When discussing any question in which a human being has a moral claim or a moral choice to make we need to address the justification of those claims and actions. Hence one can ask the question whether we can discuss a justification of moral judgments without having any specific knowledge about any corresponding fact or if it is possible to justify a moral judgment without having that kind of knowledge. This thesis has critically assessed Rainer Forst’s justification theory in relation to moral epistemology, aiming at clarifying his position on the matter. The study shows that Forst’s position is one of a cognitivist nature with a form of rational constructivism. The thesis suggests an alternative approach to Forst’s justification theory. Forst should take on an empiricist explanation when it comes to justifying moral judgements and therefore an epistemology that is not rationalism. Therefore, I suggest a form of realism when it comes to the discussion of his ontology.

”Fashion is the eternal recurrence of the new. Are there nevertheless motifs of redemption precisely in fashion?” This question, left unanswered in Walter Benjamin’s late text “Central Park”, is the point of departure for this thesis. Benjamin is both adamant and explicit in his critique of fashion’s alienating influence on the collective, but despite this he seems at times to ascribe to it some kind of revolutionary potential. The most well-known instance of this is the 14th thesis of “Theses on the Concept of History”. There, Benjamin compares the ”tiger’s leap” of sartorial citation to the historical leap of the Marxist revolution. Employing Benjamin’s philosophy of history as a theoretical framework, this thesis examines the roles ascribed to fashion in The Arcades Project, in order to elaborate on its political potential in Benjamin’s late thinking, as well as to understand this potential in light of Benjamin’s critique of fashion as fetishism and phantasmagoria.

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Trots lagar, nationella som internationella, återkommer diskussionen om etik vid militära interventioner. Uppsatsen handlar om huruvida NATO:s intervention i Kosovo levde upp till etiska lagar kring militära interventioner samt om normativa teorier fortfarande är relevanta och lämnas utrymme idag.Syftet med uppsatsen är att se om det fortfarande finns utrymme idag för normativa teorier, såsom den etiska teorin just war theory, och om dessa är rimliga att använda. Uppsatsen använder fallstudien Kosovo som exempel och analyserar samtidigt hur denna intervention lever upp till de nio punkterna i teorin.Kvalitativ textanalys samt fallstudie av Kosovo har använts som metoder och just war theory har använts som teori.Resultatet visar att sju av nio punkter helt eller till stor del levdes upp till under NATO:s intervention i Kosovo, och att de resterande två till viss del levdes upp till. Undersökningen påvisar också att normativa teorier lämnas utrymme idag, och att teorin fortfarande kan vara relevant, om än med lite modifikation.

In Christian contexts, the meal is usually connected to the sacrament of the Eucharist. In this essay, the aim is to explore the everyday meal in which people gather, both at home and in church settings. What are the theological meanings of a meal, and what are people experiencing around the table? The essay poses the question Which theological meanings are expressed concerning the meal in Christian contexts? To answer this question, the essay has two theoretical frameworks, which are “body theology” and “lived religion”. The method used in the essay is a two-part analysis. The first part is a content analysis, with focus on the writers’ emotions and experiences. The second part is a dialogue with Norman Wirzba. The material contains primary and secondary material, which are books by Kendall Vanderslice, Lina Mattebo (red.), and Norman Wirzba.   This essay concludes that the meal in Christian contexts has many different, mostly positive, meanings. The most prominent meanings of the meal are community and relationship building, identity, spiritual exercise, and a strong sense of the significance of the body. Many of the authors express a feeling of connection to God in the meal, even in the everyday situation. The concept of “exile” is also explored. For future research it would be interesting to aim focus towards meals in non-Western countries, and to investigate the effects of gender and what power dynamics that meals may have.

In the seemingly ever growing, diverse, and developing fields of comparative education, specific parts of integrative processes in many countries’ religious education (RE) also appears to develop. Whereas many countries’ religious educations tend to act upon integrative aspirations, many of them take different routes as well. Even so, does the more specific part of “Lived Religion”. This study aims to ask and inquire into some of the comparative questions that might occur while reading about different countries’ different forms of implementation of Lived Religion in their education (e.g. In what different ways does Lived Religion seem to be interpreted, understood, and treated?). This is done by examining and comparing three different examples of Nordic studies (Sweden, Norway, and Finland) that refer to the implementation of Lived Religion in their classrooms, as primary materials. This paper concludes that there is an apparent need of more research in this matter, both nationally and comparatively. Whereas also Lived Religion is both treated and understood differently between the examined prime materials, there are though some fruitful similarities and differences that can be worthwhile drawing. While the Lived Religious aspects might be tough to educate, as with many other integrative matters, it is discussed that there is several benefits ongoingly understanding and comparing Lived Religion as a field of research in the classrooms (when it comes to approaching the aspirating integrative ambitions underlying the chosen countries’ curricula and religious educations). Even though this kind of “Lived” understanding of how Religion and Religiousness works for many people and is compatible with the ambitions the chosen Nordic countries has, there are also some similarities and differences regarding the difficulties implementing these kinds of understandings in the classroom. Both because of curricular and practical reasons.

