Masters Degrees (Philosophy)

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"Aristotle's eudaimonia in Aquinas' moral philosophy : a critical study."
(2015) Ezenwanne, Henry Chibuike.; Matolino, Bernard.
This thesis intends to explore the argument among scholars as to whether Aquinas merely Christianises (baptises) Aristotle’s concept of eudemonia in his moral philosophy or whether he substantially develops and transforms it beyond what Aristotle originally presents in his main ethical works of Nicomachean Ethics, Magna Moralia and the Eudemian Ethics. It is true that Aquinas relies on and uses a number of Aristotle’s ethical views, yet he is able to develop and transcend Aristotle. However, the aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that Aquinas does not only adopt or incorporate Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia (happiness) into his moral philosophy, but he goes beyond what Aristotle envisages in his ethics. For Aristotle, happiness is the reward for the virtuous activity of the rational soul, the highest good (end) to which all things aim. However, for Aquinas, happiness is the participation in the beatific vision of the First and Final Act, he calls God. Happiness, for Aquinas, in the proper sense of the word, cannot be attained in this life since no created goods can satisfy the unsearchable wants and desires of the human being in this life. Hence, Aquinas transcends Aristotle’s moral, socio-political, natural and temporary kind of happiness to develop his metaphysical, ontological, theological and supernatural kind of happiness. Chapter one introduces and sets the boundaries of the thesis. Chapter two explores the debate among scholars as to whether Aquinas Christianises Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia or not. Chapter three examines the fundamental principles in Aristotle’s ethics (moral Philosophy) with the emphasis on understanding the human being. Chapter four explores Aristotle’s overview of the concept of eudaimonia (happiness). Chapter five looks at Aquinas’ basic moral philosophical framework with the emphasis on human nature as well as the participation in the “Divine” Nature. Chapter six examines Aquinas’ concept of virtue, which is a development of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. Chapter seven investigates Aquinas’ notion of happiness, as he goes beyond Aristotle’s eudaimonia. Chapter eight concludes and highlights the standpoint of this thesis.
The authoritarian character: revisited.
(2022) Govender, Nathisvaran Kumarasen.; Swer, Gregory Huw Morgan.; Sivil, Richard Charlton.
In this thesis, I revisit the authoritarian character concept, as developed by members of the first-generation Frankfurt School. The authoritarian character concept (ACC) was a concept developed to understand the predisposition of individuals and societies towards seeking the domination of authoritarian demagogic as opposed to realising their own liberation. The need to revisit the ACC came about due to a noticeable rise of authoritarian demagogic leaders within liberal democracies. However, in researching the ACC, I observed that the dominant narrative was incorrect in its interpretation of the conceptual development of the ACC, and subsequently, is overly restrictive with regards to its conceptual parentage as it did not consider conceptual developments outside of 1936-1939. Therefore, in this project, I revisit the ACC with the aim of detailing a conceptually clear understanding of the ACC so that it could be used to help analyse the problem of contemporary authoritarianism. In revisiting the ACC, I hope to achieve four objectives. Firstly, to set out the foundations of the ACC by looking at the Frankfurt School and the conceptual makeup of the ACC. Secondly, was establishing a dominant narrative surrounding the ACC, which I termed the received view of the ACC. This received view holds the conceptual lifespan of the ACC as starting in 1936 and ending in 1939. Thirdly, to show that the received view of the ACC is incorrect with regard to the genesis of the ACC as work had been ongoing on the development of key concepts prior to 1936 and provide a revised account of the ACC to include this early conceptual development. Fourthly, to show that the received view of the ACC is incorrect with regards to the demise of the ACC, in 1939, as work was ongoing on evolving the ACC to meet more modern challenges well into the 1970s. Furthermore, these later developments of the ACC would ultimately complete the teleological arc of the ACC as a concept of Critical Theory as it is within these later developments that the ACC finally fulfils its goal of detailing a possible praxis that works towards an emancipated society.
The battle of the cosmos: a comparison of cosmopsychist theories.
(2020) Hauptfleisch, Kira.; Brzozowski, Jacek Jerzy.
No abstract available.
