<p> In 1846 and 1847, ether and chloroform were used and celebrated for the first time in Britain and the United States as effective surgical anaesthetics capable of rendering individuals insensible to physical pain. During the same decade, British novels of realism were enjoying increasing cultural authority, dominating readers' attention, and evoking readers' sympathy for numerous social justice issues. This dissertation investigates a previously unanswered question in studies of literature and medicine: how did writers of social realism incorporate realistic descriptions of physical pain, a notoriously difficult sensation to describe, in an era when the very idea of pain's inevitability was challenged by medical developments and when, concurrently, novelists, journalists, and politicians were concerned with humanitarian reforms to recognize traditionally ignored and disadvantaged individuals and groups in pain? By contextualizing the emergence of specific realist novels including works by Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Reade, William Howard Russell, and Charles Dickens, within larger nonfiction discourses regarding factory reform, prison reform, and war, this dissertation identifies and clarifies how realist authors, who aim to demonstrate general truths about "real life," employed various descriptions of physical pain during this watershed moment in medicine and pain theory, to convince readers of their validity as well as to awaken sympathetic politics among readers. </p><p> This study analyzes Gaskell's first industrial novel, <i>Mary Barton </i> (1848), Reade's prison-scandal novel, <i>It is Never Too Late to Mend</i> (1856), Russell's Crimean War correspondence (1850s) and only novel, <i>The Adventures of Doctor Brady</i> (1868), and Dickens's second <i>Bildungsroman, Great Expectations</i> (1861), thereby revealing different strategies utilized by each author representing pain - ranging from subtle to graphic, collective to individualized, urgent to remembered, and destructive to productive. This study shows how audience expectations, political timing, authorial authority, and medical theory influence and are influenced by realist authors writing pain, as they contribute to a cultural consensus that the pain of others is unacceptable and requires attention. These realist authors must, in the end, provide fictionalized accounts of pain, asking readers to act as witnesses and to use their imaginations, in order to inspire sympathy.</p>

In this thesis, I argue that we have no reason to accept the existence of a category of supererogatory moral goods: that is, good acts that carry no pressure to bring them about. Despite the counterintuitive nature and suspicious provenance of the concept, Supererogationism is the orthodoxy in Ethics, and I examine promising but unsuccessful responses to it by Peter Singer and Kwame Gyekye. Responding in particular to David Heyd's Supererogationism - but also to J. O. Urmson, Susan Wolf, and Jonathan Dancy - I develop an account of the principle "Good implies Ought" that does not entail absurd over-obligation. I argue that this Anti-Supererogationist model stands up to the four strongest arguments against such a position, and that it embraces a more accurate account of the relation between values and oughts than Supererogationists are capable of supplying. Finally, I sketch a detailed eudaimonist account of the principle umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu - that our commitment to the good of others stems from our flourishing being caught up with theirs.

In classical antiquity there were no restrictions on who could practise medicine. There were no enforceable professional standards. The physician sold his services at his own discretion to those who asked and paid for treatment; he exercised his art as he wished. In the early Christian centuries Christian charity and moral principles effected some significant changes in the perception of medical ethics and suggested a responsibility to exercise compassion and extend charity. Yet it is not until the late Middle Ages that we can speak of the development of a clearly-defined medical deontology and professional ethics resulting from two factors» 1) The development of licensure requirements (whether imposed by external authority or obtained by medical guilds) which reflects a fundamental change in the very basis for the practice of medicine from a right to a privilege, with specific obligations attached to that privilege. 2) The clear definition and expression by casuists of the moral responsibilities of physicians. During the late Middle Ages some physicians wrote treatises on medical etiquette and ethics. When the contents of these treatises are supplemented by guild and university ethics and the moral expectations of the casuists, as well as by the evidence of physicians' conscientious response to the various outbreaks of pestilential disease in the late Middle Ages, the picture that emerges is of relatively high ethical standards circumscribed by, and in part the result of, clearly-delineated expectations of ecclesiastical authority and the secular community. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

