abstract: I present in this dissertation a theory of moral disillusion. In chapter 1 I explain moral innocence and its loss. I show that becoming morally responsible requires shattering the illusion that one is not an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes. The morally responsible individual must understand that she can be an agent of wrongdoing. In chapter 2 I explore the nature of the understanding that accompanies the different phases of disillusion. I show that moral disillusion is an ability, not to follow moral principles, but to question them. In chapter 3 I argue that another phase of disillusion involves an acquaintance with evil. One shatters the illusion that only malicious individuals can be evildoers. Morally good people can also bring about evil. I conclude that evil is the exploitation of the extremely vulnerable. In chapters 4 and 5, I analyze more complex phases of moral disillusion. These stages are characterized by an understanding that one can be an agent of unchosen evil, that one might bring about evil even when pursuing the morally best course of action, and that one can be morally responsible for doing so. In order to understand unchosen evil and the tragedy of inescapable moral wrongdoing, the individual sees that moral responsibility ought to track what we care about, rather than what we believe. In chapter 6 I show that Kierkegaard's conception of the self is a philosophy of moral disillusion. I argue that his prescription that we shatter moral illusions is congruent with Harry Frankfurt's prescription that we ought to care about some things and not others. From this discussion emerges the explicit distinction between moral disillusion and moral goodness. Moreover, I conclude that the morally disillusioned are morally accountable for more than those still harboring moral illusions. Although moral disillusion does not entail becoming morally good, by acquiring the ability to raise questions about moral principles and to affect the content of one's cares, one acquires the ability to take responsibility for, and potentially minimize, evil. To have and understand these abilities, but not to care about them, increases one's moral accountability. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Philosophy 2012

The present study aims to create a deeper understanding of the cinematic representation of “evil”. Therefore, a special focus lies on contemporary historical fiction films whose stories are set in totalitarian systems with direct or indirect references to German history. This is interesting as the depiction in films influences the viewer's perspective and understanding of history. While many film narratives have very stereotypical imaginations of good and evil, there are also films that use a more observational perspective on the social dynamics that align with specific situations rather than address villains. As one of the main representatives of the Berlin School, Christian Petzold adopts such an observational perspective in his thematic trilogy “Love in the Times of Oppressive Systems”(Barbara, Phoenix, and Transit). In the three independent stories, he deals with the relationship between the male and female protagonists in different stages of oppression in German society, whereby the power structures in the oppressive systems influence human interactions and social situations of everyday life. Using these films as examples, I will look at the framing of evil in totalitarian systems. For this purpose, I will examine the characters and their constellations and individual and general threats, and their motivations for actions as they are played out in these film narratives by Petzold on a cinematographic and thematic level. By referring to Hannah Arendt's conceptualization of evil, the thesis accounts for the representation of “evil” as a multidimensional phenomenon, and how it resonates in the cinematography and historical imagination of Petzold’s films.

Nineteenth-century America witnessed a period of tremendous growth and change as cities flourished, immigration swelled, and industrialization spread. This setting allowed prostitution to thrive and professionalize, and the visibility of such “immoral” activity required Americans to seek a new understanding of morality. Current literature commonly considers prostitution as immediately declared a “social evil” or briefly mentions why Americans assigned it such a role. While correct that it eventually did become a “social evil,” the evolution of discourse relating to prostitution is a bit more complex. This thesis provides a survey of this evolution set against the changing American understanding of science and morality in the nineteenth century. By tracing the course of American thought on prostitution from necessary to social evil, this thesis contributes to a growing understanding of a marginalized group of people and America’s view of national morality.

