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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Ethical theory has attempted to be both moral and factual but has had difficulty in being both. I believe an analysis of attempts to strike a balance between the two will show where progress has been made and where we might expect more progress in the future. After establishing a meaaure by which to analyze the balancing of the moral and the factual, that measure will be used on traditional ethical theory. It will be found that difficulties with the factual are most bothersome, so we will turn to the fields which are concerned with the facts of human action, the social sciences. Having learned more about the factual, we will turn to Max Scheler's ethical theory because his phenomenological approach to ethics renders some unique and fruitful solutions not offered by other extant ethical theories to difficulties with the factual. Even Scheler's solutions to those difficulties do not enable a balance to be struck between the moral and the factual, however, so I conclude that finding a balance may well be too difficult even though progress is made in the attempt. [TRUNCATED] / 2031-01-01

This thesis is an examination and reconstruction of morality. It divides into three parts. Part one argues that morality is best considered as the tradition of ethical thinking that begins with the Stoics, develops in Christian thought and reaches its apotheosis in Kant. This tradition structures ethical thinking around three basic concepts: cosmopolitanism, or universal applicability to human beings as such, the dignity of human beings and reciprocity. It is this tradition of morality that Nietzsche sets out to destroy. Part one criticises pre-Nietzschean theories of morality, such as Kant’s, that take universal and exceptionless rules to form the core of morality. It critiques both the possibility of putting forward an adequate set of such rules and the proposed relationship between morality and human life that is implicit in these theories. Part two begins with Nietzsche’s challenge: that morality is a system of values rooted in nihilistic resentment at the vitality of other, stronger modes of living. It argues that this challenge must be taken seriously, and that the best way to do this is to make it clear that morality has as its fundamental basis a responsiveness to the value of human life; hence it is Nietzsche’s ethics that should be called nihilistic. The rest of part two examines the possibility of answering Nietzsche’s challenge by demonstrating a necessary connection between human selfhood and the acknowledgement of the dignity of human beings. Here I criticise Christine Korsgaard’s arguments and consider Charles Taylor’s more promising approach to the self. Part three turns towards pragmatism, and in so doing gives up on the attempt to show that morality is somehow necessary for all human beings. Nietzsche’s challenge is answered more subtly: an empirically backed theory of human selfhood explains the point of morality in terms of our basic need for recognition. I complete the reconstruction of morality by reinterpreting the dignity of human beings in a naturalistic way and adopting a conception of moral rules that is informed by Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics.

Depuis le début des années 80, la notion de communauté a connu une fortune paradoxale : elle est au centre de réflexions philosophiques, de Jean-Luc Nancy à Giorgio Agamben, comme de discours politiques, de la communauté nationale aux multiples communautés, alors même que l’affaiblissement général des liens sociaux fait consensus. Prise comme objet de la sociologie naissante par Ferdinand Tönnies un siècle plus tôt pour penser les mutations de l’Europe industrielle, la communauté permet à nouveaux frais de comprendre l’expérience contemporaine d’être « seuls, ensemble ». De nombreux récits français récents se font l’écho du défaut et du désir d’appartenance. Ceux de Marie NDiaye, de Laurent Mauvignier, de Maylis de Kerangal, d’Arno Bertina et d’Olivier Cadiot mettent ainsi en scène des personnages à la fois déracinés et cherchant à intégrer un groupe, qu’il soit professionnel, familial, social ou national. Ces fictions de l’appartenance constatent-elles une aporie ou proposent-elles des alternatives communautaires ? Il s’agit d’étudier dans ce corpus l’articulation des sphères de l’appartenance et les déclinaisons du hiatus entre l’individu et le collectif. Seront envisagés les motifs et les valeurs (notamment la fraternité et le corps social) attachés à la notion de communauté, ainsi que les différents paradigmes qui informent les textes littéraires, du côté de la minorité (dans un renouvellement de l’humanisme auquel se rattache une partie de l’histoire du roman) mais aussi du côté de la majorité (dans un questionnement sur les normes). Informée par des réflexions philosophiques, sociologiques et littéraires, au croisement de l’histoire des représentations et de micro-lectures stylistiques, cette thèse dégage des imaginaires de la communauté aujourd’hui. Elle montre un double transfert, celui d’un modèle de transmission généalogique des valeurs à un modèle plus spatial d’interdépendance, et celui d’un paradigme politique à un paradigme éthique de la représentation romanesque. / Since the beginning of the eighties, the destiny of the notion of community has been paradoxical: it is central to philosophical thoughts (from Jean-Luc Nancy to Giorgio Agamben) as well as political discourses, referring to the nation and to numerous communities, meanwhile it is generally believed that there is a breakdown of a sense of community. A century before, one of the first sociologists, Ferdinand Tönnies, attempted by using it to describe the alterations of the modern and industrialized European societies; nowadays, community allows us to understand again the present experience of being “alone, together”. Many French narratives show the importance of lack and want of belonging. In Marie NDiaye’s, Laurent Mauvignier’s, Maylis de Kerangal’s, Arno Bertina’s and Olivier Cadiot’s narratives, characters are both uprooted and anxious to become integrated into a group, however professional, familial, social or national it might be. Do these fictions break the deadlock? The link between the various spheres of belonging and the gap between the individual and the collective are studied in this corpus. We identify patterns and values of the notion of community (fraternity and social corps in particular), as well as the underlying paradigms of the texts, minority (which renews the humanist tradition of the novelistic genre) and majority (which questions about norms). Based on philosophical, sociological and literary sources, at the crossroads of study of representations and stylistic analysis, this work brings out contemporary images of community. We demonstrate that a double evolution of the novels is at stake, from a genealogical hanging down to the spatial pattern of interdependence, and from a political paradigm to an ethical one.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Timothy Renick, committee chair; Kathryn McClymond, Timothy O'Keefe, committee members. Electronic text (48 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 24, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-48).

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This thesis will critique Gilbert Harman's moral relativism. Harman argues for a form of moral relativism he calls a "conventionalist" account of morality. He supports this by defending a view of explanations, a view of simplicity, and a view of the moral "ought." However, the anthropological literature contains strong evidence against his drawing of this relativist conclusion — and in support of a contrary one. According to anthropologists, there is a universal belief in the moral wrongness of incest, the "incest taboo": its existence suggests that Harman may have better supported a form of moral realism than the relativism he endorses. Thus, at the very least, Harman's argument does not prove that relativism is true; more strongly, it may prove that relativism is false, and realism true.

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