In this study, John Gray&rsquo / s theory of value-pluralism is critically analyzed. Gray&rsquo / s modus vivendi, based on Isaiah Berlin&rsquo / s criticism of monism, is a theory that aims to create the conditions in which peace and diversity in late-modern societies can be protected. Gray argues that a legally pluralistic system where collectives have autonomy is more serving to peace than its liberal alternatives. This study argues that Gray fails to achieve its goal of promoting diversity. This is due to the fact that Gray&rsquo / s theory does not recognize &lsquo / personal autonomy&rsquo / and &lsquo / right of exit&rsquo / as standards for a legitimate regime. It is argued in this study that without &lsquo / personal autonomy&rsquo / and &lsquo / right of exit&rsquo / , legally pluralist systems curb the conditions that makes diversity possible and thereby work at the expense of diversity rather than for diversity.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the often-ignored inherent philosophical connection between Charles Taylor¡¦s ontological argument (philosophical anthropology) and his political scheme. Taylor articulates a moral realist understanding of the plurality of values and an ontological statement of human agency, and tries to demostrate a possibility of reconciliation between essentially conflicting values and cultures. In Taylor¡¦s view, ¡§the many¡¨ does not necessarily entail tragical choices among values, as Isaiah Berlin famously asserted, but can be possibly mediated through the common human agency with the hope that we can eventually reach one true consensus. Based on this uniquely Taylorian understanding of human condition, Taylor¡¦s political scheme can be seen as an effort to ameliorate the deep-rooted malaise within Western modernity, and find a common ontological ground among community members and citizens by which deliberations can be facilitated. The thesis will go on to examine Taylor¡¦s two most inspiring political assertions, namely, the polilics of recognition and civic humanism, in detail. I will argue that although Taylor optimistically believes that a common moral and cultural understanding can help forming and be transformed into a common political common good within a given community, the connection between these two levels of commonality is fairly weak. Moreover, what liberals object is precisely Taylor¡¦s attempt to equate cultural common understanding with a form of political common good.

Version remaniée de : Thèse de doctorat : ? : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill : 1996 : Multiculturalism in contemporary France : cultural productions from the North African immigrant community. / Bibliogr. p. [201]-211. Index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 321-336).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-83). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ67728.

This thesis investigates the topic of natural law in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions by utilizing the methodology of comparative religious ethics. Approaches to the method such as ethical formalism, ethical naturalism, and narrative ethics are assessed with the author opting for a multidimensional approach that is religious and ethical. This multidimensional approach, as defined by William Schweiker, conducts natural law inquiry from a hermeneutical standpoint of moral diversity and democratic pluralism. The hermeneutical standpoint warrants a historicizing of natural law ethics that is compatible with modern secularity instead of a classicist metaphysical worldview. To achieve this task, the thought of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and Jewish theologian David Novak is used to formulate a concept of a natural law tradition. Three normative features define the natural law traditions in question: rationality as tradition- constituted, revelation as a historical phenomenon, and natural law as a cultural construct that is both comparative and ontological. The central claim of this thesis is that the Theravāda and Thomistic traditions provide a similar conceptual apparatus for rational discourse that can locate ethical commonalities and respect differences across traditions. The commonality between traditions is secured in natural law ethics because these traditions adhere to a constitutive truth that is the objective ground of all truths and of nature which designates a shared humanity. On the other hand, these natural law traditions are able to at least respect difference because they recognize the autonomy of other traditions outside of and pre- existing their own. Natural law ethics in these religious traditions therefore avoids the ethical challenges of relativism and authoritarianism. Both traditions define a concept of "nature" with a proper teleological orientation for the moral life. "Nature" is an open category in these traditions that can never be fully defined. This demonstrates how these natural law traditions avoid ontological violence. The overall claim is that natural law ethics, which are evident in the Therav āda and Thomistic traditions, offer something essential to a pluralistic secular democracy: an unconditioned view of human dignity that protects inalienable rights because it is secured by a higher law than civil laws.

