Researchers have identified the complexity of ethical decision making choices and the influences that assorted professional context variables have on one’s ethical frame of reference. To encourage adherence to ethical codes of conduct, professional organizations must recognize the impact that professional context variables have on ethical decision making. The purpose of this study was to examine Human Resource Development professional’s perceptions of the Academy of Human Resource Development’s Standards on Ethics and Integrity specifically regarding applicability, clarity, and importance of statements. Additionally, this study examined whether Hofstede’s Value Survey Module grouped into a three-factor solution. A questionnaire entitled Perceptions of Professionals and Scholars Regarding AHRD’s Standards was adapted from five sources and was piloted to ensure instrument reliability and validity. The main study involved 602 respondents for a response rate of 22% (n = 133). Results of the study indicate that respondents were clear regarding their understanding of the Standards. The highest level of clarity reported was 89.4% and the lowest level of clarity reported was 71.1%. However, respondents were indifferent about their ratings of the application of AHRD’s Standards. The percentages regarding perceived level of application between AHRD’s six statements ranged from 68% (applied) and 28.8% (infrequently applied). Using independent t-test procedures and a series of one-way ANOVAs, differences in levels of agreement were seen in the following groups: educational level, income level, and religious affiliation. Finally, this study examined if participant responses to the items extracted from Hofstede’s Value Survey Module fell into three-factor constructs of individualism/ collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance. A Principal Component Analysis indicated that the eight statements selected were representative of Hofstede’s three-factor solution of cultural dimensions. Practical implications are discussed regarding these findings, along with explanation for some of the newly developed exploration findings. While the findings of this study were interesting, research related to the influence of professional context variables on ethical decision making needs further examination.

This thesis examined the knowledge and processes that adults use to reason about moral dilemmas. Two contrasting analyses of moral reasons, Kohlberg's justice orientation and Gilligan's response orientation, were reviewed and criticized. From this a Moral Reasoning Grammar which formally characterizes the semantics of the justice and response moral orientations was developed. Specifically, the Moral Reasoning Grammar distinguished reasoning based on principles and their defense from reasoning based on narrative and social-interactive knowledge. The Moral Reasoning Grammar was applied to subjects' protocols to determine the extent to which these two orientations characterized subjects' verbal responses to moral problems. Application of the Moral Reasoning Grammar resulted in good coverage of subjects' verbalizations which reliably differentiated knowledge and processes used by subjects resolving moral problems from either a justice or response orientation. The justice orientation characterized the four male subjects' protocols and the response orientation characterized the four female protocols. The small sample precludes any generalization of this finding. The Moral Reasoning Grammar and results were discussed in terms of further psychological research, an expanded and more comprehensive philosophical approach to moral reasoning, and the potential educational implications.

This thesis examines the relationship between moral experience and moral knowledge in contemporary analytic meta-ethics. It begins with a critical examination of the work of Michael Smith, notably his book The Moral Problem, which leaves out of consideration the notion of moral experience. I treat Smith as representative of those working within what I call "the traditional meta-ethical framework," which is characterized by the assumption that moral knowledge, if it exists, is available, in principle, from any perspective. Within that framework, Smith's philosophy stands out as a model of clarity and forceful argument. I consider and develop some objections to his program from within the traditional framework. However, the latter part of the thesis is critical of the framework itself. Against it, I argue that moral knowledge is only available from a certain perspective, namely, the perspective of the virtuous agent. It is by coming to perceive or see things from this perspective that the right things will matter to us. In other words, I argue that we cannot hope for the impartial body of knowledge promised by the traditional framework where the things that ought to matter are supposed to be capable of codification or otherwise understandable across perspectives. In this regard I examine a number of philosophers who are sympathetic to the idea of moral perception, notably, Jonathan Dancy, John McDowell, Iris Murdoch, and David Wiggins. Finally, I consider the recent debate between Robert Brandom and John McDowell on the nature of perceptual experience in order to assess just how rich a notion of experience is required in order to make sense of moral knowledge based on moral perception.