This study investigates the cross-linguistic encoding of bad and evil expressions. Using parallel data from the Bible corpus consisting of translations of the New Testament into 30 languages, probabilistic semantic maps have been created using Multi-Dimensional scaling. Special attention has been paid to the presence of morphological and syntactic negation withinthe domain. The results show that languages either have one broader expression that is used within the entire domain, or they have at least two expressions of which one is broader, i.e. expresses a bad state, action or character flaw, and the other one narrower, i.e. is restricted to themost evil actions or characters which require a moral agent. Languages with several expressions vary largely in how broad or restricted the expressions are within the domain. Therefore, a scalar view of the domain has been proposed, rather than dividing the domain into discrete semantic categories. In the languages where negation marking was present within the domain, it only occurred in the broader expressions. / I denna studie undersöks den tvärspråkliga kodningen av uttryck med dålig och ond. Probabilistiska semantiska kartor har skapats med hjälp av Multi-Dimensional scaling genom att använda parallel data från Bibelkorpusen som består av 30 översättningar av Nya Testamentet. Förekomsten av eventuell morfologisk och syntaktisk negation inom domänen har tillägnats särskild uppmärksamhet. Resultaten visar att de flesta språken antingen har ett bredare uttryck som används inom hela domänen, eller har minst två uttryck varav ett är bredare, dvs används för dåliga tillstånd, handlingar eller karaktärsdrag, och det andra är mer begränsad, dvs används endast för de mest onda handlingar och karaktärer som kräver en moralisk agent. Språk med flera uttryck varierar mycktet i hur breda eller begränsade uttrycken är. En representation av den semantiska domänen som en skala föreslås därför, snarare än att dela uppdomänen i diskreta semantiska kategorier. I de språken där negation förekom inom domänen fanns det endast i de bredare uttrycken.

Progression d'un concept, le mal radical, dans trois textes : La Religion dans les limites de la simple raison (Kant), Le système de l'Ethique (Fichte), et Le Traité de 1809 (Schelling). Origine ultime du mal : libre arbitre ou détermination ? Responsabilité et liberté du mal. Mal moral et métaphysique du mal/ Advance of a concept: radical evil, in three readings: Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason (Kant), System of Ethics (Fichte), and Treatise of 1809 (Schelling).Ultimate origin of evil: free will or determination? Responsibility and freedom to evil. Moral evil and metaphysics of evil.

The aim of this qualitative research study has been to investigate seven young adult Pentecostals conceptions about religious evil, that is Satan, demons and hell. The purpose has also been to analyze how these conceptualizations are formed. The method that has been used in this study is individual semi-structured interviews. The result of the study show that conceptions of Satan, demons and hell are strong in most of the individuals’ life but one. Berger & Luckmanns theories of socialization has been applied to the results and the discussion shows that conceptions about religious evil are formed in the primary socialization or the secondary socialization if the person goes through the process of alternation. Bultmanns argument that modern man can’t accept the world view that is presented in The New Testament has also been discussed and the discussion reveals that modern day people can believe in the New Testament worldview.

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Problem of responsibility and freedom ROHLENOVÁ, LUCIE. Problem of responsibility and freedom. Praha: Faculty of Education, Charles University, 2012, 69 pp. Diploma Thesis. The diploma thesis will devote to the progress of the phenomenon of the liberty in the modern period from Spinoza to Lévinas. The diploma thesis is mainly based on the major publications of philosophers, B. Spinoza, I. Kant, K. Jaspers, J.-P. Sartre, E. Levinas. The thesis focuses in the terms responsibility and liberty which assume different and more profound meaning in their philosophy. Baruch Spinoza connects the liberty with the independence, with the causal independece. The independent thing is the thing which is the source of own action. In this meaning we can say that only God is independent. Immanuel Kant presented the new dimension of the liberty in ethics which extended the solution of the etical philosophy. The person is the being who constructs the moral word from own liberty and accountable to himself or herself and the other people. Emphasis is placed on Karl Jaspers' major publication The Question of German Guilt. The blame is analysed in this publication and it is classified into four aspects-criminal, political, moral and metaphysical blame. Jeana Paul Sartre is the author of the idea that our body and...

This study examined if there was a correlation between a video game experience based upon ethnicity and gender, using the framework from scholars and activists of Critical Race Theory(​Delgado och Stefancic, 2017), the researchers had 16 participants play the controversial game Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, 2009). All the participants played for 15 minutes, half of which played as the American main character Chris Redfield while the other as his African sidekick Sheva Alomar. Participants were later interviewed where the data was then collected to be coded usinga thematic analysis. The results shows that there are only minor differences between the character perspectives of each respective character, the main themes found were emotions, player experience, prejudice and our own term unidentification, which mean that the players could notidentify with the characters in the game. This study can be used to identify potential problems and solutions on ethnic and gender questions regarding video games.

