School leaders are faced with serious moral challenges on a daily basis at schools, which often result in them making poor moral choices. In a situation of moral decay in schools, reports in the news media create the impression that school leaders often fail to demonstrate the necessary values advocated by the Moral Regeneration Movement and the Manifesto of Values, Education and Democracy. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore school leaders’ understanding and reasoning regarding values and morality. For the purposes of the study a number of possible lenses, such as cultural relativism, religious beliefs, ethical subjectivism, classical utilitarian theory, Domain theory, and the ethic of justice, ethic of care, ethic of critique and the ethic of community, were identified and used in analysing the way school leaders reason about moral dilemmas. A design located within hermeneutic phenomenology was used in the study with the aim to understand school leaders’ understanding and reasoning regarding values and morality. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering techniques was used in a concurrent mixed method design using a single questionnaire. The sample for the study consisted of educators enrolled for a formal management training programme. This group was largely homogenous in terms of religion, language, culture and was mainly from rural areas of Mpumalanga. Seventy-three participants took part in the study. It emerged from the data that the espoused theories used by school leaders could be related to the lenses identified in the literature. The school leaders’ espoused theories were mainly based on the ethic of justice and the ethic of care and were aligned to their preferred value orientations. At the espoused theory level, school leaders revealed a strong moral orientation. Further research is indicated to study school leaders’ theory in action. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

This thesis will revisit the debate between moral particularists and moral generalists in the field of meta-ethics. The general aim of this project will be to come to a better understanding of the status and role of moral principles in a reasons-holistic moral landscape. The specific aim will be to develop a viable position within the particularism-generalism debate that will combine elements from both theories. My central argument will be threefold: (a) I will argue that, in a reasons-holistic moral landscape, exceptionless moral principles are not sufficient to ground the possibility of moral thought and judgement; (b) that the possibility of moral thought and judgement depends in part on a determinate set of exceptionless moral principles and an indeterminate set of defeasible moral principles; and (c) that moral principles are insufficient to codify all or most moral truths in finite and manageable terms. My position therefore is a modified version of Principled Particularism. In this thesis, despite defending a version of particularism, I will not shy away from employing generalist terminology or from accepting certain generalist assumptions. Furthermore, unlike some particularists, I will stress the necessity and utility of moral principles. This thesis will also incorporate research about moral thought and judgement from the fields of moral psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:27:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Frank Antonio de Almeida.pdf: 890810 bytes, checksum: f64e2de90656f59b081415f7f2d65094 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-25 / The present thesis aims to reveal some conceptual aspects in the formation of conscience mortal seen through the eyes of the moral theologian Marciano Vidal Garcia. Undoubtedly these aspects are rooted in the itinerary of his personal and academic life, as well we understand that the formation of conscience happens in life-history and process of the individual academic. Therefore, this work speaks at beginning chapter on the path of theological reflection and experiential conducted by the author. Surely his university studies are relevant and his constant concern in dialogue with issues related to moral theology, process in search of a better understanding of the moral conscience. His ongoing theological dialogue with the authors Bernahrd Haring and Alphonsus Liguori was decisive in the formation of their paradigm about moral conscience. The academic experience of Marciano Vidal at various universities and their life experience showed in his writing new paradigms to better understand the issue we reviewed. In this path toward the understanding of moral conscience, we meet the elements: Conscientiousness. Moral. Ethics. Moral crisis. Moral education. Christian Ethics / A presente dissertação tem como objetivo revelar alguns aspectos conceituais na formação da consciência mortal vistos pela ótica do teólogo moralista Marciano Vidal Garcia. Sem dúvida estes aspectos têm raízes no itinerário de sua vida pessoal e acadêmica, pois entendemos que a formação da consciência moral acontece no processo vital-histórico e acadêmico do individuo. Por isso, este trabalho fala no capítulo inicial sobre o caminho de reflexão teológica e vivencial realizado pelo autor. Sem dúvida são pertinentes seus estudos universitários e sua permanente preocupação em dialogar com temas relacionados com a Teologia Moral, processo em busca de uma melhor compreensão da consciência moral. Seu permanente diálogo teológico com os autores Bernahrd Haring e Afonso Maria de Ligório foi decisivo para a formação de seu paradigma sobre a consciência moral . A experiência acadêmica de Marciano Vidal em diversas universidades e sua experiência de vida mostraram em seus escritos novos paradigmas para melhor compreender o tema que analisamos. Neste percurso que caminha ao encontro da compreensão da consciência moral, encontram-se os elementos: Consciência moral. Moral. Ética. Crise moral. Educação moral. Ética Cristã

