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Hamman, J. N. (Johannes Nicolaas). "Poststructural ethics and the possibility of a general ethical theory." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51883.
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Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is concerned with the possibility and characterisation of poststructural ethics and the ethics of general theories. It contains a review of selected readings on Modernity and provides a "snapshot" of an ethical system that is essentially rule based and privileges rationality. Some of the problems with such a system, such as inflexibility, tolerance based on superiority and force and the privileging of male gender is explored. It proceeds by perusing some literature on postmodernity as an open ethical system in which values are free floating and lists of rules are constantly produced and disregarded in a dizzying ethical free for all in which "anything goes". No value is considered more worthwhile than personal survival. As a starting point for reading Modernity and postmodernity together, Levinas introduces a radical perspective on ethics that can be read as a condemnation of postmodern morality. He relates an ethics in which the survival of the "other" is more important than the survival of the self. However, he does not ground the metaphysics of such a privilege in rationality or knowledge and hence does not turn it into an ethical rule, but rather, subtly shifts the responsibility for the other person to an ultimate responsibility for the Other as God. This radical responsibility is rejected by deconstruction which does not reject either postmodernity or Modernity but is an attempt to think through the limits of rule-orientated rationality, free-play and mystical metaphysics to produce an ethical awareness that has a sensitivity for the complexity of context. Through the notion of "writing", the peculiarities it displays and the objections it attracts, Derrida seeks to establish a uniquely ethical writing that is both a stable manifestation of ethics and a dynamic engagement with those subject to it. With these readings in the background the thesis attempts to provide a framework for poststructural ethics. It is an ethics based in the notion of friendship but does not ground itself in any guarantees. It re-evaluates rationality in terms of a sublime struggle for meaning and truth. This sublime struggle offers a unique perspective on political debates that strive towards responsible development for multicultural societies and also on a sociological approach to law and the ability to dispense justice without undue prejudice. The main contention of the thesis is that although poststructuralism does not suppose a grounding metaphysics in either rationality or responsibility towards God it cannot be satisfied with the self-indulgent nihilism of an "anything goes" postmodernism. Thus, it depends on the notion of a "complex system" that "self-organises" and produces limits through spontaneous connections. Through the working of deconstruction complex systems can take on a more human manifestation as friendships flourish and decay through the interaction of faces.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie is gemoeid met die moontlikheid en karakterisering van poststrukturele etiek en die etiek van algemene teorië. Dit bevat In geselekteerde oorsig van Moderniteit en verskaf In "kiekie" van In etiese sisteem wat essentieël op reëls gebasseer is en rationaliteit privilegieer. Sommige probleme met so In sisteem, soos byvoorbeeld onbuigsaamheid, verdraagsaamheid gegrond in superioriteit, geweld en die privilegieering van manlikheid, word ondersoek. Die studie sit voort deur sommige literatuur oor postmoderniteit as In oop etiese sisteem onder oë te neem. So In sisteem veronderstel vryvloeiende waardes en lyste van reëls wat gedurig geproduseer en geabandoneer word in In duisligwekkende etiese vryspel wat beskryf kan word as "anything goes". Geen waarde word hoër geag as persoonlike oorlewing nie. As die beginpunt van In lesing wat Moderniteit en postmoderniteit met mekaar in verband bring verskaf Levinas In radikale perspektief op etiek wat verdoemend staan teenoor die moraliteit van postmoderniteit. Hy beskryf In etiek waarin die oorlewing van die "ander" meer belangrik geag word as die oorlewing van die self. Hy grond egter nie die metafisieka van so In voorreg in rationaliteit of kennis nie, en lê dit dus nie neer as In etiese reël nie, maar verskuif eerder op subtitle wyse verantwoordelikheid vir die ander persoon na In uiteindelike verantwoordelikheid vir die Ander as God. Laasgenoemde radikale verantwoordelikheid word deur dekonstruksie verwerp in In poging om postmoderniteit en Moderniteit saam te snoer en die limiete van reël-georiënteerde rationaliteit, vry-spel en mistiese metafisieka deur te dink. Hierdeur word 'n etiese gewaarwording geproduseer wat sensitiviteit vir die kompleksiteite van konteks vertoon. Deur die nosie van "skryf', die eienaardighede en teenkanting daaraan verbonde, is Derrida op soek na die neerlegging van In unike etiese skryf wat beide In stabille manifestasie van etiek is en 'n dinamiese betrokkenheid by die wat daaraan onderhewig staan. Met hierdie leeswerk in die agtergrond poog die tesis om 'n raamwerk vir poststrukturele etiek daar te stel. Dit is In etiek wat as basis die nosie van vriendskap aanvaar sonder om enige waarborge uit te deel. Rationaliteit word gere-evalueer in terme van In sublime stryd vir betekenis en waarheid. Hierdie sublime stryd bring 'n unieke perspektief na politieke debatte wat volhoubare ontwikkeling in multikulturele samelewings ten doel het en vir In sosiologiese benadering tot die reg en regsvaardigheid. Alhoewel poststrukturele etiek nie In metanarratief veronderstel, soos die etiek van Moderniteit, nie kan dit egter ook nie tevrede wees met die destabiliserende nihilisme van 'n "anything goes" postmodernisme nie. Poststrukturele etiek steun dus swaar op die idee van 'n "komplekse sisteem" wat self-organiseer en llrniette stel deur middel van spontane konneksievorming. Deur die werking van dekonstruksie kan so In komplekse sisteem ook in meer menslike terme verwoord word as vriendskappe wat groei en vergaan in die interaksie tussen "gesigte".
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Narraway, Katherine. "Empty ethics: Bodhisattva ethics in Nishitani Keiji's Religion and Nothingness." Thesis, McGill University, 2009. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=32378.
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Writings about Buddhist ethics and Mahayana Buddhist ethics in particular cannot escape two basic problems. The first problem is that the often-misunderstood soteriological aim of Mahayana, achieving Nirvana, conflicts with the tradition's normative ethics because Nirvana is posited as transcending worldly conventions. The second problem is that Mahayana Buddhist emptiness ontology seems to destroy the idea of ethical action by revealing the fallacy of acting from the standpoint of an individual self. For these reasons, it has been said that Mahayana ethics is impossible. By utilizing the Zen Buddhist philosophy of Nishitani Keiji's Religion and Nothingness, I will demonstrate that these two problems are misinterpretations of basic Mahayana tenets and that when Mahayana soteriology and ontology are properly understood, they do not conflict with the tradition's normative ethics. Furthermore, I will use Nishitani's interpretation of the Bodhisattva to show that there is ethics without an ethical agent.Les écrits sur l'éthique bouddhiste en général et l'éthique bouddhiste mahayana en particulier font face à deux problèmes élémentaires. Le premier problème est que l'interprétation usuelle du but sotériologique mahayana, soit d'atteindre le nirvana, entre en conflit avec l'éthique normative traditionnelle, puisque le Nirvana propose une acception transcendant les conventions mondiales. Le second problème est que l'ontologie du vide bouddhiste mahayana semble détruire l'idée même d'une action éthique lorsqu'elle révèle le sophisme de l'action à partir du point de vue de l'individu. Ces deux problèmes affirmer qu'il n'existe pas d'éthique Mahayana. En nous appuyant sur la philosophie bouddhiste zen de Nishitani Keiji dans Religion and Nothingness, nous démontrerons que les deux problèmes découlent en fait d'interprétations erronées, et que si la sotériologie et l'ontologie mahayana sont interprétées adéquatement, elles ne s'opposent aucunement à l'éthique normative traditionnelle. De plus, nous utiliserons l'interprétation du concept de bodhisattva de Nishitani pour révéler qu'il peut y avoir éthique sans agent moral.
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Nelson, Michael Paul. "The land ethic : a theory of environmental ethics defended." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.246100.
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Jotterand, Fabrice 1967. "Does virtue ethics contribute to medical ethics? : an examination of Stanley Hauerwas' ethics of virtue and its relevance to medical ethics." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=33292.
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The aim of this thesis is to examine the concept of virtue ethics in Stanley Hauerwas's understanding of virtue and delineate how that contributes to his ethical reasoning and his comprehension of medical ethics. The first chapter focuses on the shift that occurred in moral theory under the stance of the Enlightenment that eroded the traditional idea of morality as the formation of the self, allowing space for new concepts that dismissed the importance of the agent in the ethical task of seeking the good. In the second chapter, the three main ideas (character, vision, and narrative) that make up Hauerwas' ethical theory are examined with a particular attention to the importance of agency in moral life. The third chapter describes how Hauerwas' medical ethics, informed by his moral theory based on character, vision, and narrative, is relevant to medical ethics. Hauerwas argues that because medicine is a form of human activity with internal goods and standards of excellence intrinsic to its practice, it requires taking into account the notion of agency in the healing relationship. Finally, in the last chapter the specific religious discourse of Hauerwas' ethics is discussed in relation to secular medical ethics. In other words, this thesis raises the question of whether the reduction of medical ethics to a set of principles, as it is mostly the case today, represents a suitable picture of the reality of moral life in medicine.
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Patterson, Aimee. "Theocentric ethics for a secular world : toward a general application of the ethical thought of James M. Gustafson." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=83137.