Beyond objectivism : an exploration in the epistemology and philosophy of science of Michael Polanyi and its relevance to truth claims in religion and ethics.
(2010) den Hollander, Daan.; Giddy, John Patrick.
No abstract available.
Can we be particularists about environmental ethics? : assessing the theory of moral particularism and its practical application in applied environmental ethics.
(2008) Toerien, Karyn Gurney.; Roberts, Deborah.; Farland, Douglas.
Moral judgments have tended to be made through the application of certain moral principles and it seems we think we need principles in order to make sound moral judgments. However, the theory of moral particularism, as put forward by Jonathan Dancy (2004), calls this into question and challenges the traditional principled approaches to moral reasoning. This challenge naturally began a debate between those who adhere to principled accounts of moral rationality, and those who advocate a particularist approach. The aim of this thesis is thus to assess the theory of moral particularism as recently put forward by Jonathan Dancy. In pursuing this project I initially set up a survey of the field of environmental ethics within which to explore traditional approaches to applied ethics. This survey suggests that applied ethical problems have traditionally been solved using various principled approaches and if we are inclined to take the particularist challenge seriously, this suggests a philosophical conundrum. On the one hand, increasingly important and pressing applied environmental ethical concerns suggest there is a practical need for ethical principles, whilst on the other hand, the particularist claim is that we do not need principles in order to make sound moral judgments. The survey of environmental ethics then establishes the first side of the philosophical conundrum. I then move to explore the second side of the conundrum; the theory of moral particularism, looking at why the challenge it presents to traditional principled approaches needs to be taken seriously. I then move to explore theoretical challenges to moral particularism; this is done to establish the current state of the theoretical debate between the particularist and the generalist. I conclude from this that the theoretical debate between the two has currently reached a stalemate; it is, at present, simply not clear which account is correct. As the main goal of this study is to evaluate particularism, this apparent stalemate led me to explore certain practical challenges to particularist theory as a means of advancing the debate. As particularism is a theory that challenges our traditional conception of how to make moral judgments, there will be important implications for applied ethics if particularism turns out to be correct, and 1 thus finally apply particularism to a practical environmental problem in order to assess the validity of practical challenges to particularism. In order to do this, a particularist ethic is applied to the question of whether or not to allow mining in Kakadu National Park in Australia. This provides a means of seeing what an applied particularist ethic could look like, as well as providing something of an answer to the practical challenge to particularism and achieving the goal of evaluating it within the applied context of environmental ethics.
Conceptions of time: a look at the A-theory.
(2022) Sithole, Anele Nontokozo .; Brzozowski, Jacek Jerzy.
A critical examination of J.-P. Sartre's concept of freedom in the light of the relationship between en-soi and pour-soi.
(1981) Mashuq, Ally.; Rauche, Gerhard A.
No abstract available.
Deconstituting transition : law and justice in post-apartheid South Africa.
(2000) Lenta, Patrick Joseph Peter.; Herwitz, Daniel.
The aim of this study is to suggest, by selective example, a form of jurisprudence which relates to and may have a salutary effect upon law and justice in post-apartheid South Africa. I describe three ways in which South Africa can be regarded as negotiating a transition - from apartheid to post-apartheid, from modem to post modern and from colonial to postcolonial. I argue for a jurisprudence which directly concerns itself with each of these three overlapping and mutually informing modes of transition: an approach to law and justice which is post-apartheid, postmodem and postcolonial. Since my account of law and justice engages with all three transitions, it has the potential to bring about a positive transformation in the conservative legal theory currently in favour with the judiciary. I suggest that the positivist approach followed by the judiciary during apartheid led in most cases to a removal of ethics from the legal universe and a diremption of law and justice. I contend further that the current approach of the judiciary still bears the hallmarks of positivism, in its continued adherence to the 'literal approach' to constitutional interpretation and its misunderstanding of the role of morality in adjudication. I