Capacity-oriented accounts of animal ethics have been fairly successful in establishing that the interests of animals ought to be included in moral considerations. Yet, even when individual animals have identical capacities and interests there remains a strong intuition that we have greater moral obligations to some animals, such as pets, than to others, such as animals in the wild. This thesis argues that contemporary relational approaches to animal ethics offer a plausible, more direct means of accounting for this intuition that do current forms of capacity-oriented approaches such as those offered by Peter Singer an Tom Regan. / Graduate

Thesis (D. Min.)--Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, 1995. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-115).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity International University, Deerfield, Ill., 1998. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-231).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

M.Ing. / Engineering is a combination of natural and human science skills and expertise. Engineers are required to satisfy the needs of their customers at a human science level, yet they are also expected to solve problems that require meticulous calculation at a natural science level. Engineers who can negotiate with customers, but who do not have the competencies to solve complex problems, will find the profession extremely complicated and frustrating. On the other hand if engineers have developed the required skills to tackle and solve the most intricate problems but are unable to communicate and interact with their clients, they will soon realise that they are isolated from the community. Because of the workload associated with the curriculum for engineering studies at tertiary level, academic staff find it difficult to include topics other than hard core engineering in the curriculum. Potential engineers have to realise that they are entering a profession that requires -a- lifelong learning commitment to stay abreast of developments, especially because of the explosion of developments in high technology. The challenge lies with educational institutions, employers and the engineering fraternity alike to ensure that qualified engineers, technologists and technicians are wellbalanced, highly-skilled professionals with the ability to interact with the public at large. Engineering students need to be exposed to a wide range of additional skills, such as motivational, communication, negotiating, financial and psychological. A subject that is seldom addressed in educational institutions is ethics and its role in an engineer's life. Because ethics is based on various complex foundations, such as the various religions, cultural backgrounds and different values and norms of groups of people, academic staff tend to avoid broaching the topic. This dissertation has probed the complexities of ethics and how it differs depending on the background of a specific group of people or a specific profession. It further investigated the perceived needs among engineering students and qualified engineers so that engineering students can be exposed to ethics and the importance of a basic knowledge of ethics before they can be regarded as fully-fledged engineers. Results of a market research has revealed that qualified engineers and engineering students are aware of the importance of an expanded curriculum that would include the additional subjects mentioned earlier. The findings correlate with similar results obtained in a market research in United States of America. Literature claimed that Europe was lagging behind USA with regard to the inclusion of ethics in their curriculum but that it was rectifying the situation. he issue under discussion is that all role-players in South Africa should join forces to incorporate ethics in the curriculum of tertiary education institutions and in the in-house-training programmes of businesses. This programme can later be extended to include other human science skills. Control measures should be introduced to ensure the work done in South Africa by the engineering fraternity is in line with international standards. This will enable South Africa to remain a competitive role-player in the global market.

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

Medicine and bioethics today are though as fields of pure logic, reasoning, and science, with physicians and ethicists trained to approach patients with an attitude of detatched rationality. In reality, neither medical care nor ethics can be practiced well without an acknowledgement for their deeply emotional, relational, and narrative qualities. Medical care and bioethics must both be practiced through a narrative lense in order to truly meet the humanity of both patients and practitioners. There are practical methods to integrate narrative skills into clinical practice, as well as tangible benefits to doing so. Practially, this is performed through narrative medicine: an approach to medical care that recognizes the stories as a critical component to healthcare; as well as narrative ethics: an awareness of the essential role of narrative in moral understanding. Using narrative as a tool to understanding illness and moral grounds the more abstract and universal aspects of both in practical, individual reality. There are many practical aspects of narratives when applied to bioethics, such as aquiring narrative skills, what happens when stories are shared, recognizing how narratives are built, how they convey knowledge, organize life, and provide meaning. Illness creates an isolation – for both patient and practitioner – and stories allow each to express their experience and be supported though the stories of others. Stories help brigdge the gap in experiences of illness between practioner and patient while helping pracitioners to maintin their empathy in the face of continual suffering. Narrative skills are also useful for practioners to bring awareness to the power dynamics that influence patient stories, such as the power of practitioner as co-creator, whose voice is given credibility, external and internal influences on a story, who determines the meaning of a story, and how the patient is characterized within the story. Narrative permeates every aspect of human life, including medical and ethical situations, and approaching both through a narrative lens is imperative for the development of true understanding, empathy, and compassion. Cultivating a narrative framework towards illness allows both practioners and patients to be cared for while also caring for the other, thus creating deep, meaningful connections. / Urban Bioethics

