Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that results from the experience of a traumatic event. Natural kinds are mind-independent entities found in nature and are the objects of scientific inquiry. It is common to deny that PTSD is a natural kind, but extant denials assume a thesis of natural kinds that can be called “essentialism”. According to essentialism, many entities are not natural kinds that one would expect should be natural kinds. The homeostatic cluster view of natural kinds offers an alternative that accommodates these cases, including, superficially, the claim that PTSD is a natural kind. I introduce two novel objections to this claim and recommend a distinction aimed to resolve the newly introduced problems.

My dissertation defends a comprehensive version of meta-nonnative skepticism which holds that no standard, norm, or principle has objective authority or normative force. The view does not deny either that there are norms, standards of correctness, and principles of various kinds or that it is possible both to succeed or fail in measuring up to their prerogatives. What it does deny is that any norm has the status of commanding with objective authority, the status of giving rise to objective normative reasons to take seriously and follow its demands. Many believe objective authority is required if we are to make sense of and explain the significance of our normative practices. Without authority, they fear, any critical standpoint vis-à-vis our practices would evaporate, even when we have reached a consensus regarding critical matters, which, without correctness, appears to reflect nothing but an ultimately arbitrary choice. I disagree, and argue that while authority cannot be accommodated within the world as we know it, we don't need it either. A chief goal of my dissertation is to propose a positive interpretation of our normative practices that dispenses with authoritative facts directing us what to do. The practical question of what to make of our practices and our involvement with them, I counter, retains significance only when pursued from an engaged rather than a detached perspective - one that we adopt when, driven by our concerns and commitments, we actively participate in the resolution of practical problems, including the selection and development of norms to live by, searching for common ground for how to coordinate our individual and joint endeavors. Even though there are no definitive answers, this deliberative enterprise is not unconstrained; it is carried out within a tight web of norms that we do already accept, a web we continuously spin and expand.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the subject field of male vegans and masculinities through empirical method interviews and narrative analysis. The starting-point for this essay is animal ethics, feminist ethic vegetarianism and theories that suggest that eating meat is one part of the social construction of masculinities. The problem formulation is such as follows: How do male vegans construct masculinity? In an attempt to answer such a question there are three problem formulations: What do male vegans think about the connection between manhood and eating meat? How do male vegans relate to the norms in society? What do male vegans think of stereotype conceptions about vegans? I will come to the conclusion that male vegans think that eating meat, as well as drinking beer, is one part of the social construction of masculinities. Male vegans are aware of norms in the surroundings and the strong attachment of meat normativity in the western culture. They are also conscious about the stereotype conceptions about vegans, which affect how they talk about and perform their own veganism.

Normativity of biological functions create a serious obstacle against the reduction of functional biology into molecular biology. Normativity of biological entities has two interconnected sources. One is the internal complexity and self organization demonstrated by the organism. The second source is external to the organism: Natural selection. An organism adapts to its environment by its internal autonomy. Species or populations adapt by natural selection. If these two sources of normativity can be reduced to statistical generalities achieved by theoretical models, reductionism will prevail.

This study investigated the understanding of normativity and free will from a developmental perspective. Being a new field of investigation, there is not much research conducted which points to different aspects of normativity. Current study, therefore, aimed to assess Turkish children&rsquo / s normative development on a sample of 2 and 3 years old in the context of games. It was expected, first, that children would show more protest when there is a norm violation. Moreover, older children would show more normative protest than younger ones. The results confirmed these hypotheses. In a second study, it was investigated whether the actor&rsquo / s being free to act as s/he wills versus constrained so that cannot act otherwise had an effect on children&rsquo / s protest in response to norm violations. It was hypothesized that a decrease in normative reactions and an increase in help responses would be observed. No age effect for help responses was expected. The results of this study did not reveal any decrease in normative reactions, but there was an increase in help responses regardless of the age.

In recent years the normativity of thought and meaning has been the subject of an extensive debate. What is at issue is whether intentionality has normative features, and if so, whether that constitutes a problem for naturalistic attempts to account for intentional phenomena. The origin of the debate is Saul Kripke’s interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, published in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Kripke claimed, on behalf of Wittgenstein, that dispositional accounts of linguistic meaning - accounts, i.e., which attempt to reduce semantic phenomena to facts about how speakers are disposed to employ words - fail to ground the factuality of semantic statements. From this, and other arguments, the far reaching conclusion was drawn by Kripke’s Wittgenstein that there are no semantic facts, that every application of a word is “a leap in the dark”. This position has become known as meaning scepticism. In the present essay, it will be argued that meaning scepticism is incoherent, but that the normativity argument is interesting in its own right. The development of the debate will be traced, primarily through detailed consideration of the writings of Paul Boghossian, who has shifted the focus from the normativity of linguistic meaning to that of belief. It will be contended that even though Boghossian’s attempt to locate a normativity of belief fails, there is a related form of normativity that has to do with the intrinsic badness of false beliefs. Also, suggestions made by Kripke regarding the normativity of intentions will be investigated, and related to contemporary arguments in the philosophy of rationality. The tentative conclusion is that there are some interesting kinds of normativity associated with the intentional, but of a somewhat different variety than those usually discussed.

