitutionnalité des lois de l’auteur canadien contemporain Wilfrid Waluchow, à partir d’une étude de la manière dont elles s’inspirent de la conception classique de la common law. La partie préliminaire présente de façon synthétique la conception classique de la common law et la critique que lui adresse Thomas Hobbes, pour montrer comment elles font apparaître, dès les origines de la modernité, deux façons opposées de concevoir le droit, qui sous-tendent la pensée contemporaine. La première partie étudie le rapport que les conceptions du droit des inspirateurs plus immédiats de Wilfrid Waluchow entretiennent avec la conception classique de la common law. Elle explique comment H. L. A. Hart contribue à rapprocher le positivisme juridique de la vision coutumière des common lawyers à l’aide de la notion de règles secondaires et comment Ronald Dworkin associe plutôt l’approche de la common law à une méthode d’interprétation centrée sur la dimension argumentative du droit. La deuxième partie examine le positivisme juridique inclusif de Wilfrid Waluchow et la théorie de common law du contrôle judiciaire qu’il élabore à partir de celui-ci et elle montre comment l’effort de l’auteur canadien pour conjuguer dans sa pensée les influences des conceptions du droit de Hart et de Dworkin, à l’aide en particulier de la notion de moralité constitutionnelle, l’amène à développer une vision qui possède des affinités importantes avec la conception classique de la common law
This work offers a general interpretation of the theory of law and the theory of judicial review of Canadian contemporary author Wilfrid Waluchow, through the study of their relation to classical common law jurisprudence. The preliminary section offers a summary of classical common law jurisprudence and of Thomas Hobbes’s critique of classical common law jurisprudence, and shows how they define two opposite ways of conceptualizing law that still underlie contemporary jurisprudence. The first section studies how the jurisprudence of H. L. A. Hart and of Ronald Dworkin, which directly inspire Wilfrid Waluchow’s theory of law, relate to classical common law jurisprudence. It shows how Hart, with his concept of secondary rules, moves legal positivism closer to classical common law’s customary understanding of the law and how Dworkin defines the common law approach otherwise, by proposing an interpretive method concentrating on the argumentative character of law.The second section studies Wilfrid Waluchow’s inclusive legal positivism and his common law theory of judicial review. It shows how Wilfrid Waluchow’s effort to reconcile Hart’s theory of the law with Dworkin’s jurisprudence, notably through the idea of constitutional morality, leads him to develop an understanding of the law which has important affinities with classical common law jurisprudence

The question this essay sets out to answer is what role God plays in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, in the book “Of a Christian Common-wealth”, in relationship to humans as moral beings. The question is relevant as the religious aspects of Hobbes’s thinking cannot be ignored, although Hobbes most likely had rather secular and sceptical philosophical views. In order to answer the research question Leviathan’s “Of a Christian Common-wealth” will be compared and contrasted with two contextual works: the canonical theological document of the Anglican Church, the Thirty-Nine Articles (1571), and Presbyterian-Anglican document the Westminster Confession (1648). Also, recent scholarly works on Hobbes and more general reference works will be employed and discussed. Hobbes’s views provide a seemingly unsolvable paradox. On the one hand, God is either portrayed, or becomes by consequence of his sceptical and secular state thinking, a distant God in relationship to moral humans in “Of a Christian Common-wealth”. Also, the freedom humans seem to have in making their own moral decisions, whether based on natural and divine, or positive laws, appears to obscure God’s almightiness. On the other hand, when placing Hobbes in context, Hobbes appears to have espoused Calvinist views, with beliefs in predestination and that God is the cause of everything. Rather paradoxically it not unlikely that Hobbes espoused both the views that appear to obscure the role of God, and his more Calvinistic views.

European security and defence policy has developed at a significant rate since the late 1990s. As a growing field of analysis, there have been few studies to date that have explored the foreign and domestic implications of the European Union's emerging security and defence policies. This thesis seeks to assess the quality and effectiveness of the present day defence policies of the European Union through an examination of its commitment to civilian and military missions abroad. In so doing, this thesis suggests that these missions stem from a misguided belief that the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law beyond its border is the most effective means by which to achieve security within Europe. This thesis concludes that the economic and political tools available to the European Union provide a better means by which to ensure security in Europe and around the world.

