Moral contractarianism, as demonstrated in the work of David Gauthier, is an attempt to derive moral principles from the non-moral premises of rational choice. However, this contractarian enterprise runs aground because it is unable to show that agents would commit to norms in a fairly realistic world where knowledge is limited in space and time, where random shocks are likely, and where agents can be arbitrarily differentiated from one another. In a world like this, agents will find that the most "rational" strategy is to behave "non-rationally," imitating the behavior of others in their vicinity and preserving a limited sort of ignorance.

Matthew Scott Wireman, Ph.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012 Chair: Dr. Stephen J. Wellum This dissertation examines the Protestant doctrine of Scripture's self-witness of divine authority. Chapter 1 examines the current evangelical milieu. The doctrine has become nearly obsolete in the discussion of systematic theology. Consequentially, wherein lies authority has been greatly misunderstood in Protestant circles. Chapter 2 surveys the doctrine through the history of the church. Particular note is made of Augustine, John Calvin, John Owen, and Herman Bavinck. This chapter evinces the near consensus of the church that the authority for the Church is found preeminently in the Scriptures. Chapter 3 summarizes post-conservative, Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, attempts to ground theology in Scripture plus culture and tradition. This chapter does not offer a critique as much as it aims to represent post-conservatives in their own words. Chapter 4 looks at how the Old Testament viewed itself--particularly through the ministries of Moses and the prophets. YHWH chose representatives who would speak to the covenant community and write down the stipulations and history of YHWH's relationship with Israel for posterity. Chapter 5 looks at the New Testament, which follows the paradigm instituted by the Old Testament. In the person and work of Jesus Christ, God's promises find their fulfillment, which foments his commissioning of the Twelve Apostles to be his spokesmen. Chapter 6 ties together the threads that cohere in the two testaments of Scripture. It makes explicit the claims of Scripture that God is a se, he communicates with his creation, he uses spokesmen, and his written Word is its own witness for its authority. Chapter 7 defines the doctrine of Scripture's self-witness and applies it to tradition, culture, and the task of apologetics. The chapter explicates the thesis of the dissertation that Scripture's self-witness must be the ground of systematic theology.

Moral contractarianism, as demonstrated in the work of David Gauthier, is an attempt to derive moral principles from the non-moral premises of rational choice. However, this contractarian enterprise runs aground because it is unable to show that agents would commit to norms in a fairly realistic world where knowledge is limited in space and time, where random shocks are likely, and where agents can be arbitrarily differentiated from one another. In a world like this, agents will find that the most "rational" strategy is to behave "non-rationally," imitating the behavior of others in their vicinity and preserving a limited sort of ignorance.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Purpose The objective of this study is to evaluate critically the radio-television activities (and their implication to American society) of the Christian Crusade, an ultra-conservative religious-pnlitical organization located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Concentration on this group has been undertaken because 1) the Christian Crusade identifies itself as the largest anti-communist organization in the country, 2) its founder-director, Rev. Billy James Hargis, is one of the best known and most respected leaders of ultra-conservatism, 3) the Crusade employs the media of radio and television extensively to attract revenue and popular support, and 4) the organization is one of the most enduring and prosperous groups of the "radical right" (operating since 1948 with an annual budget which has been estimated as high as $1,500,000) [TRUNCATED] / 2031-01-01

There is no doubt that relevant and up-to-date elementary school curriculum is vital for the adequate education and socialization of youth, however, when a society is characterized by ideological pluralism and multiple visions of morality the debates over curriculum can be acrimonious and tempestuous. These debates are particularly heated when sex education is concerned since adults in Western society have a longstanding cultural discomfort with child and adolescent sexual knowledge and, more specifically, there is a strong belief that sexual knowledge compromises the “natural” innocence and ignorance of young people. This research focuses on a debate that occurred in Ontario in April and May of 2010 after the Government attempted to revise Health and Physical Education curriculum for grades 1-8, the subject that contains sex education. Following considerable backlash, the Ontario Premier shelved the proposed revisions a mere 54 hours after the curriculum was publicized. What led to this curriculum being received so poorly by the public and what were the contributing factors that led to this abrupt reconsideration? My research examines the debate that the new sex education curriculum produced and draws attention to the ways in which the deep seated anxieties of adults regarding adolescent and child sexual knowledge were able to overpower the voices of researchers and educational experts who were promoting the revisions. Some adults were concerned about the way that the curriculum presented a particularly liberal vision of sexual morality and argued that the new content would corrupt, mislead, and confuse youth. Though there were some individuals and groups who supported the revisions, arguing that they were relevant, necessary and overdue, their voices were not as organized or influential as the religious and social conservatives who dominated the debate. I argue that the proposed revisions to the Ontario sex education curriculum failed to gain public support because of the Government’s inability to adequately prepare for and mediate the Province’s competing liberal and conservative sexual ideologies. In my defense of the abandoned revisions, I explore how they failed to gain support not only because of the vociferous opposition of conservative religious groups who did not want to see a more liberal vision of sexual morality in the curriculum, but also due to a longstanding cultural discomfort with child and adolescent sexual knowledge and an unwillingness to fully affirm non-heterosexual identities and practices within the education system. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2011-06-07 14:50:24.526

In November 2020, Puerto Rico, currently a territory of the United States, held a referendum and the majority voted to become a state of the United States of America. Statehood is decided by the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. For the 2020 Presidential Election, the Democratic Party platform expressed support for Puerto Rican statehood. Although the official stance on the Republican Party is to support whatever choice the electorate of Puerto Rico votes on in their referendum, many party leaders and members of the Republican Party have spoken out about their opposition to supporting the statehood of the territory. I will be investigating why these party leaders and general party members are against its statehood by looking at the Republican Party’s ideologically derived positions rooted in conservativism and the electoral incentive perspective to not have Puerto Rico as a state. How do leading Republican Party representatives justify their position against the addition of Puerto Rico as a U.S. state? How can the members of the Republican Party’s position on Puerto Rico statehood be understood by both party incentives and disincentives on expected electoral outcomes? It is noteworthy to look at what causes this paradox between the Republican Party’s official stance on Puerto Rican statehood and party leaders’ open opinions on the matter.

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The aim of the proposed work is to verify the hypothesis based on Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, which says that the wider the range of the so-called moral foundations a political party addresses with its programme, the higher its chances of a good election result. This hypothesis is examined within the framework of Czech political reality. The first part of the work introduces Haidt's Theory of Moral Foundations and examines the question of its applicability to the Czech political sphere. In the next step, the mentioned theory is used (with the help of appropriate operationalization) as a means of analysing the election results of Czech political parties in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament in 2017 in order to verify this hypothesis. The programme points of the election programmes of ten Czech political parties are subjected to the analysis. These are the parties that, according to pre-election surveys, had the greatest chance of exceeding the 5 % electoral threshold for joining the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic (i. e. ANO 2011, ČSSD, ODS, SPD, TOP 09, KDU-ČSL KSČM, STAN, Pirate Party and Green Party). The second part of this work handles the analysis of the representation of the different moral foundations in the programme of all examined...