<p><em>Suffering is often awarded a prominent p</em><em>lace in many conceptions of ethics as a consideration worthy of moral concern. This is done however, without a thorough understanding of what suffering is, or why suffering is morally significant, as full accounts of the nature and moral significance of suffering are few and far between. Our attention in this project is on elucidating what suffering is, and why it is morally significant, as well as understanding suffering’s complex relationship to well-being. Additionally, we also utilize what has been established about suffering to begin to understand and outline what the ramifications of treating suffering as a separate consideration might be for morality.</em><em> </em></p> <p><em> </em></p> <p><em><br /></em></p> / Master of Philosophy (MA)

<p>How do we preserve patient dignity in the health care context? I begin with a brief overview of dignity according to Kant, and follow this with an examination of what dignity means to patients and practitioners. I then propose a relational and care approach to dignity that does not indelibly tie individual dignity to any particular capacity or set of capacities. A relational and care account of the equal dignity all individuals possess ensures all human beings have value as particular individuals – value that demands respect – regardless of individual capacity. With a relational and care approach to dignity in mind I suggest and defend that patient dignity is best preserved and promoted in the context of the patient-practitioner relationship. I reject the notion patient-practitioner relationships are contractual in nature and suggest adopting a model of ‘relationship as engagement’ (Bergum and Dossetor, 2005) as a means to respecting patient dignity. I look at two major barriers to ‘relationship as engagement’ – the manner in which health care is delivered and the evidence-based medicine movement – and suggest ways to address and overcome these barriers. I conclude the paper by highlighting the various accounts of centredness (patient, person, client, family, relationship) espoused by many health care organisations, affirming relationship is the appropriate vehicle for respecting patient dignity.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>This thesis aims to develop a principled rationale for coercible environmental protectionist duties, based on Kant’s <em>Metaphysics of Morals</em>, specifically, the <em>Doctrine of Right</em>. The claim of the thesis is not that such a rationale can be directly extracted from Kant’s arguments in that work, but rather that it can be reasonably extrapolated based on Kant’s framework. For Kant, politico-juridical authority, and its exercise via coercion, can be justified only in terms of the requirements of a system of freedom. Accordingly, the only legitimate rationale for coercively inhibiting environmentally destructive activities would be that such activities are, in one way or another, contrary to freedom, or incompatible with a system of Right based on freedom. The Kantian perspective on law and politics, as applied to environmental issues, demands that we ask: in what way do acts of environmental destruction constitute a hindrance, obstruction, or diminishment, of freedom; or, in what way are such acts a defective and transgressive exercise of freedom? The basic aim of this thesis is to answer these questions, and, more specifically, to establish that owners of finite natural resources (especially land) owe duties of forbearance with respect to their holdings, i.e., duties not to destroy or dissipate (or use non-sustainably) such resources. A primary challenge is that, from a Kantian perspective, any such analysis has to be based exclusively on the idea of freedom – as opposed to notions of “harm”, “welfare”, the “public good” or the “intrinsic value of nature”. Kant’s “Juridical Postulate of Practical Reason” furnishes the key to our response: environmentally destructive activity is a hindrance to freedom, and thus transgressive, because it renders usable natural resources unavailable for further use, whereas the postulate actually demands that ostensibly usable objects remain available for use in perpetuity. Further, the permissibility of environmental destruction ultimately entails the permissibility of the annihilation of the material preconditions of any possible exercise of freedom. As such, environmentally destructive acts must be intolerable within a system of Right, and environmental preservation is an imperative of Right.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>In this thesis I argue that the utility of employing the human right to water within discussions of water security is intimately related to the population under consideration, such that its use can be more or less effective depending on <em>whose</em> water security one is considering. This is owed to the fact that employing the human right to water in discussions of water security is useful only in the case of states that are able to satisfy the conditions necessary for the successful implementation of the human right to water as a positive legal right: i) being possessed of adequate amounts of the resource in question, ii) being possessed of the political willingness to provide the resource, and iii) being possessed of the capacity, including the infrastructure, to supply the end user with the resource.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>At present, the United Nations Security Council has exclusive power over the authorization of humanitarian intervention. Any intervention, regardless of intentions or success, which proceeds without explicit authorization from the Security Council is both illegal and of questionable legitimacy. However, there are strong reasons to believe that the Security Council is a sub-optimal decision making body and therefor ill-suited for this task. The purpose of this thesis is to explore these reasons and propose that Standardized Regional Organizations are an ideal alternative to the Security Council.</p> <p>This thesis proceeds in three chapters. The first chapter discusses the intricacies of humanitarian intervention and the inherent conflict between state sovereignty and international human rights protection. This chapter explores the core issues which an authorizing institution would have to weigh in any humanitarian crisis. The second chapter outlines the exact role which an authorizing institution plays in the norm of humanitarian intervention and the specific qualities which an ideal institution requires. The third and final chapter utilizes conclusions drawn in the first two to critically examine potential alternatives to the Security Council. After demonstrating that all the alternatives available in the literature are problematic, and Standardized Regional Institutions are proposed and defended.</p> <p>The Standardized Regional Organization proposal calls for Regional Organizations to adopt a new, standardized institutional model which will massively improve their ability to properly deal with humanitarian crises. By building transparency safeguards and accountability mechanisms into Regional Organizations’ decision making procedures they become highly reliable bodies for the authorization of humanitarian intervention. This approach captures the standing practical benefits inherent to Regional Organizations and adds philosophical rigour to their decision making procedures.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>A fundamental problem in political philosophy is how the freedom and equality of persons can be reconciled with the authority of social morality or law. The Kantian solution is to hold that the exercise of authority can be legitimate if and only if it is freely endorsed by the subjects of its exercise; thereby allowing persons to act as both subject and legislator. However, the fact of reasonable pluralism makes this approach problematic. A recent attempt to solve this conflict between authority and the free and equal idea, while also accounting for the fact of reasonable pluralism, is the theory of public reason liberalism developed by Gerald Gaus. The aim of this thesis is to give a critical evaluation of how successful Gaus is in solving this fundamental problem, while also situating public reason liberalism within the larger debate. The first chapter gives an overview of Gaus's theory and introduces some preliminary worries about the possibility of successfully converging on a workable set of socio-moral rules under public reason liberalism. Chapter two goes further, developing an internal critique of Gaussean public reason liberalism, and showing how this critique could play out using real-world examples. Chapter three explores alternative approaches to realizing the free and equal ideal in an attempt to situate Gaus's theory within the larger debate; finally concluding that Gaussean public reason liberalism is deeply problematic, both on a theoretical and a practical level, yet still offers important insights into the relationship between social-morality and the freedom and equality of persons.</p> / Master of Philosophy (MA)