Det här är en vetenskaplig essä som är skriven med utgångspunkt i ett självupplevt dilemma. När jag skrivit denna essä har jag gjort det med syfte att, via reflektion och litteraturstudier, få förståelse för varför jag handlat som jag gjort och för att få nya perspektiv på hur jag kan agera när jag hamnar i nya dilemman. Det vet jag med säkerhet att jag kommer att göra, då jag som lärare arbetar med människor. I min essä har jag också undersökt om det lågaffektiva bemötandet är en etiskt riktig metod och om arbetssättet stämmer överrens med skolans värdegrund. Jag har som diskussionspartner i detta hermeneutiska arbete bland annat tagit hjälp av filosofer, psykologer och styrdokument för skolans verksamhet. Med dessa och deras olika teorier om etik, moral, förnuft, empati, värdegrund och lågaffektivt bemötande har jag kommit fram till att: med kunskap om valda teorier i kombination med erfarenhet och praktiskkunskap kan du som pedagog göra klokast möjliga val ut ur dilemman. När jag undersökt det lågaffektiva arbetssättet och dess metoder, har jag kommit fram till att om du är väl påläst och därför har förståelse för hur du ska använda dig av metoden är det ett bra arbetssätt ur en pedagogs synvinkel. Är du däremot inte väl påläst kan det ha direkt motsatt effekt.
This is a scientific essay that is written from a self-perceived dilemma. While writing this essay I do it with a purpose and with reflection on literature studies. I´m trying to get an understanding why I acting the way I do and to get a new perspective of how I´m going to act when similar situations occur. Which I know I will when working with children. In my essay, I also examine whether low arousal approach attention is an ethically correct approach and if that way of work matches the school's values. In this hermeneutic work I discuss with philosophers, psychologists, and research into the regulatory documents you relate to when you work in a school. With these and theories about duty ethics, discourse ethics, morality, common sense, empathy, core values and low arousal approach I reach the understanding that: With these theories combined with experience and practical knowledge give you a possibility to make wise decisions in a dilemma. I come to the conclusion that if you are well versed with the low arousal approach method it can be a good method to use from the perspective of a teacher. The effects of the method will become useless if you don’t have the knowledge how to use it.