Since the 1990s, ethnic divisions have replaced the cold war as the world's most important source of violent conflict (Lijphart 2002). According to Fearon and Laitin (2003), a conservative estimate of the total dead between 1945 and 1999 is 16.2 million, five times the interstate toll, as a direct result of about 127 civil wars that each killed at least 1,000. The problem of ethnic tensions is so widespread and serious that it has presented a major impediment to further democratization in this century and has possibly caused a third reverse wave of democratization (Lijphart 2002). Are ethnic tensions and conflicts inevitable in heterogeneous states? Which governmental institutions (parliamentary or presidential) and electoral systems (PR or SMD) create the best framework for addressing ethnic conflict? Is there any one-size-fits-all institutional solution to ethnic conflict? This dissertation aims at answering these urgent but under-explored questions, especially the last two about the effects of institutional arrangements. This dissertation will hold out institutional prescriptions that meet the needs of specific divided societies through a large-N quantitative study covering all ethnic groups in Minorities at Risk dataset from 1985 to 2003. / text

Music-based healing is utilized as a healing tool in many cultural contexts around the world. This thesis examines the cultural practice of music therapy in the context of the larger discipline of medicine in the United States through an ethnographic study of music therapists in the Greater Atlanta area. It contextualizes this data with research in medical ethnomusicology that explores cross-cultural traditions of music in healing rituals. It also connects music therapy to the observation that forces of globalization are strongly correlated with an increase in rates of inequality, poverty, stress, and disease. This thesis discusses how Atlanta-area music therapists use music healing with patients suffering from physical and mental disease and how economic stratification impacts access to music therapy. It is concerned with deeper and not immediately evident processes taking place in music therapy, such as the role of music as a medium and facilitator in healing.

In August 2008, a biomedical intervention providing free drugs to school aged children to treat two endemic diseases –schistosomiasis haematobium and soil-transmitted helminths - in Morogoro region, Tanzania, was suspended after violent riots erupted. Parents and guardians rushed to schools to prevent their children taking the drugs when they heard reports of children dying in Morogoro town after receiving treatment. When pupils heard these reports, many of those who had swallowed the pills began to complain of dizziness and fainted. In Morogoro town hundreds of pupils were rushed to the Regional Hospital by their parents and other onlookers. News of these apparent fatalities spread throughout the region, including to Doma village where I was conducting fieldwork. Here, protesting villagers accused me of bringing the medicine into the village with which to “poison” the children and it was necessary for me to leave the village immediately under the protection of the Tanzanian police. This thesis, based on eleven months fieldwork between 2007 and 2010 in Doma village and parts of Morogoro town, asks why was this biomedical intervention so vehemently rejected? By analysing local understandings and responses to the mass distribution of drugs in relation to the specific historical, social, political, and economic context in which it occurred, it shows that there was a considerable disjuncture between biomedical understandings of these diseases, including the epidemiological rationale for the provision of preventive chemotherapy, and local perspectives. Such a disjuncture, fuelled by the reports of fatalities and the pupil’s fainting episodes brought about considerable conjecture both locally and nationally, that the drugs had been faulty, counterfeit, or hitherto untested on humans. Among many of the poorer inhabitants of Morogoro town, there was suspicion that this had been a covert sterilization campaign. From an official perspective, such conjecture was dismissed as mere rumour, proliferated by “ignorant” people. However, from an anthropological perspective, these ‘rumours’ reveal profound local anxieties including a pervasive fear that poor Africans are being targeted for covert eugenics projects by governments in the industrialized world. The thesis also shows that many of the assumptions embedded in global policies seeking to control neglected tropical diseases are mistaken. Indeed, it is suggested that it is unlikely that schistosomiasis haematobium and soil-transmitted helminths will be controlled so long as policy makers persist with the idea that one policy, designed by staff working for the World Health Organisation – with minor modifications added in Dar es Salaam - can be rolled out uniformly, irrespective of the political, social and economic context in which the programme occurs.