Inaug.-Diss.--Breslau. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [iv]-v.

Thèse--Université de Paris. / "Indications bibliographiques": p. [255]-260.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85)

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

Orientador: Luiz Antonio Soares Hentz / Resumo: O Estado é o responsável pela preservação da ordem pública e da incolumidade das pessoas e do patrimônio e desenvolve suas atividades por meio das forças policiais. A missão das forças policiais é assegurar ao cidadão o exercício dos direitos e garantias fundamentais e o direito à segurança pública. Os agentes policiais encontram-se legitimados a empregarem à força quando esta for necessária para o cumprimento de suas funções. O uso da força deve estar sujeito aos limites da lei, evitando-se o abuso e o excesso que podem levar à prática de atos arbitrários. A responsabilidade do Estado é objetiva, bastando ao administrado demonstrar o nexo de causalidade existente entre o dano e o ato praticado para que seja indenizado. O fundamento legal da responsabilidade do Estado é o art. 37, § 6º, da Constituição Federal do Brasil. A ação de indenização por atos das forças policiais deve ser proposta contra a Fazenda Pública, e o Estado em sua defesa poderá alegar a ocorrência de uma das excludentes de responsabilidade. O uso legítimo da força ou a ocorrência de uma das excludentes afastam ou diminuem os valores devidos ao administrado pelo dano suportado. / Abstract: The State is responsible for the preservation of the public order, the people's integrity and the patrimony and it develops its activities by means of the police forces. The police force mission is to assure to the citizen the exercise of the rights and fundamental warranties and the right to the public safety. The police agents are legitimated to use the force when it is necessary for the execution of its functions. The use of the force should be subject to the limits of the law, being avoided the abuse and the excess that can take to the practice of arbritrary acts. The responsibility of the State is objective, being enough to the administered to demonstrate the connection between the damage and practiced act so it is reimbursed. The legal foundation of the responsibility of the State is the art. 37, § 6°., of the Federal Constitution of Brazil. The compensation action for the police forces acts should be proposed against the Public Finance, and the State in its defense can allege the occurrence of one of the excluded responsibility. The legitimate use of the force or the occurrence of one of the excluded move away or decrease the values to the administered by the supported damage. / Mestre

This thesis has two aims. One is to motivate the claim that challenging what I call a “sameness of evidence thesis” is a particularly promising approach to external world scepticism. The other is to sharpen an underexplored issue that arises when challenging the sameness of evidence thesis. The second aim is the primary aim of the thesis. Pursuing the first aim, I start by examining a predominant formulation of external world scepticism known as the “closure argument” for knowledge. I examine three main strategies for responding to external world scepticism and highlight their major challenges (DeRose 1995; Dretske 1979; Nozick 1981; Sosa 1999). The goal is not to demonstrate that these challenges cannot be met, but rather to highlight a deeper issue that arises when responding to the closure problem for knowledge. In particular, I take the discussion to motivate looking at what I will call “scepticism about evidential justification” (Feldman 2000; Kornblith 2001; Pritchard forthcoming). The general argument in favour of a shift to scepticism about evidential justification is based on considerations about what an adequate response to external world scepticism should hope to achieve. I argue that one condition of adequacy is being able to account for radical forms of scepticism that challenge not only that our beliefs enjoy the epistemic status of knowledge (however that status is conceived) but also that our ordinary empirical beliefs are justified, or that we are reasonable in holding them. There are different varieties of scepticism about evidential justification. I focus in some detail on the anti-sceptical strategies of Pryor (2000; 2004) and Wright (2004) as examples of strategies that engage with scepticism about evidential justification. But I argue that one form of evidential scepticism known as the “underdetermination argument”—which Pryor and Wright do not directly engage with—is of particular importance. The main assumption in the underdetermination argument I focus on is about the nature of evidence. More specifically, the underdetermination argument presupposes that one’s evidence is the same in so-called “bad” and “good” cases in which an agent forms an empirical belief. This is the “sameness of evidence thesis.” Pursuing the main aim of the thesis, I introduce two forms an anti-sceptical strategy that involves challenging the sameness of evidence thesis. The two forms I consider differ in their commitments concerning a condition of accessibility on our evidence. Pritchard (2006; 2007; 2012; forthcoming) maintains that one’s evidence is “reflectively accessible.” Williamson (2000; 2009) rejects this claim. The central issue I aim to sharpen is that while accepting the condition of accessibility leads to serious challenges in rejecting the sameness of evidence thesis, rejecting it leads to counterintuitive consequences if we grant that there is a normative principle that requires us to proportion our beliefs to the evidence. A central part of the thesis involves examining these counterintuitive consequences and showing what accounting for them requires. This is an underexplored project in the context of external world scepticism. I look at three different approaches to spelling out the counterintuitive consequences. My preferred account turns on a distinction between three different kinds of responsibility (Shoemaker 2011). I claim that there is a notion of responsibility – “attributability” – that is centrally connected to normative judgments. I argue for a “condition of accessibility” on attributability. Taken together, these two claims comprise an account of what is problematic about rejecting an access condition on our evidence. I then claim that there are two ways forward. One is to accept the condition of accessibility on our evidence that my account implies; the other is to challenge my claims about the connection between attributability and normative judgments, or the accessibility condition on attributability, or both. Although I claim that the prospects look better for taking the second option when it comes to rejecting the sameness of evidence thesis, drawing on recent work from Gibbons (2006; 2013) and Daniel Greco (2013), I argue that the first option is still a live possibility. The main aim in this part of the thesis is not to decide what the best way of rejecting the sameness of evidence thesis is, but rather to examine the challenges that arise when we reject it in one way or another. The question of what sort of access we have to our normative requirements is the focus of an increasingly sophisticated discussion in contemporary epistemology. An important upshot of this thesis is that it brings the problem of external world scepticism directly within the scope of that debate.