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In order to work toward right relationships among humanity and all other things, what is required is an ethical theory that concerns itself with interests that include but are not limited to the human. James M. Gustafson's theocentric ethics, which centres value on God, can accomplish this in the religious sphere. Gustafson's ethical theory also has the potential to work within nontheistic secularism as a way of construing all things as interrelated and interdependent. Underlying Gustafson's theology and value theory is a commonsense ontology, which appreciates evidences from the sciences, affective orientation, and resembles certain webs of beliefs held by many outside religious communities. In order to illustrate the transition to secular Gustafsonian ethical theory, functional surrogates of theology found in secular philosophy, and particularly in the work of Mary Midgley, are identified. Gustafson's ethical theory is used to identify certain obligations and restrictions with regard to environmental ethics.
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Traczykowski, Lauren. "The ethics of natural disaster intervention." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2017. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7773/.
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Natural disasters are social disruptions triggered by physical events. Every year, hundreds of natural disasters occur and tens of thousands of people are killed as a result. I maintain that everyone would want to be provided with assistance in the aftermath a natural disaster. If a national government is not providing post disaster assistance, then we expect that some other institution has the responsibility to provide it. Unfortunately, that is not the case currently. Therefore, in this thesis I argue that in some situations the international community is required to intervene on behalf of those affected by the disaster caused by a natural hazard. Natural disaster intervention is a moral requirement: because the international community has a duty to provide the goods we are entitled to as per the human right to welfare, even in natural disaster scenarios. After making my argument as to why a natural disaster intervention policy should be developed I explain the basic principles of such a policy by applying the Just War criteria to natural disaster scenarios in which a national government is unable or unwilling to provide assistance to its people.
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Braunack-Mayer, Annette. "General practitioners doing ethics : an empirical perspective on bioethical methods /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 1998. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phb8253.pdf.
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Majima, Shunzo. "Ethics of civilian protection." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/2877/.
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In this thesis, I discuss the ethics of civilian protection in armed conflict from the perspective of applied ethics. Specifically, I attempt to explore a way to supplement the limitations of just war theory in civilian protection by providing a fundamental case for civilian protection, by way of considering insights gleaned from David Hume’s conception of justice, and from the perspective of professional military ethics. Moreover, I will further defend my argument for the protection of civilians in armed conflict by demonstrating the immorality of torture. In Chapter 1, I discuss the status of civilians by examining legal and ethical concepts. In Chapter 2, I critically discuss the scope and limitations of just war theory in civilian protection. In Chapter 3, I analyse how civilian protection was considered and how civilians were harmed in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In Chapter 4, I critically examine civilian protection as part of just conduct in armed conflict by referring to Hume’s conception of justice. In Chapter 5, I examine civilian protection from the perspective of military ethics. In Chapter 6, I make a case against the moral justifiability of torturing civilians in order to illustrate how civilians should be protected in an extreme situation.
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Wigmore, Stephen R. "An examination of Max Scheler's phenomenological ethics." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2015. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/81779/.
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This thesis examines the little-known phenomenological ethical theory of Max Scheler, discussed in his Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values and The Nature of Sympathy, also bringing in various other complementary philosophers. It argues that Scheler’s theory, when supplemented with complementary ideas, is superior to those offered by contemporary analytic intuitionism and other meta-ethical theories. It argues that a theory of pluralist emotive intuitionism provides a better description of both our experience of ethical value and the logical requirements for the ethical knowledge presumed by that experience. This thesis places Scheler’s theory in the context of ethical intuitionism up until the present. It considers why intuitionism has been generally rejected, looking at outstanding philosophical questions facing ethical intuitionism and previous attempted answers, and discussing current theories of analytic ethical intuitionism and their flaws. It explains the significant elements of Scheler’s ethical theory and how it can be understood in its phenomenological context. To demonstrate how Scheler’s material intuitionism is better than current theories of rationalist intuitionism, and other meta-ethical alternatives, this thesis looks at two main groups of issues. Firstly, the epistemological issues raised by Scheler’s theory and how it offers a possible solution to the problem of ethical knowledge, along with a brief consideration of ontological issues. Secondly, normative issues raised by Scheler’s theory: major issues on normative judgement raised but not answered by Scheler’s theory and, following this, a chapter dedicated to Scheler’s theory of ‘persons’, particularly with reference to Emmanuel Levinas. It concludes that an adapted Scheleran theory of ethical intuitionism can be superior to contemporary theories. It explains how the fundamental features of ethical experience may be epistemologically and phenomenologically justified based on objective values. It provides better responses to standard problems raised against intuitionism while also providing a natural explanation for a wider range of moral phenomena than standard meta-ethical alternatives. This demonstrates its superior explanatory power and provides strong arguments for its value as an over-arching meta-ethical theory.
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Green, Alan James. "Moral particularism : implications in medical ethics." Thesis, Keele University, 2014. http://eprints.keele.ac.uk/622/.
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Particularism challenges the accepted idea of normative moral theory that morality can be reduced to a finite set of fundamental principles; it sees morality as quite capable of getting on without such principles. This thesis is concerned with asking what, if any, changes would be required in the practice of medical ethics if this is correct. It is proposed that current guidelines for professional clinicians and medical scientists constitute a “fleshed out” normative system which provides pro tanto rules for ethical practice. To investigate the implications of this in a particularist world, the idea of thin and thick moral concepts is extended to cover moral principles so that generalist professional guidance is seen as constituted of thick principles. This guidance aims to provide the required confidence for the doctor-patient relationship and in particular for the trust required between doctor and patient. Examples of the development of protocols for early phase clinical trials in cancer, and of resource allocation in a resource limited system are used to investigate the difference in decision making, and thus in the decisions themselves, between generalist and particularist professionals. In a generalist world trust is placed in the systems of trustworthiness (practice guidelines etc) and thus in the developers of such systems; in a particularist world moral decisions are made by the clinician and so trust is placed much more directly in that clinician. The implications of this analysis are that under particularism medical ethical training (initial and continuing) would focus more on the development of moral character of the various professionals and less of following guidelines. The complexity of modern medicine implies that such guidelines would still be required, but they would no longer represent pro tanto duties, but rather ceteris paribus advice.
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Papanikitas, Andrew. "From the classroom to the clinic : ethics education and general practice." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2014. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/from-the-classroom-to-the-clinic(3c03ba00-98b9-4e51-9b58-adcb134c24e4).html.
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This thesis is a qualitative study of ethics education as experienced by general practitioners in mainland Britain. It draws upon interviews and documents as well as observations and reflections from encounters in the field. Ethics is conceived of as a kind of knowledge and ethics education is seen as involving translational processes shaped by various social forces and tensions. The data analysis is organised according to three concepts outlined by Bernstein: curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation. These broadly map to academia, education and practice,and the purposive sample reflects participants with involvements in these three domains. Ethnographic, phenomenological, and grounded theories are key influences on the method for selecting and organising the empirical data. The findings chapters look at the determination and production of the broad curriculum (chapter 4); the ‘transmission’, or the delivery and reception of, the curriculum (chapter 5); the assessment of ethics education (chapter 6); the ways in which ethical issues are identified and negotiated in practice (chapter 7); and key substantive issues that arise in practice – confidentiality, abortion, payment for performance and resource allocation – which enables an exploration of the negotiation of ethical issues in practice (chapters 8 and 9). The concluding chapter pulls the threads together. Societal forces and tensions are present when curricula are conceived, when knowledge and skills are taught and when GPs attempt to integrate learning into their daily practice. Having understood these forces and tensions better we can conceive better of how to make improvements to ethics education and assessment. The overall aim is to improve the reflexivity of ethics education. Many of ethical shortcomings of doctors have historically been linked to hidden curricula, features of practice and the practice environment that have been unseen or ignored by teachers or learners. Knowing more about these features and about the translational processes, that shape the experiences and enactments of GP ethics, provides the potential ability to adjust for their influence.
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Wilson, Mark A. "The emotion of regret in an ethics of response." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3290762.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2007.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-11, Section: A, page: 4735. Adviser: Richard B. Miller. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 22, 2008).
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Hunt, Matthew 1973. "Ethics beyond borders : how Canadian health professionals experience ethics in humanitarian assistance and development work." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=98729.
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Canadian health professionals are involved in humanitarian assistance and development work in many regions of the world. They participate in primary health care, immunization campaigns, feeding programs, rehabilitation and hospital-based care. In the course of their work clinicians are frequently exposed to complex ethical issues. This thesis examines how health workers experience ethics in the course of humanitarian assistance and development work. A qualitative study was conducted to consider this question. Five core themes emerged from the data including experiencing a tension between respecting local customs and imposing values, knowing how to respond when basic care is impossible, addressing differing understandings of health and illness, questions of identity for health workers, and issues of trust and distrust. Recommendations are made for standards and organizational strategies that could help aid agencies better support and equip their staff as they respond to ethical issues.
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Colacicchi, Giovanni. "Jung and ethics : a conceptual exploration." Thesis, University of Essex, 2015. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/16857/.
