The awareness about corruption has distinctly risen since the 1990s. In line with this many anti-corruption approaches arose initiated by the international community. This ranged from international legislation, initiatives by international institutions as Transparency International as well as strategic efforts on corporative levels as given with the appearance of Code of Conducts. However, the phenomenon appears to be of stable nature, which clearly impacts international business. Globalisation brings companies from less corrupt countries, unexperienced with its dimensions and handling, in frequent contact with business environments being highly dominated by corruption. Due to this, we find it to be a topic of importance and high relevance for almost any multinational business actor. Within the business related research field of corruption, we identified three research gaps. Firstly, the investigation of the supply-side of corruption within the private sector has not received sufficient attention in comparison to the demand-side. Further it appears that the contextuality of the phenomenon has been widely neglected, meaning that its driving dimensions of economical, social and political nature have not been investigated as a whole, revealing potential interrelations. In connection to this, the third gap we see to be given with a lacking connection of the topic to ethical considerations, which also calls for a contextual embedment. Based on these gaps we formulated the following research question: What drives corrupt practices of Multinational Enterprises within the internationalisation process? We argue that before any decisions concerning the handling of corruption can be made, one firstly needs to understand the phenomenon in its complexity. Building up on that, we further aim to scrutinise whether the above described anti-corruption approaches represent sufficient measures for MNEs when it comes to the practical avoidance of corruption. This represents the purpose of our study. We divided anti-corruption measures into internal and external approaches. The former include corporate anti-corruption- strategies, which in connection with ethical standpoints are commonly stated within Code of Conducts. The latter depicts the international legal framework against corrupt practices as well as international institutions fighting it. We concentrated our research on MNEs based in Europe, which internationalised to the BRIC-countries. In order to gain practical insights, a qualitative multiple case study has been conducted, comprising a sample of ten European companies. Given that we decided to conduct an exploratory study, we interviewed firms of differing size and industries in order to gain diverse data. The data collection was specifically tailored to the sensitivity of our research topic. As an ethical standpoint we took the anthropological perspective of moral relativism, implying that corruption cannot be evaluated as right or wrong without taking its context into consideration. Based on the latter, the findings revealed that corruption depicts a phenomenon of high complexity, being driven by every single of the investigated dimensions. Those are intensively interrelated and further reinforce each other. This characteristic seems to lead to a failure of anti-corruption approaches as sufficient measures on the operative level. Thus, within the BRIC-countries MNEs are unlikely to be able to uphold a strict non-tolerance for corruption as it appears to represent the Western business expectations. Consequently, they seem be entangled in a dilemma, facing the local given of strongly prevalent corruption but lacking tools to efficiently circumvent any engagement. According to this we identified a need for a new perspective, going beyond the oversimplified moral evaluation of corruption as right or wrong, implying a ‘black or white’-decision. We see this to be unrealistic since the real-life- context partly leads to grey-zones, in our view making the engagement in corrupt actions morally acceptable since the assessment has to be based on national moral views and take situational dependency into account. With this, we provide a new perspective on the phenomenon of corruption which can serve as a base for future research. On top of that managers can make use of our implications in order to better understand corruption. Consequently, they are able to make more realistic evaluations, for example acknowledging acceptable cultural adaptations instead of claiming a zero-tolerance approach. This again can lead to the creation of transparency, in the end supporting the combating of corruption.

The diploma thesis focuses on attitudes towards euthanasia and summarizes the influential factors for its evaluation. It is crucial to understand these predictors in the context of the ongoing public debate on its legalization. The content of the theoretical part is a brief definition of used terms, an overview of some countries with legislation allowing assisted dying and its alternatives. There is a part devoted to methodological aspects of research and consistency of attitudes. The empirical part presents a research that is focused on the impact of individual factors on the level of acceptability of euthanasia in hypothetical cases. The factors examined were mainly type of disease, type and degree of suffering, type of euthanasia, person performing euthanasia, age of the patient, prognosis of their disease, respondent's country of origin and respondent's personality characteristics. Demographic correlates were monitored and respondents answered additional questions about the cases. The results show a significant difference in evaluation between the type of euthanasia and the person involved in the process. It also depended on patient's age and life expectancy. Moral evaluation also varied significantly in comparison of the country of origin, political orientation, and respondent's religiosity....

