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According to the Thomistic concept of freedom, human freedom has its source in freedom of choice, which may be used for the development of man's spiritual and temporal potentialities in keeping with his eternal destiny. Man, who always seeks some good, must seek the perfect good. This is the only necessity or determination that affects man's will. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, Karl Marx became concerned about the lack of freedom for the worker in the increasingly industrialized society that resulted from the Industrial Revolution. With the collaboration of Frederick Engels, he took upon himself the task of improving the lot of the toiling masses. This was to be accomplished by a combination of economic laws, materialism, and the dialectic, in such a way as to supply a complete way of life for man.

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The aim of this study is to investigate Rawls' theory of moral justification by placing his concept of "Goodness as Rationality" in the context of his overall account of justice and morality. More specifically, my purpose is to determine how far Rawls' account has been able to undermine the challenge of moral scepticism. Does Rawls' account give an effective reply to the question "why be moral?"? Has he succeeded in making good his claim that he has constructed a theory of justice that while remaining normative, is both descriptive and objective? Has he been able to show that moral judgments are among the kinds of judgments whose truth can be determined publicly by any rational observer who is acquainted with the facts? Conclusions. (1) Rawls' attempt to revise the traditional contract theory does not succeed. He is unable to provide a moral basis for the social contract doctrine because his interpretation of the original position cannot yield principles that are uniquely acceptable from the moral point of view. (2) Rawls' method of reflective equilibrium does not succeed in the context of a prescriptive justificatory theory of justice. The method is only effective to the extent to which Rawls' theory can be regarded as a purely descriptive-explanatory theory of justice. (3) The two principles of justice as fairness need not commend themselves to all reflective persons as correct and impartial principles of justice. In particular the principles are influenced by certain ideologies of contemporary liberalism. (4) Rawls' account of the 'good' suffers from an inadequate theoretical basis. His attempt to extend his thin theory to the full theory of the 'good' does not work for at least one important reason: an effective sense of justice (one of the fundamental virtues which rational members of a well-ordered society would desire in one another) cannot be derived from Rawls' original position. In view of the motivational assumptions in the original position, as well as Rawls' reliance on an economic theory of rationality, an effective distinction cannot be made between a morally good person and a person of good morals. One of the important lessons from the failure of Rawls' theory is that contemporary writers in ethics would be reminded once more about what is possible and what is not possible in ethics. The study also stresses the need for further investigation of the notion of rationality, in particular, how this concept applies to morality.

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The enunciation of this thesis, Dialectics as an Approach to Teaching, contains two very important notions, dialectics and teaching. In teaching, the teacher goes through the natural process that he or she went through in acquiring the truth to be imparted. This natural process of going from the known to the unknown is really to make use of a method of discovery. It is what Saint Thomas referred to as inventio. In other words it is what he understood as being dialectics. Thus we see that the teacher does make use of dialectics in helping another to acquire knowledge. It is the preparatory step through which the teacher leads the pupil prior to the acquisition of knowledge. It is seen to be an approach to teaching, indeed, the only real approach to teaching inasmuch as it is teaching. Not to use it would be to indoctrinate rather than to teach. Methods of teaching were then examined for their dialectical character. The "question and answer" method was seen to be most dialectical in its approach. This method may be considered to include a variety of different methods of teaching, all of which have in common the characteristic note of dialectical questioning. The method of problem thinking is perhaps the one that adheres most closely to the dialectical procedure as outlined in the Topics. Other dialectical approaches used in teaching include research assignments, debates, panel discussions, and symposiums. The inductive method used in the teaching of science is also a dialectical procedure. The applicability of the dialectical approach in the teaching of philosophy was then studied in some detail. It was seen that philosophy lends itself ideally to this approach. The method of problem thinking can be used to great advantage in the teaching of philosophy. The lecture method which is frequently used is at is best when it employs the dialectical approach. Its adjuncts, group discussions and the "tutorial" were noted to be dialectical in character. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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