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In Forgiveness and Responsibility, I investigate the nature and norms of moral forgiveness. The standard account of forgiveness claims that forgiving is (or at least requires) the overcoming of resentment. I argue, however, that there is no single way to forgive and so no non-trivial set of necessary and sufficient conditions for forgiveness. I identify the prototypical manifestation of forgiveness, using it to explain the diversity of our forgiveness practices. Prototypical manifestations of forgiveness are cases of directed forgiveness, in which one takes up a certain kind of forgiving attitude towards a wrongdoer and overtly manifests that attitude, most notably by a speech act. This speech act crucially involves the victim relinquishing certain of her rights to blame the wrongdoer, as well as releasing the wrongdoer from certain kinds of personal obligations to the victim. Other modes of forgiveness are understood as extensions of the prototype to the extent that they share either the interior, psychological features or the exterior, behavioral features of directed forgiveness. I conclude by arguing that in order to preserve certain intuitive views about the norms bearing on forgiveness, our best theories of forgiveness should hold that: (1) forgiving is prototypically under one's voluntary control; (2) wrongdoers cannot obligate their victims to forgive them; and (3) forgiving alters the norms of interaction between victim and wrongdoer.

The primary goal of the proposed research is to identify how stress is internalized to affect cognitive functioning and increase the risk for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Dysfunctional stress reactivity has been proposed to be a risk factor for ongoing affective distress, yet mechanisms underlying this process remain unexplained. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been implicated in the etiology of MDD, in the reactivity to stress, as well as in the adaptation of behavior to reinforcement. The combined activities of this particular neural system identify it as a focal node by which stress may be internalized to affect cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning. The experiments detailed here examined electroencephalographic (EEG) features that reflect cognitive control functions in the mPFC. Participants underwent EEG assessment as they completed a reinforcement (reward and punishment) learning task sensitive to mPFC-basal ganglia functioning, both with and without a laboratory stress manipulation. This experiment assessed how stress reactivity altered neural systems of reinforcement, and it contrasted these same factors with currently depressed individuals. In this series of investigations, we have identified a measure of how, and a possible mechanism by which, punishment information is internalized in stress reactivity and in the expression of MDD: error and punishment signals are increasingly coupled with the salience of "bad" outcomes. Stress-related alteration of reward and punishment learning systems - particularly in the mPFC - is a viable candidate for how dysfunctional stress reactive responses are translated into ongoing cognitive and affective distress in depression.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe ištirta fizinių ir juridinių asmenų atžvilgiu vykdymų bausmių būklė ir dinamika Lietuvoje 2004-2010 metais. Pirmiausia teoriniu aspektu apžvelgta Lietuvos bausmių sistema bei palyginta su užsienio valstybių šalyse egzistuojančiomis bausmėmis. Vėliau analizuota atskirai juridinių asmenų bei fizinių asmenų atžvilgiu vykdomų bausmių dinamika – bausmių vykdymo didėjimo, mažėjimo statistiniai duomenys, vidutinė bausmių vykdymo trukmė ir kt. Apibrėžtos esminės problemos, kurios apsunkina bausmės vykdymo tikslų pasiekimą, ir šitaip parodo, jog bausmių vykdymo būklė Lietuvoje kol kas gali būti analizuojama tik atkreipiant dėmesį į neigiamus aspektus. Galiausiai ištirta gyventojų pozicija ir ekspertų nuomonė bausmių vykdymo problemų klausimais. / Master’s work presents state and dynamics of sentences witch are carried out on natural and legal persons in Lithuania in 2004-2010. First, theoretical background of system of penalties in Lithuania is analyzed and compared with the existing system of penalties of foreign countries. Later dynamics of sentences witch are carried out separately on natural and legal persons analyzed – statistical information of execution of a sentence in increasing or decreasing, the average duration of the executions and so on. The fundamental problems that make difficult achievement of the objectives of the execution of a sentence defined and these problems shows that the enforcement of sentences situation in Lithuania so far can be analyzed only focusing on negative aspects. Finally, position of the population and opinion of experts on issues of problems in execution of a sentence explored.