argue that positivism, with its potential to produce injustice, should be abandoned in favour of an approach based on a postmodem epistemology which incorporates a concept of justice which is both substantive and avoids the pitfalls of natural law: the historical exhaustion of classical teleology and the failure of religious transcendence to command widespread respect. The postmodem theorists I draw on, Michel Foucault, lacques Derrida and lean-Francois Lyotard, cumulatively point to the fai lure of the Enlightenment to ground legal practice upon the universalising faculty of reason. Postmodem jurisprudence. informed by postcolonial theory, postulates justice as an ethic of alterity and is able to reintroduce ethics into law in a manner which avoids the critique of Enlightenment epistemology. Having set out the jurisprudential views of these theorists, I turn to the activity of constitutional interpretation to demonstrate the way in which the judiciary's current approach to interpretation could be positively transformed through the introduction of interpretative techniques related to poststructuralism and specifically deconstruction. I argue that interpretation is an activity necessarily informed by values and that the indeterminacy of the language of the Constitution provides the interpreter with choice. Provided the choice is ethically motivated, interpretation is a transforrnative activity. Having concluded the expository section of this dissertation, I provide a close reading of two Constitutional Court judgements, Azanian Peoples Organisation (AZAPO) v President of (he Republic of South Africa and S v Makwanyane and Another. These judgements, decided under the interim Constitution, are arguably the most important judgements of the Constitutional Court to date. They represent sites of the judiciary's internal struggle to respond to the requirement for a new epistemology and practice of interpretation, which provide the means to adjudicate justly and also suggest ways in which to justify its decisions. My study is largely restricted to these two cases, and although I refer to other cases for their bearing on particular issues, I do not aim at a comprehensive survey of the Constitutional Court's record to date. Nevertheless. this study concludes with some provisional remarks about the record of the Constitutional Court since its inception and suggests possible ways in which the jurisprudence I have argued for may be pursued in furtherance of justice.
A defence of Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze's conception of reason.
(2015) Ntshangase, Mohammed Xolile.; Matolino, Bernard.
Abstract not available.
Defence of the primary quality view of colour.
(2001) Brzozowski, Jacek Jerzy.; Beck, Simon.
The aim of this thesis is to defend what is known as the primary quality view of colour. It will do this by arguing that this view better meets our conceptual schema than either of its rivals the subjectivist view or the secondary quality view. In pursuing this project, I highlight the five core beliefs (as identified by Johnston 1992) that make up our colour conceptual schema, identifying the two strongly realist beliefs as making up our prime intuition, and on these grounds I immediately reject the subjectivist stance. I then set out the primary quality view's main rival, the secondary quality view, and show how dispositionalists have argued that this view is best able to accommodate our core beliefs. However, I identify empirical findings that raise problems for the secondary quality view, revealing its inability to satisfy our extended colour concepts as well as an inability to adequately explain certain deviant cases. The core of my argument against the secondary quality view comes from what I call problems of causation, where I argue that as dispositions are not causes they are unable to meet our prime intuition, and therefore cannot be colours. I therefore set up a version of the primary quality view of colour, identifying colours with microphysical properties (or complexes thereof) and show why this view does not face the same problems of causation as the secondary quality view. I then argue that the secondary quality view does not have the advantage over the primary quality view, when it comes to the rest of our core beliefs, as its supporters would have us believe. I show how a primary quality view is able to fit all these core beliefs into our overarching colour conceptual schema, without having to appeal to the ontological extravagances that dispositionists must bestow upon colour. Finally, I address two criticisms from commonsense that are laid against the primary quality view, and argue that the primary quality view is able to meet these conceptual demands and thereby conclude that the primary quality view is the better of the putative candidates competing for capturing the ontological status of colour.
Defending Rawls on the self: a response to the communitarian critique.
(2005) Matolino, Bernard.
