As I write this piece, I wonder how I got here. I began with an interest in adolescent mental health services in schools. Then I was captured by autoethnographic writing and Carolyn Ellis became my hero. I read everything I could find regarding autoethnography and mostly I read autoethnographic stories. This led me to wanting to tell my own stories, but I realized they were very difficult stories to tell and very difficult stories to hear. I became interested in why certain stories are difficult to tell. I wanted to know what made them difficult stories. I wanted to understand why we tell certain things more easily than others or why we dont tell at all. I then became interested in secrets. I realized that my personal secrets were mostly about mothering. I wondered what it was about mothering that made these stories so difficult to tell. I wondered what was unique and specific to the secrets of mothering. I read extensively about mothering and motherhood. I was exhilarated when I found the work of Andrea OReilly and the Association for Research on Mothering at a book fair at a local conference. I had found another hero. Then I read Susan Maushart (1999) and Adrienne Rich (1986) and I became immersed in the search for meaning about motherhood, mothering, the masks of motherhood and the normative discourse of mothering. I realized there was a disconnect between the discourse of mothering and the actual practice of mothering. I also began to realize that perhaps the masks of motherhood and the normative discourse contributed to and perpetuated the secrets of mothering. I tell my own secrets of mothering to examine this phenomenon. And I tell stories that I never thought I would tell in a public forum. My stories look behind my cool and competent mask of motherhood (Maushart, 1999), and expose the raw emotions of my secrets of mothering. I am often vulnerable and naked and I ask readers to appreciate this in context of their own nakedness and vulnerability. An exploration of the discourse and practice of mothering, and the secrets related to that, offers a means to disturb the normative discourse of mothering and a means to unravel my secrets of mothering. I offer no solutions only hope and possibility that the disturbing and unraveling will guide mothers and parents to decide which mask to wear (or not) and which secrets to keep (or not) and perhaps to awaken readers to the social and political issues related to these stories (both mine and the readers). I introduce and provide the background for the dissertation through my positionality in Tomasulos chair. I will give no other explanation of the chair except to say that I move in and out of the chair as I explore the purpose of my dissertation and position myself within that exploration.

As I write this piece, I wonder how I got here. I began with an interest in adolescent mental health services in schools. Then I was captured by autoethnographic writing and Carolyn Ellis became my hero. I read everything I could find regarding autoethnography and mostly I read autoethnographic stories. This led me to wanting to tell my own stories, but I realized they were very difficult stories to tell and very difficult stories to hear. I became interested in why certain stories are difficult to tell. I wanted to know what made them difficult stories. I wanted to understand why we tell certain things more easily than others or why we dont tell at all. I then became interested in secrets. I realized that my personal secrets were mostly about mothering. I wondered what it was about mothering that made these stories so difficult to tell. I wondered what was unique and specific to the secrets of mothering. I read extensively about mothering and motherhood. I was exhilarated when I found the work of Andrea OReilly and the Association for Research on Mothering at a book fair at a local conference. I had found another hero. Then I read Susan Maushart (1999) and Adrienne Rich (1986) and I became immersed in the search for meaning about motherhood, mothering, the masks of motherhood and the normative discourse of mothering. I realized there was a disconnect between the discourse of mothering and the actual practice of mothering. I also began to realize that perhaps the masks of motherhood and the normative discourse contributed to and perpetuated the secrets of mothering. I tell my own secrets of mothering to examine this phenomenon. And I tell stories that I never thought I would tell in a public forum. My stories look behind my cool and competent mask of motherhood (Maushart, 1999), and expose the raw emotions of my secrets of mothering. I am often vulnerable and naked and I ask readers to appreciate this in context of their own nakedness and vulnerability. An exploration of the discourse and practice of mothering, and the secrets related to that, offers a means to disturb the normative discourse of mothering and a means to unravel my secrets of mothering. I offer no solutions only hope and possibility that the disturbing and unraveling will guide mothers and parents to decide which mask to wear (or not) and which secrets to keep (or not) and perhaps to awaken readers to the social and political issues related to these stories (both mine and the readers). I introduce and provide the background for the dissertation through my positionality in Tomasulos chair. I will give no other explanation of the chair except to say that I move in and out of the chair as I explore the purpose of my dissertation and position myself within that exploration.