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Despite Jung’s frequent claims that one’s moral and ethical stance play an important role both in the development and in the cure of neurosis, Jung’s ethical position had not been subjected to a critical assessment and the main sources of his ethical outlook had not been investigated. I take my point of departure in Jung’s definition of ethics as involving both consciousness and the unconscious. In the first chapter, Kant’s argument for the primacy of practical reason is shown to ground Jung’s conviction of the decisive freedom of the ego. Jung’s insistence on the importance of the moral development of both patient and therapist is also related to Kant’s call for moral independence. Having elucidated Jung’s understanding of conflicts of duty – the existence of which was denied by Kant – I discuss Jung’s Nietzschean legacy. I argue that Jung derives the crucial distinction between ethics and morality from Nietzsche, as well as the idea that ethics must consider the irrational and unintentional side of the Self; I also consider how Jung’s application of the ‘health criterion’ to ethics differs from Nietzsche’s utilisation of the same device. In Chapter 3, I highlight the critical convergence between Aristotle’s approach to ethics and Jung’s psycho-ethical paradigm: while both stress the importance of acquiring a balance between reason and the passions and place wisdom at centre stage, Jung adds that psychotherapy can successfully integrate ‘unconscious vice’. In the fourth chapter, I examine the (heterodox) Christian side of Jung’s ethics. Here I assess the role played by the psychologically ‘heavy’ notion of evil in Jung’s model and analyse the often-misunderstood link between evil and the Shadow. In Jung’s psychology, the individuated subject is the ethical subject, so depth psychology and ethics converge towards the same goal and can be mutually supportive endeavours.
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Finozzi, Riccardo. "The ethics of thinking in Heidegger, Bruno & Spinoza." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2013. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/57621/.
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The aim of the present work is to face Heidegger’s claim that philosophy has ended. Facing this claim for us has not taken the form of creating a new method or positing a new question but that of a search for anomalies in what Heidegger decrees as finished, which is philosophy as metaphysics. In his historical confrontation with the history of thought Heidegger seems to have left out, dismissed or forgotten those authors who do not fit into his definition of metaphysics. We have chosen Giordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza, metaphysical thinkers who have undertaken a philosophical practice that does not intend to demolish subjectivity but actually begins without any need for it. The birth of the subject as grounding reality finds its affirmation with Descartes and inaugurates modernity that, according to Heidegger, exhausts philosophy and leads it into the arms of modern science and technology. Bruno and Spinoza respectively precede and follow the birth of modernity and of modern science, which they look at with an eye that is not that of the modern subject. Following their different approaches to philosophy, we shall also explore their relation to Renaissance Humanism, dismissed by Heidegger as a historical reiteration of the Roman world, perceived as a perversion of the Greek origin of thought. We shall show how hasty such a dismissal is. Our goal is to show not merely that Heidegger is wrong but that if Western thinking contains the seeds of its own end, it also contains the ones of a different understanding of the Western world and its achievements. The three authors will engage on the grounds of ontology, gnosiology and ethics and yet we have defined the whole enterprise of this work as an ethics overall. An ethics of thinking is a practice of thought that wishes to envisage the possibility for Western man of inhabiting his own world by understanding himself not as an isolated subject and master of nature but as the place where the unity and multiplicity of nature come to be thought at the same time.
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Hold, Judith L. "A good death| The experiential ethics of nursing." Thesis, The University of Alabama, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3612092.
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During end-of-life care, nurses face ethical dilemmas on a daily basis with minimal operative scholastic preparation and professional expertise. The diverse source of ethical quandaries includes patient care issues related to legalities, inappropriate medical interventions, social roles, and professional and personal values. Ethical discourse in end-of-life care occurs within institutions where policies, professional relationships, and economic factors constrain ethical reflection. Thus, it is imperative that ethics education take into account the professional and social context of nursing, in addition to traditional teachings focused on many principles and theories, codes of conduct, and legal ramifications. The purpose of this research was to explore how experienced nurses' successfully resolved day-to-day ethical dilemmas during end-of-life care. This study utilized narrative analysis to analyze data generated from one-on-one interviews with six hospice nurses. The semi-structured interviews were conducted in two phases. Using core story creation, several different ethical dilemmas were identified divulging struggles with key stakeholders. Thematic analysis was then used to create three main themes: Ethics within Practice, Ethical Knowledge, and Ethical Solutions discussed within the framework of situational context, deliberations, and ethical actions. The results gained from this research provide information on how to improve nursing ethics education through the use of narratives of experienced nurses. The nurses used in this research told their stories depicting a keen awareness of ethical conflicts situated by contextual factors including social, political, and personal issues. Their deliberations were informed through formal, experiential, and intuitive knowledge creating a sense of phronesis as they negotiated the right course of actions. The nurses solved ethical predicaments by either following rules or choosing acts of resistance. It is my contention that the results of this study will empower practicing nurses and nurse educators to appreciate and incorporate context and different forms of knowledge to inform ethical discourse. We can utilize the experienced nurses' wisdom to improve nursing ethics education which ultimately translates to providing better deaths for patients.
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Frith, Lucy. "Ethics in the infertility clinic : a qualitative study." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2008. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/1191/.
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This thesis is a qualitative study of infertility clinicians in the UK, exploring how they manage ethical issues: a study that uses empirical methods to explore ethical questions. I use a broadly Aristotelian conception of the relationship between theory and practice to develop a methodology for considering practical ethical issues. I then show how this approach, when allied with contemporary qualitative methodologies, can provide particularly valuable insights and produce practical recommendations. An important element of my approach is that a close attention to actual practice can also result in refining and developing our ethical theories and principles – practice informs theory just as theory can inform practice. This account of the ethical decision-making processes of infertility clinicians can not only highlight new ethical problems, but also develop more nuanced moral norms and ethical theories to deal with the conflicts and issues that arise in the clinical setting. Infertility treatment is a speciality that has attracted much attention from the public and bioethicists. The focus has been predominately on the dramatic aspects such as the status of the embryo or underlying issues such as the ethical boundaries of procreative liberty. Relatively little, however, is known about the everyday moral workings of infertility clinics: how clinicians approach ethical issues on a daily basis; what for them are troubling issues; and how they resolve ethical conflict. This study aims to gain insight into the way clinicians actually make ethical decisions. Moving on from this, it critically evaluates such processes and offers both an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the clinicians’ ethical decision-making and considers how this form of decision-making can be extended and supported in practice. The aims of this thesis are to contribute to the debate on both how ethical decision-making in the infertility clinic can be improved and, more generally, how bioethics can make a useful contribute to practical problems.
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Goldenberg, Maya. "The theory and practice of biomedical ethics : a troubled divide." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=30792.
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Biomedical ethics does not lend itself to easy categorisation as either a 'theoretical' or a 'practical' enterprise because inquiry into the quandaries of morality requires both situational and 'translocal' perspectives. These types of investigation bring into question the legitimacy of the theory/practice divide that has dominated intellectual thought since antiquity. This division hinders the development of bioethics by fostering internal dispute within the discipline regarding appropriate methodology and the practice of clinical ethics. In this thesis, I argue that much of these disciplinary disjunctions are due to an undue labeling of bioethics as either 'applied ethics' or 'practical ethics', and a failure to recognise the intricate way in which theory and practice inform each other and are integral and interrelated parts of moral deliberation. I argue for an integration of the theory and practice of bioethics.
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Williams, Kim. "Clinical Ethics Committees : an analysis of their role and function." Thesis, Keele University, 2013. http://eprints.keele.ac.uk/200/.
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Healthcare Clinical Ethics Committees (CECs) are increasing in numbers. Critics argue that they undermine the moral development of the practitioner by not encouraging them to think deeply and for themselves about medical ethics. This could result in abrogation of responsibility for decisions to CECs. This thesis will argue that CECs can offer a useful service to clinicians in the UK by providing a safe environment for reflection. Within this space the CEC can support exploration of solutions to the issues by using a non directive structure to their questioning techniques. Central to this process is the need for the clinician to be present throughout the discussion. Within this reflective space, questioning by the CEC is structured to enable practical planning to occur, after dialogue about the situation or issue, acknowledging the impact of emotion, and moral and nonmoral influences influencing the case. This thesis proposes the use of solution focused techniques and casuistry within the CEC which form the basis of a model developed by the author entitled the ASCS (Ask, Seek, Clarify and Solution) model. Use of the model can provide a framework for structured dialogue which is simple, evaluable and brief. Use of the model within the UK CEC has the potential to increase the skills of the practitioner to tackle ethical issues in practice. Such skills once learnt can be utilised by the team to deal with ethical conflict in the workplace in the future.
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Concannon, Michael. "An exploration of how ethics informs physiotherapy and podiatry practice." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2016. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/30242/.
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Introduction: Moral complexities exist in every day health care practice creating conflicting responsibilities in providing care. Health care ethics (HCE) enable an applied practical linkage of theory and practice to create professional behaviour that focuses on service user benefit. This thesis explored how physiotherapists and podiatrists embodied health care ethics in their practice. Methods: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a hermeneutical approach was utilised in order to explore how HCE informs physiotherapy and podiatry practice. Whilst always involving interpretation, this method has the ability to describe the human experience as it is lived. Using a framework embedded in hermeneutic IPA facilitated an inquiry that promotes the participant’s own reflections of experiential practice (phenomenology) and then interpreting them (hermeneutical) in the relevant and wider context. Purposively sampled individual interviews were carried out (n=21) in an attempt to interpret the participants’ lifeworld of embodied HCE. The preliminary findings were taken to one purposively sampled group interview for discussion which contributed to further interpretation. Findings: Five themes emerged from the data. The themes indicated that there is a desire by participants to extol ethical practice, but acknowledged various limitations in the reality of achieving this. The place of empathy has a key role in HCE for clinical reasoning and decision making which may prevent HCPs from passively following performance guidelines and checklists. If empathy and virtue ethics can be taught and utilised by HCPs then guidelines may be considered for individual implementation as an outcome, rather than a prerequisite, of ethical decision making. Conclusion: Ethical decision making may be enhanced by reconsidering the education of character virtues including empathy. Empathy is a basic condition and source of morality. As a central component of phronesis, empathy may enable understanding of a service user’s needs and increase motivation for HCPs to act in a caring way, thus making the service user the bearer of an ethical interaction.
21
Cockerham, David M. "Toward a common democratic faith the political ethics of John Dewey and Jacques Maritain /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3238498.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2006."Title from dissertation home page (viewed July 12, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-10, Section: A, page: 3837. Adviser: Richard B. Miller.
22
Kim, Hyosup. "Nietzsche's substantive ethics : towards a new table of values." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2231/.
Full textAbstract:
My thesis focuses on Nietzsche’s ethics. More precisely, its main objective is to explore Nietzsche’s substantive ethical framework in a comprehensive, detailed, and systematic manner. Furthermore, the thesis also attempts to examine the epistemological, non-ethical ground of the Nietzschean substantive ethics. Also, it deals with Nietzsche’s critique of conventional morality, and explains Nietzsche’s criticism of morality in terms of his substantive ethics. The central argument of the thesis is, very briefly, that Nietzsche’s philosophy as a whole does have a distinctive, substantive ethical system. Its constitutive elements or contents, being coherently related, are rich, complicated, and concrete. The major category Nietzsche employs in his ethics is the notion of ‘value’ understood as merit or desirability; he is not much concerned with the right or obligatory. Nietzsche views some human qualities, abilities and states and a style of life as noble and desirable for us. Specifically, the creative way of life, creative capacity, self-discipline, the capacity for ‘self-commanding’, knowledge, health, strong affectivity, and vitality constitute the core of Nietzsche’s evaluative standard. Moreover, a variety of dispositions, such as honesty, solitude, courage, and magnanimity, position themselves within his theory of value and are posited as crucial virtues. Finally, my thesis aims at analysing these particular contents of Nietzsche’s substantive ethical system and to examine how the system as a whole works. As such, the thesis is fundamentally an exposition based upon Nietzsche’s own texts, especially, his later works including Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, and The Antichrist.
23
Baines, Paul Bruce. "Making medical decisions for children : ethics." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2016. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/6511/.
Full textAbstract:
Children are largely ignored in medical ethics, which concentrates on adults with capacities that children lack (including competence, or rationality). This thesis answers how medical decisions should be made for unquestionably incompetent children. The dominant approach to medical ethics in the West depends on respect for autonomy and this distorts medical ethics for children in two ways. Firstly, parental decisions for children may be taken to have the same authority as respect for autonomy. Secondly, theories of general well-being have focused on adult’s well-being with an endorsement of the components of that well-being by the adult themselves. This has hindered the development of an objective, impartial, conception of interests, arguably, the best fit for making decisions for very young children. I argue that although children are clearly demarcated from adults in medical ethics, there is not a clear explanation of why this is. For young children others must make decisions or be prepared to override the child’s decisions. More recently, the distinction between adults and children have become blurred, exemplified by the use of terms such as ‘young person’. Children’s rights at best draw attention to children and their interests, but do not help in resolving the medical treatment of incompetent children. The most promising approach depends on articulating an account of children’s interests. For several reasons the best interests standard is not defensible. I argue that a reasoned, or reasonable, agreement upon the child’s interests should determine medical treatment. Neither the child’s parents (nor the clinicians) can be taken to have an incorrigible grasp of the child’s interests, all should justify the reasons for their choices.
24
Yung, Pik-ching, and 翁碧菁. "The establishment of a General Teaching Council in Hong Kong: a policy analysis." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1992. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31956233.
Full text
25
Berker, A. Selim. "The particular and the general : essays at the interface of ethics and epistemology." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41702.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-138).
This dissertation consists of three chapters exploring the nature of normativity in ethics and epistemology, with an emphasis on insights that can be gleaned by comparing and contrasting debates within those two fields. In chapter 1, I consider particularism, a relatively recent view which holds that, because reasons for action and belief are irreducibly context-dependent, the traditional quest for a general theory of what one ought to do or believe is doomed for failure. In making these claims, particularists assume a general framework according to which reasons are the ground floor normative units undergirding all other normative relations. However, I argue that the claims particularists make about the behavior of reasons undermines the very framework within which they make those claims, thus leaving them without a coherent notion of a reason for action or belief. Chapter 2 concerns a problem arising for certain theories that take the opposite extreme of particularism and posit a fully general theory of what one ought to believe or do. In the epistemic realm, one such theory is process reliabilism. A well-known difficulty for process reliabilism is the generality problem: the problem of determining how broadly or narrowly to individuate the process by which a given belief is formed. Interestingly, an exactly parallel problem faces one of the most dominant contemporary ethical theories, namely Kantianism. I show how, despite their seeming differences, process reliabilism and Kantianism possess a markedly similar structure, and then use this similarity in structure to assess the prospects that each has of ever solving its version of the generality problem.
(cont.) Finally, in chapter 3, I consider a recent argument by Timothy Williamson that what it would be rational for one to do or believe is not luminous, in the following sense: it can be rational for one to do or believe something, without one's being in a position to know that it is. Careful attention to the details of Williamson's argument reveals that he can only establish this limit to our knowledge by taking for granted certain controversial claims about the limits of belief.
by A. Selim Berker.
Ph.D.
26
Murgia, Claudio. "[Beyond] posthuman violence : epic rewritings of ethics in the contemporary novel." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/93366/.
Full textAbstract:
My research will consist of a literary investigation into changing representations of violence in the contemporary novel in the context of the paradigm shift from humanism to posthumanism, from reality to fiction. The core of my work, developed through the reading of some research in neuroscience, will concern the examination of the brain as metaphor machine. From here, I will argue that the problem of violence in relation to fiction today is due to the struggle in the human body between transcendence and immanence. The individual has a tendency to transcend reality and in so doing lives violence as fiction even when inflicting pain to the other. I will observe how this transcendence is translated in contemporary narrative forms and I will shape a rhetoric of contemporary literary violence. My intention is to conduct comparative research across British, American, French and Italian literary fiction of the past 20 years, with a few exceptions. I will explore whether and how, in a globalizing world, it is both possible and necessary to develop a comparative literary analysis of the forms of contemporary violence. I will observe how the advent of posthumanity or of the fictional man has generated a crisis in the definition of identity and reality in a context in which fiction has taken its place. I will show how the individual re-acts to this condition through violence in order to find authenticity. References will include the works of Deleuze, Badiou, Bauman, Baudrillard, De Man, Agamben, Hayles et alii. In order to explore the different ramifications of the substitution of fiction to reality and its connection to violence, I will focus on what I consider the main three tools for the creation of simulation today: language, desire and information, through the works of Wallace, McCarthy, Miéville, Ballard, Gibson, Palahniuk et alii. Finally, the work will focus on the new emphasis given by contemporary writers to literary responsibility after the irresponsible writing (after the death of the author) of postmodernism through the analysis of the New Italian Epic postulated by Wu Ming but applied to the English Weird Fiction writer China Miéville. I will suggest that an attempt to overcome postmodernism is taking place in contemporary global fiction based on a more ‘serious’ approach (as Wallace would have said), a new ethics of literature, which endeavours to depict the reasons for contemporary violence in fiction and advocates for a balance between the transcendence of fiction and the immanence of reality.
27
Hapeshi, Julie E. "Recruiting ethical expertise : the roles of lay and expert members in NHS Research Ethics Committees." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2014. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/70410/.
Full textAbstract:
Drawing on the classification of expertise developed by Collins and Evans, this study explores the expertises held by members of NHS Research Ethics Committees (RECs) and how they differ from the ones described by the regulations. The study used Q methodology followed by ten semi-structured interviews with Lay and Expert REC members. The results show that committee members see themselves as part of a team, with individual members making different contributions to a collective task. Viewing REC members in this way allows their different expertises to be formally recognised and leads to the creation of two new membership categories, specialist and generalist, based on these expertises. Specialists have expertises such as statistics and pharmacy that are required by the current legislation and which would be present on recruitment. Generalists possess the other expertises needed by the committee but which not required by statute. These include the clinical expertises possessed by healthcare professionals and the other professional expertises – legal, academic, IT and so on – that are typically found amongst those currently classed as Lay members. All REC members, be they specialist or generalist, would also be trained in the ethical and regulatory expertises required to deliver an ethical review. Emphasising how all REC members, whether specialist or generalise, have expertises that contribute to the ethical review enables recruitment activities to focus on the skills needed by the committee rather than current concerns with population demographics. This provides a solution to many of the recruitment issues identified by participants. In particular, it enables the replacement of skills on a ‘like for like’ basis using clearly defined person specifications. Not only would such a process comply with the Nolan principles it be more likely to maintain the integrity and function of the committee regardless of personnel changes.
