A long history of research in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience has explored moral utilitarian research questions, decision mechanisms and behaviour. For example, in the question ‘Is it appropriate for you to sacrifice one workman in order to save five workmen?’ moral utilitarian theorists (consequentialism) would answer with ‘Yes’, as utility maximisation and moral justification is achieved by the consequence of this moral decision (‘saving the greatest number’). Accordingly,psychologists have explored the psychological validity and range of behavioural violations of this utilitarian normative prediction. For example, theorists haveproposed a dual-process moral utility theory (e.g., Bartels, 2008; Cushman et al.,2006; Greene, 2007; Greene, et al., 2001; Haidt, 2001; Pizarro & Bloom, 2003;Young & Koenigs, 2007; Evans & Stanovich, 2013), and argued that this moral utilitarian model predicts rational and irrational behaviour for morally sensitive decision alternatives. The dual-process moral utility theory assumes that two psychological systems are involved in moral decision-making: (i) deliberative and effortful (cognitive processing) and (ii) automatic and effortless (emotional activations). Moreover, the theory predicts ‘emotional interference’ for moral scenarios with personal involvement (to push a stranger on to the track in order to save the five strangers) inducing (i) irrational behaviour and (ii) decision delay (longer response time), even when participants make a rational choice in dilemmas with personal involvement. These predictions were empirically confirmed (e.g., Greene et al., 2001) - respondents judged moral dilemmas with personal involvement (‘to push’ in footbridge dilemma) as less appropriate, than equivalent moral dilemmas with impersonal involvement (‘to hit a switch’ in the trolley dilemma). Greene and colleagues concluded that moral 14 dilemmas with personal involvement were more emotionally salient and cognitively demanding, as respondents took significantly more time deciding about moral dilemmas with personal involvement. In nine experiments, I have developed further the empirical moral utilitarian method, and empirically explored and identified a generic utilitarian cognitive factor – ‘uncertainty’ (caused by partial and insufficient descriptions of utilitarian information) – that predicts rationality and irrationality in moral decision-making. As the experimental results confirmed, this factor had an independent influence (beyond the type of dilemma and involvement – previously confounded in experimental research) on moral utilitarian behaviour. An increased accessibility to utilitarian information decreased psychological uncertainty, inducing rational moral utilitarian behaviour across the experiments. Moreover, in contrast to the dual-process utilitarian theory, when making a rational choice respondents took less time with scenarios offering full utilitarian accessibility (full text description of the scenarios and moral choice questions and supported by visualisation of decision consequences), than with scenarios offering partial textual descriptions of moral utilitarian information (as with all moral experimental studies published since Thomson, 1985). This finding is important, as it offers methodological improvements to the study of moral decisionmaking and reveals issues with the dual-process moral utilitarian theory predictions and assumed psychological mechanisms. Neuroscience research should build upon the methodological improvements and empirical evidence provided in this dissertation, and explore further the plausibility that the emotional activations predicted by the dual-process moral utility theory are, in fact, degree of uncertainty (experiments 1 to 9) caused by limited accessibility to utilitarian information. Furthermore, the results form experiments 4 and 5 revealed no difference (as 15 predicted by previous research, e.g., Tassy et al., 2013) in the behavioural utilitarian patterns between moral choice and moral judgements. I found that uncertainty significantly predicted both moral choice and moral judgements – additional evidence of the generalisability of uncertainty as a major factor that should be taken into account by moral utilitarian researchers. Moreover, in experiments 6, 7, 8 and 9 I discovered additional and not previously considered psychological factors influencing moral utilitarian behaviour. In experiments 6 and 7 the respondents, in their effort to maximise utility, were influenced by the utility ratio of the moral trade-offs. For example, and in addition to the eliminated uncertainty (caused by insufficient utilitarian information), the increased number of victims induced respondents’ moral rational behaviour. This result can be attributed to enhanced reward activations for utilitarian moral dilemmas, offering ‘saving of more victims’. In experiments 8 and 9 I also found that content of utility is a psychological factor predicting moral utilitarian behaviour. Processing moral utilitarian contents, which consist of things we can own or previously have owned (e.g., experience with utilitarian trade-offs) – nonhuman and inanimate stimuli – induced respondents’ utilitarian choice rationality. The results from nine experiments are novel and have the potential to contribute to the theoretical development of both normative and psychological moral decisionmaking. The research findings will inform theories of judgement, decision-making, moral reasoning, experimental philosophy and neuroscience about the psychological factors (not previously explored) underlying moral decision-making, and their influence on utilitarian rationality. Moreover, it is envisaged that the research findings and knowledge from this dissertation have practical applications. For example, in the development of training interventions (for special security units and law enforcements agencies), the relevant authorities should take into account the influence of decision 16 uncertainty, content of utility (decision training paradigms), and utility ratios involved in moral trade-offs.