王賜惠. / "2003年5月". / 論文(哲學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2003. / 參考文獻 (leaves 86-89). / 附中英文摘要. / "2003 nian 5 yue". / Wang Cihui. / Lun wen (zhe xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2003. / Can kao wen xian (leaves 86-89). / Fu Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / 導論：本論文的寫作目的與方法問題 --- p.1 / Chapter (A) --- 本論文的寫作目的 --- p.1 / Chapter (B) --- 文的方法 --- p.1 / Chapter (C) --- 用的形而上學槪念架構 --- p.3 / Chapter 第I章： --- 從形而上學看世界的本然面目 --- p.5 / Chapter (一） --- 田立克的觀點：田立克的本體論 / Chapter (A) --- 存在結構的第一層：自我與世界 --- p.6 / Chapter (B) --- 存在結構的第二層：三對極性 --- p.9 / 小結 --- p.11 / Chapter (二） --- 唯識宗的觀點：唯識宗的本體論 / Chapter (A) --- 現象界的虛假性 --- p.13 / Chapter (B) --- 從假現象到真實的本體-阿賴耶識 --- p.15 / 小結 --- p.21 / Chapter (三） --- 田立克與唯識宗本體論之相似性 / Chapter (A) --- 自我意識與阿賴耶識的相似性 --- p.22 / Chapter (B) --- 存在狀態的相似性 --- p.23 / Chapter (C) --- 價値意義的相似性 --- p.23 / Chapter 第II章： --- 罪惡世界的形上根源 --- p.24 / Chapter (一） --- 田立克的觀點：「自我意識」的覺醒 / Chapter (A) --- 本體界的「非存在」性 --- p.24 / Chapter (B) --- 「自我意識」的覺醒 --- p.26 / Chapter (C) --- 從「自我意識」的覺醒到「自我凸顯」的慾求 --- p.28 / Chapter (D) --- 從焦慮到自我肯定 --- p.29 / Chapter (E) --- 從焦虜到自我凸顯 --- p.32 / 小結 --- p.35 / Chapter (二） --- 唯識宗的觀點：「末那識」的執我慾求 / Chapter (A) --- 「末那識」的執著本性 --- p.37 / Chapter (B) --- 「末那識」的執著對象和目的(所緣) --- p.39 / Chapter (C) --- 「末那識」的依靠對象(所依) --- p.41 / Chapter (D) --- 「末那識」執我的後果 --- p.42 / Chapter (E) --- 「實我」的哲學意涵 --- p.44 / 小結 --- p.47 / Chapter (三） --- 「自我意識」與「末那識」之相似性 --- p.49 / Chapter (A) --- 「自我」本質的相似性 --- p.49 / Chapter (B) --- 「自我」慾求的相似性 --- p.49 / Chapter (C) --- 「自我」慾求在後果上的相似性 --- p.50 / Chapter 第III章： --- 罪惡世界的本質 --- p.51 / Chapter (一） --- 田立克的觀點：割離的實存界 / Chapter (A) --- 本體世界的瓦解 --- p.53 / Chapter (B) --- 實存界中範疇的割離 --- p.57 / Chapter (C) --- 三種象徵「割離」的人性表現一不信、狂妄、邪慾 --- p.58 / 小結 --- p.61 / Chapter (二） --- 唯識宗的觀點：虛妄分別的世界 / Chapter (A) --- 六識如何變現境相 --- p.63 / Chapter (B) --- 從六境的呈現到諸煩惱的出現 --- p.64 / Chapter (C) --- 虛妄分別世界的本質 --- p.67 / Chapter (D) --- 由虛妄分別世界到生死輪迴的苦果 --- p.71 / 小結 --- p.73 / Chapter (三) --- 割離的實存界虛妄分別界之相似性 --- p.74 / Chapter (A) --- 性質之相似性 --- p.74 / Chapter (B) --- 結構之相似性 --- p.74 / Chapter (C) --- 理路之相似性 --- p.75 / 結論 --- p.76 / 附論：宗教對話的意義和重要性 --- p.80 / Chapter (A) --- 宗教對話的重要性 --- p.80 / Chapter (B) --- 宗教對話的態度問題 --- p.81 / Chapter (C) --- 本論文在「宗教對話」上的價値意義 --- p.83 / 參考文獻 --- p.86