<p>This is a study concerning Hegel’s critic of Rousseau’s common will and shows how Hegel’s concept of freedom should be understood from this criticism. This is done first of all through a study of Rousseau’s social contract and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The different state theories which Rousseau and Hegel represent, are evaluated separately, first Rousseau’s then Hegel’s to see how Hegel’s philosophy is a continuation of Rousseau’s philosophy. The most important concepts of this essay are Rousseau’s ”moral freedom” and Hegel’s concept of the ethical system.</p> / <p>Detta är en studie om Hegels kritik av Rousseaus allmänvilja och visar hur Hegels frihetsbegrepp ska förstås utifrån denna kritik. Detta görs först och främst genom en studie av Rousseaus verk samhällsfördraget och Hegels verk Rättsfilosofin. De olika statsteorierna som Rousseau och Hegel representerar behandlas var och en för sig, först Rousseaus sedan Hegels för att se hur Hegel bygger vidare sin filosofi utifrån Rousseau. Huvudbegrepp i uppsatsen är moralisk frihet eller moralitet och sedlighet.</p>

This is a study concerning Hegel’s critic of Rousseau’s common will and shows how Hegel’s concept of freedom should be understood from this criticism. This is done first of all through a study of Rousseau’s social contract and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The different state theories which Rousseau and Hegel represent, are evaluated separately, first Rousseau’s then Hegel’s to see how Hegel’s philosophy is a continuation of Rousseau’s philosophy. The most important concepts of this essay are Rousseau’s ”moral freedom” and Hegel’s concept of the ethical system. / Detta är en studie om Hegels kritik av Rousseaus allmänvilja och visar hur Hegels frihetsbegrepp ska förstås utifrån denna kritik. Detta görs först och främst genom en studie av Rousseaus verk samhällsfördraget och Hegels verk Rättsfilosofin. De olika statsteorierna som Rousseau och Hegel representerar behandlas var och en för sig, först Rousseaus sedan Hegels för att se hur Hegel bygger vidare sin filosofi utifrån Rousseau. Huvudbegrepp i uppsatsen är moralisk frihet eller moralitet och sedlighet.

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In the following essay I offer an analysis of the concept of genealogy in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. The genealogical is illuminated as a critical approach, a period and a method. Taking as a point of departure Foucault‘s description of genealogy as a historico-philosophical method, with which we can approach the question of how we constitute ourselves as human beings, by analyzing our ideas about knowledge, morals and the self as an acting subject, I go back to Nietzsche, from where Foucault derives his genealogical project. By analyzing how Nietzsche examines the three domains of genealogy, found in Foucault‘s description – knowledge, morals and the subject – I thereby present a way to read, understand and use the works of Nietzsche, a reading of Nietzsche which at the same time brings out some of the core topics, offering a more profound understanding of Foucault‘s genealogical project. My overall reading will show that one of the main aspects of what can be understood as the genealogical method is to locate concepts that constitute the way we think and act. In trying to determine the social and practical settings where these concepts take on form and content, the genealogy demystifies the located constituting concepts, offering new perspectives on how the present lives its past. This reading will show how the genealogy interweaves the philosophical and historical, at the same time exposing the problematic and varying practical and social settings that produce and uphold the inevitable link between the political and the human.

<p>Abstract. Consistent valuation and societal prioritization of risks presupposes comparability among risks, that is, in order to rank risks in order of severity, and allocate risk preventative resources accordingly, we must be able to determine whether one risk is better or worse than another, and by how much. It is often claimed, however, that some risks are not amenable to this kind of comparison because they are<i> incommensurable</i>, which roughly means that they are not comparable with respect to a common cardinal measure (e.g. money). The aim of this thesis is to i) consider what it means to say that two risks are incommensurable, ii) explore if <i>incomparability</i> - comparison failure with respect to a common ordinal scale - ever occurs, and how to model it if it does.</p><p><b>Essay I</b> is a critical examination of the most prominent argument for incomparability, the so-called <i>small improvement argument</i> (SIA). It is argued that the argument fails because it conflates incomparability and a kind of evaluative indeterminacy.</p><p><b>Essay II</b> outlines so-called<i> margin of error principles</i> for comparative value judgements. They are based on the idea that if a proposition concerning the value relation between two value-bearing options is true, but there are sufficiently similar cases in which it is false, it is not available to be known. The usefulness of these principles is demonstrated by utilizing them in an epistemological case against SIA.</p><p><b>Essay III</b> presents a novel account of incomplete preference orderings which acknowledges that incomparability can vary in degrees. This is achieved by means of a probabilistic analysis of preferences.</p>

<p>QC 20110613</p>

<p>Sometimes relatives have taken me on one side and told me they cannot bear it any more:"Isn't there something you can do to end it all?"More often requests for euthanasia have come from those who are ill. I remember visiting a man with lung cancer. He asked his wife to leave the room. As she closed the door he leaned over and grabbed my arm. "I want to die", he said. "Please can you give me something." He felt a burden on his wife and wanted euthanasia for himself .</p><p>Often in their duty, physicians are faced with euthanasia requests of this kind. Death is the inevitable fate of all humans but how we die is an issue of great concern for many of us. Fear of pain, loss of control and being a burden to our loved ones are common issues surrounding dying and death of patients. This has led to varying circumstances of patients’ death, and of a significant remark, the involvement of physicians in bringing about these deaths through an act of euthanasia. Euthanasia involves the intentional killing of a patient by the direct intervention of a physician (or another party) ostensibly for the good of the patient, and the most common form that this comes is through lethal injection. The ethics of euthanasia and of a physicians’ involvement have been a contentious issue from the beginnings of medicine. This for the most part is as a result that the ethical code of physicians has long been based in part on the Hippocratic Oath, which requires physicians to “do no harm”. Thus, the focus of this work will be to look into the role of the physician in ending a patient’s life through the act of euthanasia. Although necessary but not a central point of this work to merely develop arguments for and against the justification of euthanasia and a physician’s involvement in the act, but to critically view the role played by physicians in ending the life of patients through euthanasia in contrast with their medical obligation. The issue of euthanasia raises ethical questions for physicians. Is it morally right or wrong for a physician to end the life of his or her patient? And this therefore will be the focus of this work.</p>

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<p>I denne avhandlinga har jeg to hovedsiktemål. For det første søker jeg å gi ei tolkning av den såkalte rasjonalisten René Descartes’, transcendentalpragmatikeren Karl-Otto Apels og eleven hans, Wolfgang Kuhlmanns, samt den objektive idealisten Vittorio Hösles forsøk på å tilbakevise den universelle skeptisismen, og det vil, grovt formulert, si forsøka deres på å vise at sistebegrunna kunnskap er mulig. For det andre prøver jeg å vurdere de nemnte tenkernes skeptisismekritikk. Denne vurderinga mun-ner ut i tre hovedteser: (i) Ingen av dem har lyktes i sine forsøk på å gjendrive skepti-keren; (ii) en slik gjendrivelse er (i en bestemt forstand) heller ikke mulig; (iii) en ikke-falsifikasjonistisk universell fallibilisme, og dvs. en bestemt form for universell skeptisisme, er en posisjon som gir en korrekt beskrivelse av den menneskelige ende-lighet (på erkjennelsens område).</p>

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