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In this thesis, I investigate two challenges for Act Consequentialism which arise in situations where many agents together can make a difference in the world. Act Consequentialism holds that agents morally ought to perform those actions which have the best expected consequences. The first challenge for Act Consequentialism is that it often asks too much. This problem arises in situations where agents can individually make a difference for the better, e.g. by donating money to charities that fight extreme poverty. Act Consequentialism here often requires agents to make immense sacrifices which threaten to compromise agents future ability to do more good, reduce agents to a drastically simple lifestyle, and amount to taking up the slack left by others. The second challenge is that Act Consequentialism often asks too little. This problem arises both in situations where agents can not make any difference for the better, e.g. by stopping to pollute the environment, and in situations where they can not make any difference whatsoever, e.g. when they individually vote or protest against a morally bad but widely supported policy. Act Consequentialism is subject to the above challenges because it only considers the differences that individuals can make on their own. A natural response is to adopt a form of Collective Consequentialism which considers the difference that agents can make together. I investigate how far Act Consequentialism can deal with each of the above challenges, and how far these challenges require us to adopt Collective Consequentialism.

This dissertation is oriented around two moral ideals. The first is equality and the second perfection or excellence. In the chapter 2 I review some of the literature on the seemingly devastating ‘Levelling Down Objection’ to equality. I am in agreement with Larry Temkin that the Levelling Down Objection is true only if we believe that ‘person-affecting’ value, more specifically, welfare, is the only thing that matters in the moral universe. Hence, the Levelling down objeciton is premised on the truth of an undefended, highly contentious monism about value The purpose for introducing the Levelling Down Objection in chapter 1 is made clear in chapter 3, where I suggest a new problem for egalitarians. Equality is a comparative relation holding between people. Relations are not properties, and, since it is widely assumed that value supervenes exclusively on properties, we need to show how a relation could be of value. It is crucial to be able say how this could be the case. However, this issue has, to the best of my knowledge, not been addressed in the literature on equality. If we cannot answer this quesiton then the value of the equality relation must reduce to the value of its relata. I try to offer a framework which at least goes as far as demonstrating that this need not be true. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the value of perfection. I offer a careful reading of the work of an important defender and an important critic of this ideal, the former being Immanuel Kant and the latter being Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The aim of these two chapters is twofold; firstly, I show that the value of perfection consists in the development and cultivation of our capacities for rationality. Secondly I show how perfectionism illuminates the importance of culture and the arts. In the final chapter I bring the insights of this dissertation together in order to address a practical question; whether there are egalitarian reasons to support the arts.