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the possibility of promoting social justice through the direct confrontation and rectification of manifest injustices in our existing social institutions and practices, as opposed to the more conventional theoretical approach of attempting to offer comprehensive accounts of ideal justice based on the identification of ultimate principles of justice or perfectly just institutional arrangements. Through an analysis and moral evaluation of the intergenerational transfer of wealth through the practice of inheritance, the study attempts to illustrate how a narrower theoretical focus on specific existing social institutions and practices will enhance conceptual clarity regarding their morally relevant features and, by taking the actual social and political context into account from the outset, increase the political and real-world relevance of the resulting proposal. This study also offers a thorough examination of property rights, because an understanding of the nature of ownership and the justificatory theories of entitlement claims necessarily provides the background context against which the issue of inheritance has to be addressed. As property rights give specific people claims to resources to the exclusion of others, any considerations on property rights also brings up questions of distributive and social justice. Within this broader framework of property rights and distributive justice, this study seeks to show that inheritance is not only inconsistent with the values underlying capitalism, but also an unfair and outdated practice that helps to perpetuate economic and social inequality, which undermines the ideal of democratic citizenship. To this end, a proposal is made to cap inheritance by placing an upper limit to the amount an individual will be allowed to bequeath to any other individual(s). It is argued that this limit should be high enough to allow for the transfer of a family home and objects with sentimental value, but not so high as to ensure a life of complete leisure to future generations. The merits of inheritance taxation will then be discussed in detail and arguments in favour of limiting inheritance will be subdivided into three broad categories: The first concerns the legitimacy of the practice of inheritance itself, as well as the tension between the liberal-democratic principles underlying capitalism and the practice of inheritance, the second relates to the undesirability of the social outcomes that are realised based on the practice of inheritance, and the third focuses on the potential gains that the alternative arrangement will bring. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die tesis ondersoek die moontlikheid dat sosiale geregtigheid deur die direkte konfrontasie en regstelling van ongeregtighede in ons bestaande instellings en praktyke bevorder kan word, in teenstelling met die meer konvensionele teoretiese benadering wat poog om alomvattende teorieë van ideale geregtigheid op die identifikasie van finale beginsels van geregtigheid of volmaakte institusionele organisering te baseer. Die studie poog om deur die analise en morele evaluering van die praktyk van erflating te illustreer dat ‘n nouer teoretiese fokus op spesifieke bestaande sosiale instellings en praktyke die konseptuele duidelikheid aangaande hul moreel relevante aspekte kan verbeter, en dat die relevansie van voorstellings verhoog kan word deur die werklike politieke en sosiale konteks uit die staanspoor in ag te neem. Die studie bied ook ‘n deeglike analise van eiendomsreg aan, omdat ‘n begrip van die aard van eienaarskap en die teorieë wat besitsreg regverdig noodwendig die agtergrond konteks skep waarteen die kwessie van erflating aangespreek moet word. Omdat eiendomsreg vir spesifieke mense regte tot hulpbronne gee tot die uitsluiting van ander, bring enige oorwegings aangaande eiendomsreg ook die kwessie van sosiale geregtigheid na vore. Binne hierdie breër raamwerk van eiendomsreg en sosiale geregtigheid, poog die studie om te wys dat erflating nie net teenstrydig is met die waardes onderliggend aan kapitalisme nie, maar ook 'n onregverdige en verouderde praktyk is wat bydra tot die voortbestaning van ekonomiese en sosiale ongelykheid, en dus die ideaal van demokratiese burgerskap ondermyn. Die studie stel voor dat erflating beperk moet word deur ‘n limiet te plaas op die bedrag wat enige persoon van ander persone af kan erf. Die meriete van erflatingsbelasting word in detail bespreek en argumente ten gunste van ‘n limiet op erflatings word breedweg in drie kategorieë verdeel: Die eerste betref die legitimiteit van die praktyk van erflating self, sowel as die spanning tussen die liberaal-demokratiese beginsels onderliggend aan kapitalisme en die praktyk van erflating; die tweede het betrekking tot die onaanvaarbare sosiale uitkomste wat ontstaan vanweë die praktyk van erflating; en die derde fokus op die verbeteringe wat alternatiewe praktyke kan bring.