This thesis aims at defending John Rawls from the communitarian critique by Michael Sandel and Alasdair Maclntyre. The main focus of the thesis is to investigate how cogent their criticism of Rawls's conception of the person is. In chapter one I summarise Rawls's theory of justice. I look at the two principles of justice and what they entail. These principles determine the rights of the citizens as well as how material goods in society should be distributed. He formulates what he calls 'justice as fairness'. Deeply embedded in establishing the notion of justice as fairness are two inseparable ideas. These are the idea of the original position and the idea of the veil of ignorance. The original position presents a thought experiment in which individuals are brought together to come up with an ideal society that they would want to live in. The ideas they have to discuss ultimately include individual rights and freedoms as well as how material goods are to be shared in that society. The individuals, however, are deprived of certain crucial information about how they would appear in the resulting society. This is what Rawls calls the veil of ignorance. The individuals do not know who or what they are going to be in their society. In other words, they do not know if they are going to be male or female, rich or poor, rulers or the oppressed or what their personality traits/character type or talents and disabilities will be. In chapter two I will look at the communitarian objection to Rawls's project. As a crucial part of his characterisation of the veil of ignorance and the original position he claims that these individuals do not know of their own conception of the good. This means that they are not aware of what they will choose as worthwhile and what they will consider to be a wasted life. Thus, these individuals, in considering principles that must govern them, that is principles of justice, will not discriminate between those who pursue a life of enlightenment and those who pursue a life of drugs and heavy parties. This has caused problems with communitarians who insist that one cannot be indifferent to what she considers to be worthwhile. They argue that an individual will defend what she considers to be worthwhile in the face of what she considers to be base, she will discriminate what is worthwhile from what is not worthwhile. Any interpretation that does not conform to this understanding is a distorted understanding of the nature of individuals. The work of communitarians is very broad. My main concentration is going to be on the work of Michael J. Sandel and Alasdair Mclntyre in so far as they argue that Rawls's project rests on a fundamentally mistaken view of the self. I have chosen Sandel and Mclntyre because their work is similar though expressed differently. They both argue that Rawls views the individual as preceding the existence of her society. They both claim that Rawls is committed to a certain metaphysical view of the self that leaves out the essence of community and values in the make up of individuals. In chapter three I argue that the objections by both Maclntyre and Sandel fail to apply to Rawls's project. I argue that their objections have strayed from metaphysics of the person. Sandel and Maclntyre claim that Rawls is committed to a certain metaphysical view of the self. Sandel calls it an "antecedently individuated self and Maclntyre calls it an "unencumbered emotivist self. Using the example of Derek Parfit and Bernard Williams I conclude that Sandel and Maclntyre are not discussing metaphysics of the person but have brought other issues that are at odds with our traditional understanding of the metaphysics of the self. In chapter four I conclude by considering the differences between my response to the communitarian critique and Rawls's response. Rawls explicitly denies that his theory is committed to any view of the person. He argues that justice as fairness is intended as a political conception of justice. He argues that justice as fairness is a moral conception that is meant for a specific subject. The subject he has in mind refers to the economic social and political institutions that make up society. Rawls chooses to explain what his theory entails and its limitations regarding metaphysics. I show how my response differs from Rawls's and argue that my response has got certain attractions over Rawls's own response. I end by looking at possible ways of furthering the debate.
Development and preliminary application of an instrument to detect partial dissociation of emotional mental state knowledge and non-emotional mental state knowledge.
(2010) Scheepers, Stefan.; Spurrett, David.
Theory of mind is the ability to have mental states about mental states. Among theories concerning the structure and role of theory of mind is the view that theory of mind is the cognitive component of empathy. It is proposed that there is partial dissociation within theory of mind between emotional state representation and non-emotional state representation. In trying to test this hypothesis, an instrument was developed and implemented in a pilot study. Current theory of mind tests are reviewed and design features discussed in relation to the new hypothesis. The instrument aims to measure emotional and non-emotional state representation on separate subscales, as well as coding representations from emotional stories and non-emotional stories separately. The instrument was administered to 33 third level or higher students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Groups were chosen from science major (n = 9) and humanities major (n = 24) students. The findings fail to show the group performance patterns reported in literature, for example that humanities students tend to score higher in ToM tests than science students. A number of factors might contribute to the finding, but principally, low sample size and unequal general cognitive ability between groups are proposed as vital. Problems with the pilot study are identified and improvements suggested for subsequent testing.
Distributed cognition in interpersonal dialogue.
(2003) Blair, Grant.; Spurrett, David.
