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.

This thesis examines the relationship between rights and duties in the field of fetal gene therapy and assesses if the current regulatory position within England and Wales is compatible with the intergenerational aspects of scientific progress within fetal gene therapy (FGT). Within the field of genomics, the fetal junction has become a site where gene therapists are developing a range of medical techniques, such as fetal gene therapy and in utero stem cell therapy. Utilising such techniques raises questions about the intergenerational aspects of scientific progress and how intergenerational rights can reshape regulation. The thesis focuses upon these key questions: Are the intergenerational issues of FGT taken into account by both direct and indirect stakeholders? Can intergenerational issues override the reproductive rights of the mother? Have intergenerational issues impacted upon the clinical applications implicit and manifest in this work? Addressing such questions is important because the conflict between the rights of the mother, fetus, clinical researchers and society have the potential to delay progress in FGT. In addressing these questions the thesis utilised thematic analysis of relevant regulatory institutional documents, from international declarations to regulatory guidelines; and semi structured interviews of identified FGT practitioners to identify areas of potential conflict. Following the data collection and analysis, the field data identified five key areas of potential conflict, which were then assessed using the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC) as proposed by Alan Gewirth (1978) and later altered by Beyleveld and Brownsword (2001). The thesis will argue that the field data shows that established regulatory principles such as human dignity are of limited value in relation to FGT. In other areas such as informed choice, autonomy and intergenerational equity the PGC is applied to define and partially resolve the outstanding areas necessary for consistent ethical and regulatory guidance in FGT

The thesis examines the thought of Thomas More and Gerrard Winstanley, emphasizing the concern of both theorists with the prevailing moral depravity of human nature attributable to the Fall of Man, and their proposals for the amendment of men's conduct by institutional means, especially by the establishment of a communist society. The thesis opens with a conceptual exploration of 'utopianism' and 'millenarianism' before discussing the particular forms of these concepts employed by More and Winstanley. The introductory section also includes an investigation of the context which constituted the background to the ideas of More and Winstanley. More's theology, his conception of human nature, and his view of contemporary civil society are examined in detail. It is argued that the conclusions More derived from this aspect of his thought formed his basic conception of the situation to which the institutional amendments outlined in Utopia were directed. These proposals, regarding communism, the state, family and community life, education, religion, and ethics, are discussed. It is argued that Utopia constitutes More's model of a society designed to facilitate the salvation of man. Winstanley's appreciation of man's nature, prevailing condition, and potential for spiritual regeneration, are outlined. The development of Winstanley's thought, and the impression his active involvement with the Diggers made upon him, is described. It is argued that Winstanley renounced millenarianism and ultimately assumed utopian social theory as a medium for the articulation of his proposals for the restoration of man to spiritual regeneracy on earth. The institutional aspects of this scheme, regarding communism, the state, patriarchalism, labour, and education, which he outlined in The Law of Freedom, are evaluated. The thesis concludes, with a brief comparative analysis before setting the ideas of More and Winstanley'in the context of the changing worldview, appreciation of man's potential and progress, and the emphasis upon aspiration, which evolved in the early modern period.

What are moral values and where do they come from? David Hume argued that moral values were the product of a range of passions, inherent to human nature, that aim at the common good of society. Recent developments in game theory, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, psychology and neuroscience suggest that Hume was right to suppose that humans have such passions. This dissertation reviews these developments, and considers their implications for moral philosophy. I first explain what Darwinian adaptations are, and how they generate behaviour. I then explain that, contrary to the Hobbesian caricature of life in the state of nature, evolutionary theory leads us to expect that organisms will be social, cooperative and even altruistic under certain circumstances. I introduce four main types of cooperation: kin altruism, coordination to mutual advantage, reciprocity and conflict resolution and provide examples of "adaptations for cooperation" from nonhuman species. I then review the evidence for equivalent adaptations for cooperation in humans. Next, I show how this Humean-Darwinian account of the moral sentiments can be used to make sense of traditional positions in meta-ethics; how it provides a rich deductive framework in which to locate and make sense of a wide variety of apparently contradictory positions in traditional normative ethics; and how it clearly demarcates the problems of applied ethics. I defend this version of ethical naturalism against the charge that it commits "the naturalistic fallacy". I conclude that evolutionary theory provides the best account yet of the origins and status of moral values, and that moral philosophy should be thought of as a branch of natural history.

