This thesis is a contribution to the contemporary reassessment of Karl Barth's social philosophy. A close reading of the English translation of the text of a series of posthumously published lectures on ethics which Barth gave in the universities of Münster and Bonn between 1929 and 1933 is the basis of the work. Previous literature includes no discussion of the lectures. The thesis argues that the lectures show the foundation of Barth's thinking both of theology as a science and of ethics as a part of dogmatics, and that his subsequent work developed these ideas. Barth's intellectual debt to Hegel is recognised by showing that he returns to the fundamental theological questions of the relationship between faith and reason, and truth and method in the form in which Hegel discussed them at the end of the nineteenth century. The thesis acknowledges the influence of Barth's helper, Charlotte von Kirschbaum, and contrary to other opinions claims that the impact of Wilhelm Herrmann's thinking on Barth remained until 1933. Although principally about material from the period 1918 to 1933, later work by Barth is included in the study to give evidence for the proposals that his ethical thinking helped shape his dogmatics, and that his later ethics show development, not stages and breaks. A discussion of criticisms of his ethics highlights the problem of choosing a method of enquiry that is appropriate to the object studied. A dialogue with two other ethical projects helps focus attention on his insistence on a proper foundation for Christian social ethics. The thesis argues that Barth's work is a theological ethic, because his social philosophy gives a method for asking appropriate questions and creates a way of considering these questions from a Christian perspective.

This thesis draws on poststructuralism/postmodernism to present a feminist investigation into the human body, its modes of (self)identification, and its insertion into systems of bioethics. I argue that, contrary to conventional paradigms, the boundaries not only of the subject, but of the body too, cannot be secured. In exploring and contesting the closure and disembodiment of the ethical subject, I propose instead an incalculable, but nonetheless fully embodied, diversity of provisional subject positions. My aim is to valorise women and situate them within a reconceived ethics which takes account of the embodied feminine. My project entails an analysis and deconstruction of the binaries of those dominant strands of postEnlightenment thought that shape epistemology, ontology, and ethics, which in turn set the parameters of modern bioethics. More importantly, it goes on to reclaim a radical sexual difference beyond the binary, in which the female is no longer the other of the male. My enquiry, then, is strongly influenced by the discursive approach offered by both Foucault and Derrida in differential ways, but I counter their indifference to feminist concerns by qualifying their insights in the light of strategies developed by Irigaray and Spivak, among others. The main method of investigation has been through library research of primary and secondary sources in mainstream and feminist philosophy, and in bioethics. In addition, archival work in both textual and iconographic collections was carried out at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. The contribution made by this thesis is to go beyond modernist feminisms - which would simply revise and add women into existing paradigms - to radically displace and overflow the mechanisms by which women are devalued. And in developing a postmodern critique around some issues in bioethics, I have suggested a new ethics of the body which precedes the operation of moral codes.

The experiences of some children participating in the demanding and intensive world of elite sport appear to compromise one of the primary aims of both childhood and parenthood, which should be for children to arrive on the threshold of adulthood with their futures open and unlimited. A body of evidence in the medical and socio-psychologicalliterature contends that child athletes participating in elite sport are being harmed physically, psychologically, and socially by the intensive training and competition practices required of athletes in sports such as women's gymnastics, figure skating, and others. Participation by children in the highest levels of sport change attitudes and impels behaviours in ways that are unique in their extent and devastating in their consequences. As the varying and often conflicting agendas of athletes, parents, coaches, agents, and sporting bureaucracies come into conflict, considerations of care and regard for the athletes become down played or even ignored, resulting in these young athletes being harmed, and their futures compromised. Children are characterised by their vulnerability, naivety, and inability to formulate their own life-plans, necessitating a degree of parental paternalism in their relationships with adults. This paternalism is justified by the child's dependency on others for protection, and for developing the necessary skills for self-sufficiency and self-determination secured through their burgeoning autonomy as they advance towards adulthood. Under law, parents are given primary responsibility for the health and welfare of their children, because they are ideally situated to determine their child's best interests. In sport, this responsibility is regularly transferred from the parents to the coach and other involved adults. Unfortunately, however, children may be exploited by the very individuals who are entrusted with their care and nurturance. A further body of evidence claims the inescapability of paternalism in relationships between adults and children in elite sport has been exploited: it is disrespectful of the child's burgeoning autonomy, and jeopardises his or her right to an open future. The child's right to an open future is an autonomy right-in-trust saved until he or she is more fully formed and capable of exercising self-determination. This right may be violated in advance of adulthood by foreclosure of options. In this thesis, I argue that elite sport children require a form of paternalism that protects their interests while at the same time is autonomy-respectful. This is actualised by a bifurcated rights system, which works towards securing non-harmful sports practices and preventing the premature foreclosure of life opportunities for elite child athletes post-sport.

Government data continues to indicate that Looked After Children and Young People (LAC/YP) are vulnerable to poor academic achievement and later life outcome. Over the years successive Governments have legislated and invested in policy changes and guidance to inform practice in an effort to close the academic and social gap between those young people in care and their non-looked after peers. The espoused target for intervention and change has been with regards to raising the aspirations of LAC/YP. Seven LAC/YP were interviewed in order to capture their views about their future aspirations and for their perspectives on the factors in their lives that they identified as helping or hindering them as they constructed their future selves. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology was used to better understand some of the lived experiences of the LAC/YP within the system aimed to raise their aspirations. Super-ordinate themes of ‘Imagined future’, ‘Current Support’, ‘Personal sense of agency’ and ‘Impact of past care’ emerged from the data. The implications for policy and practice are discussed in light of the challenges in generalising findings from IPA studies beyond the idiographic.

