Thesis--M.A., University of Hong Kong. / Typewritten.

published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-243).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1967. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

This thesis examines the problem of moral objectivity, which is constituted by the ontological, epistemological and motivational challenges. It gradually develops an account of moral objectivity that has the dual function of dealing with the enemies of moral objectivity as well as giving a positive account of what moral objectivity is. It establishes these aims by arguing for the following theses. The first set of arguments show that relativist theories of ethics provide us with no forceful grounds for being sceptical about moral objectivity. The second set of arguments deepens the response to those who are sceptical about moral objectivity. It does so by showing in greater detail how rationality plays a substantive role in our practical deliberation, our notion of agency as well as our reactive attitudes. These arguments provide further reasons why we should have faith in the possibility of developing an adequate account of moral objectivity. The last set of arguments provides the positive account of moral objectivity. This positive account ends with the discussion of a paradigmatic moral fact that gives full expression (to the features of moral objectivity that have been articulated and defended.

Objectivity has been the most debatable issue in the history of journalism and there are, therefore, many different ways of looking at it. Media academics such as Gans (1979) and Tuchman (2000) refer to objectivity as an examination of contents of collected news materials. Glasser (1992) points out that objectivity is a balance of beliefs restructured by a journalist and presented against independent thinking. It is difficult to test the objectivity of journalists because it is the credibility of facts gathered by a journalist that lies at the heart of objectivity. In Glasser’s opinion, the “notion” of objectivity is flawed against the newsman’s mandate of reporting responsibly. Objectivity is therefore professional principle through which journalists write news responsibly and present it to their audience as a final product (Glasser, 1992). This study will discuss objectivity also in reference to the problems that journalists face when they cover news stories. It may be that journalists may have problems searching for stories not because they do not embrace journalistic principles of fairness, clarity and objectivity, but because of the way in which facts are presented to them by news sources (Fred and Wellman, 2003). There have been some cases whereby media audiences have wrongly been made to think that journalists are biased in their coverage. 2 For example, the 2003 Iraq invasion by US-led forces, where correspondents were made to practice embedded journalism is a good example of how circumstances could force a journalist to succumb to soldiers’ demands of keeping their war causalities away from their cameras. It is worth noting, however, that being biased for a journalist in such a war situation could be circumstantial in the sense that an American journalist covering a story in Iraqi’s capital, Baghdad, would be regarded as a spy by Iraqi’s troops. Likewise, an Iraqi journalist chasing stories in the coalition force’s camps in Iraqi’s capital would be treated as a traitor by the Iraqi people (Fred and Wellman, 2003:21). There is no doubt that in the situations described above objectivity in journalism can be affected. It is against such background that this study will investigate the factors that affect objectivity in the print media. It is vitally important to bear in mind that bias should not be confused with editorial columns that express the opinion of publishers, or editors for that matter. The question of objectivity goes back to the gatekeepers, whereby the editors as gatekeepers decide what to publish and what news stories reporters should gather. So the question of objectivity in the news can be dealt with by the editors who decide which story should be run by their respective newspapers. According to Fred and Wellman (2003:32), editors and media owners are the decision makers in the field of journalism.