Medical confidentiality is integral to the doctor - patient relationship and an important element in efficient and effective medical practice. However, it is generally acknowledged that medical confidentiality can not be absolute. At times it must be broken in order to serve a ‘higher’ interest - be it public health or the legal justice system. Yet, very little is known about the historical evolution of the boundaries of medical confidentiality in Britain. The absence of detailed historical research on the subject has meant that contemporary writers have tended to use citations of the Hippocratic Oath or short quotations from key legal cases to place their work into longer term context. The current thesis provides a more detailed examination of the delineation of the boundaries of medical confidentiality during a period of intense debate - the interwar years of the twentieth century. The increase in state interest in the health of the population, the growth in divorce after the First World War and the prominence of the medical issues of venereal disease and abortion, all brought unprecedented challenges to the traditional concept of medical confidentiality. Having examined the, oft-cited, benchmark precedent for medical confidentiality from the late eighteenth century, the thesis proceeds to examine the ways in which medicine had changed by the interwar years. The high-point of the debate in the early 1920s is examined from the perspective of the three key interest groups - the Ministry of Health, the British Medical Association and the Lord Chancellor. Overall, the work provides insight into the historical delineation of medical confidentiality in Britain, both in statute and common law. As such it lends a longer-term context to current debates over the boundaries of medical confidentiality in the twenty-first century.

This thesis explores the relationship between rights-based moral systems and climate change. It argues that supporters of rights-based moralities must give the realisation of rights priority over non-rights-based moral concerns. It further contends that future persons cannot possess rights that would place current persons under correlative duties towards them before their conception. The thesis then highlights that climate change will need to be combatted through programmes of adaptation and mitigation. Unfortunately, the majority of those protected by such programmes will be future persons. It is therefore argued that rights-based moralities struggle to endorse – and might even actively oppose – the imposition by states of extensive programmes of adaptation and mitigation. Such programmes actively and directly restrict the realisation of the rights of many current persons. Even if this were not the case, supporters of rights are unable to justify the kind of spending that would be needed to finance those aspects of adaptation and mitigation which aim to benefit future persons while the fundamental rights of a great many current persons go unmet due to a lack of funds. As a result, rights-based moralities must justify climate burdens solely through reference to current persons. It is argued that, in the case of Interest- and Choice-based theories of rights, this would encourage an increase in emissions through the implication that pollution was permissible provided adaptation burdens were met. Alternatively, support for a rights-based morality akin to that put forward by Robert Nozick would enable us to implement mitigation, but the system’s disavowal of positive rights would simultaneously cause excessive harm to the wellbeing of many. The inability of rights-based moralities to deal with climate change in an effective and ethical manner leads us to question their legitimacy more generally.

I argue (1) that Alvin Plantinga’s theory of warrant is plausible and (2) that, contrary to the Pandora’s Box objection, there are certain serious world religions that cannot successfully use Plantinga’s epistemology to demonstrate that their beliefs could be warranted in the same way that Christian belief can be warranted. In arguing for (1), I deploy Ernest Sosa’s Swampman case to show that Plantinga’s proper function condition is a necessary condition for warrant. I then engage three objections to Plantinga’s theory of warrant, each of which attempts to demonstrate that his conditions for warrant are neither necessary nor sufficient. Having defended the plausibility of Plantinga’s theory of warrant, I present and expand his key arguments to the effect that naturalism cannot make use of it. These arguments provide the conceptual tools that are needed to argue for (2): that there are certain world religions that cannot legitimately use Plantinga’s theory of warrant to demonstrate that their beliefs could be warranted in the same way that Christian belief can be warranted.

This study investigates the significance of Aristotelian virtue in teaching and learning in music performance. In response to a number of critical issues in professional practice, it is argued that virtue, framed within eudaimonistic happiness, should form an integral part of teaching and learning. Through an examination of Aristotle’s analysis of virtue, and primarily through his Nicomachean Ethics, virtue is presented as having the hallmarks of dynamic and responsive action and therefore as being of potential interest to teachers of music. Having acknowledged that music performance can be a particularly challenging arena, this study also considers why Aristotle, via his analysis in Politics of the reasons for educating students in music, provides further underlying reasons for its inclusion. By considering the work of one of his students, Aristoxenus, the investigation also establishes that here in Aristotle is a philosopher-teacher who is, we can be reassured, very much an informed music ‘amateur’. Noting the twofold importance that Aristotle gives to music in education, that is, how music contributes to our development and the worthwhile nature of understanding music for itself, the discussion explores and clarifies the notion of music performance. A range of frameworks are analysed and, after Godlovitch, personalism is defended as a framework. This is significant because personalism recognises the individual as both musician and human being. Thus, the demands, on both character and intellect, emerge strongly here as they do in Nicomachean Ethics. Having established that music performance is demanding, of both character and intellect, the virtue of courage is argued as crucial. The Aristotelian notion of courage is tested and its reaches extended, partly through the analysis of case studies. Ultimately, it is posited that courageous action forms part of eudaimonistic happiness. This study also considers Egan’s theory that intellectual disturbance occurs during stages of learning, thus providing further demands. It is argued that, in responding to such disturbance, teachers’ practice should embody characteristics of Aristotelian practical wisdom. In this way, it is posited that teachers act as valuable role models, both to their students and to their colleagues, including those colleagues new to the profession. With these challenges now identified and analysed, music performance is conceptualised as gift making. Importantly, this contributes to foregrounding the significant aspect of pleasure that is integral to Aristotelian virtuous action. The discussion closes by providing a defence of the position that Aristotelian virtue is of significance to teachers and students as they navigate their daily existence within the world of music performance.