This dissertation explores a number of interrelated metaphysical and epistemological issues regarding pleasure, suffering and their apparent value and disvalue, thematically tied together by the broad idea that pleasant and unpleasant experiences are, respectively, experienced as good and bad. More specifically, I try, firstly, to advance the debate regarding the nature of pleasure by arguing for what I shall call the "Self-Experiential View" - the view that pleasant experiences are pleasant in virtue of being experienced as good. Secondly, I assess the merits of the "Hedonic-Evaluative Acquaintance Thesis" - the natural conjecture, expressed by a number of authors, that our especially intimate experiential relationship ("acquaintance") with the evaluative features of our hedonic experiences grounds a particularly robust kind of epistemic status enjoyed by our hedonic-evaluative beliefs, which makes them less vulnerable to sceptical doubt. In chapter 1, I lay some groundwork for the ensuing discussion, by introducing a number of background claims which help to motivate these two theses. Moreover, I isolate two specific important ways of unpacking the Hedonic-Evaluative Acquaintance Thesis and clarify some central concepts which feature prominently in the subsequent chapters. In chapter 2, I defend the "Self-Experiential View." I proceed by addressing a number of objections which have been levelled against the view in the literature, and locate it in relation to the views which currently dominate the debate regarding the nature of pleasure. In chapter 3, I assess and ultimately reject the first important version of the Hedonic-Evaluative Acquaintance Thesis singled out in chapter 1, the "Naïve Realist Hedonic-Evaluative Acquaintance Thesis," which states that Naïve Realist acquaintance with pleasure's evaluative nature grounds a distinctive, especially robust kind of epistemic status enjoyed by our hedonic-evaluative beliefs. In chapter 4, I assess the "Introspective Hedonic-Evaluative Acquaintance Thesis", the attempt to vindicate the Hedonic-Evaluative Acquaintance Thesis by extending an acquaintance account of phenomenal introspective justification to the hedonic-evaluative case. By carefully unpacking a range of different candidate conceptions of introspective acquaintance, I home in on what I consider the most appealing acquaintance account of phenomenal introspection, and argue that it should not be extended to the hedonic-evaluative case, which means that this proposal also fails. A brief concluding chapter summarises the key conclusions of the dissertation and highlights some questions raised in the course of my discussion which would seem to warrant further investigation.

In my thesis, I examine the role of character friendship for the agent’s moral development in Aristotle’s ethics. I contend that we should divide character friendship in two categories: a) character friendship between completely virtuous agents, and, b) character friendship between unequally developed, or, equally developed, yet not completely virtuous agents. Regarding the first category, I argue that this highest form of friendship provides the opportunity for the agent to advance his understanding of certain virtues through the help of his virtuous friend. This process can be expressed in two ways. In the first way, I take character friendship in (a) as a relationship that is based on mutual relinquishing of opportunities for action or giving up external goods based on each agent’s needs. This process helps the agents develop their character in certain virtues which have remained slightly underdeveloped than others due to nature (NE 1144b4-7), or development (Politics 1329a9ff). This means, for instance, that if agent A is wealthy and his friend B is a middle class worker and they win the lottery together, A will relinquish his share of money to his friend so that he will be able to practice the virtue of magnificence; a virtue that his previous financial condition prevented him from developing appropriately. The second process is rather different and new in scholarly debate concerning Aristotle’s theory of moral development. I suggest that the completely virtuous agent is able to further develop his character through a process I will describe as interpretative mimesis. In this process, the agent receives the form of his friend’s action and is able to apply this pattern of behaviour in a situation that he thinks is appropriate. I have to highlight though the fact the fact that he does not just ape his friend’s action. Instead, he interprets the action based on his skills and abilities and the demands of the situations he faces. Thus, this pattern works as an extra epistemological tool in the agent’s hand in new and challenging moral situations. Now, case (b) comes on the opposite side of the majority of scholars’ view on character friendship. They think that Aristotle reserves character friendship only for completely virtuous agents. I argue that this is not the correct approach, and that less than completely virtuous agents can take part in character friendships as well. This view has the advantage of making character friendship in (b) a tool in Aristotle’s hands for his agents of lower moral level to develop their understanding of virtue and its applications. I propose that the route of moral development in case (b) resembles the one in the second process of case (a). Namely, the agent receives the form of his friend’s action and uses it as a pattern in some new situation he has to face. I will not name the process though as “interpretative” or any kind of mimesis. The reason for this is that Aristotle gives us textual evidence (NE 1172a9-14) for an imitative method of moral development only for the second process of case (a). I will take case (b) then as a pattern guide application of my friend’s action which we could call pre-interpretative mimesis period of the agent’s moral development. If my arguments are correct then character friendship is much more valuable than scholars thought. Our friends turn out to be examples of good action who guide us through the sweaty and painful path that is called virtue. And this path never stops; even if we have become “moral heroes”; or, put it differently, “masters” of practical wisdom.