This thesis aims at giving a plausible account of education from the perspective of John Rawls’ theory of political liberalism. Despite the fact that an immense amount of literature has been written on both Rawls’ work in general and political liberal theory in particular, this still seems to be a worthwhile task, for two reasons. The first reason is that the current discussion of liberal neutrality in the philosophy of education frequently engages with Rawlsian liberalism, despite the actual lack of an adequately refined Rawlsian account of liberal education. The second reason is that political liberal theory itself leans more toward the side of ideal political theory, provoking the question whether it has any application value for real politics. A sufficiently developed account of political liberal education would demonstrate that practical guidelines can indeed be generated from political liberal principles. After providing a comprehensive overview over the few explicit claims about education Rawls made himself, and over the parts of his theory indicating further educational requirements for citizens of a liberal society, the thesis splits into two parts. The first part analyses the relation between core concepts of political liberalism (political virtues, autonomy, and rights) and education. Next to engaging with objections against neutrality-based restrictions in the context of education, this part also highlights the shortcomings of political liberalism when faced with the concrete requirements of education and proposes suitable revisions. The second part of the thesis picks out a number of concrete topics of education that are discussed in contemporary liberal theory. It analyses the questions to what extent religious beliefs entitle parents to determine the education of their children, to what degree same-sex relations should be part of a liberal sex-education curriculum, and what challenges migration might pose for political liberal education. For each case, the account of political liberal education presented here can provide guidelines based on the insights gained in the first part of this thesis. Together, the mainly theoretical first and the more practical second part shape the outlines for a political liberal account of education which, albeit sketchy, provides a useful contribution to the current debates about liberalism and education in a way which has not been done in the literature on political liberalism so far.

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.

This research has been conducted to explore certain elements of Islamic business ethics and the roles they adopt to shape particular types of organisational culture, and thus the impact of organisational culture on attitudes toward strategic growth amongst a very specific population, which are SMEs that are owned or managed by Muslims in the UK. Previous research showed that a better understanding of organisational culture, and its main components, leads to effective and successful planning to achieve strategic changes. The research has been conducted based on a mixed methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative methods of research. The research began positively with a conceptual and theoretical model reflecting the author's research methodology approach. However, one part of the conceptual model, the "elements of Islamic business ethics factor" was ambiguous, because there were fewer contributions to be found in this area. Therefore, a set of in-depth, semi-structured interviews was planned to identify and clarify this part, followed by a well-designed questionnaire that was distributed across the whole UK. Principally, the elements of Islamic business ethics were discovered within the first stage, and many of the participants have mentioned the important impact of Islamic business ethics on shaping particular types of organisational culture, specifically, when the owner or manager has a strong spirituality. Moreover, the statistical results show that the type of organisational culture plays a significant role on the owner or manager's attitude to attain a certain alternative plan for strategic growth.

I argue that the problem of evil can be a moral objection to theistic belief. The thesis has three broad sections, each establishing an element in this argument. Section one establishes the logically binding nature of the problem of evil: The problem of evil must be solved, if you are to believe in God. And yet, I borrow from J. L. Mackie’s criticisms of the moral argument for the existence of God, and argue that the fundamentally evaluative nature of the premises within the problem of evil entails that it cannot be used to argue for the non-existence of God. Section two establishes the moral objectionability of many responses to the problem of evil (theodicies). I discuss the work of the moral ‘anti-theodicists’, and support some of the key premises within their arguments via appeal to the moral philosophy of Raimond Gaita. I combine the claims of section one and section two, and conclude that theism inherits the moral objectionability of theodicy. In section three, I establish the plausibility of a morally motivated non-cognitive atheism, offering an example (Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov), before finally distilling the central claims of this thesis into the form of a slogan: God lacks humanity.

This thesis explores the use of Alasdair MacIntyre’s tradition based model of ethics as a heuristic tool in analysing the contextualisation of Christian ethics. Ethical contextualisation is thus understood as the interaction and synthesis of particular Christian moral traditions with the moral traditions they encountered in the different cultures where the Christian faith was established. This study focuses on the interaction of the Methodist moral tradition with that of the Fanti people of Ghana. The argument begins with the contention that morality in African cultures may be better understood as discrete traditions in the light of MacIntyre’s model. This claim is substantiated by a reconstruction of the Fanti (Akan) moral tradition in terms of its practices, virtues and ends. A detailed historical study of the interaction of the Methodist and Fanti moral traditions within Ghana indicates that a synthesis between these traditions has occurred at the level of leadership practice and virtue. The findings of field research conducted among Fanti traditional rulers and Methodist ministers suggests this synthesis is continuing, and probably extends to other areas of moral practice, and even to the heart of each moral tradition. Taken together historical and empirical research provide credible evidence that a Fanti-Methodist moral tradition is emerging out of the encounter between the two traditions.

My main thesis is that Saudi culture, in the context of the field of Molecular Genetics Epidemiology (MGE) research, poses many challenges to the currently used biomedical research regulations developed by the Saudi National Committee of Bioethics (NCBE). The NCBE regulations are informed by selected international research ethics guidelines, and they are influenced by a set of assumptions about how we ought to think about ethics. The overall focus is on a version of liberalism, where there is a strong commitment to autonomy, there is a significant focus on informed consent, the harm principle guides the justification of action, and paternalism is seen as something that is to be avoided. There are no specific guidelines that regulate MGE research in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it was important as a first step in the thesis to analyse the relevant regulations (both the Saudi and the selected international ones) and explore the related normative issues. One of the main empirical findings was an observed and reported lack of adherence to the requirements of the NCBE regulations. In this thesis I argued that the problem emerges from a mismatch between the liberal international guidelines and the nature of the Saudi context. One possible way to address this tension is to formulate a set of guidelines and research practices that build upon the nature of Saudi social relations and norms. This may result in a focus on what we can call trust-based, rather than the currently promoted autonomy-based, bioethics.