曾瑞明. / "2004年8月". / 論文(哲學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2004. / 參考文獻 (leaves i-xii). / 附中英文摘要. / "2004 nian 8 yue". / Zeng Ruiming. / Lun wen (zhe xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2004. / Can kao wen xian (leaves i-xii). / Fu Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / 論文摘要 / 鳴謝 / 導論：哈貝馬斯的交談倫理學槪論 / 甚麼是交談倫理學？ --- p.1-2 / 哈貝馬斯的交談倫理學 --- p.3-5 / 本文的工作 --- p.5-8 / Chapter 第一章： --- 康德的道德哲學與交談倫理學 / Chapter 1.1 --- 普遍法則的程式 --- p.9-13 / Chapter 1.2 --- 普遍化測試的原理 --- p.13-16 / Chapter 1.3 --- 不道德的行爲是否必然是不理性的行爲？ --- p.17-18 / Chapter 1.4 --- 爲什麼一個人必須意願他的格準能普遍化？ --- p.19-20 / Chapter 1.5 --- 「普遍化下的不一致」與「非普遍化下的不一致」 --- p.20-22 / Chapter 1.6 --- 人性的程式 --- p.22-26 / Chapter 第二章： --- 利益的協調 / Chapter 2.1 --- 引言 --- p.27-28 / Chapter 2.2 --- 倫理與道德的對立 --- p.28-38 / Chapter 2.3 --- 可普遍化利益 --- p.38-39 / Chapter 2.4 --- 實在論與普遍化利益 --- p.39-41 / Chapter 2.5 --- 創造進路 --- p.41-43 / Chapter 2.6 --- 詮釋進路 --- p.43-48 / Chapter 第三章： --- 普遍原則的證立 / Chapter 3.1 --- 引言 --- p.49-52 / Chapter 3.2 --- 「證立規條」的意思(前提一) --- p.52-53 / Chapter 3.3 --- 語用上論辯的預設(前提二) --- p.53-56 / Chapter 3.4 --- 推出對話式的普遍原則 --- p.56-58 / Chapter 3.5 --- 交談倫理學的有效性 --- p.59-70 / Chapter 3.6 --- 言行的矛盾 --- p.70-77 / Chapter 第四章： --- 交談原則 / Chapter 4.1 --- 引言 --- p.78-82 / Chapter 4.2 --- 「詮釋」的論證 --- p.82-83 / Chapter 4.3 --- 「不扭曲利益」的論證 --- p.83-88 / Chapter 4.4 --- 「共同的意向」的論證 --- p.89-90 / Chapter 4.5 --- 交談原則與有關什麼是正確的道德規條的判斷的客觀性 --- p.91-94 / Chapter 4.6 --- 對麥克馬和哈貝馬斯的一些批評 --- p.94-100 / Chapter 4.7 --- 結論 --- p.100-101 / Chapter 第五章： --- 交談倫理學與道德建構論 / Chapter 5.1 --- 後形上學進路 --- p.102-107 / Chapter 5.2 --- 道德建構論與交談倫理學 --- p.107-112 / Chapter 5.3 --- 實在論者的可能反駭 --- p.112-116 / Chapter 5.4 --- 道道德建構主義、交談倫理學與相對主義 --- p.116-124 / Chapter 5.5 --- 哈貝馬斯的溝通行動理論 --- p.125-130 / 結論和展望 --- p.131-133 / 參考書目 --- p.I-XII