I aim to show in this thesis that human beings are morally concerned to the core; that a concern for moral goodness is a necessary part of our humanity. Central to my account of the foundations of morality is what I call 'primary recognition', which I argue is the source of our moral thinking. By primary recognition, I mean our basic apprehension of other human beings as objects of some moral concern. I take this to be a 'basic moral certainty', in accord with the notion recently introduced by Nigel Pleasants in the debate on moral foundations, which he drew from the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein on the notion of basic empirical certainty, found in On Certainty (1969). Building on Pleasants' notion of 'basic moral certainty' I bring to bear Danièle Moyal-Sharrock's distinction between universal and local forms of basic certainty in an effort to make sense of the co-existence of universal moral beliefs and local, often conflicting, moral beliefs. I offer and defend two examples of universal basic moral certainties: 'At least some killings are wrong' and 'Some wrongs are more serious, more wrong, than others', which I take to be necessarily indubitable for any moral agent. I then examine examples of local moral certainties: the wrongness of pig sacrifice in ancient Judaism, the goodness of hospitality among the modern Pashtun, and the wrongness of cannibalism for the ancient Greeks. These examinations lead me to conclude that basic moral certainties come in both local and universal varieties in just the same way as basic empirical certainties, and that holding certain local moral beliefs is definitional for membership in certain epistemic communities. I go on to consider some challenges to the view that morality has its foundations in basic moral certainty, in particular that made by G.E.M Anscombe and Alasdair MacIntyre that modern moral thought lacks any foundations. I reply by reiterating the nonrational nature of the foundations of morality, modern or otherwise. I conclude the thesis by outlining some of the outcomes of this account of moral certainty for contemporary moral philosophy.

La médecine palliative a pour finalité le suivi médical et humain de la personne en phase terminale en cherchant à lui prodiguer, le plus possible, un confort physique et psychologique. Ce confort est en grande partie lié au contrôle de la douleur physique au moyen d’analgésiques dont le dosage est constamment ajusté. Dans la plupart des cas, le contrôle de la douleur et un accompagnement humain pourront assurer au patient en phase terminal un apaisement physique et psychologique, tout en le laissant pleinement conscient. Il arrive cependant que des situations peuvent échapper au contrôle médical et pour lesquelles il n’est plus possible de soulager la souffrance avec les moyens courants disponibles, fussent-ils les plus efficaces. Une pratique qui est alors utilisée est celle d’induire le patient dans un sommeil artificiel au moyen de sédatifs puissants, afin de lui faire perdre la conscience de sa souffrance. Cette mise en sommeil pharmacologiquement induit pour une période déterminée est appelé sédation active ou sédation continue. Les situations extrêmes sont rares mais pas exceptionnelles. La pratique de la sédation continue soulève de nombreux enjeux éthiques. À partir d’une topologie des lieux éthiques que nous proposerons, nous explorerons un certain nombre de pistes qui peuvent éclairer ces enjeux. Nous situerons, en particulier, la sédation continue par rapports aux pratiques euthanasiques et par rapport aux soins palliatifs.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This study examined midshipmen perceptions of moral development at the Naval Academy. Six focus groups comprising a total of 45 first-class midshipmen were conducted to discover aspects of the Naval Academy experience that have positive, neutral and negative impacts on midshipmen's moral development. Focus group midshipmen reported that good personal examples, open-forum discussions of ethical case studies, assuming midshipmen leadership responsibilities and participation in sports have a positive impact on their moral development. Parts of the Naval Academy experience that had a neutral impact on their moral development included some aspects of the core ethics course, the behavior of some of their peers, and the "directed development" approach they perceived in many of the Academy programs. Focus group midshipmen also believed that there were too many ethics and character programs, and that they were too repetitious and too routine to have more than a neutral impact on their moral development. Finally, focus group midshipmen cited bad example by some officers, the Bancroft Hall culture, and weaknesses in the Honor System as having a negative impact on their moral development. This study concluded with several recommendations from the midshipmen and researcher to improve moral development efforts at the Naval Academy. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

I consider whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs. Most contemporary discussion in this area is centred on the question of whether debunking implications follow from our ability to explain elements of human morality in terms of natural selection, given that there has been no selection for true moral beliefs. By considering the most prominent arguments in the literature today, I offer reasons to think that debunking arguments of this kind fail. However, I argue that a successful evolutionary debunking argument can be constructed by appeal to the suggestion that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny, much as the horizontal orientation of the whale’s tail reflects its descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. An introductory chapter unpacks the question of whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs, offers a brief historical guide to the philosophical discussion surrounding it, and explains what I mean to contribute to this discussion. Thereafter follow six chapters and a conclusion. The six chapters are divided into three pairs. The first two chapters consider what contemporary scientific evidence can tell us about the evolutionary origins of morality and, in particular, to what extent the evidence speaks in favour of the claims on which debunking arguments rely. The next two chapters offer a critique of popular debunking arguments that are centred on the irrelevance of moral facts in natural selection explanations. The final chapters develop a novel argument for the claim that evolutionary explanations can undermine our moral beliefs insofar as they show that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny. A conclusion summarizes my argument and sets out the key questions that arise in its wake.

Published literature has focused on understanding moral distress from a descriptive standpoint. Missing from the literature is an exploration of the role a nurse can play in his/her/own moral distress.A qualitative study with an interpretive design incorporated Clandinin and Connelly' narrative methodology. Results highlighted assumptions were made by participants in the absence of resources, which led them to" know the right action to take" from their own perspective.

On the 14th March 2013 the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) held a hearing to consider an application by Top TV and their parent company ODM to broadcast three adult-content channels. This application and hearing have again brought the debate surrounding pornography to the fore in South Africa. While research in the field of pornography studies has historically been centred around whether pornography is harmful to women specifically and society in general, the current research aims to move away from this framework and examine issues of subjectivity, discourse, and power within the debate. This will be achieved through the use of moral panic theory, and Foucauldian critical discourse analysis (FCDA) to analyse the transcript of the hearing held at ICASA as well as newspaper reports regarding the hearing and its outcome