<p>Martin Heidegger is widely viewed as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. He is also generally viewed as an irrational metaphysician, as someone who has much to say about Being, but very little of it as making sense. Moreover, his thought is viewed as having very little to say about ethics; that is, the question of how we ought to live. In this thesis I argue that Heidegger's concept of Being is not irrational, and that his thought is primarily ethical. I argue that Heidegger's thought centres around the concept of authentic self -understanding, and that this form of selfunderstanding is deeply linked to solidarity with others and concern for things, what he describes as the care for Being</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Does choice excuse inequality? Some contemporary egalitarians – often referred to as “Luck Egalitarians” – believe it does. However, many seemingly chosen inequalities obtain between men and women as a group. A recent surge of empirical literature has sought to demonstrate the role that individual choice plays in producing and maintaining a subset of existing gender inequalities (e.g. the gender wage gap). This thesis considers the status of such inequalities in the context of the Luck Egalitarian project. More precisely, it considers whether the claim that choice excuses inequality is appropriate to the phenomenon of gendered choice. In Chapter 1, I argue that Luck Egalitarianism, as it currently stands, does not adequately deal with the topic of gendered choice. I maintain that this is due largely to the fact that it is not sufficiently attentive to the social forces shaping gendered choices (e.g. socialization, hostile social climates). In Chapter 2, I discuss whether attending more fully to factors that facilitate autonomy gives Luck Egalitarianism a way to incorporate a more robust discussion of gender into its account of responsible choice. I argue that contextualizing the choice/circumstance principle is the key to ensuring that it tracks truly autonomous choice, and avoids treating choices shaped by gender norms as justifiably disadvantage-conferring. In Chapter 3, I begin the project of articulating a set of background conditions against which we can deem choices authentic. I draw on feminist approaches to the philosophy of autonomy to inform this project. I come to the conclusion that choice excuses inequality only if such choices are made against conditions which actively work against gender-specific constraints on choice. / Graduate / 0422 / emma.e.byrnes@gmail.com

This thesis examines the idea of the non-sovereign self and the role it plays in the work of Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, and Stanley Cavell. Based on their critiques of the subject a philosophical anthropology is forwarded that stresses that humans can only be understood in relation to their environment. This highlights the role of language, embodiment, and psychic attachment for the notion of the non-sovereign self and maintains that humans are finite and contingent beings. The finiteness of the self's knowledge of itself and others also implies that the self cannot give a cohesive narrative account of its emergence. Moreover, its relationship to the unknowable other is constitutive for the relational self. The notion of the other signifies not only the concrete other person, but also those other living beings and social structures on whom the self depends for its survival. From this notion of non-sovereign, relational selfhood the thesis forwards an argument about the interrelation between ethical and political thought. Ethics is defined not in terms of the subject's accountability for its past actions, but by a primary responsibility for the other. By showing that ethical and political thought are closely intertwined, an understanding of political community is forwarded that highlights the role of responsibility towards those excluded from current forms of political representation. Turning to the role of affects for our understanding of political agency the role of cohesiveness, permeability and durability for political communities is interrogated. Stressing that the self remains a 'structure in formation' allows to account for the possibility of political agency which is not bound to a pre-established, shared social identity, but is motivated by one's ethical responsibility for others.

G.A. Cohen argues that John Rawls' method of political philosophy--in particular his sensitivity to the facts of human nature--leads him inexorably to producing a nonideal conception of justice. In this thesis I defend Rawls against this accusation by demonstrating that the facts of human nature that he shows deference towards are a product of the "free development" of his ideal conception of the person. The result is that Rawls' conception of justice has the power and status that Rawls affords it, and that Cohen's critique fails to cause internal damage to Rawls' theory. My thesis is thus what the subtitle says it is: an essay in defence of John Rawls' deference to "human nature" from the "concessionary criticism" of G.A. Cohen.