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This thesis explores the merits and limits of John Hawthorne’s contextualist analysis of free will. First, I argue that contextualism does better at capturing the ordinary understanding of ‘free will’ than competing views because it best accounts for the way in which our willingness to attribute free will ordinarily varies with context. Then I consider whether this is enough to conclude that the contextualist has won the free will debate. I argue that this would be hasty, because the contextualist, unlike her competitors, cannot tell us whether any particular agent is definitively free, and therefore cannot inform any practices that are premised on whether a particular agent is morally responsible. As such, I argue that whether the contextualist “wins the free will debate” depends on whether it is more important to capture the ordinary understanding of ‘free will’ or more important to inform our practices of ascribing moral responsibility.

This thesis examines how long-term prisoners make sense of their sentence: what they see as its purpose, whether they think it fair and how they integrate their sentence in their life story. Its findings are based on narrative interviews with six men at the start of their sentence, twelve men who were about to be released and nine men who were under supervision in the community. The men interviewed felt the prison largely failed in its purposes of reform, rehabilitation and deterrence, even though these outcomes were much desired, as almost all wanted to desist. Reformative efforts were seen as overly relying on cognitive behavioural courses in the prison, which, because they were compulsory for progression within the prison, were attended by many who were not motivated to engage with them. Furthermore, the men felt that they were treated as an aggregate rather than as individuals with individual needs and that this meant the necessary supports upon release were often not put in place. Meaningful communication about the relationship between the offence and the sentence was largely lacking. Any moral communication in the courtroom was hampered by the emotional demands on the men at the sentencing stage, their wish to manipulate the outcome in their own favour and their perception that court actors, too, manipulated processes, thereby lessening the moral standing of the court. However, despite the common perception of sentences failing to achieve any desired outcome and other complaints - about the inconsistency of sentencing, the standing of the court to judge and miscarriages of justice - almost all the men nevertheless positioned their sentence as fair (enough) in their narrative. While some referred to normative reasons to explain the legitimacy of their sentence, for others their acceptance was determined by their need to cope with the lived reality of imprisonment. This led to a strategy of ‘getting your head down’, which included accepting the ‘justice’ of one’s sentence, but also limiting thoughts of the outside world and minimising contact with family. Others positioned their prison sentence as transformative in order to be able to construct a progressive narrative and make sense of a desired future of desistance. However, the men on license after release generally struggled to maintain a projected upward trajectory and only felt able to desist by isolating themselves, thereby avoiding further trouble. The thesis concludes that long-term prison sentences could be rendered more meaningful through greater individual input and a dialogue about questions of purpose and meaning, possibly initiated by community criminal justice social workers. In order to promote desistance, it is important that those who are released have better chances to secure an alternative identity for themselves so that they can move into a new stage of their lives, rather than withdrawing from the world in order to desist.

The aim of this study is to create an increased intercultural understanding by studying how the Gambian teachers interpret and handle situations that from a Swedish perspective could be called bullying. A qualitative method have been used were the materials have been gathered through unstructed observations and interviewes with teachers in the Gambia as well as formalized conversations with other school staff. The data has been collected in different schools in the Gambia during the winter of 2013. Four different theories are used to analyse the result. These are the sociocultural perspective, cultural framework, the postcolonial perspective and the frame factor theory. The result shows that the Gambian teachers have a hard time to describe and define the term bullying. They interpret the concept bullying as corporal punishment and that it is a question about abusive behaviour from an adult towards a child. There is also one teacher that speaks about bullying as something that can occur between pupils as well, but this is a rare opinion. It is obvious that the overloaded classrooms are a big obstacle for the Gambian teachers when it comes to create a positive learning experience were the pupils show mutal respect for each other. There is a risk that teachers are missing a lot of things that are going on behind their backs. There are no written documents on how to work with or prevent bullying. There is one document about corporal punishment and it does only exist in governmental schools.

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Sociology

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