At the beginning of the ritual dispute, the position of the Grand Secretarial headed by Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe (1459-1429) was widely supported by the court officials. The reason was that its suggestion of unifying dynastic succession and imperial adoption for Shizong, making him the "son" of the late Emperor Xiaozong (1470-1505). Made perfect reuse to them, that position was strengthened by the reforms introduced by the Enthronement Decree, which was drafted by Yang Tinghe. / However, Shizong increasingly attempted to prevail with his personal will at the expanding of dynastic laws and rituals. His decreased father, the Prince of Xing, was titled "Sovereign Father by Birth" on the recommendations of the Grand Secretariat. In the third year of Jiajing (1524), supported by several junior officials, he wanted to get rid of the term "By birth" in his father's title and address Xiaozong, his adopted father, as "Sovereign Uncle". Two hundred and thirty odd officials gathered and cried at the Zuoshun Gate to protest. Shizong ordered them beaten and imprisoned. / Obviously, the "Great Ritual Controversy" was a great tragedy. It was so not only that protesting officials suffered physically and politically in the aftermath. The more far-reaching historical significance is that it brought about a change of political ethics of great consequences. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) / The "Great Ritual Controversy" (Daliyi) began soon after Emperor Shizong (1507-1566, reigned 1521-1566) succeeded the throne of his cousin, the Wuzong Emperor (1491-1521). The crux of the dispute was Shizong's insistence on paying his deceased father, who never reigned, ever increasing ritual homage. / The replacement of senior court officials caused a change to the political alignment of the court. The status of the grand secretariat and the ministries were badly affected. Court officials in general were no longer cooperating nor unified under the laws or conventional practice. The grand secretaries more and more became the Emperor's personal secretaries, while gaining more power. / This dissertation studies the performance of these officials during and after the dispute to provide better knowledge of this historical episode. It also intends to throw light on the moral spirit of the scholar-officials in the middle Ming. / 胡吉勛. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2005. / 參考文獻(p. 567-586). / Adviser: Hung-lam Chu. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0297. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (Zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2005. / Can kao wen xian (p. 567-586). / Hu Jixun.

<p> Abstract The proclamation of the <i>Universal Declaration of Human Rights</i> by the United Nations on December 10, 1948 gave birth to the contemporary human rights movement. Despite the worldwide influence the idea of human rights has enjoyed, the concept of human rights has been plagued by a number of criticisms. Among the most pervasive and persistent criticisms of human rights are that they represent an individualist viewpoint, and they are a relative product of Western society that are hardly universal. One purpose of this dissertation is to challenge these criticisms. However, in recent decades the idea of human rights has been expanded past its original individual focus to incorporate the idea of collective, or group rights. The juxtaposition of universal, individual rights with particular, collective rights raises anew the issues of individualism and universalism in the human rights debate. In this dissertation, I compare the work of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Guti&eacute;rrez, and the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum in order to yield a contextually sensitive natural law approach to human rights that will serve as a common justificatory basis for individual and collective human rights. This common justificatory basis is capable of addressing the questions of individualism and universalism generated by the theoretical tensions generated by the juxtaposition of the <i>Universal Declaration of Human Rights</i> (1948), which enshrines individual, universal rights, and the more recent <i>United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</i> (2007), which enshrines more particularistic, group rights.</p>

Christian ethics are ecclesial. The aim of this study is to sustain this conviction in the case of St John Chrysostom. The pastoral concern "The Counsel against Despair" provides the interpretative key to his ethics. The full spectrum of his works, most of which are homilies, are examined in this study. The thesis begins with an account of the wider theological issues involved. This is particularly necessary because pastoral ministry has generally been regarded as peripheral to theology proper, and homiletical material has usually been dismissed as an improper source for understanding patristic ethics. In the main body of the thesis, the problem of despair is situated in Chrysostom's overall theological vision. The intrinsic connection of ethics to ecclesiology is explored through an analysis of the pivotal role which a community in mutual consolation and exhortation plays in the overcoming of moral impotence and moral confusion. The implications for the moral commitments of an individual are also examined. Attention is given throughout the analysis to the crucial points of departure between Chrysostom and those among his predecessors and contemporaries who maintain a more rational and volitional interpretation of ethics. A concluding chapter reflects on Chrysostom's contribution to the understanding of the nature of pastoral ministry in the modern age. An Augustinian and a post-Vatican II Roman Catholic approach to the problem of ecclesiastical discipline are analysed and found unsatisfactory. Chrysostom's line of reasoning offers a way to situate pastoral ministry in a wider moral framework. The thesis aims to show that homiletical material and the place of the affections in theological ethics should receive more attention from patrologists and systematic theologians.