Research problem: This research focused on the following problem statement: What management strategies can be developed and used to advance effective social justice practice in schools? Research aims: Arising from the problem question, the research aims were firstly to determine theoretically, the nature of social justice (Chapter Two) and secondly to identify and analyse theoretically, the determinants that contribute to social justice practices (Chapter Three). This was done by means of a comprehensive literature review. The third aim was to qualitatively analyse effective social justice praxis in selected schools in the North-West and Western Cape Provinces (Chapter Four and Five). From the analysis and literature review, management strategies for effective social justice practice in schools (Chapter Six) were developed as part of the empirical investigation. Research methodology: The empirical investigation realised the third aim, to analyse qualitatively effective social justice praxis in selected schools by means of individual and focus group interviews which were based on the philosophical paradigm of a constructivist-grounded theory and a hermeneutic, phenomenological methodology that enabled me to listen and be part of the discursive portrayals of the participant-principals’ effective social justice praxis. The qualitative data collection and methodology entailed considerations with regard to ethical conduct between myself and the role-players, i.e. the researcher, the Ethics Committee (NWU Faculty of Education Sciences), the role of departmental officials, the role of participant principals, and documentation used. Attention was paid to determine the target population, participant and sample selection from the North-West and Western Cape provinces in accordance with predetermined criteria. These criteria were, inter alia, that these principals would: have a proven track record to demonstrate an understanding of the concept of justice and social justice; would adhere to and implement legal determinants of social justice praxis with regard to the constitutional values and human rights; provide proven evidence of social justice praxis as equality, human dignity and freedom; implement political imperatives such as the Manifesto on Values, Education for All; acknowledge the need for fair distribution and educational transformation; provide a moral basis for recognition, identity formation and social justice praxis; apply a deliberative democratic praxis; promote accountability, school achievement, and as prospective and transformative leaders believe in and practice an embracing social justice. The researcher prepared the necessary documentation, the interview protocol and interview schedule to enter the field, as well as entering the field of research (principals at schools and district offices) to conduct and record the interviews which she afterwards transcribed. The method of qualitative data analysis included three phases: Phase I that considered the first hearing-reading, Atlas.ti™ dry-run and initial code-lists; Phase II, the translation processes, and Phase III, the abstraction and crystallisation processes. The criteria for soundness were established in the account of authentic validity and credibility of the study. The collected qualitative data was analysed by means of the Atlas.ti™ software programme as a result of which seven themes and three sub-themes for each theme emerged. These themes were the principal and social justice praxis, learners, education in general, constitutional values, educational partners, the government and political establishments, and social justice: its ontology and praxis. Development of management strategies: Education is about understanding and this study presented those management strategies that culminated in answers to the fundamental question: “What management strategies can be developed and used to advance effective social justice practice in schools?” The development of management strategies are the result of the literature review and the empirical investigation. The strategy development process consisted of a three-phase strategy framework: strategy planning (aims and objectives), strategy implementation (action plan and persons), and strategy evaluation. From this process, seven aims were developed in accordance with the seven identified themes: the principal, the learners, education in general, Constitutional values, partners in education, government, political and union matters, and the ontology and praxis of social justice. These management strategies include inter alia: • Optimising the school principal’s virtues of responsibility, authenticity and presence as gemeinschaft (community) relationships to ensure effective social justice praxis (§5.2). • Inculcate a disciplined school environment for learners to embrace human diversity and dignity, democracy, and Ubuntu-principles (§5.3) to optimise effective social justice praxis. • Influence education in general - system and structures - to optimise effective social justice praxis (§5.4). • Foster constitutional values and human rights as effective social justice praxis (§5.5). • Establish a social justice culture amongst educational partners who are essential to school development and governance to optimise effective social justice praxis (§5.6). • Convince government and union officials and influence political matters to serve the best interest of the child (§5.7) to ensure social justice praxis. • Actualise management strategies for social justice praxis that epitomise compassion, love, care and human rights in a participative and respectful environment (§5.8). • These management strategies were described as techniques or aims, objectives and action steps to provide answers to the questions where and how, which determined on which level or levels these strategies were to be performed. Main findings: • At a conceptual and a theoretical level: Conceptually and theoretically this study established, for the first time, specific determinants of social justice praxis (Chapters Two and Three) and its management. This contribution is found in the syntheses that followed each conceptual discussion of justice (§2.2.7) and social justice (§2.3.4), as well as the syntheses and evaluation of these determinants (§3.2-§3.4) for social justice praxis. These determinants may be regarded as an attempt at purified, cleansed theorising with respect to social justice praxis. This study found that social justice does exist in the hearts of the principals who took part in this study and that social justice belongs to all learners, to all of humanity, whoever they are or whatever their circumstances may be. Social justice is, essentially, embodied and lived love-in-practice towards all. However, the effectiveness of social justice praxis is usually determined by pragmatic circumstances that dictate the scale and scope of its efficacy. This study found that social justice praxis in schools should deviate from a mere legalistic or juridical notion because it progressed beyond the conceptual boundaries and theoretical limits of juristic thinking towards an attempt at linking social justice praxis to a humanising pedagogy. As a consequence, social justice in this research cuts across all man-made barriers: it has become a prospective notion that reflects its restorative and transformational nature and role. • At a strategic level: Strategically, this research found that the possibility of various cycles of action research in schools as well as in higher education institutions exists. The seven themes could be viewed in isolation, but if regarded, as found in this research, as seven levels that build upon each other and whose strengths or weaknesses are interdependent, it becomes self-evident that social justice forms the basis of cohesive and holistic social justice praxis. The seven strategies (§5.2-§5.8) developed in this research may, in future, inform research and praxis in schools and higher learning institutions in order to confirm or refute the theory presented herewith. • At policy-making level: This study has implications for policy design and management development, not only at basic education level, but also at national level. This study found that social justice specifically, has neither adequately, nor officially been addressed in relevant policies. If policy amendments were to be made and management strategies for social justice praxis in schools become an essential part of national policy, it will have implications at the level of further professional development of school principals, such as the current ACE School Leadership Programme. In addition, teachers’ in-service professional development will have to include these management strategies in the offering of short courses. Furthermore curriculum changes will have to follow to incorporate pre-service or initial training programmes of Higher Education institutions that offer teacher training programmes which may have a snowball effect at provincial and school curricula levels. Another important finding of this research is that, in future, the binding agent amongst schools may yet prove to be social justice and not geo-social and/or socio-economic markers, as is the case at present. In this manner social justice may become a lived curriculum that will permeate the entire education system in South Africa, but more so, will permeate the school culture of every school. Recommendations: A management strategy for effective social justice praxis in schools should be developed at national level but specifically to schools should be tailor-made for each school, because social justice praxis becomes visible in the acts of individual men and women, girls and boys, who regard the other as equally well as the self and therefore the following recommendations are important: • Continuous professional development of principals and teachers. • The right to education and its praxis to ensure the best interest of the child should be incorporated in the Life Orientation curriculum. • Have a collective vision of schools that truly strive, cherish and inculcate a pedagogy of social justice praxis to ensure that education is life-generating, life engendering, causing life or life awakening (onderwys is lewe wek). • Fairness as a moral construct should be visible in institutions where values of fairness, equality and social justice permeate the institution and provide a moral and structural frame for judgements based on the principle of fiduciary trust. • Schools should become community hubs as centrifugal force that embraces views on African culture, Ubuntu principles and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. • Create district-wide power teams that will train teachers in positive conduct as well as assist and provide interventions. • Principals and teachers have to take responsibility and agency for social justice pedagogy.
Thesis (Ph.D. (Education Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

