This thesis examines questions concerning the place of animals within our moral thought. In particular it is an investigation of the rationale behind extending our ethical systems to encompass the inclusion of animals. The thesis begins with a presentation of a general framework defining rights and their relationship to obligations. It then includes an assessment of whether or not animals, according to the general framework, can properly be called rights bearers. In order to do this, the questions of whether or not animals have value independent of their value to human beings and whether or not animals have interests are examined. / Though the thesis concerns itself with animals it is not merely an examination of animal rights. In order to investigate fully the place of animals within our moral thought, many concepts which are central to ethics such as "rights", "equality", "value", and "affinity" are examined. The thesis concludes with the implications its findings have on human actions.

There is recent interest in a narrative approach to values education. Perhaps with the intention of responding to needs of the pluralistic, multicultural society emerging at the end of the 1990s, values educators are turning their attention to the role of story telling and narrative in our moral development. This is an important contribution to values education because narrative approaches allow bridges to be built between different individuals and cultures and for a profound understanding of others to become possible. Many of the narrative approaches rest on a fuzzy or narrow definition of moral imagination. My thesis tries to clarify imaginations' abilities and gifts. I have reflected on the writings of Kieran Egan to establish what imagination brings to education and also the relationship between narrative and imagination. The final piece of my thesis sketches an outline of a moral imagination in consultation with two authors: Daniel Maguire and Mark Johnson. Through very different approaches, they both arrive at the idea that it is imagination which in fact underpins moral understanding. Kieran Egan opens the door to the idea of imagination and Daniel Maguire and Mark Johnson complete the picture by pointing out that imagination is our capacity to create moral understanding.

I begin my discussion of the question 'Why should I be moral?' by drawing distinctions both between possible different senses of 'moral' and also between different conceptions of what morality requires. I then criticize the idea that one should be moral because it serves self-interest. Self-interest is served by one's having benevolent concern for only a fairly small number of others, but being moral involves more than this. Furthermore, having moral dispositions other than benevolence is in one's interest only if these dispositions are required by the moral code predominant in one's society. Moreover, even if we confine our attention to people who live in such a society, each person would probably be better off with moral dispositions that were not so strong that they would always get their way, but the completely moral person would presumably have overriding moral dispositions. Finally, having the correct moral beliefs may not be in one's interest. But whatever the gap between self-interest and morality, might one not have most reason to be moral? Derek Parfit has recently argued that the view that one has most reason to do whatever best achieves one's present aims (and these may sometimes be moral aims) is at least as good as the view that one has most reason to do what best promotes one's own long-term good. I attack some of his arguments. But I then go on to argue that moral requirements as such—i.e., independently of whether they are reflected in present desires—do generate reasons for action. But are these moral reasons always stronger than reasons of other kinds? On the basis of an example I describe in the closing pages, I reluctantly conclude that they are not.

This thesis seeks to answer the question of what it would be for a person to be persuaded rationally to believe that God exists, and tries to explain in a related way the possibility of rationality in Christian faith. I begin by explicating and defending the "ethics of belief" approach to epistemology. Then two competing ethics of belief are described: "Strong Formalism", which holds, through a voluntaristic decision, a deductivist epistemology; and "Soft Rationalism", which contains an infonnalist epistemology, and rejects voluntarism. Arguments for and against each view are canvassed. But I show that our attempted adjudication is blocked by the "Ultimate Rationality Problem": no ethic of belief seems able rationally to justify its view of rationality. I reduce the Problem to this fact: any view of rationality refutes itself which tries to give a foundational method of epistemic evaluation that both gives a verdict on every proposition and avoids self-justification. I reject several suggested solutions in favour of one which replaces the foundational view of justification by a contextual view. I then generate from the process of justification itself several common epistemic standards, which allow us rationally to favour Soft Rationalism over Strong Formalism. But the former is both foundationalist and needlessly opposed to formalism. I remedy these faults by developing a "Modest Formalist" ethic of belief: a'partly formal set of standards for rational metaphysical argument,"given in. the form of a set of constitutive rules for certain games of interpretive argument. In doing this I defend an improved theory of epistemic probability, and reveal the structure of our substantive views of rationality - as this virtue would be required of believings per se, of actions based on believings, and'of actions (such as living a Christian life) based on what I describe as "experimental faith".

Although auditors engage in considerable social interaction (Gibbins & Mason, 1988; Solomon, 1987), little is known about how social interaction influences an auditor's moral reasoning process. In order to address this gap, this study used an experiment to examine the effect of social influence on 288 auditors' moral reasoning on realistic moral dilemmas. The results of this study indicate that social interaction influences the moral reasoning of auditors. Auditors' level of prescriptive reasoning appears to increase after engaging in discussion of a realistic moral dilemma, particularly for those which discuss dilemmas with others at high levels of moral development, while auditors' level of deliberative reasoning appears to decrease after engaging in discussion of a realistic moral dilemma. At a practical level, these findings suggest that auditors should be encouraged to prescriptively discuss moral dilemmas with others of high levels of moral development as this tends to result in the use of more principled moral reasoning. In contrast, auditors should avoid deliberative discussion of moral dilemmas, as this tends to result in the use of less principled moral reasoning than would be used in the absence of discussion.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 289-304). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / viii, 304 leaves, bound 29 cm