本文旨在探討魏晉南北朝撰文家訓的興盛原委及發展現象。所謂撰文家訓 ，是指在具有血源或養子關係的家庭中，由長輩、族長和尊者，對晚輩、族人 及卑者布施的文字訓誡。 　　較諸前代，魏晉南北朝撰文家訓不但數量大增，而且篇幅內容的深、廣度也 有顯著躍進，因此學界普遍認同魏晉南北朝是家訓趨向成熟的過渡期。本文關 注的問題是：為什麼撰文家訓會在漢魏之際大量出現？而這時的家訓在內容、 撰作形式上，跟前代的作品有何分別？甚或以同時代的作品比較，不同氏族創 作的家訓在命題上存在什麼異同？以及這些特徵與差異是受到什麼因素影響而 產生的？ 　　本文嘗試以家族為研究單位，著重分析十五支具有家訓傳承現象的氏族的 撰文家訓內涵，務求找出該家族的價值取向，挖掘家訓這種為導引家族發展方 針而出現的實用文體之精神。其次，對於部分以單篇形式流傳的家訓，本文也 會將之聯繫至政治、社會的層面，考查政治氛圍、知識分子的心態和社會地位 差距，跟家訓發展的交互影響。冀能完整呈現出魏晉南北朝家訓發展的畫面。 本論文共分六章：除第一章緒論及第六章總結外，正文部分共有四章。第 二章主要疏理前人對撰文家訓定義理解的分歧，以明確研究範圍與材料對象。 第三章從史學的角度，追溯家訓文學之由來，了解其在先秦至兩漢時之遞變， 並嘗試探析魏晉家訓作品大量湧現的原因。第四章、五章則以家訓作品本身作 為考察的對象，分析當時不同地域及氏族的家訓內容特色，並會比對家訓出現 歧異的原因，外在環境因素與家訓發展的交互影響，藉此了解家訓作品中慣常 出現內容的精神基點所在。 Abstract This thesis examines the reasons of mass production and the development of textual family-instructions during Wei, Jin & the North-South Dynasties. Textual family- instructions, refers to “A written reprimand issued by the elders or chiefs whom have blood or adoption relationship with the younger. - 2 - 　Compared to the previous dynasties, textual family-instructions appeared in Wei, Jin & the North-South Dynasties not only increased in number, but the depth and breadth were also enhanced. Therefore, scholars generally agree that this is a transition period for family-instructions. This phenomenon led me to ponder upon a number of issues: Why did the numbers of family-instructions grow rapidly between the age of Han and the Wei Dynasty? Are there any differences in comparing a family-instruction in Wei, Jin & the North-South as well as in the previous Dynasties? By comparing with the contemporary works, what are the similarities and differences among them? What are the factors causing the differences and similarities? In order to approach the topic in a holistic way, this study not only explores the contents of each single family-instruction, but also reviews all works from the same clan. I sort out fifteen clans which emphasized on family-instruction heritage, so that the core values and development policy of the whole clan could be clearly observed. For those single-piece family-instruction, would be observed together with the political and social context. Therefore, through the study of the political climate, the mentality of intellectuals, disparities status in the society, the result of family- instruction development could be achieved in a more comprehensive way. This thesis contains six chapters. Chapter I is “Introduction and Chapter VI “Conclusion. Chapter II gives definition of textual family-instruction, which clarifies the scope of the study. Chapter III is written from the perspective of history, tracing the origin, understanding of the transitions, also the reasons of recruiting mass production of family-instruction during Wei, Jin & the North-South Dynasties. Chapter IV & V analyze the features of family-instruction by different clans, and find out the reasons for discrepancy. Also, the external factors influencing the contents of family-instruction will also be investigated.

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Chow Wai-yin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leave [243]-259). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.