Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Philosophy, August 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-105).

Thesis (M.A.)--Northern Michigan University, 2008. / Bibliography: leaves 62-63.

Thesis/Project (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 300-301). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-60) Also available in print.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2005. / Includes abstract. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-167).

How to become morally virtuous? Among the students of Aristotle, it is often assumed that the philosopher does not have a fully worked-out theoretical answer to this question. Some interpreters (e.g. Burnyeat 1980, most recently Curzer 2012) have, however, recognised that Aristotle may have a comprehensive theory of moral development. However, even those interpreters have made only scarce attempts to study Aristotle’s theory in connection with the questions about his moral psychology. Unlike Aristotle’s theory of moral development as such, several of those questions are among the most debated issues in current Aristotle scholarship - for example, whether we need reason to identify good actions or whether habituated non-rational affects suffice; what makes us responsible for our actions, and how the philosopher conceives the relationship between phronesis and moral motivation. In my thesis, I aim at connecting these important questions with Aristotle’s theory of moral development. I hope to show that this approach will yield a picture on which Aristotle’s theory is divisible into two steps that one has to choose to take in order to become morally virtuous. I argue first that identifying good ends, and actions, requires reason. In order to become morally responsible, a person has thus to develop a rational ability to identify good actions. I show that Aristotle’s term for such ability is synesis. The first step to virtue, I conclude, is to use this ability well, to choose to become virtuous and habituate one’s character into acting well. The second step is to acquire phronesis, understanding why good actions are good, to complement a habituated character. Developing of phronesis requires both considerable experience in acting well and philosophical teaching about ethics, but it is necessary for moral virtue. Although a finely-habituated person is invulnerable to akrasia with regard to pleasures even if he did not have phronesis, Aristotle allows, I show, that he might still be prone to impetuous akrasia, whereas phronimos could avoid akratic behaviour in any situation.

No description available.

Fairness and justice are often used interchangeably in socio-legal research. The goal of this study was to use 157 student-produced examples of either "injustice" or "unfairness" to determine whether differences exist in the content of the stories, and by extension, the definitions of these terms, and on participants' scores on modified versions of Kohlberg and Gilligan's levels of moral development. As hypothesized, the two terms were related, yet significantly different, with "unfairness" stories highlighting violations of equality, and "injustice" stories highlighting legal interactions and violations of equity. Sex differences were also found such that females were more likely to write stories rated high on unfairness and therefore equality, but no sex differences were found in level of moral reasoning reached by this sample. Future research is aimed at developing theory to explain differences, including the possible innate nature of "fairness" and environmental requirements leading to a concept of "justice".

Different researchers commit themselves to differing hypotheses when addressing the relationship between attitudes to unauthorised copying of software and the level of moral development. Some concentrate on moral intensity, others on moral judgement and still others on ethical decision-making. Some researchers assert that no one single hypothesis is correct but that certain hypotheses will be true under certain conditions. The idea that there is no single correct hypothesis has paved the way for the consideration of moderator variables of the attitudes to unauthorised copying of software and the level of moral development relationship. One variable in particular, that is, the Knowledge of Intellectual Property laws, has not yet been empirically examined in terms of its capacity as a moderator for this relationship. This exploratory, non-experimental, cross-sectional design explores the relationship between attitudes to unauthorised copying of software and the level of moral development as well as the effect of Knowledge of Intellectual Property laws on this relationship. A questionnaire was distributed to three medium-sized organisations in the Johannesburg area. The questionnaire consisted of a biographical blank and three different scales. The biographical blank was used as a means of examining the computer background of the respondents whilst the scales measured respondent attitudes to unauthorised copying of software, levels of moral development and respondent knowledge of Intellectual Property laws. The researcher received responses from 150 respondents from across the three organisations. It was with these 150 responses that two types of analyses were conducted. The initial analysis was a Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation which was used to determine the nature of the relationship between attitudes to unauthorised copying of software and level of moral development. The second analysis was a moderated multiple regression which was used to determine the moderator impact of Knowledge of Intellectual Property laws on the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The results of the correlation indicated that there is a significant positive relationship between the respondents’ attitudes to unauthorised copying of software and the level of moral development. Additionally, there are significant relationships between each measured level of moral development with the respondents’ attitudes. The moderated multiple linear regression revealed that Knowledge of Intellectual Property laws does not have a moderating effect on the relationship between attitudes to unauthorised copying of software. A discussion of these findings is included together with limitations and practical implications of the study as well as recommendations for future research.