Potential energy surface calculations have predicted the existence of the island of triaxial strongly deformed (TSD) nuclei with N~94 and Z~72. Subsequent calculations indicated that 164,166Hf would be the most favorable even-even nuclei in the island region for finding low-lying TSD structures. But experimental discoveries of TSD bands only have been reported in 161 C163,164,165 C167Lu nuclei with the wobbling mode, a unique signature of nuclei with stable triaxiality. And experimental investigation of Hf nuclei performed with Euroball and Gammasphere produced negative results on the two Hf isotopes. Later investigations in 168Hf and 173,174,175Hf show existence of strongly-deformed bands, but none has been confirmed as TSD structures. These results motivated an extension of the search for TSD bands in the region to heavier Hf-isotopes like 171,172Hf. A Gammasphere experiment was carried out to search for triaxial strongly deformed (TSD) structures in 171,172Hf. Three strongly deformed bands in 172Hf and one in 171Hf were identified through 48Ca (128Te, xn) reactions. Linking transitions were established for the band in 171Hf and, consequently, its excitation energies and spins (up to 111/2 ) were firmly established. However, none of the 172Hf sequences was linked to known structures. Experimental evidence of triaxiality was not observed in these bands. The new bands are compared with other known strongly deformed bands in neighboring Hf isotopes. Theoretical investigations within cranked-shell models and Cranked Relativistic Mean-Field (CRMF) Calculations have been performed. Cranking calculations with the Ultimate Cranker code suggest that the band in 171Hf and two previously proposed TSD candidates in 170Hf and 175Hf are built upon proton (i13/2h9/2) configurations, associated with near-prolate shapes and deformations enhanced with respect to the normal deformed bands. Cranked relativistic meanield calculations suggest that band 2 in 175Hf has most likely a near-prolate superdeformed shape involving the high-j intruder orbitals. It is quite likely that the bands in 172Hf are similar in character to this band. In this experiment six normal deformed bands in 171Hf and five in 172Hf were identified, also known low spin structures have been extended considerably. Linking transitions to known low spin structures were well established for these five bands of 171Hf but none of 172Hf. The spin and parity determinations of these rotational bands have been performed based on DCO ratio and intensity measurement. The suggested configurations of these structures also have been proposed.

R.R. Moats. / "This report is essentially the same as a doctoral thesis in the Department of Electrical Engineering, M.I.T." "June 25, 1951." / Bibliography: p. 53-54. / Army Signal Corps Contract No. DA36-039 sc-100 Project No. 8-102B-0." Dept. of the Army Project No. 3-99-10-022.

Leaching is the most widely used process for extraction of nickel metal from lateritic ores. In this study, nickel extraction from Manisa-G&ouml / rdes region laterites by hydrochloric acid leaching is aimed. The mineralogical analysis of sample showed that hematite, goethite, dolomite, quartz and smectite are the main minerals in the ore. Attrition scrubbing, cycloning and magnetic separation with permroll were used as preconcentration processes but results were unsatisfactory. HCl leaching experiments were conducted both at room temperature and at elevated temperatures. The effects of various parameters such as leaching duration, particle size, concentration of HCl, pulp density, Cl- concentration and temperature on nickel recovery were examined. The results showed that under the optimised leaching conditions (particle size: 100 % -1 mm, HCl concentration: 3 N, leaching duration: 3 hours, leaching temperature: 100 oC, pulp density: 1/30 solid to liquid ratio by volume) it was possible to extract 87.26 % of nickel in the ore.

Rare earth ferrosilicon alloy is an important additive for ferrous metallurgy. It is mainly used to control the detrimental effects of sulfur in steel and to modify graphite structures in cast iron. The aim of this study was to optimize the conditions for the production of rare earth ferrosilicon alloy by metallothermic reduction process using a preconcentrate prepared from a bastnasite type of ore present in the Beylikahir-EskiSehir region of Turkey. In this study, the rare earth preconcentrate was reduced by aluminum together with ferrosilicon and rare earth ferrosilicon alloys were produced. The optimum conditions of reduction, which are time, temperature, reducer amounts and the basicity of the slag phase, were investigated by smelting in an induction furnace. At the end of the study, a rare earth ferrosilicon alloy containing 39.3 % rare earths, 37.5 % silicon, 19.3 % iron and 3.9 % aluminum was produced under the optimum conditions determined with 57.7 % rare earth metal recovery.