Electronic commerce is increasingly applied in commercial fields, no exception to construction procurement process. But coming with it, also creates many problems, many of them remain as hot issues for both researchers and stakeholders in industries and have not been solved, though enormous efforts have been offered from different parties involved, among which, ethics in e-commerce enabled construction procurement process stays on top of all. This thesis investigates ethical issues related to the e-commerce application in the construction industry. Research methods used in this study include a thorough literature review, a questionnaire survey, interviews and a case study. These studies were conducted in August 2004. The samples studied in my thesis included a group of 30 experienced construction professionals who were attending a MBA distance learning programme offered by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Beijing. Through these studies, various construction ethical issues such as computer ethics and corruption in the e-commerce enabled construction procurement process are thoroughly discussed and patterns of ethical behaviors were identified. Specifically, through the questionnaire and interviews, it was identified that the majority of the respondents (70%) agreed that ethical atmosphere is almost nonexistent in the China construction industry. The majority (78%) also agreed that there was only a little ethical awareness. However, the majority of respondents (51%) believed that there is a positive relationship between ethical behavior and long-term profitability of the company. On the other hand, the respondents' views were divided when judging the relationship between ethical behaviour and short-term profitability as 40% believed the relationship between ethical behaviour and short-term profitability of the company was uncritical, while 43% believed there was a strong relationship between them. The majority of respondents (63%) also confirmed that ethics was never discussed with companies. When asked on the difficulties encountered in developing a strong ethical awareness in the company, respondents cited various reasons including the lack of support from senior management; prevailing trend in the industry, negative impact on long-term and short-term profitability. The majority of respondents (90%) also chose "keep silent" when asked if they spotted unethical behaviors. Finally, the majority of respondents (90%) believed that unethical behaviors increase the cost of procurement by at least 10%. The interviews and case study reinforced the findings and revealed reasons for the ethical behaviors in China construction industry. Based on these findings, this study has proposed several remedial measures in order to prevent unethical behaviors. In addition, scope for further research is also identified.

In spite of the rhetoric of partnership and collaboration in the Australian community sectors, economic values of competition have superseded social and co-operative values of self-help, empowerment, mutual benefit and solidarity. Reconfiguration of how co-operative practices can be understood in terms of social capital theory and civil society has been of limited success in countering this slide to economic rationalism. Ironically, many community practices, including co-operatives, explicitly emerged from moral protest against prevailing oppressive policies; that is co-operative and community development practices exist to embody an alternative set of values to oppressive features of dominant political and social institutions of the day. This thesis identifies and analyses the features of co-operative practices which resist economic capture by the dominant ideology of neo-liberalism. It examines how co-operative practices can be analysed as forms of moral protest that offer and embody counterstories to master narratives that shape dominant institutions. Importantly, it is understood that not all forms of moral protest are socially transformative. While fostering social change, co-operatives must also resist ossification of their own principles and practices into homogenised traditions that exclude rather than include others. To conduct this analysis, interviews were conducted with subjects engaged in co-operative activities. H. L. Nelson's (2001) narrative approach to ethics was used to identify how co-operatives can be positioned as counterstories to dominant narratives. T. Cooper's (1997) distinction between moral and ethical communities was then deployed to account for the features of co-operative practice that might lead to exclusion and non-co-operative identities. Finally, A.W. Frank's (1995) body-self type continuum was applied to co-operative practices to further evaluate the degree to which those who participated in these saw themselves contributing to practices of social transformation or defensive strategies of personal survival.

This dissertation is arranged in three parts which address issues concerning death and immortality. These issues all revolve around the temporal limit imposed by death. I have endeavoured to pose some questions which have relevance to a society clutching onto traditional notions of an afterlife despite its headlong thrust into a technologically advanced future where ethical confusions abound. In the first chapter I examine the metaphysics of the soul because postulating an afterlife is the conventional response to death anxiety. I have noticed that many people cling to hope of immortality without having any understanding of the metaphysical architecture of this hope. Consequently, from a philosophical perspective, I contrast arguments on the soul by Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes. The second chapter emerges from a fascination with Epicurus's theory of living and, derivatively, of dying. It involves a comparison with (1) Aristotle's distinction between energeia (actuality) and kinesis (movement), and (2) the sybaritic hedonism of the Cyrenaics. Although the theme of this chapter is pleasure, it will be seen that pleasure lies embedded in the living project and is an important component in the drive for survival. In the third chapter I reflect on the meaning of life in conjunction with length of time lived. Here I compare the meaninglessness experienced by Leo Tolstoy (because his life is too short) and the meaninglessness experienced by the fictional character Elena Makropulos (because her life is too long). The Makropulos "case", both a play by Karel Capek and an opera by Leos Janacek, was introduced into the philosophical world by Bernard Williams.

This dissertation is arranged in three parts which address issues concerning death and immortality. These issues all revolve around the temporal limit imposed by death. I have endeavoured to pose some questions which have relevance to a society clutching onto traditional notions of an afterlife despite its headlong thrust into a technologically advanced future where ethical confusions abound. In the first chapter I examine the metaphysics of the soul because postulating an afterlife is the conventional response to death anxiety. I have noticed that many people cling to hope of immortality without having any understanding of the metaphysical architecture of this hope. Consequently, from a philosophical perspective, I contrast arguments on the soul by Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes. The second chapter emerges from a fascination with Epicurus's theory of living and, derivatively, of dying. It involves a comparison with (1) Aristotle's distinction between energeia (actuality) and kinesis (movement), and (2) the sybaritic hedonism of the Cyrenaics. Although the theme of this chapter is pleasure, it will be seen that pleasure lies embedded in the living project and is an important component in the drive for survival. In the third chapter I reflect on the meaning of life in conjunction with length of time lived. Here I compare the meaninglessness experienced by Leo Tolstoy (because his life is too short) and the meaninglessness experienced by the fictional character Elena Makropulos (because her life is too long). The Makropulos "case", both a play by Karel Capek and an opera by Leos Janacek, was introduced into the philosophical world by Bernard Williams.