Genom ett testamente kan en person se till så att han får sin yttersta vilja fram efter hans bortgång. Vid upprättande av testamente måste dock en testator ta hänsyn till de formkrav som gäller för handlingen, vilka är kraven på skriftlighet, underskrift och bevittning. Dessa formkrav brukar traditionellt sett bestå av en fysisk del, så som att testamentet ska upprättas på papper, testatorn ska egenhändigt skriva under testamentet och bevittningen ska ske genom fysisk närvaro. Vi lever dock i ett allt mer digitaliserat och teknikvänligt samhälle och en naturlig följd av det vore om en person kunde upprätta ett digitalt testamente. Syftet med denna uppsats är att fastställa gällande rätt avseende testamentets formkrav och utreda om de kan uppfyllas genom ett digitalt testamente. Eftersom formkraven inte kan uppfyllas elektroniskt traditionellt sett, kommer författaren istället att utgå ifrån syftena bakom formkraven. Bakom kravet på skriftlighet ligger främst bevis- och äkthetsfunktionen som syftar till att säkerställa ett testamentes tillblivelse, giltighet och innehåll. Kravet på underskrift grundas främst på viljeförklaringsfunktionen, med andra ord att testatorn ska intyga om att testamentet utgör hans yttersta vilja. Kravet på bevittning syftar till att kunna säkerställa testamentets legala upprättande och underskriftens äkthet. Syftena bakom kraven på skriftlighet, underskrift och bevittning kan uppfyllas även vid användning av elektroniska rutiner. Dock finns inte idag den teknik som behövs för att spara och arkivera elektroniskt underskrivna handlingar under en längre period. Därmed kan inte ordinära testamenten upprättas i digital form, medan holografiska testamenten som bara är giltiga i tre månader borde kunna upprättas digitalt. / Through a will, a person can make sure that he gets his last wishes taken care of after his death. When establishing a will, however, you have to take into account the formal requirements of the act, such as that the will have to be in writing, signed and witnessed. These procedural requirements traditionally consist of a physical part, for example the will shall be written on paper, the testator must personally sign the will and the witnessing shall be achieved through physical presence. However, we live in an increasingly digitized and technology-oriented society and the natural consequence of this would be if a person could establish a digital will. The purpose of this paper is to determine the applicable law in respect of the formal requirements of a will and investigate whether they can be met by a digital will. Since the formal requirements can not traditionally be met electronically, the author will instead look at the underlying aims of the formal requirements. Behind the requirement of writing is primarily the evidence and authenticity feature which aims to ensure the wills creation, validity and content. The requirement of signature is based primarily on the intent function, in other words, the testator must certify that the will contains his last wishes. The requirement of witnessing aims to ensure the wills legal establishment and signature authenticity. The purposes behind the requirements of writing, signed and witnessing can be met even when using electronic procedures. However, the technology available today is not able to save and archive electronically signed documents for a longer period. Because of this ordinary wills cannot be drawn up in digital form, whereas holographic wills, that are only valid for three months, should be able to be drawn up in digital form.

Étant pourtant un phénomène extrêmement répandu, la procrastination a très peu fait l’objet d’études philosophiques. Inversement, la faiblesse de la volonté et les différents phénomènes qu’on lui rattache sont encore aujourd’hui étudiés en profondeur comme des cas paradigmatiques de défaillance de la rationalité pratique. Or, la procrastination présente un cas de défaillance de la rationalité pratique particulier dans notre rapport avec le temps, rapport qui est très souvent laissé de côté dans l’étude de la faiblesse de la volonté. Après avoir présenté dans le premier chapitre les phénomènes majeurs associés à la faiblesse de la volonté et les problématiques qu’ils soulèvent, dans le deuxième chapitre, nous examinerons leurs liens avec la procrastination. Nous verrons comment la procrastination, avec son emphase sur le caractère temporel de notre agentivité, permet de mieux saisir et d'expliquer les problématiques soulevées par la faiblesse de la volonté en les insérant dans un cadre explicatif plus large. / Even if procrastination is extremely widespread, it is still rarely the subject of philosophical study. Conversely, weakness of the will and the various phenomena which are related to it are still extensively studied as paradigmatic cases of failure of our practical rationality. However, procrastination seems to be a failure of our practical rationality related to our relationship with time, a relationship that is often overlooked in the study of weakness of will. After presenting, in the first chapter, the major phenomena associated with weakness of will and the issues they raise, we will examine their relationship with procrastination in the second chapter. We'll see how procrastination, with its emphasis on the temporal nature of our agency helps us to better understand and explain the issues raised by weakness of will by inserting them in a broader explanatory framework.