This dissertation explores the relationship between people’s conceptualisation and use of time in everyday life against the background of the political economy of the late modern welfare state. The main focus lies upon their evaluation of different time-uses in order to approach a better understanding of the moral economy of time. Special consideration is given to the role of commodification of time and the experience of time scarcity. Another topic investigated is the association of time with the striving for ecological sustainability in everyday live. The study is based upon three empirical materials. The first one consists of a subset of Statistic Sweden’s time-use database for inhabitants of Stockholm. The other two materials are qualitative interview studies. One was conducted with 85 unemployed people in Sörmland and Jämtland, the other with 45 inhabitants of Stockholm. The interviewees in the latter study were asked to consider two options for the future of welfare politics in Sweden: increasing wages combined with the same work hours as today or a substantial decrease in working hours accompanied by stagnating wages. Many interviewees consider time scarcity to be an important issue that needs to be integrated into the traditional concept of welfare. Time conflicts in everyday life, also regarding the choice of sustainable options, are solved with a certain moral flexibility still dominated by work ethics. Some interviewees try to articulate counter-images to the commodified concept of time by challenging traditional conceptions of the value of time and envision an ecological sound time use. These attempts draw attention to the importance of temporal commons such as vacations and also the need for a conscious time-politics in order to strengthen temporal welfare.

In this work I investigate the role of emotion in the moral philosophies of Immanuel Kant and T.H. Green. Noting Kant's reputation as a rationalist holding a predominately negative view toward emotions, I studied the works of Kant with this two-fold question in mind: Why did Kant allegedly find emotions as hindrances to moral actions, and what exactly would such a view entail if it were indeed his perspective? Based on Kant's writings regarding duties to others in Doctrine of Virtues, I show that in his discussion on sympathetic actions there appears to be a reliance on emotions in the construction of a moral response to another's fate. I place Kant's theory in juxtaposition with T.H. Green's moral philosophy because Green, a lesser-known British Idealist, is commonly presented as a theorist within the Kantian tradition. However, working exclusively with Green's major work, Prolegomena to Ethics, there are notable differences between Kant and Green. Green does not hold a negative view of emotions as Kant did, and more fundamentally, the distinction between Kant and Green stems from their differing perspectives of human nature. Whereas Kant presented human nature as comprised of two coexisting, and conflicting, natures - the animal nature and the moral nature - Green dissolved this dualism by making reason that which unifies the human being's animal nature and moral nature. Hence, it is my purpose to study Green's moral philosophy against the backdrop of Kant's moral theory, with particular focus on the role of emotions and sympathy in human behavior. In this comparative analysis, I show how Green's theory, although heavily indebted to Kant, works to correct some problematic issues that arise from Kant's denigration of emotions inherent in his dualism. Furthermore, in this discussion that begins as an examination of two views on the relationship between emotions and morality, one is pressed to entertain a deeper question concerning how these thinkers arrived at their views of human nature. This progression is indeed appropriate, at least when considering Kant and Green, because their regard for emotions is directly dependent upon their views of human nature as distinct from animal nature. In the end, it is suggested that Green's theory not only serves to correct Kant's work, but by rectifying Kant's problematic dualistic view of human nature, Green created a philosophy all his own that may more accurately represent the true nature of humankind.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The evolution of modern biomedical science and practice has forced many to grapple with difficult ethical questions. The advent of such novel questions has demanded that moral discourse in medicine adapts and changes to solve the problems introduced in our brave new world. What was once the charge of the physician is now a public discourse involving a number of relevant constituents and decision-makers. Accordingly, leaders in the discipline of bioethics have sought to articulate a particular grammar that might help to guide and direct the on-going discourse while providing the systems necessary for making morally efficient decisions. Thus, the lingua franca of bioethics has pushed steadily towards philosophically neutral terms and the accompanying generalities of the common morality. In this way, the grammar of bioethics has functioned much like a moral technique. It has not enabled us to speak well with and for persons embedded, rather embodied, in community gathered about the peculiarities of biomedical crises. Against such moral techne, the aim of this research has been to explore an ethics that might interrupt and transform the contemporary and abstract modes of moral discourse determined as universal, while challenging one to take seriously the concrete tasks and processes of real human life. It has been my aim to reimagine the common morality theologically, such that we may learn to be an authentic means of hope, to help resolve problems, to assist in the free response to dilemmas raised by the science and practice of biomedicine, and to provoke human decision towards human flourishing. Thus, the purpose of this research has been to explain Barth’s moral theology as that which not only grounds human being as ontologically relational but also to argue that such correlation is what might stir human responsibility to, with, and for our near and distant neighbours. Accordingly, for Barth, what is common is the provisional, public, and interpersonal character of moral conversation, discernment, and decision.