28
Schofield, Paul C. "The Commonwealth as Agent: Group Action, the Common Good, and the General Will." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10968.
Full textAbstract:
In this dissertation, I argue for a Rousseauvian vision of an ideal society: one in which the people constitute a group agent, unified under a collective will, willing action that constitutes the common good. Most have tended to believe that the contrasts between an individual agent and an entire people are stark, and so accounts of the commonwealth that appeal to group agency at all usually emphasize the differences between them. I will argue, however, that members of a society collectively constitute an agent that resembles an individual agent more closely than is normally supposed. Specifically, I will argue that a society is under normative pressure to engage in projects and activities that are good or worthwhile, that it may permissibly impose burdens on some members as it attempts to realize the common good, and that when properly constituted it possesses a collective will that has authority over its members. I begin in Chapter 1 by giving an account of what it means for a group to engage in action. Then, in Chapter 2, I argue that the people of a region naturally constitute a rational group agent, and that state institutions that function properly help to facilitate collective action that is generally worthwhile or good. In Chapter 3, I argue that an individual has duties to herself similar to those that a commonwealth has to its members. For this reason, I suggest that investigating individual agency has the potential to shed light on what the commonwealth may or may not permissibly do. In Chapter 4, I draw a parallel between an individual agent pursuing her own good while trying to avoid wronging herself, and an entire commonwealth pursuing its overall good while trying to avoid wronging its members. There I conclude that by realizing the common good, the commonwealth compensates members who are burdened in its pursuit. In Chapter 5, I consider how a commonwealth, understood as a group agent, can choose its action, arguing that democratic institutions possess authority over the commonwealth, and thus constitute the society’s General Will. Finally in Chapter 6, I consider whether philosophers in the liberal-republican tradition have given sufficient reason for us to reject the Rousseauvian view that I argue for in the first five chapters.Philosophy
29
Sant, Janice. "The ethics of poetic force : Jacques Derrida, Hélène Cixous, Paul Celan." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2017. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/107652/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis makes the claim that there is an important correlation between the poetic and the ethical in the work of Jacques Derrida, Hélène Cixous and Paul Celan. Taking its cue from Derrida’s 1988 ‘Che cos’è la poesia?’, it proposes that what he calls the ‘poematic’ entails an ethical experience. It seeks to show that the underlying link between the poetic and the ethical as it emerges in Derrida’s text calls for a reconsideration of the relation between the literary and the ethical. Rather than merely describe ethical situations or prescribe ethical behaviour, the poetic involves an ethical experience of the arrival or ‘invention’ (from the Latin invenire: to come upon) of the other. Focusing on Derrida’s notions of responsibility and hospitality in turn, it argues that the interruption at the heart of Derrida’s ethical event is what characterises poetic force. Chapter 1 presents a reading of Derrida’s notion of the poetic as an instance of ethical responsibility. It begins with a discussion of Derrida’s understanding of responsibility that underlines the importance of the interrelation between the secret, the call and the response. It subsequently argues that the poetic dictate, like responsibility, also involves an interruptive call or apostrophe that demands a response. Referring closely to the biblical narrative of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac as well as Derrida’s notions of the ‘double yes’ and the countersignature, it finally considers the ethics of poetic response. Chapter 2 claims that the force of Hélène Cixous’s work is intricately bound to the Derridean ethical imperative of responsibility as explored in Chapter 1. It begins by showing the parallels between Cixous’s ‘coming to writing’ and the Derridean notion of the poetic dictate. It maintains that the complex question of genre in Cixous’s work is related to her writing practice as an instance of submitting to the call of the other. Finally, it argues that the ethical import of her work is to be found in what Derrida has described in terms of a monstrous force. Turning its attention primarily to Derrida’s seminars around the subject of hospitality, Chapter 3 begins by focusing on the inherent violence in hospitality through an analysis of the etymological root of the word ‘hospitality’ and Derrida’s neologism ‘hostipitality’. It then addresses Derrida’s aphoristic claim that an ‘act of hospitality can only be poetic’. Relating this assertion to his understanding of invention as the instance of the coming of the other, it argues that the poetic is ethical at its core because it invents the impossible. Finally, drawing out the implications of Derridean hospitality for a reading of Sophocles’ play ‘Antigone’, it demonstrates that the eponymous character enacts the poetic experience at the centre of the discussion. In an extended analysis of the notion poetic hospitality, Chapter 4 takes the concept of the uncanny in Paul Celan’s ‘Der Meridian’ speech as its foremost concern. It makes the claim that the ethical force in Celan’s oeuvre lies in its power to overcome the uncanny automaticity of art. It then turns to ‘Die Niemandsrose’ to explore the uncanny in relation to what Celan calls the ‘groundlessness’ of the poem. Finally, it suggests that the uncanny in Celan’s oeuvre can be seen as the ethical counterpart to the aesthetic of the Romantic sublime that is arguably no longer possible today.
30
Koylu, Hilal. "Press Ethics And Practice Of Journalism In Turkey:." Master's thesis, METU, 2006. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607793/index.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines the practice of the profession of journalism in Turkey and
whether the fundamental ethical codes and standards of journalism are being honored
in the contemporary market-driven media sector.
While media owners have consistently used the press as an instrument in the
furtherance of their interests, this problem has been aggravated by the recent
concentration in media ownership. The perception of readers as &lsquoconsumers&rsquo
has put a premium on entertainment and sensationalism while jeopardizing basic journalistic values. Forced to practice a type of journalism different to the model which drew them to the profession, many journalists have lost pride in their work along with confidence in the ability of the media to fulfill the public right to information in a democratic society. The thesis begins with an overview of the emergence of the ethical codes and practices of the profession before focusing on the Turkish media and the implementation of the various codes of practice and regulatory procedures which have been developed in Turkey. v The basic issue in media ethics is the morality of those in the sector and the compatibility of journalism and ethics. In order to ascertain if Turkish journalists believe these standards are being maintained, extensive interviews were undertaken with a sample group of a 114 journalists, comprising new and veteran reporters, editors and members of editorial boards. The study confirms that ethical codes and standards are not being followed in the Turkish media because of commercial constraints underlined by increasing concentration in the sector. Keywords: Turkish media, ethics.
31
Healy, John Morris. "The "official" ethics of the Catholic Church: A journey from ante(i)modernity to postmodernity." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9539.
Full textAbstract:
The goals of this thesis are twofold. First, an attempt is made to establish the moral doctrine of the Catholic Church and to place this doctrine within the general history of ethics as this history has developed in the West. This done, it will be possible to move onto our second objective, which is to assess the sociological status of the Catholic Church within the context of actual contemporary existence. To achieve the first goal it has been necessary to examine those texts of the contemporary MAGISTERIUM that pertain to ethical teaching. As a preparation for this analysis, we have looked at two texts from the Second Vatican council, texts which seemed to offer two different paths of ethical reflection. That is, these texts seemed either to offer an open door for reform in moral teaching in the Catholic Church, or to underwrite the traditional approach. Our analysis of Pope John Paul II's VERITATIS SPLENDOR indicates that the MAGISTERIUM has opted for the second path and has, in fact, re-allied itself with the traditional ethical approach of the Church as represented, unambiguously, by Pope Pius XII. With this task accomplished, it became necessary to analyze both the modern situation (Kant and the British Utilitarians) and the postmodern situation (that ethical judgements are contextually conditioned) in regard to ethics. Ernst Troeltsch's The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches was then used as a paradigm to note that the Church, by virtue of its ethical theory, is fast approaching sect status and losing its mainstream credibility. Prior to this historical and sociological reflection, however, it was necessary to review the reception that VERITATIS SPLENDOR received in Canada in both the religious and secular contexts in order to establish a framework within which to place the Church's thought and her sociological status. We will briefly indicate why we embraced these positions. 1. The 'official' ethical doctrine of the Catholic Church. We have attempted to outline the 'official' ethics of the Catholic Church by an analysis of the following documents: LUMEN GENTIUM and GUADIUM ET SPES from the Second Vatican Council; VERITATIS SPLENDOR of Pope John Paul II; Pope Paul VI's HUMANAE VITAE; and Pius XII's HUMANI GENERIS. These texts establish the firm basis in the 'natural law' upon which the Church founds her official ethical teaching. 2. Canadian reaction to 'VERITATIS SPLENDOR'. In this stage of the project we canvassed the various media reactions to the VERITATIS SPLENDOR as well as looking at Pope John Paul II's own reaction in his EVANGELIUM VITAE. In addition, a limited survey was conducted and an analysis done of the Human Life International convention held in Montreal in the summer of 1995. The above discussion indicated that the Pope's moral teaching is not seen as relevant to the times. 3. The Catholic Church's status in intellectual history and contemporary society. Our last chapter attempts to place the Church both as a system of thought and as an institution within history, This attempt includes a review of both modern and postmodern ethical thought as well as a use of the paradigm supplied by Ernst Troeltsch. Conclusion. We conclude that the Church benefits from postmodern plurality and is, in fact, becoming a sect.
32
McClure, Jeffrey W. "Profession and the Practice of Personal Financial Planning." Thesis, College for Financial Planning, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1526174.
Full textAbstract:
In the last third of the twentieth century, the financial, investment allocation, and management burden of providing for higher education, retirement, and the rising cost of health care, increasingly shifted from the government and corporations to the individual member of American society. As most were unprepared to bear that burden, an unfilled need came into existence for the middle-class individual or family to receive investment advice in order to effectively plan and manage a long-term investment portfolio. In the early 1970s the title financial planner began to commonly appear in literature, most commonly associated with the agents of life insurance companies who claimed to have the capability to meet that need. Within a decade, a set of organizations and pseudo-organizations had emerged offering credentialing titles. While their methods, definitions, and standards varied widely, they were in agreement that financial planning was a profession. While the specific definition of profession as an occupational category has been the subject of historical debate, there are relatively clear minimum requirements that can be identified from sociological and economic literature as well as from officially sanctioned lists of recognized professions. At present, personal financial planning, as defined by any credentialing organization or generally, does not meet those minimum standards. However, the opportunity exists for it to achieve professional status if a national organization representing the aspirant group claiming identity as financial planners establishes and enforces a clear set of mandatory standards for its members meeting those minimum professional requirements and is able to convince both society and the various state governments that it has done so.
33
Brown, Kevin J. "An inquiry into the economics and ethics of residential integration." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2012. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3138/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is an inquiry into the economics and ethics of residential integration. Efforts to integrate otherwise segregated black and white households in the United States over the last 40 years has been met with legitimate skepticism. Primarily, there is an absence of evidence as it relates to whether neighborhoods cause disadvantage (neighborhood effects) in addition to a lack of evidence related to whether “mixing” actually produces adequate social benefits for those being moved or for society as a whole. I intend to move the conversation forward by presenting two additional considerations. First, in the economic paradigm, it is useful to explore the issue of segregation through what has been described as adverse impacts occurring in the wake of a market failure (“subprime financial crisis”). Second, there are ethical considerations relevant to the integration discussion that offer new norms by which to engage and advance our approach to residential integration and endeavors to mix. This thesis makes a contribution to knowledge by explicating these two points and ultimately providing a more morally capacious evaluative framework by which to appraise this complex social issue.
34
Moreton, Kirsty Leigh. "The ethics of care and healthcare decision-making involving children in mid-childhood." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2017. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7579/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis contends that the traditional legal and ethical approach to healthcare decision-making for children in mid-childhood is insufficient to meet the needs of those children, their families and the professionals that care for them. To address this failing I present a normative framework based on the Ethics of Care to aid in decision-making. My unique contribution to knowledge is first, to focus on children in mid-childhood (age 8 -14 years old); a neglected group in the jurisprudence, and contend that the current interpretation of Gillick competence and best interests fail to fully appreciate the child’s capabilities or accommodate the families views. Secondly, I assert that the Ethics of Care is well placed to address the needs of children in this age group, whilst fostering child participation. To this end I develop a novel Ethic of Care framework, based upon the work of Jo Bridgeman. Thirdly, I undertake a systematic review of the case law, spanning a 26-year period, and chart patterns and trends in judicial thinking. Finally, I test the utility of the framework by applying it to three areas on the legal fringes: end of life care, living organ donation and treatment for gender dysphoria.
35
Abbinnett, Ross. "The ethics of heterogeneity : a speculative critique of Jean-François Lyotard's "The differend"." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1993. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36975/.
Full textAbstract:
The thesis is an attempt to develop a speculative (Hegelian) critique of the ethical and political questions raised by Jean-Francois Lyotard's book The Differend. I have argued that these questions are dependent upon the reading of Kant's three Critiques, and his political essays, which Lyotard develops in The Differend's four `notices' on Kant, and that it is this reading which opens up his concept of difference (`heterogeneity') to the possibility of a speculative critique. Chapter one comprises an examination of Lyotard's attempt to establish speculative thinking's dependence upon a metaphysical idea of the self as the possibility of ethical sublation. I have argued that Lyotard's appropriation of Adorno's idea of "Auschwitz" as blocking dialectical sublation, fails to recognize the speculative significance of the concrete conditions which produced the historical emergence of Nazism. The following three chapters are concerned to develop the argument that Lyotard's misrepresentation of the spirituality of Hegel's philosophy, conditions his reading of the critical philosophy as disclosing the possibility of a spontaneous (ethical) judgement of difference. Chapter two argues that Lyotard's claim to show critical subjectivity to be a `litigation' of self-conscious faculties, fails to recognize the actual lack of unity which characterizes Kant's `transcendental unity of apperception'. The exclusion of `otherness', which Lyotard claims is disclosed and suppressed in Kant's notion of cognitive experience, actually necessitates concrete selfrecognition. In chapter three, Lyotard's attempt to abstract an ethical `obligation without conditions' from Kant's critical morality is interrogated. I have argued that the aporias constituted through the spontaneity of practical reason, are reinforced through Lyotard's concept of `ethical time'. The final chapter develops a speculative approach to the notions of ethics and politics which Lyotard abstracts from the Third Critique. I have argued that the notion of an `unpredetermined' judgement which Lyotard articulates in the final sections of The Differend, constitutes a subjective `culture' which is ultimately non-ethical and apolitical.
36
Terry, Jillian. "Towards a feminist ethics of war : rethinking moral justifications for contemporary warfare." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3375/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis begins by arguing that dominant ethical approaches to the study of war in International Relations have failed to illuminate the moral and ethical complexities present in contemporary war practices such as drone warfare, private military contracting, and counterinsurgency. Such approaches are unable to account for the changing nature of war and resultant shifts in the ethical landscape of modern conflict. In particular, there has been a tendency amongst mainstream perspectives on the ethics of war (including here just war theory as well as traditions based in conceptions of rights and justice) to continue to view contemporary political violence in an abstract and individuated sense, whereby subjectivity and agency are constituted in isolation from other actors. This viewpoint obscures a central realm of ethical activity in war: the relational and experiential aspects of modern warfare where moral knowledge and understanding are constituted in relation to the needs of others, through a sense of responsibility, awareness, and connectedness with those around us. As an alternative to these existing approaches, this thesis engages in a redescription of feminist ethics premised on the notion of care. The theoretical framework constructed therein articulates a feminist care ethical vision based in four key areas: relationality, experience, empathy, and responsibility. These points assert the need for a relational ontology; recognize the importance of lived reality and experience; demonstrate a commitment to responsiveness and connectedness to others; and acknowledge a responsibility to the needs of particular others as central to morality. Using this framework, the remainder of the thesis explores the ethical nature of drone warfare, private military contracting, and counterinsurgency to demonstrate the usefulness of such a feminist ethical lens to our understandings of morality in post-9/11 conflict. In so doing, the framework exposes the complex web of relationships and experiences that are at work in the ethical decision-making processes of those who participate in and are impacted by war. It uncovers a new articulation of how ethics plays out in international conflict – one that acknowledges our constant interactions as social beings in the world, which continuously shape and reshape moral action.
37
May, David Keith. "Individual and collective human rights| The contributions of Jacques Maritain, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Martha Nussbaum." Thesis, The Florida State University, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3564926.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract The proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations on December 10, 1948 gave birth to the contemporary human rights movement. Despite the worldwide influence the idea of human rights has enjoyed, the concept of human rights has been plagued by a number of criticisms. Among the most pervasive and persistent criticisms of human rights are that they represent an individualist viewpoint, and they are a relative product of Western society that are hardly universal. One purpose of this dissertation is to challenge these criticisms. However, in recent decades the idea of human rights has been expanded past its original individual focus to incorporate the idea of collective, or group rights. The juxtaposition of universal, individual rights with particular, collective rights raises anew the issues of individualism and universalism in the human rights debate. In this dissertation, I compare the work of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, and the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum in order to yield a contextually sensitive natural law approach to human rights that will serve as a common justificatory basis for individual and collective human rights. This common justificatory basis is capable of addressing the questions of individualism and universalism generated by the theoretical tensions generated by the juxtaposition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which enshrines individual, universal rights, and the more recent United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), which enshrines more particularistic, group rights.
38
Oktar, Sibel. "On The Possibility Of Wittgensteinian Language Of Ethics." Phd thesis, METU, 2008. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609421/index.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
In this study, the standpoint that discourse on ethics is impossible is examined. As Ludwig Wittgenstein is the first philosopher who explicitly said that ethics is inexpressible, the main concentration is on Wittgenstein&rsquos conception of ethics. Analytic philosophy&rsquo
s questions regarding ethics are about the meaning of the expressions of value rather than conduct. It is generally recognized that the distinction between these questions and the emphasis on the definition of value judgements starts with G.E. Moore&rsquo
s Principia Ethica (PE). So G.E. Moore is included in the scope of this study. Wittgenstein&rsquo
s manifestation of the inexpressibility of metaphysical and ethical utterances influenced logical positivists. Hence, it is necessary that our scope should also include the Logical Positivist&rsquo
s two main meta-ethical theories, i.e., the emotive theory of ethics and naturalistic ethics. Wittgenstein&rsquo
s conception of ethics in his early and later periods are examined separately. This is because it is generally believed that his later works could provide a means of saying what &ldquo
cannot be said&rdquo
for early Wittgenstein. It is concluded that the conception of a language-game reflects well how we may have a discourse on ethics.
