It has become quite noticeable that modern world politics across the globe has lacked a guiding morality in which we can hold states morally accountable in both the international and domestic spheres. This can be seen in the never-ending wars and occupations across the Middle East, South-East Asia, and many other places around the world. Now, attempting to implement such guiding moral principles seems to be an impossible task mainly because of the massive difficulties that one would face in trying to get the 195 countries around the world to agree on such principles. Because of this, most will probably accuse me of eurocentrism, which I hope to avoid in this paper. Despite this fact, I believe that the inevitable effects of the Climate Crisis and the need to see basic human rights observed across the world are enough reason to at least discuss the question: How can we begin to hold collective agents, states specifically, accountable for their actions?

That the centre of Christianity is rapidly shifting from the global North to the global South, particularly to Sub-Saharan Africa, is undoubtedly a great cause of celebration. But the impact of this shift on ethical life remains to be seen among many African believers both at individual and community levels. One main factor for this is that moral life for most believers continues to be guided by a traditional ethical framework which derives its foundational moral values and norms from the concepts of community and solidarity. In this way, African ethics shares significant similarities with Christian ecclesial ethics which regards church as an ethical community. But a conceptualisation that sees the church as an ethical community does not only find fertile grounds in African cultures and thereby enriched by its strong sense of community and solidarity but it also ought to meaningfully challenge and transform this cultural framework in order to formulate an ethics that is not just African but is genuinely Christian, evangelical and biblical. As this research argues, this is possible when the distinctive underpinnings of the gospel are taken seriously thereby ensuring a fruitful and sustained moral formation within Christian communities. / MA (Ethics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

That the centre of Christianity is rapidly shifting from the global North to the global South, particularly to Sub-Saharan Africa, is undoubtedly a great cause of celebration. But the impact of this shift on ethical life remains to be seen among many African believers both at individual and community levels. One main factor for this is that moral life for most believers continues to be guided by a traditional ethical framework which derives its foundational moral values and norms from the concepts of community and solidarity. In this way, African ethics shares significant similarities with Christian ecclesial ethics which regards church as an ethical community. But a conceptualisation that sees the church as an ethical community does not only find fertile grounds in African cultures and thereby enriched by its strong sense of community and solidarity but it also ought to meaningfully challenge and transform this cultural framework in order to formulate an ethics that is not just African but is genuinely Christian, evangelical and biblical. As this research argues, this is possible when the distinctive underpinnings of the gospel are taken seriously thereby ensuring a fruitful and sustained moral formation within Christian communities. / MA (Ethics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The major focus of this thesis is the role of feelings and emotions in moral thinking/knowing, ethical conduct and, in particular, moral distress in nursing. Research has consistently found that the moral decisions nurses must make can sometimes lead to distress. However, such experiences are overly individualised in the literature. An alternative view of the person, drawing on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (e.g. 1927-8/1978) and the recent work of Paul Stenner (e.g. 2008), sees human subjectivity or mind as processual and always embodied and in-the-world. The emphasis upon the body draws attention to the role of felt experiences this thesis views feelings as integral to both sense-making knowing and thinking and sensibility or emotionality. The emphasis in-the-world highlights that subjectivity is embedded within social contexts, which include relations of power and organisations of material and symbolic capital aligned with those relations. Influenced by deep empiricism (e.g. Stenner, 2011a), this thesis develops a novel bricolage methodology based on a metaphor of diffraction to explore nurses experiences of moral distress. Nurses feelings of discomfort, a particular form of feelings of knowing , appear to be the seeds of moral distress. Various situations seem to be important antecedents for these seeds to bloom into full moral distress, including certain clinical issues, ethical conflict with colleagues, and issues of competency. Nurses also experience some aspects of their job as systemic barriers to high standards of care, which can also be morally distressing. Such distress sometimes affects nurses relationships, their physical health, and their mental health. Participants have found several strategies useful in coping with their distress. It is argued that these strategies are about altering one s feelings through changing one s activities and/or environment. Additionally, past distress may remain a dormant part of a person s subjectivity and re-emerge or become (re)enacted in the narrations of those past distressing experiences. It is suggested that subjectivity entails an organisation of past experiences in the present, for present purposes and in anticipation of the future. Six dominant thematic patternings, which recurred throughout the analyses, are discussed: (i) the centrality of feelings; (ii) the relationality of felt experiences; (iii) the complexity of morality, moral conduct, and moral distress moral/ethical issues become entangled with identity, power, professional competency, and social relations; (iv) the prominence of power and interest; (v) nurses' lives as afflicted by moral distress; and (vi) life-as-process. Discussion of these motifs leads to a rethinking of moral distress. Implications for nursing practice, moral distress research and the study of feelings, emotions, and affect are discussed.

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This dissertation offers a re-evaluation of the role of the imagination in Jean- Jacques Rousseau’s 'Emile: or On Education' (1762) and Christoph Martin Wieland’s 'Geschichte des Agathon' (1794). My central claim is that both novels develop a pedagogy of the imagination in order to overcome the dilemmas of Cartesian dualism, that is, to form a beautiful soul in whom sensuality and reason, the body and the spirit, coexist in harmony. I demonstrate that both texts highlight the important but potentially damaging role played by the imagination in the development of religious thought, moral sentiments, and sexuality. The texts suggest that while a malformed imagination results in materialism, egotism, libertinism, and despotism, a well-formed imagination provides the foundation for natural religion, cosmopolitan enthusiasm, sentimental love, and a just political constitution. Consequently, I argue that for Rousseau and Wieland, harnessing the power of the imagination becomes the key to reconciling human nature and civil society. In addition to elucidating the role of the imagination in 'Emile' and 'Agathon', this dissertation also contributes to an understanding of the intellectual affinities between Rousseau and Wieland more generally. In preparation for the comparative reading of 'Emile' and 'Agathon', I survey Wieland’s private and public responses to Rousseau and contend that although the two authors differ significantly in their narrative and philosophical approach, they nevertheless share similar moral and political ideals. Both authors acknowledge the ability of the imagination to drive a wedge between the individual’s natural inclinations and moral duties, causing fragmentation of the self and society in turn. Yet the imagination, the motor of cultural progress, is not only the source of man’s alienation, it is also the remedy for his dividedness. If properly harnessed, the imagination can cease to be the cause of human depravity and become the basis of peaceful human relations, both at the level of the individual and that of society as a whole. In conclusion, I propose that the role of the imagination in forming the beautiful soul has consequences for the collective, and that we can read the moral constitutions of Emile and Agathon as negotiating the possibilities of various political constitutions, including that of a democratic state. / Thesis (Ph.D, German) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-15 17:47:42.944

Kaip jau nurodyta pavadinime, magistro darbe pateikiama viešosios tvarkos ir moralės, kaip pagrindo atsisakyti registruoti Bendrijos prekių ženklą, analizė. Darbas susideda iš dviejų dalių, kurių pirmojoje pateikiama viešosios tvarkos ir moralės sampratų bei teorijų įvairovė, jų tarpusavio ryšys ir santykis su teisės normomis, įvertinamas šio pagrindo santykis su įsitikinimu išraiškos laisve. Antrojoje darbo dalyje pagrindinis dėmesys kreipiamas į tarptautinių, Europos Sąjungos ir nacionalinių institucijų praktiką, nagrinėjant bylas, susijusias su atsisakymu registruoti žymenį, prieštaraujantį viešajai tvarkai ir moralei. Paskutinėje darbo dalyje autorė apibendrina pagrindines prekių ženklų vertinimo gaires ir kriterijus. Tyrimo tikslas yra atskleisti viešosios tvarkos ir moralės sampratų įvairovę ir jų turinio priklausomybę nuo daugelio veiksnių, įvertinti viešosios tvarkos ir moralės apsaugos ir įsitikinimų išraiškos laisvės santykį ir nubrėžti prekių ženklų vertinimo gaires ir kriterijus. Tokiu būdu, įvykdžius šiuos tikslus, darbe pateikiami teoriniai argumentai, paremti teismų praktikos ir bylų analize. Pabaigoje autorė daro išvadą, kad viešosios tvarkos ir moralės apibrėžimas yra reliatyvus ir priklauso nuo daugelio veiksnių, tokių kaip valstybinė ir visuomeninė santvarka, teisės tradicija, papročiai, religija, civilizacijos ir kultūros lygis, šalyje vykstantys įvykiai, visuomenės požiūris, socialinė ir dvasinė aplinka, ir apibendrinamos prekių ženklų vertinimo gairės ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / As already indicated by the title, this master thesis provides the analysis of public order and morality as grounds of refusal to register a Community trade mark. The thesis consists of two parts, the first of which presents various concepts and theories concerning the terms “public order” and “morality”, cohesion between these two terms, and the relationship between law and morals, as well as evaluates the relationship between the protection of public order and morality and the freedom of expression. The second section focuses on the practise of international, European Union and national authorities examining cases regarding refusal to register a mark contrary to public order and morality. Furthermore, in the final part of the paper the author reveals the main guidelines and criteria for trade mark examination. The purpose of this study is to reveal the diversity of concepts of public order and morality and the dependence of their content on many factors, as well as to evaluate the relationship between the protection of public order and morality and the freedom of expression, and to determine the main guidelines and criteria for trademark examination. Thus, by achieving these goals, the thesis provides theoretical arguments backed up by case law and case study. Finally, it is concluded that the definition of public order and morality is relative and depends on many factors, such as political system and social order, legal tradition, customs, religion, civilization and... [to full text]