Medicine and bioethics today are though as fields of pure logic, reasoning, and science, with physicians and ethicists trained to approach patients with an attitude of detatched rationality. In reality, neither medical care nor ethics can be practiced well without an acknowledgement for their deeply emotional, relational, and narrative qualities. Medical care and bioethics must both be practiced through a narrative lense in order to truly meet the humanity of both patients and practitioners. There are practical methods to integrate narrative skills into clinical practice, as well as tangible benefits to doing so. Practially, this is performed through narrative medicine: an approach to medical care that recognizes the stories as a critical component to healthcare; as well as narrative ethics: an awareness of the essential role of narrative in moral understanding. Using narrative as a tool to understanding illness and moral grounds the more abstract and universal aspects of both in practical, individual reality. There are many practical aspects of narratives when applied to bioethics, such as aquiring narrative skills, what happens when stories are shared, recognizing how narratives are built, how they convey knowledge, organize life, and provide meaning. Illness creates an isolation – for both patient and practitioner – and stories allow each to express their experience and be supported though the stories of others. Stories help brigdge the gap in experiences of illness between practioner and patient while helping pracitioners to maintin their empathy in the face of continual suffering. Narrative skills are also useful for practioners to bring awareness to the power dynamics that influence patient stories, such as the power of practitioner as co-creator, whose voice is given credibility, external and internal influences on a story, who determines the meaning of a story, and how the patient is characterized within the story. Narrative permeates every aspect of human life, including medical and ethical situations, and approaching both through a narrative lens is imperative for the development of true understanding, empathy, and compassion. Cultivating a narrative framework towards illness allows both practioners and patients to be cared for while also caring for the other, thus creating deep, meaningful connections. / Urban Bioethics

<p> Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is one of a handful of ancient philosophical theories that is widely known among philosophers generally. By contrast, Plato's discussions of measure are hardly known even among ancient philosophy specialists. It is unsurprising, then, that the influence of those discussions on Aristotle's doctrine has hardly been acknowledged, let alone examined in detail. The project of this dissertation is to fill this gap in our understanding; it is to examine the relationship between Plato's measure and Aristotle's mean.</p><p> In order to undertake this examination, accurate accounts of Plato's measure and of Aristotle's mean are needed. With regard to Plato, I pay particular attention to the <i>Statesman</i> and the <i>Philebus.</i> Out of the entire Platonic corpus, the passage on the art of measurement from the <i>Statesman</i> (283c-285c) is the clearest source of inspiration for Aristotle's doctrine. The standard interpretation of this difficult passage, however, is fundamentally mistaken, and so an alternative interpretation is needed. The discussions of measure in the <i>Philebus</i> supplement and illuminate this passage from the <i>Statesman</i> by elucidating the philosophical roles played by measure: measure both gives particular things their identities and serves as the relevant norm compliance with which renders those things good.</p><p> Turning to Aristotle, I develop a novel account of the doctrine of the mean. The need for such an account is especially pressing inasmuch as Aristotle's doctrine is often interpreted in a way that renders the doctrine philosophically implausible but that also has very little textual support. The novel account offered in this thesis is shown to handle readily the most common objections to Aristotle's doctrine.</p><p> With accurate accounts of measure and the mean, I then turn to comparing them along four points: normativity, ethical knowledge, what compliance with measure or the mean consists in, and absolutism (as opposed to relativism). The differences between Aristotle and Plato with regard to these four points reveal, I conclude, a fundamental difference in approach to ethical philosophy. For Plato, ethical theorizing is to be undertaken for the sake of gaining greater theoretical understanding; for Aristotle, its benefit is primarily practical.</p>

published_or_final_version / abstract / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences