This thesis analyses the supra-national application of the morality provisions in the ‘European’ patent system by the judicial/quasi-judicial decision-making in the European Union (“EU”) and European Patent Organisation (“EPOrg”). In doing so, it focuses specifically on Article 53 of the European Patent Convention and Article 6 of Directive 98/44/EC on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, with particular reference to the overlapping institutional matrix within which these legislative provisions are applied. The intended contribution of this research is in relation to how these decision-making entities of the EPOrg and the EU interpret and apply the morality provisions in the ‘European’ patent system as a feature of their operation as institutions. The research investigates specifically: to what extent and in what ways does an analysis of the institutional framework for the application of the morality provisions by the various institutions implicated in the ‘European’ patent system reveal new insights into the current position and suggest defensible approaches to the future development of these provisions. This has particular relevance in the current context, in light of the developing unitary patent scheme examined through an institutional lens in chapter six. Importantly, the contribution of this research will not be in relation to the specific principles or tests which should be used in applying the morality provisions per se in the ‘European’ patent system, nor does it seek to contribute specifically to the normative questions in relation to what morality should mean in this context or whether the morality provisions should exist within the patent system. Such matters have been explored extensively in the literature. Instead, this thesis uses doctrinal methods to build a theoretical framework by drawing specifically on institutional theories within law and sociology, which are used to devise a novel framework for assessing institutional influences on decision-makers. This framework is then applied to the EPOrg and EU with the aim of demonstrating the differing institutional pulls on each body in their application of the morality provisions, which is used as a single exemplar to achieve this kind of institutional analysis. The overall aim of this research is to contribute to an understanding of decision-making in this specific context by reference to understandings of how institutional contexts can have profound effects upon the end outcomes of decision-making. This reveals a hitherto un-exposed perspective not only on what is happening within patent law with respect to the morality provisions, but also novel insights that may help to explain the legal landscape that has emerged, and which can inform its future development.

This dissertation aims to present a model of sacredness – MAPR – that emphasizes four components to empirically study sacredness: source of meaning (M), experience of awe (A), protection against the profane (P), and relationship to religion (R). The empirical studies focus on the psychological mechanisms of protecting, and examine the association of violence and violation of sacredness. Five studies examined the hypothesized effect of violating sacredness on moral judgment and support for war. Hypothetical and semi-real scenarios were created in which a sacred site (versus a military site) is attacked and participants report the degree to which they support war as counterattack. Results showed no effects of sacredness in eliciting violence (Study 1). The proposed effect did not show either with fine-tuned aspects of sacredness: religious sacredness and ethnonational sacredness (Study 2), or under feeling prime (Study 3). This effect did not show with an Iranian sample either (Study 4). To address possible methodological challenges, we checked the manipulation scenarios by changing the non-sacred condition into a manufacture plant (previously a military site). The null results remained unchallenged (Study 5a). We also examined individuals’ attitudes toward attacking the sacred site in Study 2, and counterattacking for the sacred site in Study 3. In addition, some personality variables were included to index the characteristics of individuals who support protecting the sacredness. No clear pattern was observed. The results suggest the possibility that the connection of sacredness and violence may be a misconception. The null finding has significant implications in today’s tumultuous world, where dialogue is needed between different faith communities, and terrorism can and should be distinguished from religious commitment.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of ethical concepts and practices among contemporary Muslim textile traders and entrepreneurs in Aleppo, Syria. It draws on Lambek's perspective that ethics is 'ordinary': an inherent and pervasive aspect of exchange transactions, such as visits, hospitality, retail transactions and the negotiations leading up to them. Three ethnographic settings are explored - a textile factory in the north of Aleppo; a wholesale yarn market in the centre of Aleppo's old city markets that is also the site for speculative futures-trading; and a retail fabric shop where young salesmen are employed to get the best price they can from their mainly female customers. The moral processes, concepts and accomplishments that emerge in these different settings include affection and generosity; intention and pure-heartedness; substance and trustworthiness; autonomy, dignity and worth; and obligation and moral reasoning. The thesis describes the different ways that exchanges mediate these processes. This thesis approaches ethics as a function of life lived with others: an