This master’s thesis will thoroughly analyze the discourse that is the transformation and interaction of the Maoist ideology with the previous Confucian traditions and its importance in institutional spheres of society in contemporary China. The thesis aims to analyze correlations and causations to the aspect of the rise of Maoism from a non-Communist Chinese society highly influenced by Confucian values and traditions to a Maoist dominated Chinese cultural, social, and political landscape. With a comparative discourse analysis and a theoretical framework based on the development and rise of authoritarian ideologies and the correlations ideologies and religions can have interchangeably, the thesis aims to shed light on the aspects of rising authoritarianism and how they influence contemporary Chinese institutions of power. This is indeed of utmost relevance and importance since the Chinese Communist Party under the rule of Xi Jinping now increases its cultural, social, and political influence within the country itself, the greater Chinese speaking world, and on the international stage. The CCP utilizes Confucian centers of learning around the world to strengthen the nation’s political, social, and ideological influence and power monopoly and to spread CCP propaganda through the Confucian centers. In other words, the Confucian philosophy and ideology has had an increasingly more important role in the Chinese political, social, and cultural landscape. The usage of comparative discourse analysis linked to authoritarian development and continuation of authoritarian systems is useful to understand the contemporary Chinese context but also other contexts where religiously linked authoritarian rule has been replaced with a communist or Marxist authoritarian rule based on ideology, such as the case of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union and the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe after World War II.

This study examines the state of research concerning the ideology of New atheism and interactions and implications in relation to religious studies in Swedish upper secondary school. The text primarily aims to examine which the core values of New atheism are, and to what extent these core values are expressed in religious studies in Swedish upper secondary schools. The study also attempts to position new atheism in a wider socio-political context, in order to establish why it might be problematic in relation to the anti-discriminatory aspects of the Swedish school curriculum. The study concludes that there are few works specifically investigating new atheism in the context of Swedish schools. In response to this, the study has primarily focused on two themes: defining core values of New atheism and discourses on religiosity in Swedish upper secondary religious studies classrooms. The results on the former are primarily based on literature by Dr. Stephen LeDrew, and the latter from observational studies by Dr. Karin Kittelman Flensner. These results are compared, resulting in a short analysis of the prevalence of New atheism in the Swedish religious studies classroom. The results show correlations between classroom discourses and new atheist values but present no evidence of causality. Further research that examines the transmission of values through social media are suggested.

The main point of this study was to research on how the description of biomedicine was described and valued in educational material for upper secondary school.  To assist this research, this study took the help from two theorist, Francis Fukuyama and Bart Simon. These two individual had vast differences in how they view biomedicine and its relationship with the perspective of what defines a human. Therefore it was essential that these two individuals were included to assist and aid the research, by pointing out their different argument on why biomedicine had different interpretations. The study showed that a majority of the educational materials had an open and reflective questionnaire about biomedicine and it was often built around letting the pupils think and analyze about different ethical events regarding biomedicine. Another point that also showed up was that a minority of the educational material, didn´t even mention biomedicine and instead decided to point out other part of ethics that did not include biomedicine of any sorts. While other educational material often compared biomedicine to older form of science like the race biology from the beginning of the 20th century or bringing up the argument of  crossing the line between man and God and what our roles in the world is. These educational material had a more critical view to biomedicine and had more argument that pointed out negative attributes then they did with the positive. A noteworthy point that also came out from this study, was that the majority of educational material had similar attributes and arguments that Bart Simons mention in his theories. Meanwhile those educational material that had more of a critical viewpoint toward biomedicine, followed those argument that Francis Fukuyama had discussed in his theory. The conclusion of this research showed that most of these educational material had different form of influence in their way of describing biomedicine but most had reflective and open questionnaire when regarding the description of biomedicine.

The purpose of this study is to develop a fruitful conception of human dignity, a conception that can be used as a guiding moral principle when trying to resolve the conflict of rights. Specifically, the question that this study attempts to answer is what is a fruitful conception of human dignity and how can it be used to deal with concrete issues pertaining to human rights? Two reports from special rapporteurs propose two different courses of action regarding the implementation of the right to protection of property, and this is the conflict that the proposed conception of human dignity tries to resolve. To develop a conception of human dignity a broad conception of human dignity is initially developed, through the usage of a Rawlsian reflective equilibrium, and it is further developed through a combination of a reflective equilibrium, examination of the conception in relation to overall coherence with the human rights tradition, and a consequence analysis. The latter is done by utilizing a consequence analysis with the aforementioned courses of action being applied in a specific case, the case of Tanzania. By using a consequence analysis, a proposed conception of human dignity and a reflective equilibrium the conception of human dignity could be developed further and contribute to resolve the specific conflict of rights that could be found in the reports of the special rapporteurs. The conclusion drawn was that both of the proposed courses of action, regarding the implementation of the right to the protection of property and in relation to the proposed conception of human dignity, had desirable and less desirable consequences. Therefore, a third way was proposed that sought to bridge the gap between both courses of action, by combining elements of both, and to strengthen the condition-dignity for the parties affected.