The purpose of this essay is to analyse the problem of the rational justification of value judgments. To a large extent, I have used Taylor's account of the technique of justification (verification, validation, vindication, and rational choice of a way of life), as this is presented in his book, Normative Discourse. To a lesser extent, I have also used Baier's account of the technique of validation, as it is presented in his book, The Moral Point of View. I have attempted to show that it is possible to justify value judgments, despite the logical dichotomy between factual statements and evaluative statements. 'Justification' is taken as proof of correctness: that is, a statement is said to be justified if it is proven to be correct. On Taylor's technique, justification is possible, although only incompletely so. It is possible to prove that a value judgment is the correct one to make from within the perspective provided by a given way of life. Justification cannot be complete since the adoption of the perspective cannot be justified. On Baier's technique of validation, complete justification can be achieved: once it has been shown that an evaluatum meets the criteria in terms of which it was judged, and that these criteria are relevant (valid) for judging that object since the object must meet these criteria in order effectively to realize its purpose, nothing more needs to be shown. Although Baier's account allows for complete justification while Taylor's allows for only incomplete justification, Baier's account cannot be used to replace that of Taylor. They are appropriate in different contexts. While Baier's account of validation is appropriate for judgments of use-value, Taylor's account is appropriate for value judgments other than those of use-value. Accordingly, justification is possible using either technique, although complete justification may be possible only in the context of judgments of use-value. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Cet ouvrage a été rédigé en LaTeX, ce qui permet d'atteindre directement certaines sections, notes ou références bibliographiques par le biais des hyperliens. / Ce mémoire se veut une synthèse critique de la littérature portant sur la logique déontique. Le premier objectif est d'y présenter un aperçu historique de son origine et de son évolution. Cet objectif sera principalement atteint par le biais du chapitre 2 portant sur les paradoxes, lequel nous permettra non seulement de voir en réaction à quoi les principales approches se sont développées, mais nous donnera aussi une vue d'ensemble quant aux différents courants que l'on retrouve en logique déontique. En second lieu, cet ouvrage vise à fournir une synthèse de la littérature portant sur l'analyse formelle du discours normatif. Les chapitres 3, 4 et 5 offrent une synthèse des principaux courants qui cherchent à répondre à cet objectif, ce que l'on peut regrouper sous trois banières, à savoir les logiques monadiques, les logiques dyadiques et les logiques temporelles. Finalement, nous proposons une lecture critique de cette littérature. Cette critique, qui repose notamment sur la prémisse à savoir que la logique déontique se doit non pas de rendre compte de l'utilisation du discours normatif mais plutôt de sa structure, vise à montrer que les systèmes actuels ne parviennent pas à rendre compte adéquatement de certaines caractéristiques fondamentales au discours juridique. / In this essay we aim to provide a critical analysis of the literature regarding deontic logic. First of all, we wish to give a historical account of deontic logic's evolution, which will be done mainly by chapter 2. This chapter concerns the paradoxes of deontic logic and gives an overview of the usual systems and their origin. Our second objective is to provide a synthesis of the literature regarding the formal analysis of the normative discourse. The chapters 3, 4 and 5 give an account of the three principal ways which deal with deontic operators, that is the monadic deontic logic, the dyadic deontic logic and the temporal deontic logic. Finally, we propose a critical analysis of that literature and we show that these systems do not represent adequately some of the normative discourse's fundamental characteristics. We will accomplish this by providing an analysis of the legal discourse and show that the concept of obligation has some properties and behaves in a way that cannot be represented by the actual systems.

Ce mémoire se veut une synthèse critique de la littérature portant sur la logique déontique. Le premier objectif est d'y présenter un aperçu historique de son origine et de son évolution. Cet objectif sera principalement atteint par le biais du chapitre 2 portant sur les paradoxes, lequel nous permettra non seulement de voir en réaction à quoi les principales approches se sont développées, mais nous donnera aussi une vue d'ensemble quant aux différents courants que l'on retrouve en logique déontique. En second lieu, cet ouvrage vise à fournir une synthèse de la littérature portant sur l'analyse formelle du discours normatif. Les chapitres 3, 4 et 5 offrent une synthèse des principaux courants qui cherchent à répondre à cet objectif, ce que l'on peut regrouper sous trois banières, à savoir les logiques monadiques, les logiques dyadiques et les logiques temporelles. Finalement, nous proposons une lecture critique de cette littérature. Cette critique, qui repose notamment sur la prémisse à savoir que la logique déontique se doit non pas de rendre compte de l'utilisation du discours normatif mais plutôt de sa structure, vise à montrer que les systèmes actuels ne parviennent pas à rendre compte adéquatement de certaines caractéristiques fondamentales au discours juridique. / In this essay we aim to provide a critical analysis of the literature regarding deontic logic. First of all, we wish to give a historical account of deontic logic's evolution, which will be done mainly by chapter 2. This chapter concerns the paradoxes of deontic logic and gives an overview of the usual systems and their origin. Our second objective is to provide a synthesis of the literature regarding the formal analysis of the normative discourse. The chapters 3, 4 and 5 give an account of the three principal ways which deal with deontic operators, that is the monadic deontic logic, the dyadic deontic logic and the temporal deontic logic. Finally, we propose a critical analysis of that literature and we show that these systems do not represent adequately some of the normative discourse's fundamental characteristics. We will accomplish this by providing an analysis of the legal discourse and show that the concept of obligation has some properties and behaves in a way that cannot be represented by the actual systems. / Cet ouvrage a été rédigé en LaTeX, ce qui permet d'atteindre directement certaines sections, notes ou références bibliographiques par le biais des hyperliens.