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Thornton, Simon. "The phenomenology of moral agency in the ethics of K.E. Logstrup." Thesis, University of Essex, 2017. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/21026/.
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Many philosophers hold that moral agency is defined by an agent’s capacity for rational reflection and self-governance. It is only through the exercise of such capacities, these philosophers contend, that one’s actions can be judged to be of distinctively moral value. The moral phenomenology of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup (1905-1981), currently enjoying a revival of interest amongst Anglo-American moral philosophers, is an exception to this view. Under the auspices of his signature theory of the ‘sovereign expressions of life,’ Løgstrup provides a rich moral phenomenology aimed at establishing the ethical value of ‘spontaneous,’ non-deliberative actions, such as those exemplified in the showing of trust and acts of mercy. In this thesis, my aim is to investigate what mode of moral agency, if any, is compatible with Løgstrup’s phenomenology of the sovereign expressions of life. I argue that Løgstrup’s moral phenomenology is compatible with a distinctive medio-passive mode of agency. According to this conception of moral agency, the subject’s agency is constituted not through her capacity to stand back and make a judgment on how to act, but rather in the way the subject comports herself in relation to situations and encounters that are experienced first-personally as overwhelming and encompassing. I will proceed by providing detailed analyses of the core aspects of Løgstrup’s moral phenomenology and his theory of the sovereign expressions of life. In the process, I will elucidate the decisive influence that thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard had on Løgstrup’s way of thinking about ethics. Thus, in this thesis my aim is to contribute both to Løgstrup scholarship and to central on-going debates in moral philosophy and the philosophy of action.
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Drew, Christ. "Literacy Practices of Student-Athletes: The Ethics of Repetition, Surveillance and Breakdown." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2009. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/57212.
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EnglishPh.D.
Literacy Practices of Student-Athletes: The Ethics of Repetition, Surveillance and Breakdown examines how a group of male basketball players as a small Division II university in the southeast United States used and were affected by literacy in their academic, athletic and social lives. The driving question that guided data collection was How do the physical learning and material conditions of high level basketball players at Richardson University influence their literacy practices? The impetus for this question was a desire to understand the relationship between the literate activity and moving bodies of these players. In school settings academic training is often conducted in ways that isolate the body from the mind. This ethnography sought to uncover if or how a bifurcation of mind/body occurred amid the training practices of these subjects. To accomplish this task, the study was designed to look at what bodies were doing during "literacy events." "Literacy events," which is borrowed from Barton and Hamilton, functioned as the core unit of analysis of the database. The method for pursuing the primary research question was ethnography. For one academic year I observed, interviewed, took fieldnotes, collected artifacts and supervised photographic literacy logs. Observations were conducted across the campus of Richardson University in three domains of the players' lives - academic, athletic and social domains. Interviews were conducted with individual players and were based off of fieldnotes, observations and the players' photo literacy logs that the players made as a way of documenting samples of their literacy practices. There were four core findings that this study of these student-athletes allows me to state with certainty: (1) these student-athletes' training methods influenced their literacy, (2) these student-athletes have highly sophisticated literacy that reflects their highly sophisticated cognition, and (3) these student-athletes liked their training regimens. The fourth finding can be split into thirds based on the three themes organizing the data of the study - Repetition, Surveillance and Breakdown. And, each of these attests to the highly physical nature of these student-athletes' academic and athletic training; they also indicate the extent to which reading-writing was infused in this training. Repetition was essential to habituating motor-movements as the foundation for being able to move beyond the basic physicality of a literacy event to more critical, higher order engagement. Repetition is not a mindless, rote activity. Repetition is thinking. Surveillance was an effective educational technology for instilling positive literacy habits through a system of control and observation. Breakdown was another educational technology that demonstrated a powerful connection between body and mind, similar to repetition. These three concepts and the conversations that support them illustrate that literacy is not simply a cognitive act; it is not just a way of thinking, but a socially embedded way of acting.
Temple University--Theses
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Jasmin, Jean-Christophe. "Communication et Éthique chez Kierkegaard." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/28708.
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Rogers, Ruth. "The ethics of the self and the social security discourse of the 'jobseeker'." Thesis, Brunel University, 2002. http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/5014/.
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Hobson, Clark Ashley. "Interpretivism and the four principles approach to biomedical ethics : judicial decision making in cases with an inherently ethical content." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2015. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5652/.
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Judges are often reluctant to interact with medical ethics when deciding cases with an inherently ethical content. They sometimes even transfer decision-making responsibilities to medical ethics groups. At times this unwillingness is based on the presumption that medical ethics will be able to perform an effective regulatory function. The problem is there is a wide range of ethical discourse, both official and unofficial; so much it can cancel itself out. Therefore, as a regulatory tool for the medical profession, medical ethics is insufficient for the job. Judges, on the other hand, could arbitrate between competing ethical conclusions. Indeed, there is a strong argument they \(should\). This thesis addresses this timely and complex issue. Judges need to be willing and able to rely on the soundness of their own moral convictions to recognise and deal appropriately with the inherent ethical content in certain cases. In order to do this, they need a decision-making framework that recognises the ethical nature of judicial decision-making, so as to provide judges with confidence in applying moral principles and medical ethics. This thesis will provide such an integrated framework.
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Yung, Pik-ching. "The establishment of a General Teaching Council in Hong Kong : a policy analysis /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1992. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B13907049.
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Woodhall, Andrew Christopher. "Addressing anthropocentrism in nonhuman ethics : evolution, morality, and nonhuman moral beings." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2017. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7186/.
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In this thesis I put forward a new definition of anthropocentrism based on a thorough overview of use in the literature and via analogy with other centrisms, such as androcentrism. I argue that thus clarified anthropocentrism is unjustified and results in problems for nonhuman animals and that any nonhuman ethic should wish to avoid. I then demonstrate how important nonhuman ethics theories are anthropocentric on this definition, and do not address anthropocentrism, in a way that results in these problems for nonhumans. I therefore propose a nonhuman ethic that aims to be less anthropocentric. I do this by first considering morality in light of evolution and second by looking at nonhuman moral codes. I draw upon both of these to set out a less anthropocentric nonhuman ethic and show why this account is at least as viable as, and less problematic than, the current theories as well as outlining its beneficial implications for nonhuman animals and the field. I conclude that anthropocentrism and approaching nonhuman ethics in the manner I have is therefore important for considering nonhuman issues, and that the theory I have put forward is advantageous.
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Ford, Amanda Kirstine. "The self in the mirror of the Scriptures : the hermeneutics and ethics of Paul Ricoeur." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2012. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12634/.
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In 'Oneself as another' Paul Ricoeur considers the nature of selfhood concluding that it can only be understood as polyvalent. He uses narrative identity to show that because selves both “act and suffer” human identity is intimately tied with encounter with the Other. The ethical dimension is explored in a mediation between Aristotelian teleological ethics and Kantian deontological morality, resulting in phronēsis or practical wisdom. The book ends with a number of aporias, including the problem of identifying the internal voice, heard in the conscience – the voice of attestation. In a related paper, which provided the impetus for this thesis - “The self in the mirror of the Scriptures” - Ricoeur considers the issues of identity from a religious perspective. The thesis critically reviews the development of Ricoeur’s thought, moving from philosophy through hermeneutics to ethics, and its implications for theology, moving from questions of the will, to biblical hermeneutics and Christian ethics. It questions the concept of narrative identity and is particularly concerned with the place of the incompetent narrator in community. It concludes that we must take seriously Ricoeur’s insistence that biblical faith adds nothing to the consideration of what is good or obligatory, but belongs to an economy of the gift in which love is tied to the naming of God. However, to consider what this might mean in pastoral and ethical terms for those who understand themselves as summoned selves, and seek to find their image in the mirror of scripture, the thesis concludes with extended exercise in biblical hermeneutics, drawing on Ricoeur’s consideration of genre as a poetic mode. The thesis suggests that the comic parables help us to hope for more than we experience in our frailty, while the tragic parables illuminate our incapacity and enable us to forgive others their failure.
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Labrecque, Cory Andrew. "In saecula saeculorum: transhumanist philosophy, biogerontology, and the Roman Catholic magisterium on the ethics of radical life extension." Thesis, McGill University, 2011. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=96759.
