Solving global environmental problems requires a major change of values. As relates to environmental education, worldview, ethics and spiritual issues are important elements. But how are environmental issues included in such school subjects that especially discuss values and ethics? In this article I examine 24 Finnish religious education and ethics textbooks to analyze, to what extent environmental issues are integrated and discussed in them. I conclude that there is confusion about what environmental education can be in societal school subjects. The environmental texts in textbooks do not always draw on the specific content of the societal subject in question but repeat content from the natural sciences. Therefore, I suggest contexts and perspectives for discussing environmental issues that would comport with these subjects and supplement existing environmental education at school.

La République française est, dès sa naissance, étroitement liée au principe de la démocratie : la Première République a réalisé la souveraineté nationale ; la Deuxième République a institué le suffrage universel masculin, accordant le droit de vote aux citoyens, riches ou pauvres, et leur permettant de participer à titre égal aux affaires politiques. La spécificité de la Troisième République réside dans le fait qu’elle s’enracine dans les mœurs et conserve donc les acquis légués par ses prédécesseurs, en recourant à l’éducation nationale, ou autrement dit, à l’instruction gratuite et obligatoire, et à l’école laïque instituée par les « lois Ferry ». L’« instruction morale et civique », qui remplace l’ « instruction morale et religieuse », constitue une mesure cruciale, afin de former les enfants du milieu défavorisé à la démocratie républicaine. La religion devient ainsi une affaire privée et familiale. Les parents ont le droit d’initier leurs enfants à croire ou à ne pas croire, et de les envoyer pratiquer quelle religion que ce soit, en suivant leurs propres vœux. L’école publique, qui devient donc indépendante de l’Église, s’occupe des connaissances scientifiques qui sont indispensables à chacun des enfants à l’âge scolaire. Les instituteurs sont libérés de l’enseignement religieux, dorénavant confié aux ministres du culte, ce qui constitue toute la révolution pour Jules Ferry. L’école laïque n’est pourtant pas déchargée de l’éducation morale. De ce fait, pour que les enfants rattachés aux différentes confessions religieuses puissent recevoir à titre égal l’éducation sur le même banc, quelle morale sera enseignée à l’école laïque ? Quel rôle les instituteurs joueront-ils dans la formation des citoyens à la démocratie républicaine ? À quels procédés d’enseignement recourront-ils ? Nous utiliserons principalement trois catégories de sources pour répondre à ces questions : les discours de Jules Ferry en 1881-1882 relatifs à l’enseignement primaire gratuit, obligatoire et laïque, les grandes revues consacrées à l’éducation entre 1870 et 1914, ainsi que les manuels en usage dans l’école laïque. / The French Republic is closely linked to the principle of democracy : the First Republic has achieved national sovereignty; the Second Republic has introduced universal male suffrage, granting the right to vote to citizens, rich or poor, and allowing them to participate as equals in political affairs. The specificity of the Third Republic consists in that it is to be rooted in the mores and thus preserves the achievements bequeathed by its predecessors, using national education, in other words, the free and compulsory education and secular school instituted by the "Ferry laws". The "moral and civic education", which replaces the "moral and religious education", is a crucial measure to train children from disadvantaged backgrounds to republican democracy. Religion becomes a private and family matter. Parents have the right to introduce their children to believe or not to believe, and send them to practice any religion, following their own desires. The public school, independent of the Church, deals with scientific knowledge that is essential to each child at school age. Teachers are freed from religious education, now entrusted to the Ministers of Religion, which is the whole revolution for Jules Ferry. However, secular school is not relieved of moral education. Since children attached to various religious denominations may receive equal education, what morality will be taught in public school? What role will play the teachers in the training of citizens for republican democracy? Which teaching methods will be suggested? We use mainly three categories of sources to answer these questions: Jules Ferry’s speech in 1881-1882 relating to free, compulsory and secular primary education, major journals on education between 1870 and 1914, and the textbooks used in secular schools.