aspect of how one should be involved with others, and how one should manage, limit, extend and orient oneself in that involvement. One theme that emerges is how the relationship between autonomy and generosity is managed in these settings, by actors with differential access to resources. Another is what 'sincerity' means: is virtue simply a question of mastering the protocols that govern these exchanges, or is it a matter of the heart? How can social actors tell the difference? Why and when does it matter to them to be able to do so? This thesis also explores the connections between power relationships and ethical practice, arguing that ethics can never be isolated from power, but nor can it be collapsed into it. Moral accomplishments such as generosity, sincerity or affection can be ways of making and organising claims to social status and capital, and of course depend on these things too. However, they also define types of sociality – such as 'intimacy' and 'continuity' - that are seen as having intrinsic worth.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the most popular film franchise in terms of box-office dollars. This superhero franchise has the power to influence their vast and dedicated audience greatly regarding gender. Social cognitive theory and cultivation theory shows that MCU movies could influence the gender schemas some people have. Previous research has shown that men are often portrayed as evil and as preparators of violence. Women that are violent are considered unnatural and go against gender stereotypes. Evil women are often portrayed as victims of circumstance or good women that are compelled to be evil for a short time. This study is a content analysis of the MCU films in phases one through three, which focuses on gender, moral alignment, and rewards for violence. There is an increase in the percent of female main characters over the course of the phases. There are high percentages of females that are rated "good" and a higher percentage of males that are "evil." There is no significant relationship between gender and rewards for violence. Although there appears to be progress in portraying men and women similarly, there is still progress to be made.

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Thesis advisor: Michael Smith / Contemporary American capitalism is sick. To determine what is wrong with it we must first go back to its conception and understand the theoretical advantages and drawbacks of this system. Once we come to understand what capitalism is, and how it developed, we will move on to see how it has evolved to its current state within an American mixed economy. Wealth inequality is at an all time high in America, exacerbated by the 2008 financial crisis, with warnings from men like Karl Marx coming to fruition more than a century later. Today, corporations praise capitalism on the way up, and exploit interventionist concepts such as bailouts on the way down to skew wealth to unprecedented levels. Multi-millionaire politicians accept lobbying funds and allow this to happen, stopping capitalism from running its natural course. The wealthy 1% are able to invest in economic vehicles and share in this massive wealth shift while most Americans cannot afford to, and as a result the average American is left behind. To rationalize whether capitalism is a system worth saving, we will then look to why some economic inequality is inherent to capitalism to some degree. Once this is understood, we can then analyze whether or not such wealth inequalities are immoral in itself. We will find that wealth inequality may be an unavoidable feature of capitalism, however under certain conditions it is not in itself immoral — it is the lack of economic opportunity and economic sufficiency for Americans that is. Perhaps there is a reason why corporations and politicians act the way they do, and if so we will look at potential remedies to limit inequality and hold corporations and politicians accountable. The thesis will conclude that if this pattern of growing wealth inequality continues as demonstrated in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, capitalism in America may be doomed. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Traditionally, attribution theory argues that strong external controls such as parental punishment undermine moral internalization. In contrast, this project argues that parental punishment does socialize morality, but it socializes moral prohibitions (rather than moral prescriptions) in particular. A strong focus on prohibitions, a proscriptive orientation, has unintended consequences. Study 1 found young adults' accounts of parental restrictiveness to predict their proscriptive orientation such that recalling the degree of how restrictive and punitive one's parents were activated a proscriptive dispositional sensitivity. Study 2 found that restrictive parenting was positively associated with shame. Further, for individuals with highly restrictive parents, temptations positively were related to shame. Due to the shame associated with temptations for individuals with restrictive parents, mental suppression was more difficult for them. After experimentally priming a proscriptive (versus prescriptive) orientations and inducing mental suppression of "immoral" thoughts, Study 3 found an interaction between proscriptive prime and parental restrictiveness such that the proscriptive prime caused the greatest amount of ego depletion, a loss of self-regulatory resources for those with restrictive parents. In the end, individuals who were most focused on prohibitions and had restrictive parents felt the most shame and had the lowest self-regulatory ability to resist their "immoral" temptations.

This thesis argues for a novel understanding of the relationship between law and coercion. One of the relationships H.L.A. Hart sought to clarify is between law and coercion. In his work, Hart denies that coercion is a conceptually necessary feature of law – denies that the existence of law is in some sense determined by the presence of coercive mechanisms. According to Hart, coercion is naturally necessary to our legal practices. We humans need our law to be backed by coercive mechanisms so that it can do what it is supposed to: serve as an authoritative guide for behaviour. Investigating the relationship between law and coercion not only depends on what one thinks about law, but also what one means by ‘coercion.’ I define an instance of coercion as a forced-choice. I also explain that understanding what it means to say, ‘law coerces’ is made difficult by the fact that what is coercive for one person may not be coercive for another. This subjective aspect of coercion means that more specific questions need to be asked in order to understand the relationship between law and coercion. This thesis asks: is there a conceptual relationship between law and the law’s institutionalisation and utilisation of coercive mechanisms? I argue that coercive mechanisms are not a conceptually necessary feature of law. I also argue that Hart’s work still leaves the relationship between law and coercion problematically undefined. Rather, I put forward the claim that law is coercion-apt. I expand this claim by distinguishing law from other normative systems, like morality. Unlike law, morality, I argue, is not coercion-apt. Therefore, this thesis not only refines our understanding of the relationship between law and coercion, but also between law and morality – which is another relationship Hart sought to clarify in his work. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / This thesis explores the relationship between law and coercion. By ‘coercion’, I mean the way in which the law forces compliance with its prohibitions and requirements through the institutionalisation of sanctions (e.g., fines or prison sentences). A debate concerning the relationship between law and coercion has been present in jurisprudential literature for decades. Those who claim that that coercion is a conceptually necessary feature of law are essentially claiming that the existence of law is, in part, determined by the presence of coercive mechanisms. In this thesis I explain why such claims are erroneous. I then defend my own understanding of the relationship between law and coercion. I argue that it would be incorrect to call y ‘law’ if y is not coercion-apt. I explain what it means to say, ‘law is coercion-apt’ by distinguishing law from other normative systems like morality, religion, and voluntary associations and clubs.

This thesis presents a comprehensive theory of evildoing as an attack on morality, grounded in objective morality. It introduces evildoing as a distinct category of immorality, arguing that it is the relationship of evil acts to the core of morality that distinguishes them from ordinary wrongdoing. Two projects are undertaken: to provide an account of morality that can ground a theory of evildoing that is both objective and capable of systematically accommodating the diverse phenomena and definitions of evil acts, and to articulate and defend the attack on morality theory of evildoing. The challenge of the first project is met by a minimalist account of morality, structured by what I call the fundamentals of morality. The thesis defends a particular substantive account of these fundamentals, underpinned by the idea of conatus as the end of morality. Ultimately, it is conatus as the striving to persist in existence and prosper inherent in human beings that justifies the objectivity of the fundamentals of morality and with it the objectivity of the theory of evildoing, for it is these fundamentals that are attacked when we speak of an ‘attack on morality.’ Specifying and defending the conditions necessary for such an attack is the task of the second part of the thesis. An act constitutes evildoing, or an attack on morality, when it is wrong, results in serious harm to others, originates in an intention based on the correct belief that the act will cause or risk such harm, and where the perpetrator’s mental states and/or the act’s consequences are antagonistic to the realization of morality via one or more of its fundamentals.