The purpose of this study is to see how religious resources and prison staff can promote and support the inmate to religious commitment as part of their rehabilitation process. The questions asked to delineate how the availability of religious resources looks like in the institutions and how prison staff and religious actors can promote religious commitment as well as how religious resources, staff and religious actors can contribute to promoting positive changes and creating a meaningful existence for the inmates. The method that has been used is semi-structured interviews where six religious representatives have been interviewed. The theoretical framework used consists of a sociological and an existential input. Previous research has shown that there is a lack of studies on religion in prisons and therefore I want to contribute to that research. The essay shows that religious resources can play a big role for the inmates and that the humane function is of great importance. It also shows that the availability of religious practice has shortcomings that limit the chance to pursue religious practice.

Through the application of a phenomenological hermeneutic approach, this study seeks toexamine how seven moral dilemmas can be understood through the lenses of utilitarian ethicsand virtue ethics. These dilemmas are derived from Pablo Vierci’s depiction of a real-life1972 plane crash tragedy in the non-fictional book Society of the Snow. By incorporatingprevious research on similar topics, this study situates itself within the broader academicdiscourse on moral ethics, while providing a contemporary interpretation of a significanthistorical event depicted in literature. The goal of this research is to explore the practicalapplications of utilitarianism and virtue ethics in real-life scenarios. The findings indicate thatanalyzing moral dilemmas through these ethical frameworks deepens our understanding ofmoral philosophy, making complex and distressing moral choices more comprehensible. Byengaging with the intricacies of these theories and their practical implications, individuals canunderstand the complexities of moral decision-making with greater insight and sensitivity.

Denna essä undersöker rektors roll i en verksamhet där statligt uppdrag ser ut att kollidera med de förutsättningar som ges till skolorna via kommunen som finansiär och arbetsgivare. Upplevelsen speglas i situationer där lärare och vårdnadshavare ser ut att ha en annan förståelse för skolans uppdrag än den som rektor upplever sig ha utifrån de styrdokument som råder och de möjligheter som kommunen tillhandahåller. En fråga är vad rektor behöver veta om kunskapen hos medarbetare för att kunna leda. Undersökandet utgår från Aristoteles kunskapsbegrepp med fronesis som tyngdpunkt, läsning av Finks beskrivning av Aristoteles begrepp samt med hjälp av Sa Cavalcante Schuback och Schön gällande förståelse som övergår i handling.   Dessutom utifrån teorier om ledarskap och synen på förståelsens roll i ledarskap där ett perspektiv av mytbildning i skolan undersökts vilket kan vara en förklaring till den svåra situation som både lärare och rektor befinner sig i. / The essay examines the role of the principal in an organization where the state’s mission seems to clash with the conditions provided to schools by the municipality as the fonder and employer. The experience is reflected in situations where teachers and parents seem to have a different understanding of the school’s mission than the principal perceives based on the curriculum and budget provided by the municipality. One question is what the principal needs to know about the knowledge of teachers in order to lead. The investigation is based on Aristotle’s concept of knowledge with phronesis as the focus, reading Fink’s description of Aristotle’s concept, and with help from Sa Cavalcante Schuback and Schön regarding understanding that transitions into action. Additionally, based on theories of leadership and the role of understanding in leadership, a perspective of myths in school is also examined, which may be an explanation for the difficult situation in which both teachers and principals find themselves.

This thesis explores the normative significance of making a rights-backed, authorized demand as a right holder. Rights, I argue, enable their holders to make a special kind of demand which comes with a special force. It is, in other words, one of rights' functions that they are demands-enabling. I single out what sort of demands I am interested in exploring. I also look at how these special demands are normatively significant. I call them rights-backed, authorized demands. They are normatively significant, first, because of the interesting role they play in other agents' practical-reasoning, and , second, because the very making of these demands, as a matter of rights, is empowering in an abstract way. I go on to contrast my view with other ‘demand theories' in existence and conclude that my view is substantively different. In particular, existing demand theories of rights all fail to sufficiently highlight the importance of actual demands, and instead focus on the ‘status' of ‘being in a position' to make demands. I argue that this focus is a fundamental mistake. I also consider how my view can contribute to some related literature on rights. First, I argue that my view highlights a new function which rights have: it has interesting implications on the shape of the long-standing debate between the will and interest theory of rights. Second, I argue that my view provides us with a new way to counter one of the most discussed criticisms of the existence of welfare human rights, which is the argument that rights must correlate with some specific duties as a necessary existence condition, and that human welfare rights fail on this mark. I conclude that if human rights indeed have a demand-related function as I argue, it weakens the intuitive appeal of this criticism.