Throughout his work, Kant regularly glosses ‘morality’ (and cognate expressions) as ‘worthiness to be happy’ (Würdigkeit glücklich zu sein). As a rule, Kant’s commentators do not find this remarkable. Correctly understood, however, Kant’s gloss on ‘morality’ is remarkable indeed. This thesis shows why. In it, I argue that whenever we encounter Kant’s gloss, we are faced with an implicit, durable cluster of unjustified commitments; that these commitments both antedate and survive his ‘critical period’; that they are fundamentally practical in nature (i.e., that they are unexamined commitments to particular practices); and that these commitments entail a number of problematic theological consequences. I argue, in particular, that Kant’s gloss is a habit that signals, obscurely and implicitly, his antecedent commitments to the practice of capital punishment, on the one hand, and to a particular set of practical attitudes towards the happiness and unhappiness of immoral agents, on the other. I show that this habit has key implications for Kant’s thinking about the agent that he calls ‘God.’ My point of departure is Kant’s claim, in his Religion, that the human being’s particular deeds are imputable to her ‘all the way down,’ only on condition that the underlying ‘disposition’ (Gesinnung) from which they arise (according to their kind, qua moral or immoral) is imputable to her as well—that is, only if her (im)moral character may be regarded as the upshot of, or in some sense identical to, an utterly unassisted, unmotivated, originary deed on her part. I argue that Kant evades the question whether we really are permitted, without further ado, to regard this disposition (and with it an agent’s deeds) as so imputable. He simply affirms his commitment to the practice of imputing particular deeds to particular agents and, with this affirmation, affirms that he takes the warrant that it requires (the imputability of ‘Gesinnung’) to be secure. I argue, then, that the theoretical significance of imputation, as expressed in this extraordinary, evasive leap, supervenes on the urgency of the commitments that are expressed in Kant’s habitual glossing of ‘morality’ as ‘worthiness to be happy.’ The practice for which we would lack a warrant if the human being’s character were not imputable to her is the imputation of her deeds under a description (of imputation) that has immediate reference to this same ‘one’s’ punishment—specifically and only, however, to the extent that Kant takes punishments to be justifiable in none but strictly retributivist terms. These stakes and the constraining role of Kant’s habitual gloss are clearest, I argue, in his thinking about the practice of putting murderers to death—a practice, I argue, that has both a political and an eschatological significance for him.

This PhD dissertation seeks to define the configuration and evolution of French women’s moral identity and social status, through works of art created during the first thirty years of the Third Republic (1870-1900). More specifically, my thesis investigates the artistic perception and visual recording of “traditional” female roles and analyses the socio-historical factors which contributed to the construction of the ideal woman. I focus on the representation of young girls’ education and First Communion and study the portrayal of maternity which was perceived both as a personal role and a republican ideal. Furthermore, I consider the institutions of marriage and family through portraits and scenes of everyday life. The woman’s relations to the Catholic Church within a secular state, as well as the notions of chastity and patriotism, are thoroughly explored. In my dissertation I prioritised nineteenth century texts, where French doctors, demographers and statesmen from different ideological backgrounds give moral guidelines concerning hygiene, breastfeeding and childcare, or analyse phenomena such as the birth rate decline. The writings of these authors who communicated major social anxieties served as an evaluative platform; more specifically, I ventured to see how French painters and illustrators participated to the most important debates of their time. Therefore, the criterion for the choice of images was not artistic excellence, but their engagement with the moral and social issues I decided to consider. Since in my thesis pictures are treated within a socio-historical context, I was challenged to achieve a balance between the visual and theoretical material, making them inter-relate effectively. Finally, my time-frame covers the three first decades of the French Third Republic and observes the succession of different governments. I investigate to what extent certain social attitudes which were developed during this period of thirty years shifted, and try to find out whether these alterations are conveyed in painting.

The main aim of this interdisciplinary project is to examine attempts to codify sexual knowledge in Egypt between 1830 and 1928. Through surveying medical, religious, legal and moral writings on sexuality, this study aims to examine the underlying politics of sexual knowledge and the structures of permissions and prohibitions within which sexual knowledge was articulated in the period under study. The research recognizes that there are several sources that informed people about sexual behaviour in the period under study. However, the study is concerned only with a number of writings that imparted teachings about sex directly or indirectly to the growing literate middle class, and proceeds to discuss their authors and contexts. The study's main focus is the influence of medical and scientific conceptualization of sex differences on the understandings of gender and sexuality. In nineteenth-century Egypt, the study argues, professional medical authorities promoted medical theories that suggested men's innate active sexuality and inability to control their sexual urges. At the same time, professional Egyptian doctors increasingly projected women as mentally and physically fragile because of their reproductive cycle. Women were increasingly viewed as incapable of being sexually spontaneous. To remain healthy, women were advised to suppress their sexual desires to be satisfied only through marital sex. Through examining the interconnections between medical, legal, religious and moral discursive literature on sexual behaviour, this study brings into light the associations between sex, sexuality and the creation and recreation of gender. The study demonstrates that medical perceptions of male and female sexualities were at the core of moral and intellectual discourses on gender equality as well as religious opinions on sex-related issues. Since there was a multiplicity of ideological and activist stands on questions about sexuality and gender in the period under study, the study explores the variety of ways in which nationalists, feminists and religious scholars adopted, borrowed or negotiated with scientific and medical ideas on female sexuality to support their different views on contemporary controversial issues such as gender equality, polygamy etc. Medical and scientific ideas of male and female sexuality had a complex impact on discursive literature on gender and sexuality. On the one hand, they were employed to justify the continuity of patriarchy and the increasing male regulation of female sexuality. On the other hand, they strengthened arguments in support of the participation of women in public life.