Recent economic crises coupled with corporate scandals have plunged the world into the greatest financial predicament it has faced in almost a century. Deregulation has empowered business leaders and their subsequent unethical behaviour has undermined the very foundations of the world’s financial and business infrastructure. It is perplexing that corporate social responsibility (CSR) spend is the first area of business to suffer cutbacks during challenging times – especially since it is often the lack of ethic that has led to such crises in the first place. The cosmic exploration of CSR over the past 50 years has left academics and business leaders with a lack of causal evidence as to the value of behaving in a socially responsible manner. This research tests the theory that CSR can have strategic implications and is pivotal for organisational sustainability. The research uses four constructs of corporate strategy that could be related to CSR, namely: centrality, specificity, proactivity and voluntarism. The research has found that CSR can in be aligned with corporate strategy and assist firms in reaching their long-term goals. It has also found the term “strategic CSR” to be relevant in organisations. The paper proposes a framework that organisations can use to approach CSR in a strategic manner and to create value from CSR. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming more central to the success of corporations, and its importance within South Africa is pertinent given that the transition from apartheid has yet to be followed by an equalling of society, with social and economic divisions persisting. As one of the most emotive basic human rights, health care provision remains unequal, with the private sector still serving an historically advantaged minority and the public sector carrying the burden of the populist majority. This study explored the role the of the private health care sector in light of the growing importance of CSR, against the backdrop of the national health insurance debate and the understanding of the role the private sector can play in achieving the national health care objectives. Exploratory research and qualitative analysis methodology were carried out for this research, utilising in-depth semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with ten private health care sector executives. Whilst the private sector executives intellectually understood their specific context and a growing expectation of society from business, in practice the actions of CSR were still grounded in philanthropic activities. Most respondents acknowledged that more should and could be done, with the primarily obstacle being identified as a lack of teamwork and coordination across businesses in the private sector. The public sector is seen as failing, and the private sector sees itself playing a more active role in service delivery and aiding government with the training of the much needed skills within the public sector. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Organisations operate under unpredictable business environments. These business environments can be classified into internal and external environments. The decision taken by organisations to allocate resources for CSR depends on business environments. Organisations have no control of external business environments. Global financial crisis is an example of an external business environment of which organisations have no control over. The event in the business environments can influence the organisation to review its CSR operations. The beneficiaries of the organisation's CSR program get affected by such decision reviews and face even bigger challenges.