Résumé: Le rapport entre la morale et la politique est un des plus vieux problèmes et des plus durables que s’est posé la philosophie morale, la philosophie politique, et plus récemment la philosophie du droit. Pour certains, la Morale, au sens large, doit guider les actions humaines dans toutes les sphères d’activité et les individus devraient ainsi, au mieux de leur capacité, chercher à se conformer à ses exigences. Dans ce cas, il ne peut y avoir de dilemme moral entre les exigences normatives issues de l’univers politique et les exigences, prétendument universelles, de la Morale. En contrepartie, d’autres suggèrent que l’on peut être justifié d’enfreindre, à certains moments, les exigences que l’on considère comme morales dans la vie « ordinaire » étant donné le caractère adversatif de la politique. Le dilemme se présente, ainsi, comme une tension entre deux normativités qui suggèrent une distinction entre ce qui relève du public et ce qui relève du privé. C’est en voulant répondre à ce dernier problème que s’est développé une littérature qui porte au cœur de sa conception le problème de la justification morale d’une action politique qui est moralement condamnable. Dans son ensemble, ce mémoire s’intéresse à analyser comment la littérature portant sur le problème des mains sales traite la question du couple conceptuel public – privé. Nous soutenons, qu’en retenant la possibilité d’une réelle distinction entre ces deux univers à normativités différentes, l’hypothèse qu’il y a effectivement une tension entre le domaine privé et le domaine public, qui ne peut totalement se soumettre aux exigences de la morale étant donné les particularités de l’action politique. Ceci étant dit, nous désirons nuancer une telle prise de position qui fait écho aux écrits de Machiavel. Ainsi, nous soutiendrons que cette distance entre le public et le privé est bien réelle, cependant, elle ne se présente pas aussi radicalement. Plutôt, elle se présente comme une distinction qui est liée à l’enjeu de l’évaluation, du jugement moral, faite par les individus qui sont hors de la politique et de ceux étant à l’intérieur de la politique. / Abstract: The relationship between Morality and the political reflection is one of the oldest problems and of the most long-lasting that arose in moral philosophy, political philosophy, and more recently in philosophy of law. For some, Morality, in its broader sense, has to guide human actions in all the spheres of activity and individuals should so, at the best of their capacities, try to conform to its requirements. Which amount to say that it cannot have a moral dilemma between the normative requirements from the political realm and the requirements, supposedly universal, of Morality. In return, others suggest that it can be justified to violate requirements which we consider, in « ordinary life », as moral, given that the purpose of the so immoral, political, action is exactly the preservation and the development of morality. Here, the dilemma appears as a tension between two normativities who suggest a distinction between what is a matter of the public and what is a private matter. In the attempt to address this problem a vast literature has developed and it carries at the heart of its conception a debate which seems difficult to solve: the problem of the moral justification of a political action which is morally reprehensible. In overall, this master thesis is interested to analyze how the literature, concerning the « problem of dirty hands », handle the question of the abstract couple « public and private ». We support, by retaining the possibility of a real distinction between these two normative realms, the hypothesis that there is an actual tension between the private domain and the public domain, which cannot totally submit itself to the requirements of the morality, given the peculiarities of the political actions. Having said that, we wish to temper such a stand, which echoes Machiavelli’s papers. We shall argue that this tension between the public and the private is real; however, it does not appear so radically. Rather, it appears as a distinction which bound to the stake of the evaluative approach, in the moral judgement, between individuals who are outside the realm of politics and those being inside its realm.

The thesis consists of two main parts. The first part focuses on the ethical values in the Old and New Testament. At the beginning basic concepts are defined, that are essential for the thesis and are related to ethics and moral evaluation. The first part centres on the important events that shaped society and that come from The Bible (Creation, The Ten Commandments, God's contracts with the nation of Israel, the life of Jesus Christ, the parables, The Sermon on the Mount and The Lord's Prayer). The thesis also compares these values with the philosophy of Socrates and then with the approach, that Jan Amos Comenius offered in his work. The second part analyzes views of Christian ethical values today : whether there is a need to know these values, why we should strive for their observance, whether they are current and whether people (Christians and atheists ) honor and follow them. On the basis of the second section I conclude, that our culture is formed under the strong influence of Christianity, these values are still held and are considered important for the functioning of human relationships and society. Although it may seem that these values are not held today, they are still an ideal within our culture and people are trying to achieve them in their lifes.