Ce mémoire traite de la critique communautarienne du libéralisme et se donne deux projets. D’abord, il s’agit de formuler une position de synthèse à partir des travaux des philosophes Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre et Michael Walzer. Cette synthèse s’articule autour de trois axes, soit ontologique, sociale et méthodologique. Le deuxième projet est d’évaluer cette position pour statuer sur son rapport au libéralisme, et, plus précisément, pour déterminer si elle est seulement une critique, une alternative, ou encore une variante à l’intérieur du libéralisme. Il est conclu que le communautarisme est réconciliable avec une certaine forme de libéralisme et que sa critique permet même de l’améliorer. / In this essay about the communitarian critique of liberalism I seek to reach two goals. First, it is to form a synthesis from the works of philosophers Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Walzer. This synthesis is articulated through three axes: ontologicial, social and methodological. Building on this, my second objective is to assess its relation to liberalism. More specifically, I seek to determine whether communitarianism is merely a critique, an alternative or a variant of liberalism. My conclusion is that communitarianism is reconciliable with a certain form of liberalism and that its critique allows to improve it.

D. H. Lawrence believed the individual psyche to consist of two parts: the active unconsciousness and the mental consciousness. The active unconsciousness is a sort of life force within the individual, and one that allows the individual a true connection to the world. It is also closely related to the body, and sometimes called “blood-being” or “blood-consciousness.” The mental consciousness could be said to be the “intellect” in the individual psyche, dealing with abstractions and ideas. Lawrence insists that contemporary society’s prioritizing of the functions of the mental consciousness leads individuals to allow it too much influence over their life. This ultimately leads them to become dominating, willful and deadly. Lawrence’s 1920 novel Women in Love is an allegory of what Lawrence saw as the detrimental effect on individuals by the over-emphasis on rationality in contemporary society, and also of the struggle to find a way back to a more natural way of existing in the world. This essay argues that the processes of, and struggle between, the mental consciousness and active unconsciousness, are illustrated in images of water. Surface and merging imagery connotes denial of or loss of contact with the active unconsciousness, eventually leading the individual to seek death. Flood and submersion imagery connotes a possibility to find a way back to a life lived in and through the active unconsciousness. Fountain imagery and images of water connoting growth and openness connote the strong, creative life force inherent in the active unconsciousness. However, some water imagery in the novel also contradicts any notion of a stable balance—Lawrence universe is one where death and destruction is a necessary component of life and creativity.

This thesis relies on the idea that members of a culture should be able to secure the survival and flourishing of their own culture, or, in other words, that they should be self-determining. The collective will to take charge of its own destiny is the sign that a political community exists. The development of this subjectivity is made possible by a shared culture. I argue for conceptualizing self-determination in a way that recognizes both the autonomy of cultural groups and the necessity for people-to-people relations between groups. The people-to-people relations are necessary for allowing the coexistence of different peoples with the same right to self-determination. Although the contemporary discourse of liberal multiculturalism is sympathetic to cultural self-determination, it tends to undercut its own commitment by linking itself to the current systems of nation-states and specifically Western liberal ideas about recognition and empowerment. I will argue that the nationalist discourse that is specific to the literature on liberal multiculturalism intends to empower self-determining peoples, but ultimately reinforces a hierarchy of peoples in which minorities’ nationalism is instrumental to the achievement of the myth of an overarching civic nation that is embodied in the liberal state. (T1). The myth of the civic nation has its origins in the liberal principles of individualism and neutrality of the state. In the context of a multinational state, attempts to create an overarching civic nation result in efforts to domesticate and assimilate diversity. My thesis will also argue that the survival and flourishing of cultures requires both questioning the universality of the state model and developing a post-nationalist framework that would acknowledge the legitimacy of a great diversity of political communities, as such diversity is representative of the diverse cultures that sustain these political communities. (T2).

Global capital is transforming the spaces in which we live, thereby transforming culture: this thesis challenges a set of liberal assumptions about culture and cultural transformation by elaborating upon this very hypothesis. Specifically, it argues that cultural identities are being formed in global cities, where disjunctive global flows of cultural, financial, technological, ideological, and human capital intersect. These global flows are creating cultural contexts of choice that can be as central to individual and group identities as national institutions or inherited or native cultural norms. And as these modern contexts of choice emancipate the imagination from the influence of national institutions, they enable peculiar new forms of agency. I use Arjun Appadurai’s notion of imagination and his model of “scapes”—cultural landscapes formed by intersecting flows of capital—to explain how the global is becoming the decisive framework for social life. In contrast, I use Will Kymlicka’s model of multicultural citizenship and Jeremy Waldron’s model of cosmopolitanism primarily to demonstrate the limits of a class of liberal theories of cultural accommodation that oversimplify the relationship of the individual to culture, and of culture to modernity, and which ignore the role of “scapes” in constituting cultural identities. To conclude, I propose an alternative, three- dimensional and ultimately non-comparative treatment of culture inspired by Henri Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city. / Graduate