What is the nature of our society? What kinds of power regimes shape our existence? What forms of emancipatory resistance might chart the way towards a better future that responds to the dangers, injustices, and pathologies marking the present? These are just some of the questions my dissertation aims to answer through the help of the conceptual resources that Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault provide us with. Accordingly, whereas the few attempts that have been made been to compare their works remain inadequate, partial, or simply out-dated, my thesis offers a detailed and comprehensive appraisal of both the explanatory and reconstructive potential of Adorno’s and Foucault’s common project of developing a critico-theoretical account of modern Western society, with a view also to showing the often-neglected compatibility of their respective approaches. At issue, is not only the scholarly reconstruction of a possible dialogue beyond their differences, but also, and more importantly, the analysis of the continued relevance of their works for our understanding of the world we inhabit. To this end, Chapters 1 and 2 start with an examination of the historical conditions Adorno and Foucault see at the root of the dangers and pathologies ailing our age. More specifically, Chapter 1 starts with a review of Adorno’s conception of late modern society as a reified totality ruled by the logic of capitalist exchange. I then confront Adorno’s account of social domination with Foucault’s early analytics of power and illustrate the similarities between their pictures of the disciplinary mechanisms at the basis of the constitution of modern individuals. The chapter concludes by presenting their critique of the scientific discourses and ideological procedures that have supported these power mechanisms. After examining the connection they establish between the development of capitalism and modern biopower, Chapter 2 compares Foucault’s and Adorno’s portraits of the political culture of liberalism. Whereas the relevance of Adorno’s insights is manly confined to the processes of socialization characterizing the welfare states in the first half of the 20th century, I argue that Foucault’s later inquiries shed an instructive light on the reconfiguration determined by the rise of neoliberalism in the contemporary technologies of government, whereby the latter are no longer based on the rigid mechanisms of disciplinary power, but rather on the fabrication of the subject as a free and responsible entrepreneur through more indirect and flexible forms of control operating on the social environment. Chapters 3 to 5 explore the anticipatory-utopian dimension of Adorno’s and Foucault’s enterprises. Chapter 3 engages in a largely unprecedented comparison of their critical approaches. Despite their different targets and narratives, I contend that they converge in the project of a critical problematization of the present, which seeks to modify their addressees’ sensibility and experience not only to show the historical contingency of the present, but also to encourage its radical transformation. Contrary to the popular view that they lack normative theorizing, Chapter 4 reviews Adorno’s and Foucault’s accounts of the normativity of critique, while pointing to their common attempt at giving new impetus to the emancipatory thrust of Enlightenment modernity. Chapter 5 elaborates a much overdue evaluation of their responses to the ethico-political challenges of the present through a juxtaposition of Adorno’s minimal ethics of resistance with Foucault’s late ethical reflections on the ancient practices of care of the self, which lie at the source of his more ambitious politics of the governed. The chapter closes by proposing a possible way of integrating Foucault’s call for creative resistance with Adorno’s politics of suffering. In conclusion, my dissertation assesses Adorno’s and Foucault’s merits in the construction of a critical “ontology of the present” that stands opposed to the neo-Idealist turn of much of contemporary critical theory with its separation of normative and empirical claims from the material forms of power shaping individuals’ subjectivity, cultural patterns, and institutional structures, while eventually arguing that Foucault gives us a more effective toolbox not only to comprehend who we are, but also to imagine ourselves otherwise.

This work is an investigation into philosophical method and rational argument in moral philosophy. It makes an original contribution to human understanding, by taking some of the tools and techniques that Gordon Baker identifies in the later work of Wittgenstein, and using them as a way of fending for oneself in an area of philosophy that neither Baker, nor Wittgenstein, wrote on. More specifically, a discussion of some different aspects of the contemporary literature on Dancy’s (2004) moral particularism is used as a vehicle for illustrating how Baker’s therapeutic conception of philosophy offers alternative possibilities for how we can do philosophy, and what counts as rational argument in moral philosophy. I maintain that, by considering some indicative ways in which Baker’s therapeutic approach to philosophy can dissolve, rather than solve, the kinds of perplexities found in the existing literature on Dancy’s (2004) moral particularism, we can liberate ourselves from the traditional/theoretical view of how we ought to do philosophy, and an understanding of rational argument in moral philosophy, to which we need not be committed.