Cette thèse étudie les perspectives de l'enseignement moral et civique: de l'annonce d'un enseignement d'une morale laïque à un enseignement laïque de la morale puis un enseignement moral et civique, les projets de rédactions de programmes ont subi diverses mutations tant au niveau de la forme, que concernant le contenu lui-même et méritent une attention plus que particulière. Si la mise en place de cette politique publique ne s'est guère effectuée sans "embûche", la question consiste à s'interroger d'une part sur les apports de cet enseignement moral et civique qui remplace l'ancien " cordon triple" que constituait l'instruction civique, l'éducation civique, et l'éducation civique juridique et sociale, et aussi de s'interroger sur la dimension réelle de cette enseignement : peut-il tout comme son aïeul; "la morale laïque" sous Jules Ferry, se situer en quelque sorte dans sa filiation et éduquer à une liberté responsable, tout en s'adaptant à la société actuelle ? / This thesis examines the outlook for moral and civic education: the announcement of a teaching of secular ethics in a secular moral education and moral and civic education, programs of editorial projects have undergone several mutations both in terms of form, that regarding the content itself and deserve more attention than special. If the implementation of this public policy has hardly done without "ambush" the question is to ask one hand on the contributions of this moral and civic education which replaces the old "triple cord" that was civics, civic education, and legal and social civic education, and also to question the real dimension of this teaching: can he like his grandfather; "Secular morality" under Jules Ferry, lie somehow in his parentage and education in responsible freedom, while adapting to today's society?

This study explores the rediscovery and development of a tradition of Ciceronian academic scepticism in British philosophy between c.1660-c.1760. It considers this tradition alongside two others, recently recovered by scholars, which were recognised by contemporaries to offer opposing visions of man, God and the origins of society: the Augustinian-Epicurean, and the neo-Stoic. It presents John Locke, Conyers Middleton and David Hume as the leading figures in the revival of the tradition of academic scepticism. It considers their works in relation to those of Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, and Bernard Mandeville, whose writings refashioned respectively the neo-Stoic and Augustinian-Epicurean traditions in influential ways. These five individuals explicitly identified themselves with these late Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and sought to contest and redefine conventional estimations of their meaning and significance. This thesis recovers this debate, which illuminates our understanding of the development of the ‘science of man’ in Britain. Cicero was a central figure in Locke’s attempt to explain, against Hobbes, the origins of society and moral consensus independent of political authority. Locke was a theorist of societies, religious and civil. He provided a naturalistic explanation of moral motivation and sociability which, drawing heavily from Cicero, emphasised the importance of men’s concern for the opinions of others. Locke set this within a Christian divine teleology. It was Locke’s theologically-grounded treatment of moral obligation, and his attack on Stoic moral philosophy, that led to Shaftesbury’s attempt to vindicate Stoicism. This was met by Mandeville’s profoundly Epicurean response. The consequences of the neo-Epicurean and neo-Stoic traditions for Christianity were explored by Middleton, who argued that only academic scepticism was consistent with Christian belief. Hume explored the relationship between morality and religion with continual reference to Cicero. He did so, in contrast to Locke or Middleton, to banish entirely moral theology from philosophy.

Title: The Human Embryo in the Perspective of Reproductive Medicine. Since when one begins to be a human person? In this work, we take into account the issues, which in most cases lead many people to resort to the reproductive medicine, which generally is referred to as the infertility problems. But in some techniques, the reproductive medicine loses up to 80% of human embryos. In the minds of many people, the human embryo is seen only as a cluster of cells. However, is it really just a cluster of cells, or is it already a person at an early stage of development? As far as one is already man, is he now also the human being, of whom are in our Western culture related rights, especially the right to life? Could we then say with a clear conscience that with these techniques we are acting ethically? We dividend our work into six chapters. In the first and second chapter, we will be briefly acquainted with the issues of infertility, of the reproductive medicine techniques, with the development of the human embryo and with handling of the embryos in the course of these techniques. In the third charter, we will present the two major ethical models in our cultural area that have a different point of view on the status of the human embryo. In the fourth chapter, we will look at how to the question of the...