Dans la philosophie de Thomas d’Aquin, les puissances principales de l’âme, l’intelligence et la volonté, interagissent dans les activités humaines. Une des activités les plus importantes est identifiée par le docteur comme étant la recherche de la vérité. Cette recherche s’inscrit dans la finalité ultime de l’homme. La vérité, en tant que bien de l’intelligence, est voulue par la volonté qui est un appétit rationnel. Ainsi, selon le Dominicain « la volonté veut que l’intelligence intellige ». Puisque la vérité n’est pas le seul bien proposé au libre arbitre, la volonté doit choisir de poursuivre cette fin au détriment d’autres biens concurrents. Elle doit pour se faire perfectionner les puissances de l’âme par le biais d’habitus et de vertus en plus d’éviter les vices qui conduisent à l’erreur. La recherche de la vérité est, selon Thomas d’Aquin, un acte moral. / According to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the main powers of the soul, the intellect and the will, interact in human activities. One of the most important activities is identified by the doctor as the search for truth. This research is part of the ultimate purpose of man. The truth, which is the good of the intelligence, is willed by the will which is a rational appetite. Thus, according to the Dominican “the will wants that the intelligence thinks.” Because the truth is not the only good proposed to the free will, the will must choose to pursue it to the detriment of other competing goods. To achieve this goal, the will must perfect the powers of the soul through habitus and virtues while avoiding the vices that lead to errors. The search for truth is, according to Thomas Aquinas, a moral act.

Ce mémoire propose une analyse de la théorie de la volonté en relation avec le mal dans la pensée de Thomas d’Aquin. Le mal est une privation d’être et l’être est identique au bien. La volonté est une forme intellectuelle d’appétit, ainsi que la gouvernante des puissances inférieures, mais aussi de la raison qui est à la fois son principe. L’appétit est un mouvement vers ce qui est le bien d’une nature, il est donc difficile d’accepter que la volonté puisse élire son contraire qui est le mal. La thèse de Platon selon laquelle le mal n’est désiré que par ignorance est écartée, puisque le propos de Thomas est d’expliquer le consentement en faveur du mal connu. Or, si le mal peut être voulu, on ne peut le vouloir sans le référer au bien. Ainsi, le libre arbitre, bien qu’ayant Dieu pour principe, est le principe du premier mauvais choix. La compréhension de la problématique passe par la division de ce qui appartient à l’extérieur de la volonté et ensuite à l’intérieur. De soi, un acte extérieur peut être immoral, comme le vol, mais la volonté d’une intention bonne qui choisit cet acte devient mauvaise, bien qu’elle garde le mérite de sa bonne intention. Son choix mauvais est parfois dû à une certaine ignorance, mais, puisque nous n’ignorons pas toujours le mal, il faut attribuer une faiblesse à la volonté, car elle n’accomplit pas pleinement sa nature. Quand elle répète ses actes de faiblesse à l’égard du mal, elle se dispose à accueillir l’habitus de la malice, et alors elle cherche d’elle-même le mal. Aucun de ces principes, cependant, ne peut s’appliquer à l’homme originel ni au diable. Ceux-ci n’auront pour principe de leurs choix que l’orgueil dans le libre exercice de la volonté. / This paper proposes to analyse the theory of will in interaction with evil in Thomas Aquinas’s thought. Evil is a privation of being, and being is identical to good. The will is an intellectual form of appetite, as well as the governor of lower faculties and of reason, which is also its principle. Appetite is a movement towards the good of a nature; it is therefore difficult to accept that will could elect its opposite, which is evil. Plato’s thesis consisting of attributing the will towards bad to ignorance is discarded, because Thomas’s explanation concerns the consent towards evil witch is known. Now, if evil can be wanted, we cannot want it without referring it to good. In that way, free will, though having God for principle, is the principle of the first bad choice. The comprehension of the problem has to go through the division of that which belongs to the will’s exterior and to it’s interior. In itself, an exterior act can be immoral, like stealing, but the good intentioned will that choses this act then becomes evil, keeping nonetheless the merit of its good intention. The bad choice is sometimes attributable to ignorance, but since we do not always ignore evil, we have to accuse a certain weakness in the will for not being able to fulfill its nature. When it repeatedly acts weakly towards evil, it makes itself available for the mischievous habitus, and it then, on its own, searches the evil act. None of these principles, though, can apply to the original man or for the devil. They will not have any other principle for their choice than that of pride in the free exercise of their will.

The aim of this study is to examine the meaning and the morality of suicide through the history of philosophy. To this aim, firstly, the historical evaluation of the concept of suicide is explained in detail. The effects of sociological and the religious transformations on the meaning of suicide are analyzed. Afterwards, the moral theories about suicide are discussed. The anti-suicide arguments about suicide in the history of philosophy are classified under three parts mainly. These anti-suicide arguments &mdash / that suicide is a violation of our duties to God, to the society and to the self &mdash / are handled and explained in detail with their counter arguments. Then, the problem of the permissibility of suicide is analyzed and whether suicide is morally permitted under some conditions or it is absolutely forbidden is discussed. Next, the philosophical meaning of suicide in literature is investigated by analyzing the meanings that are given to suicide by Dante iv and Dostoevsky. In the conclusion, a brief summary is given, and the moral theories about suicide are criticized. ,

Includes abstract / Bibliography: leaves 346-374 / viii, 374 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1988