In the penitential ethos of late fourteenth-century England, ideas about shame and guilt were of central concern. Preachers and poets, alike, considered questions such as: what role should shame have in contrition and penance? What is the precise relationship between physical purity and moral or spiritual purity? What are the emotions best suited to eliciting the fullest and most sincere confession? Such questions were posed explicitly in penitential manuals and handbooks, but they also formed the ethical and philosophical soil out of which many of the periods major literary works emerged. This dissertation examines representations of shame and guilt in the literary contexts and narrative poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer. I consider Chaucers treatment of these ideas in light of his contemporaries, especially the Gawain-poet, as well as a broader historical context, surveying shame and guilt in the Middle English literary traditions of romance and hagiography. I also explore recent developments in affect theory, and draw on work in anthropology and psychoanalysis in order to theorize the ethical dimensions of shame, guilt, and related ideas of agency and purity. I argue that much of Chaucers poetry, but especially the Canterbury Tales, articulate the private and public facets of these emotions, not only as matters for the confessional, but as representative of opposing ethical systems, and, therefore, as fundamental in shaping possibilities for human social life. I see Chaucer as a poet deeply concerned with ethical questions. His works consistently represent guilt as an ethical ideal whereas shame is often portrayed as the psychological reality that gets in the way of attempts to realize the ideal. From Dido to Criseyde to Virginia and Dorigen, many of Chaucers characters call attention to the injustice of guiltless shame: the way in which the individuals inner moral state conflicts with the external world of honour and shame. Thus, while Chaucers narratives present us with a full spectrum of ethical responses and psychological motives for evading or claiming moral responsibility, I pay special attention to the many ways in which shame is mobilized in service of social and gendered dynamics of power and victimization.

Thesis (MEd)--University of South Australia, 1998

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / The growing concern about the role of ethics in western society has also touched documentary film-making. Yet, since the emergence in the late 1980s of the first journal articles discussing documentary ethics, the theoretical exploration of the key arguments in this field has been fitful. Debates amongst filmmakers about ethics are often immersed in topical discussions of production issues or issues relating to a few controversial films. With the exception of a few insightful works, there is little new analysis or examination devoted to exploring ethics in this discipline. This dissertation adds to the available body of work by examining in depth the ethics encountered in the production of a documentary film, Tagged, with young people, especially the ethics encoded in the aesthetic and discursive elements of the film. Theoretical discussions about ethics range from the analytical focus on the ethics of representation, through the use of subjective modes of expressivity and filmic techniques to epistemological analyses of specific issues such as privacy and the nature of consent that draw on legal and medical models. A study of relevant documentary films reveals the variety of approaches to the moral values reflected in their discourses and visual representations, and a range of authorial voices, heavily influenced by the relationship between filmmakers and subjects and by the production circumstances of each film. In Australia, broadcasters, funding bodies and production companies dominate the documentary film-making environment and their codes, editorial policies and protocols influence the whole sector of documentary filmmaking. By categorizing documentary within the broad scope of factual programming, they reflect an institutional gaze that fails to acknowledge those individuals including children and youth, who participate in its production. Through my examination of ethics in both the theory and practice, I address the relevant question of whether there should be a code of practice for documentary film-making. In focussing on my own ethical position and its translation into practice through the making of Tagged, I explore the ways in which the ethical stance that I established is pivotal to the documentary and represented both in the text and in the pragmatic choices of production. This led me to conclude that the development of an ethical position specific to a current project is an effective focus on the potential ethical conflicts in a production. From this I argue that while a broad code of conduct can provide valuable guidelines, it cannot replace the filmmakers’ investigation of their ethical practice and their establishment of an ethical statement and stance for their films thus creating a platform from which ethical conflicts can be understood and either avoided or resolved.

Genetic medicine is an emerging area of healthcare which constantly raises novel ethical challenges in the clinical realm due to its capacity to reveal information that has deeply personal meaning. Genetic tests can reveal more than is strictly essential for immediate medical care because they can diagnose conditions that cannot be cured, treated or effectively managed. The diagnosis of a genetic condition in one individual can have repercussions throughout an extended family, and genetic knowledge has created innovative, technologically driven, reproductive options. For clients of genetic counselling, moral choice does not readily result from uncluttered logic or easy personal preference, nor does it involve the application of sterile principles and laws, but is a much richer process involving personal history and culture, as well as reflection upon personal values, current resources and projected life goals. For these reasons, I question the validity of the exclusive use of a narrow version of Principlism, as it is commonly operationalised, for the medical sub-specialty of clinical genetics. Its heavy emphasis on individual autonomy, which has become synonymous with clinical medicine, does not take into account the fact that most genetic tests have little or no immediate clinical utility, or that genetic medicine is primarily about the way in which genetic conditions pass through families, and management of recurrence risks by choice of reproductive options. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to develop and explore a broader contextual moral framework, which is better suited to deliberation about complex ethical dilemmas in clinical genetics, than the current dominant approach which tends to follow a restrictive and non-inclusive application of Principlism. To achieve this aim, I have started with a review of relevant history and socio-political forces that have shaped the current status of the genetic medicine, and examined the evolution of current attitudes that underpin recognition, analysis and management of the ethical challenges in genetic medicine. I have analysed the manner in which Principlism and other normative theories are employed by bioethicists and clinicians in response to ethical dilemmas, and presented an alternative approach which employs a broader contextual ethical framework. I have devised an approach which attends to the importance of both current social opinion, and the tradition of evidence-based medicine, with reference to selected traditions in philosophical analysis. vi In conclusion, I advocate attention to concrete circumstances, which includes recognition of historical development, which has shaped current medical and wider social values, beliefs, norms and attitudes political context, including critical analysis of relevant political motivations social context, particularly situational power structures, trust relationships and relational obligations personal values, resources and experiences of the stakeholder(s) the range of realistically available options for the stakeholder(s) the impact of economic limits, which might be institutional and / or personal And, to achieve this objective of building a ‘thick’ ethical discourse, I propose a series of questions, which can be readily utilised by genetic and non-genetic health professionals as well as other members of society to work towards resolutions that represent a balance of fairness, economic responsibility with scarce resources, and socially acceptability. This approach appropriately attends to the relational and communicative aspects of moral dilemmas in clinical genetics, and is likely to yield more meaningful (and less likely paternalistic) conclusions, which would be of greater value to our morally pluralist society.