Biological research has the capacity to inform ethical discussions. There are numerous questions about the nature of sexual orientation, intelligence, gender identity, etc., and many of these questions are commonly approached with the benefit of implicit or explicit biological commitments. The answers to these sorts of questions can have a powerful impact on social, ethical, and political positions. In this project I examine the prospect of naturalizing ethics under the umbrella of developmental systems theory (DST). If one is committed to DST, then those ideas involved in DST that steer biological research will also have implications for ethics. There has been much debate over whether certain human traits or attributes are the consequence of nature or nurture. This kind of question tends to be articulated in dichotomous terms where the focal point of the discussion is over which opposing causal mechanism asserts the most power over the development of these attributes. The debate places particular importance on such distinctions as that between gene and environment, and biology and culture. DST seeks to dismiss such dichotomous accounts. In this sense, DST is an attempt to do biology without these dichotomies. In the process, DST articulates a reconceptualized notion of "the natural." I am interested in how DST’s reconceptualization of the natural can inform a naturalistic approach to ethics. Thus, the aim of this project is to examine the ramifications of taking DST as a guiding principle in the naturalization of ethics.

Women who have transitioned to a lesbian identity from a previously heterosexual one lack a voice in the academic literature. Identity formation in this subset of women, those who chose a heterosexual marriage, had children, and later in life self identify as lesbian, has not been fully investigated. For this project, eight women were asked to answer this question: How have you negotiated the path from heterosexuality to lesbianism? Four main themes were found dealing with heteronormativity and accountability, relationship with children, transition, and acceptance by the lesbian community. Additionally, I introduce a new term---gender-normativity---to describe these women who only after marrying, having children and raising those children, and going through a process of self-reflection, realized they wanted to make a transition and spend the rest of their lives in an intimate relationship with a woman.

Although the influence of normative ideas on the behaviour of states occupy an evermore significant place in political science and international relations, important questions remain with respect to how international norms come into existence. International norm scholars have been criticized for failing to demonstrate how actors might forge and change norms. How do norm entrepreneurs influence the process of norm development? Further, under what conditions are norm entrepreneurs likely to be successful in norm diffusion? To begin answering these questions, this paper draws on constructivist insights to present a model of norm evolution highlighting the role of the norm entrepreneur and conducts an interpretive case study methodology to provide an empirical illustration. It examines the evolution of the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) norm with particular attention to the norm entrepreneurial role of Canadian foreign policy to highlight how norm-building processes are inextricably intertwined with agents who are engaged in fostering nonnative change. / The R2P is considered to be a nonnative breakthrough in international relations and has emerged as an important instrument for upholding and promoting human security. While Canada has been praised for its leadership in promulgating the R2P, there is little empirical scholarship that links the development process of the R2P norm to Canadian foreign policy. How has Canada, with no demonstrative material capability, been able to advance the R2P on the international stage? This thesis develops an understanding of how agents can shape an international norm by acting as a "tipping agent" in the process of norm creation. It concludes by identifying the possibilities and limitations of norm entrepreneurs to influence world politics.

Disertacijoje keliamas šiuo metu vis aktualesniu tampantis rūpesčio etikos normatyvinis klausimas: kaip galima aiškiau apibrėžti normatyvinį šios etikos turinį ir koks galėtų būti jos normatyvinis pagrindas. Disertacijos tikslas – ištirti pagrindines teorines rūpesčio etikos normatyvinio plėtojimo tendencijas ir išryškinti naujas jos vystymo galimybes. Siekiant šių tikslų, analizuojami pirmųjų rūpesčio etikos kūrėjų (Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Eva Feder Kittay etc.) darbai. Nagrinėjant jų idėjas, rekonstruojama etinė rūpesčio/rūpinimosi sąvokos reikšmė, rūpestį/rūpinimąsi konstituojantys veiksniai. Teigiama, kad rūpesčio etikos specifiką formuoja reliacinė etinė prieiga, t. y. šios etikos išeities taškas yra santykiai, santykių konstituojamas moralinis veikimas. Analizuojant vėlesnių rūpesčio etikos plėtotojų (Michael Slote, Raja Halwani) idėjas, kritiškai nagrinėjama tendencija normatyvinei rūpesčio etikos plėtrai pasitelkti tradicinių moralės teorijų – dorybių ir sentimentalizmo etikos – sąvokas. Teigiama, kad bandymai konceptualizuoti normatyvinį rūpesčio etikos žodyną kitų moralės teorijų sąvokomis užgožia reliacinį rūpinimosi pobūdį. Ieškant konceptualinių resursų, kurie padėtų plėtoti normatyvinį reliacinės rūpesčio etikos turinį, nagrinėjamos filosofų Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Soran Reader, Emmanuelio Levino idėjos. Ginama tezė, kad rūpesčio etikos specifiką atskleidžia normatyvinis žodynas, leidžiantis konceptualizuoti moralinius rūpinimosi reikalavimus... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This thesis offers an analysis of a particular issue concerning the normativity of the ethics of care which is presently ever more relevant for this branch of ethics. This is the issue of how one could describe the normative content of the ethics of care and its specificity and what could be a normative foundation for this ethics. The goal of this thesis is to scrutinize main theoretical tendencies of the normative development of the ethics of care and to put forward the new developmental possibilities. In order to achieve this objective several steps are made. First of all, the works of first care ethicists (Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick, etc.) are analysed so as to reconstruct the ethical meaning of the notion of care and the constitutive factors of it. It is argued that the specificity of the ethics of care is established by the relational ethical approach: the point of departure in this case is relation and relational moral agency. The analysis of the subsequent discourse of the ethics of care provides a critical view towards the tendency apply traditional moral theories, mostly virtue and sentimentalist ethics, for the normative purposes. It is argued that the attempts to conceptualise normative vocabulary of the ethics of care applying the concepts from other moral theories conceal the relational character of this branch of ethics. In order to find sufficient conceptual recourses for the development of the normative content of the relational ethics of care... [to full text]