This essay reflects upon a group process where the goal was to use an art exhibition as a source of inspiration. The purpose of introducing art through an Exihibition was to generate associations that lead to subjects for dialogue and therefor developed a creative process amongst the group. We used the experience that came out of the visit and phrased questions regarding electrical light sources to mediate to the children. The main questioning is regarding the transformation from conformity to a more experimental approach to children’s learning. My dilemma concerns me getting caught in between two different points of view and not always knowing to whom the dilemma should be addressed, towards the staff or the organisation. My investigation concerns the role of a supervisors communications skills in relation to aesthetics as a learning process. Secondly, I reflect upon pedagogic documentation and how it can be used in the preschool practice. Through the pedagogic documentation, I can reflect upon the children’s becoming in relationship to the spatial dimensions and their relationships towards each other. My purpose of outcome was to investigate creative thinking in relationship to a group process in the preschool practice and how one can go about to introduce art as a catalysator for a creative process.

The main purpose of the thesis is to investigate the possibility of bridging the dichotomy between Islam and the criteria of modern society by means of reinterpreting the principles (foundations) of Islam. The reformists Abdolkarim Soroush, Sedigheh Vasmaghi and Tariq Ramadan seek to prove that the methods keeping strictly within the boundaries of tradition interpreting the Quran along the lines of previous generations is not necessarily the sole means of coming to an understanding of the Quran’s message. The thesis discusses these reinterpreters’ critique of tradition and their arguments for the possibility of uniting the principles of Islam with the prerequisites of modern society. In conjunction with this, the question whether modern society presupposes a strict division between the private and the public sphere is problematized from a point of departure in Jeffrey Stout’s Democracy and Tradition. The thesis attempts to show potential conceptions of a modern society based on the principles of Islam.

This thesis engages with the later writings of Paul Ricoeur in order to understand his philosophy as a whole. A reconstruction of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of ethical life presents his significant contribution to contemporary philosophy of religion. This hermeneutics aims to elucidate a moral religion that binds humans together universally on the basis of the life they share as capable beings. To facilitate this hermeneutics, I will demonstrate that a selective reading of Ricoeur’s philosophy brings to light the pivotal role of his ‘little ethics’ in bridging his later and earlier works. The capable human (l’homme capable) in the later Ricoeur must be understood in relation to both the ‘little ethics’ and an architectonic of moral religion. Elucidating the aim (telos) of ethical life and the norm (‘moral law’) of moral religion from the ‘little ethics’ points to the significant roles of Aristotle and Kant in Ricoeur’s architectonic. Ricoeur himself defines ‘architectonic’ in Kantian terms as a critical framework, while appropriating Spinoza’s metaphysical conception of a rational striving (conatus) for life in its fullness. Core concepts taken from Spinoza, Aristotle and Kant are implicit in the present reconstruction of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. Three dimensions of ethical life emerge in Spinoza’s metaphysics, Aristotle’s anthropology, and Kant’s moral philosophy, giving us Ricoeur’s architectonic. For Ricoeur, the ethical aim is grounded on a metaphysics of human capability, and the demanding nature of ‘the law’ renders religion moral. This religion assumes that the good life is the goal of human striving. But crucially, the thesis will uncover ‘the arrow of the religious’ (la flèche du religieux) as it motivates the capable subject to embrace life with and for others in just institutions. In conclusion, life is revealed as the heart of Ricoeur’s moral religion.

Can contemporary liberalism justify antidiscrimination law? The question seems impertinent until we consider contemporary liberalism’s commitment to limited government. Once we do, we realize that contemporary liberals may not complacently assume that their theories justify antidiscrimination law simply because discrimination based on race or sex is so obviously wrongful. Rather, they must scrutinize antidiscrimination law just as they do other regulation of individual conduct. Providing such scrutiny, this thesis argues that three of the most prominent contemporary liberal doctrines of political legitimacy—John Rawls’s “political liberalism,” an antiperfectionist version of the “harm principle,” and Joseph Raz’s “liberal perfectionism”—all fail to justify core applications of antidiscrimination law, applications that we intuitively consider perfectly legitimate. In light of this failure, contemporary liberalism faces a dilemma: it must jettison either its commitment to comprehensive, uniform antidiscrimination regimes or its antiperfectionism and overriding commitment to personal autonomy. This thesis argues for the latter course by providing an account of the wrongfulness of discrimination based on race or sex that condemns all instances of the conduct. According to this account, discrimination is wrong because acting on discriminatory intentions is wrong. More specifically, by taking another person’s race or sex as a reason to treat her less favorably than one would treat people of other races or the other sex, one fails to respect her as a person, to regard her as a being of ultimate value. Unlike contemporary liberal accounts, this account is fully perfectionist, since it defines discrimination in terms of the intentions of discriminators, and the intentions of discriminators in terms of their attitudes, which partly constitute their moral characters. So long as we remain committed to antidiscrimination law in its current form, we must attend to discriminators’ characters. And to attend to discriminators’ characters, we must be willing to espouse perfectionism.