This thesis summons a contemporary reading of George Orwell, evaluating his current role and function as novelist, essayist, and twentieth century cultural icon. The year 2003 marked the centenary of Eric Blair’s birth and proved a productive year for Blair (and Orwell) enthusiasts. After nearly three years of research, my journey through Orwell’s words and world(s) has undergone significant re-evaluation, taking me far beyond such an appropriate commemoration. In the tragic aftermath of 9/11 ¯ through Afghanistan and Iraq, Bali, Madrid, and London ¯ Orwell’s grimly dystopian vision acquires renewed significance for a new generation. Few writers (living or dead) are as enduringly newsworthy and malleable as George Orwell. The scope and diversity of his work ¯ the sheer volume of his letters, essays, and assorted journalism ¯ elicits a response from academics, journalists, critics and readers. My research, tempered by a ‘War’ on terror and a televisual Big Brother, shapes these responses at a time when 24-hour surveillance is viewed as the path to instant celebrity. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four provides unique insights into a highly pervasive and secretive regime, which in light of post 9/11 political trajectories is highly admonitory. These pathways and connections are produced in my research. I do not make easy links between past and present ¯ Eric and Tony Blair ¯ at the level of metaphor or simile. Indeed, the pages that follow traverse the digital archives and probe the rationale for mobilising Orwell in this time and place. I am focussed on writing a history and establishing a context calibrated to the fictional Oceania. This doctorate commenced as an investigation of George Orwell’s journalism and fiction one hundred years after his birth. At the outset of the candidature, the Twin Towers fell and new implications and interpretations of Orwell arose. My research demonstrates that the Oceania of Orwell’s imagining presents an evocative insight into the contemporary alliance forged by the Bush, Blair, and Howard triumvirate in its quest for world peace. Using Orwell as a guide, I move through theories of writing and politics, in the process uncovering capitalism’s inherently hostile and negligent attitude towards those who are materially less fortunate. I began my work convinced of Orwell’s relevance to cultural studies, particularly in understanding popular cultural writing and the need for social intervention. I concluded this process even more persuaded of my original intent, but shaped, sharpened and compensated by new events, insights, tragedies and Big Brothers. It is imperative for the future directives of cultural studies that critical, political, pedagogic and intellectual links with Orwell are (re-)formed, (re-)established and maintained. My text works in the spaces between cultural studies and cultural journalism, pondering the role and significance of the critical ¯ and dissenting ¯ intellectual. Memory, History, and Identity all circulate in Orwell’s prose. These concerns and questions have provided impetus and direction for this thesis. They have also shaped the research. Few expect Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia to materialise unchallenged from the pages of a book. The wielders of power are more capable and more subtle. Yet it is impossible to deny that the litany of lies and contempt central to Big Brother’s Oceania is reproducible by any administration assisted by a complicit media and a malleable citizenry. The emergence of such a phenomenon has been well documented in the post 9/11 United States. This thesis has arisen out of the miasma of hubris, lies and contempt framing and surrounding Mr. Bush’s war on terror. My purpose ¯ not unlike Orwell’s in Nineteen Eighty-Four ¯ is to warn, not judge or berate. Orwell understood political rhetoric. He was not a prophet but a journalist who interpreted the nuances and temptations of excessive power. He had witnessed the extraordinary ‘death’ of history in Spain, and thereafter he raised his pen to combat intellectual hypocrisy and dishonesty wherever he found it. Under Orwell’s tutelage, plain words pierce, probe and unsettle. They are sharp cutting instruments, fully capable of transcending time. How else are we to explain his enduring popularity as a writer? This thesis offers a critical and interpretative homage to George Orwell, a man who recognised the beauty of well chosen words, who loved and appreciated their enduring complexity and power. A framing structure has been chosen that places Orwell in close relation to poverty, class and politics, war and journalism. Individual chapter headings (and their contents) exploit Orwell’s unique response to the significant talking points of his era. After resolving to write professionally, Orwell starved and struggled in Paris, and frequented ‘doss houses’ in and around London. I track these wanderings in chapter one. He studied the effects of the Depression and unemployment in Yorkshire and Lancashire (chapter two), and fought and was wounded in Spain (chapter three). Thereafter he turned to political writing and journalism (chapter four). What he failed to anticipate was a post war Britain overwhelmed by despondency and dissolved by internal devolution (chapter five). His concluding apocalyptic discharge, the dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four, was directed at the higher echelons of institutional power and corporate corruption in Britain, America, and Europe, which I explore in chapter six. The world has changed significantly since Orwell (and J. B. Priestley) went in search of England’s faltering ‘pulse’ in the 1930s. Englishness and traditional working class values have distorted and shifted in unexpected ways. These transformations are partly the result of war and the loss of empire. They are also a response to American cultural and economic hegemony, the privatisation of industry, offshore investments, the emergence of the European Economic Community, and the burgeoning global economy. George Orwell matters, even after this scale of change because he faced his own prejudices on the page and developed a writing style that enabled him to challenge the accepted orthodoxies and hypocrisies of his era. This is evident when returning to his essays and journalism, fifty-five years after his death. He possessed the ability to make readers feel uncomfortable, raising topics and concerns that we would rather not discuss. Denounced as a traitor by the pre-1956 unreconstructed left and feted as a hero by the self-congratulatory right, Orwell resists labelling and easy categorization. We owe him a considerable debt for exposing the likely directions of unchecked political ambition, and this insight should not be treated lightly. As I read him, Orwell was the last man in Europe, ‘the canary in the mine.’ He is a literary world heritage site of considerable iconic appeal and international significance. He is an outsider’s ‘outsider’ perpetually facing inwards, and we need him now.