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / The growing concern about the role of ethics in western society has also touched documentary film-making. Yet, since the emergence in the late 1980s of the first journal articles discussing documentary ethics, the theoretical exploration of the key arguments in this field has been fitful. Debates amongst filmmakers about ethics are often immersed in topical discussions of production issues or issues relating to a few controversial films. With the exception of a few insightful works, there is little new analysis or examination devoted to exploring ethics in this discipline. This dissertation adds to the available body of work by examining in depth the ethics encountered in the production of a documentary film, Tagged, with young people, especially the ethics encoded in the aesthetic and discursive elements of the film. Theoretical discussions about ethics range from the analytical focus on the ethics of representation, through the use of subjective modes of expressivity and filmic techniques to epistemological analyses of specific issues such as privacy and the nature of consent that draw on legal and medical models. A study of relevant documentary films reveals the variety of approaches to the moral values reflected in their discourses and visual representations, and a range of authorial voices, heavily influenced by the relationship between filmmakers and subjects and by the production circumstances of each film. In Australia, broadcasters, funding bodies and production companies dominate the documentary film-making environment and their codes, editorial policies and protocols influence the whole sector of documentary filmmaking. By categorizing documentary within the broad scope of factual programming, they reflect an institutional gaze that fails to acknowledge those individuals including children and youth, who participate in its production. Through my examination of ethics in both the theory and practice, I address the relevant question of whether there should be a code of practice for documentary film-making. In focussing on my own ethical position and its translation into practice through the making of Tagged, I explore the ways in which the ethical stance that I established is pivotal to the documentary and represented both in the text and in the pragmatic choices of production. This led me to conclude that the development of an ethical position specific to a current project is an effective focus on the potential ethical conflicts in a production. From this I argue that while a broad code of conduct can provide valuable guidelines, it cannot replace the filmmakers’ investigation of their ethical practice and their establishment of an ethical statement and stance for their films thus creating a platform from which ethical conflicts can be understood and either avoided or resolved.

This dissertation is concerned with what it means to live well towards others. It develops a form of everyday ethics that emphasises how existing in the world and being ethical are entwined. To develop this approach to ethics this study employs Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological descriptions of everyday world and Emmanuel Levinas’s concept of the ethical. The purpose of the thesis is to develop an understanding of ethics that operates at the everyday level of human-to-human contact. This form of ethics is significant in that it indicates that being ethical is an important aspect of human life. My intention is to show that ethics is always more than simply the institution of codes of conduct that govern the way people act. The significance of the thesis is that it contributes both to ways in which ethics can be understood and to the manner in which ethics can be operationalised at an institutional level. My thesis has four specific aims. First, to examine the conditions and characteristics that constitute the everyday world as understood in Alfred Schutz’s work. Second, to explore Emmanuel Levinas’s understanding of the ethical. My third aim is to synthesise these theorists’ ideas through my heuristic device, Echoes of the Other. This device will allow me to extract the conditions for and features of an everyday ethics. My fourth aim is to point to an in situ illustration of this approach to ethics. This will be drawn from my observations at the Western Australian Police Academy. My argument is that synthesising Levinas’s and Schutz’s ideas will enable the development of an everyday ethics. This will highlight the ways in which ethics functions at the micro levels of human life. This study contributes to approaches to ethics, and specifically, ethics derived from Levinas’s ethical relation. This approach can be of use to people interested in ethics, phenomenology, the works of Levinas and Schutz and those concerned with developing ways to live well towards others.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [345]-368.