The central aim of this thesis is to analyse the influence of Kierkegaard on Bonhoeffer. This relationship has been almost universally recognized. And yet this area has received no comprehensive study, limited within the secondary literature to footnotes, digressions, and the occasional paper. Furthermore, what little literature there is has been plagued by several stereotypes. First, discussion is often limited to Discipleship. Second, Kierkegaard has been identified as an individualist and acosmist who rejected the church, leading many to consider Bonhoeffer the ecumenist and ecclesiologist as selectively agreeing with Kierkegaard, but ultimately rejecting his overall stance. This thesis will argue that neither stereotype is true, and suggest (a), that Kierkegaard’s influence can be found throughout Bonhoeffer’s work, and (b) that although a more stereotypical perspective may be present in SC, by the end of his life Bonhoeffer had gained a far deeper understanding across the breadth of Kierkegaard’s work. The importance of this thesis is not simply to ‘plug the gap’ of scholarship in this area, but also to suggest the importance of analysing Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer together. This will focus on three specific areas. First, alongside the influence of Kierkegaard on Bonhoeffer, it will argue for the importance of using Bonhoeffer as an interpretive tool for understanding Kierkegaard. This thesis will show how Bonhoeffer adopted and adapted Kierkegaard’s work to his own situation, forcing Kierkegaard to answer questions that were not present during his own life. In this way, we are led to compare Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer as individuals, and not simply their static declarations. Secondly, against the tendency to consider Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer’s final attacks on Christendom as unfortunate endings to otherwise profound careers, it will be suggested that these attacks stand as the fulfilment of their earlier thought. It will be argued that despite their different contexts, both Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer were led to the same conclusions concerning Christendom. Thirdly, given Kierkegaard’s submission to indirect communication and his somewhat 'prophetic' proclamations concerning one who will come after him and reform, this thesis will ask whether Bonhoeffer stands as something of a fulfilment to Kierkegaard’s thought in the guise of a Kierkegaardian ‘reformer’.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how God-talk can be used to say something reality depicting and potentially true, and at the same time contribute to a feminist aim where women and men are equally qualified in their talk about God. A pure shift from male to female metaphors and properties applied to God is rejected. Religious language that is used from a radical semantic realistic or radical semantic anti-realistic point of view is also rejected since those positions are not in line with the feminist aims. Metaphors are of value when examining how to speak about God. It is examined if, and in that case how, metaphors can express truths and say something reality depicting. It is argued that a theory of metaphors based on semantic modest anti-realism contributes with something more distinct than a theory of metaphors based on realism does. This distinction highlights the different uses in language between an analogical way and a modest anti-realistic use of metaphors. The three classical “ways” in religious language – univocal, analogical, and equivocal language – are possible to use from a feminist perspective of religious language. It is argued, however, that religious language that is supposed to be in line both with a feminist agenda and be able to contribute to our understanding of God, ourselves, and express truths must be based on a semantic modest realism or semantic modest anti-realism. Analogical language is the one and only religious “way” that is compatible with both semantic modest realism and semantic modest anti-realism. For that reason, it is argued, the analogical language has an advantage over univocal and equivocal language. Finally, four criteria are set up that a good feministic metaphor must achieve, and some remarks about the research of feminism and religious language still to examine is made. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur vi kan tala om Gud på ett sätt som kan vara verklighetsbeskrivande samtidigt som det gynnar feminismen och kvinnors och mäns lika rätt att tala om Gud. Ett rent skifte från manliga till kvinnliga metaforer om Gud avvisas. Religiöst språk som används ur en radikalt semantiskt realistiskt eller ett radikalt semantiskt anti-realistiskt utgångspunkt avvisas då dessa inte går i linje med en feministisk agenda. Metaforer är viktiga i undersökningen av hur vi kan tala om Gud. Det undersöks om, och i så fall hur, metaforer kan uttrycka något sant och verklighetsbeskrivande. Det argumenteras för att en metaforteori som utgår från semantisk modest anti-realism kan bidra med något mer distinkt och kreativt än en metaforteori som utgår från semantisk kritisk realism. Denna distinktion tyddliggör skillnaden mellan ett analogt religiöst språk och en semantisk modest anti-realistisk användning av metaforer. Både univokt, analogt och ekvivokt språkbruk kan användas ur ett feministiskt perspektiv. Analysen visar emellertid att ett religiöst språkbruk som ska gynna feminismen och samtidigt kunna uttrycka någonting sant och verklighetsbeskrivande måste utgå från semantisk kritisk realism eller semantisk modest anti-realism. Det analoga språkbruket är det enda religiöst språkbruk som är kompatibelt med både semantisk kritisk realism och semantisk modest anti-realism, varpå det analoga språkbruket har en fördel över univokt och ekvivokt språk. Tillsist ställs fyra kriterier upp som en bra religiös feministisk metafor måste möta. Uppsatsen avslutas sedan med några kommentarer om hur vidare forskning av religiöst språk med feministiskt språkperspektiv kan se ut.