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The roots of the human desire for agelessness and the want to surpass the limitations of the human condition go deep into the reaches of history. The religious disposition for immortality is ancient. However, the concept of transcending human nature and ushering in a new kind of earthly existence is largely attributed to prominent evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley, who coined the term "transhumanism" in his 1957 publication Knowledge, Morality, and Destiny.Contemporary transhumanism, which is both a philosophy and a movement, criticizes our apathy in having relinquished human evolutionary development to Nature; instead, it looks to assume proper control over our (re)design, through the responsible use of science and technology, in order to offset the shortcomings that are regrettable characteristics of our current human state. The inevitability of ageing and death, inadequate and fluctuating intellectual capacity, corporeal unreliability, and emotional fragility are but a sample of those features of the human condition which, according to transhumanists, encumber our flourishing, suspend us in stasis, and, therefore, necessitate biotechnological intervention.This dissertation engages transhumanism, biogerontology, and the Roman Catholic Magisterium on the matter of radical life extension (RLE). No longer within the realm of simple speculation, the idea of increasing human life expectancy by decades (at least) has become a serious scientific pursuit. Even though the Roman Catholic Church has been, and continues to be, an active contributor to bioethical discourse, it has not yet ruled on the permissibility or desirability of this particular prospect. Over centuries, the Church has developed sophisticated doctrines on immortality, salvation, and transcendence that address human finitude, but these are described as being attainable only outside of, or beyond, the scope of this mortal, temporal human experience. The expectation of a growing number of scientists and philosophers is that, in due time, humans will know indefinite longevity (or "virtual immortality") in the here-and-now. Here, I take up advances in biogerontology and a comparison of transhumanist and Roman Catholic approaches to RLE with special attention given to the ethical implications for personhood, the common good, the social order, and the environment. I also consider the possibility of classifying transhumanism as a secular religion.Le désir de l'homme de trouver la fontaine de Jouvence et de dépasser les limites de la condition humaine est profondément enraciné dans l'histoire. Les religions, pour leur part, parlent depuis toujours d'immortalité. Quoi qu'il en soit, le concept de transcendance de la nature humaine et d'ouverture à un nouveau type d'existence terrestre est largement attribuable à l'éminent biologiste de l'évolution Julian Huxley qui, en 1957, invente le terme « transhumanism » (transhumanisme) dans Knowledge, Morality, and Destiny.Le transhumanisme contemporain, qui constitue à la fois une philosophie et un mouvement, nous blâme d'avoir baissé les bras et d'avoir abandonné à la nature le développement évolutif humain; il cherche plutôt une façon de reprendre la maîtrise de notre (re)développement en faisant un usage responsable de la science et de la technologie afin de compenser les lacunes qui sont des caractéristiques regrettables de l'être humain à l'heure actuelle. Le caractère inévitable du vieillissement et de la mort, une capacité intellectuelle inadéquate et fluctuante, le manque de fiabilité du corps, ainsi qu'une fragilité émotionnelle représentent des exemples de ces caractéristiques de la condition humaine qui, selon les transhumanistes, empêchent notre épanouissement, nous mettent en état d'arrêt, et nécessitent, par conséquent, une intervention biotechnologique.Le présent mémoire examine les positions du transhumanisme, de la biogérontologie et du Magistère catholique romain en matière d'extension radicale de la vie humaine. L'idée de prolonger l'espérance de vie de dizaines d'années (au moins), qui ne relève plus de la simple spéculation, constitue maintenant un sérieux champ d'investigation scientifique. Même si l'Église catholique romaine a contribué activement au discours bioéthique, et continue de le faire, elle n'a pas encore entériné le caractère recevable et désirable d'une telle perspective. Si, au cours des siècles, l'Église a élaboré des doctrines sophistiquées qui traitent de la finitude de l'humain, soit de son immortalité, de son salut, et de sa transcendance, elle décrit ces états comme n'étant atteignables qu'en dehors, ou au-delà, de la portée de cette expérience humaine temporelle et mortelle. Un nombre grandissant de scientifiques et de philosophes s'attendent à ce que, le temps venu, les humains connaissent une espérance de vie indéfinie (ou une « immortalité virtuelle »), une permanence dans l'instant présent. Je prends en compte ici les avancées de la biogérontologie et une comparaison des approches du transhumanisme et de l'Église catholique en regard de l'extension radicale de la vie humaine en accordant une attention particulière aux répercussions sur le plan éthique pour la personne, le bien commun, l'ordre social, et l'environnement. Je considère également la possibilité de classifier le transhumanisme comme « religion séculière ».
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Bouhaimed, Manal Mansour. "Medical ethics : a study of moral developments in medical students at Kuwait University." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1997. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1976/.
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There are few in depth attempts to address the question: why teach ethics to medical students? This thesis argues that, identifying moral growth and development as the primary goal in teaching medical ethics is essential. Lawrence Kohlberg's moral development theory is the starting point for this research. This is important to understand the work of the researcher at the Medial School in Kuwait. The instrument used in assessing the moral reasoning of medical students at Kuwait University is the Defining Issues Test (DIT), which was devised at the University of Minnesota. The study hypothesis is that the rigid, authoritarian medical education in Kuwait University that lacks any emphasis on medical ethics will inhibit the expected growth in moral development of medical students. With a disappointing response rate of only 27.8%, it was found that normally expected growth did not occur in the first four years of medical education, suggesting that the educational experience somehow inhibited student's moral reasoning ability rather than facilitating it. The results of this study cannot be understood in isolation from the general understanding of the fabric of the researcher society, which was detailed in Chapter Five. The implication of this study is basically that medical education that ignores the moral nature of medicine will fail its own purpose, the needs of its students and the welfare of society.
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Seip, Robert. "Complementary and alternative medicine : ethics, legality, and use of the best available science." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2015. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/71691/.
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The purpose of this thesis is to provide a robust epistemological justification for Evidence Based Medicine (EMB), and thereby to demonstrate the epistemological short comings of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). CAM has received support from both philosophers, such as Rorty and Feyerband, and the Sociology and Anthropology of Medicine. The thesis will thus review both the internal coherence and the application of non-realist arguments, and counter non-realism with the realist epistemology and philosophy of science that is represented by C.S. Peirce’s pragmatism. Rorty and Feyerabend and others have developed radical forms of scientific antirealism in the latter 20th century. Subsequently, sociologists developed even more intractable forms of anti-realism, which they applied to the social study of science. This approach served to challenge the legitimacy of orthodox scientific practice (including EMB). A practical expression of this controversy was immediately identified in the question of the role of scientific authority in a democratic society. That question was immediately applied to the status of alternative medical systems and their legitimacy vis-a-vis EBM in terms of the controversy over what has come to be termed "medical pluralism": If scientific medicine has no particular authority, should other, medical systems, epistemically incompatible with EBM, be made available as well? The thesis will suggest that non-realism is in fact a marginal position within the philosophy of science. Scientists, medical researchers and medical practitioners may thus appeal to the philosophy of science in order to justify their authority in the face of challenges from CAM. However, it will be suggested that they are frequently ill-served by a reliance on a simplistic understanding of the philosophy of Karl Popper. An alternative will be proposed in the philosophy of C. S. Peirce. His pragmatism offers to medical research and medical practice a way of understanding and justifying the scientific process, a justification of realism in the face of non-realism, and a resource for the criticism of CAM and medical pluralism, as at once epistemologically ill grounded and potentially dangerous to patients and the general public.
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Pearmain, Charles. "Authenticity : an ethic of capacity realisation." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2427/.
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My interests lie in consideration of conceptions of authenticity and inauthenticity from the perspective of ethical theories which conceive of the good for man with reference to human nature and concomitant beliefs regarding the most appropriate realisation of human capacities. Here, I find particular interest in the philosophical styles embodied by the existentialist and Lebensphilosophie movements. Such approaches sit outside the traditional frames of reference provided by deontological and utilitarian approaches to ethical reasoning and yet do I shall argue, share significant similarities with ancient aretaic styles of ethics. Here, I take Aristotle to represent those aspects of ethical thought which are quintessentially of this period of intellectual history. I find not merely points of comparison but a fruitful way in which to re-examine the thought of thinkers such as Nietzsche, Scheler, Heidegger and Sartre with reference to styles of ethical enquiry which place primacy upon an objective conception of happiness which centres upon the appropriate realisation of human capacity understood with reference to Aristotle's Function Argument. I argue that phenomenological analysis shares a conception of self-perspicuity in which the agent reflects upon the full contents of their conscious experience. By this means, certain self-delusions which impede entry into the ethical life, may be removed. Additionally, whilst Aristotle's 'non-law' conception of ethics shares with existentialist thought an understanding of the human situation and its normative concerns in isolation from dualistic and theistic metaphysical speculation, such philosophy is still able to provide clear and objective ethical standards - standards often lacking within existentialism. For instance, whilst Nietzsche's pronouncement of the 'death of God' signals the death also of Christian morality, we find that such philosophy is not without normative implications and in fact can be derived to a large degree from assent towards a radical and more severe ethical self-discipline. Indeed, central certainly to the thought of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre is an understanding of the role of self-deception in the human condition. Here a useful distinction may be made between those types of self-deception which may be understood as structural that is to say which are representative of an essential characteristic of human being at the abstract level - and those types of self-deception which may be described as 'motivated' or 'psychological' which relate to more specific types of self-deceptive engagement. I believe it is useful to examine both Nietzsche, Heidegger and Sartre through the lens of such interpretation, I find for instance that it is of use to examine the early Sartre as having a purely structural interpretation of bad faith (described by Jeanson as 'natural' bad-faith) whilst moving towards a psychological account in his later work, an account which has more specific moral implications with the possibility of 'willed conversion' to authenticity (Santoni). Additionally with Nietzsche, we also find a similar distinction between a self-deception which is in some sense preconditional and a motivational account of self-deception in which the agent infused with ressentiment falsifies reality in favour of subjective needs which are ultimately destructive of life-enhancement. In this sense the vicious individual can be said to have achieved merely a false optimum, and moreover, false from an objective standpoint.