碩士
國立臺北大學
法律學系一般生組
102
Everyone has his own imagination to the law, in the same society, whether it is possible we have same imagination to the law? When the legal norms and expectations are different, whether it will affect the existence or validity of the law? British jurist John Austin proposed command theory of law, and he says : "the existence of law is one thing, its merit or demerit is another. ", this is related to the separation thesis. This article begins with the comparison of Hart's critique of Austin and Austin's command theory of law for legal concept, in order to understand the nature of positive law in Austin's legal theory. And from the concept of positive law advantages linked to sovereignty and independent political society. In Austin’s theory, the moral duty of sovereignty is related to positive morality, law of God, and utilitarianism as the index of Divine laws. By the study on Austin’s theory, understand the concepts of law, politic, and morality of his theory, and their relationship. Finally, this article will discuss the value of command theory of law, and whether it can adhere to the separation thesis of law and morality. And, in Austin's theory, how to solve the problem when the imagination to the law is not the same. In my view, although Austin's theory cannot precisely define the purpose of the law, but in the objective nature of law as the science, and caused attention of the science of ethics, has reached its function.

In Immanuel Kant’s essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns” (1797) he famously argues that it is never permissible to tell a lie, even when lying could save someone’s life. This view has met with a great deal of criticism from philosophers, who argue that his ethical theory must be flawed if it leads to such an undesirable conclusion. In this report, I explore this claim, arguing that this conclusion does not, after all, follow from Kant’s ethical theory. I focus in particular on the three formulations of the categorical imperative – the Formula of the Universal Law, the Formula of Humanity and the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends – and argue that none of these versions of Kant’s key ethical principle requires him to make the rigorous claim that we may never lie under any circumstances. Although lying turns out to be morally wrong in the majority of cases, based on a proper application of Kant’s theory, there are likely to be some situations in which lying is permissible or even obligatory, as I hope to show in this research.

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right which is important not only for the intellectual integrity of an individual but also for the healthy development of the whole society. The work represents both general arguments for freedom of expression and codification of freedom in two different legal cultures. In the United States the freedom of expression is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, which complements the rich jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Mexico, the right is regulated in Article 6 of the Constitution. The work shows how both countries reached the current legislation on the basis of examination of legal developments and cultural values. The values of the societies are presented on the basis of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The core of the thesis is to compare the legal limits, which is made primarily on the basis of judicial practice of the Supreme Courts of both countries. Emphasis is placed on four main areas which are related to freedom of speech: (i) fighting words including hate speech, (ii) symbolic speech, (iii) obscenity, and (iv) defamation. In addition to the legal limits the work interprets also the most significant actual limits in both countries. Finally, the author examines the relationship between freedom of expression and...