The study of cognition has suggested different views of what a system needs to perform computations. A strong computationalist approach aims at producing and preserving true statements through syntactic recombinations of elements. AJternately a more action-oriented approach stresses the environment in which the system is placed and the structure that this may provide in performing computation. What is at issue is that the strong computationalist view depends on a particular view of symbols that are decontextualised and function primarily syntactically, in the service of pragmatic goals. It is argued that some of the lessons learned from embodied cognition, in the form of epistemic and strategic action, can aid the ways in which symbols are supposed to function in dialogue. In so doing, attention is turned away from the reification of speech both in the fonn of text manipulation and transcript and begins to look at the environment, situatedness, function and properties of speech. Consequently, language comes to embody some of the ways in which we manage our interaction with the world and other agents, making it a little more than an artefact but a little less than a complete and disembodied picture of rational cognition.
Drawing as thinking : an enquiry into the act of drawing as embodied extension of mind.
(2013) Wasserman, Marlene Louise.; Gouws, Andries Stefanus.
This thesis opposes the theory of ‘drawing as expression’ - the idea that a drawing is nothing but a post hoc exteriorisation of a prior mental process. A counter-hypothesis is investigated instead - that the physical act of sketching is itself a thought process and that the new thought processes which it facilitates would be impossible or severely impaired if it were absent. The conceptual framework for this investigation and the evidence for its hypothesis derive from three fields: firstly theories of the extended mind and embodied thinking from philosophy and cognitive science, secondly theories of drawing practice, and thirdly practitioners’ critical reflection on the significance of drawing in their own practice. The fluidity, multidimensionality and indeterminacy of the cognitive processes typical for openended domains like planning, design and the arts tend to flummox the dominant – computational – approach in cognitive science. Theories of the extended mind and embodied thinking present an alternative which can handle these features comfortably. Theories of embodied thinking, which hail from diverse disciplines – including philosophy, cognitive science and artificial intelligence – argue that cognition is not independent of the body, but enabled by embodied activity embedded in the environment. Extended mind theory suggests that certain active features of the environment actually constitute integral parts of human cognition. In such cases, the human organism is inextricably linked with an external entity in a two way interaction, creating a coupled system of which each part counts as fully cognitive. Clark uses the term ‘scaffolding’ to denote a broad class of cases in which such external structure is co-opted, annexed and exploited, thereby allowing us to achieve some goal which would otherwise be beyond us. This leads to the central question of this thesis: can the act of drawing be understood with the help of theories of embodied thinking and the extended mind, and if so, how? A second, related question is how the example of drawing helps extend these theories. From this perspective design thinking and reasoning is to a large extent embedded in the act of drawing. Drawing, as a form of scaffolding, filters or guides perceptual, affective and cognitive attention and behaviour in ways only available to brains coupled with pencils and other drawing materials. (External representations can for instance be extended in space, rotated, manipulated, rearranged and interacted with in ways that internal representations cannot). The theories of drawing practice studied for this research came mainly from art theory, design theory and empirical studies of how drawing contributes to the cognitive process. Clark and Karmiloff- Smith suggest that knowledge stored in some proprietary representational format often needs to be redescribed in some other, more suitable format to become accessible to other types of representations and processes. A key role that drawing is found to play in multiple contexts (design, fine art, mathematics, etc.) is to draw to the surface implicit, previously unarticulated information for use by other procedures and the whole cognitive system. Sketching plays many other roles in promoting the cognitive operations needed to tackle design problems, which are often so complex that individual reason would quickly be overwhelmed in the absence of environmental offloading. Sketching can compensate for limitations in human memory and information processing capacity, can help identify aspects of concern, relationships and patterns, as well as help maintain focus and generate new knowledge. The South African artist William Kentridge’s critical reflections on the significance of drawing in his own practice support extended mind theory. His reflections alert us to the materiality of the creative process and dovetail with recent attempts by philosophers and other theorists to explain creativity. In drawing cognition appears as a dynamic, multidimensional phenomenon in which explicit, implicit and tacit information all work together in an ensemble distributed across brain, body and world while utilising variable physical, technological and social resources. Because drawing is an activity which emphasises ‘generic’ aspects of creativity, studying it sheds light on many other forms of problem solving by humans. This echoes Kentridge’s suggestion that drawing, as a slow motion form of thinking, offers a paradigm for illuminating thinking in general. Drawing proves to be a good context for exploring questions about where cognitive processes reside. By extending cognition beyond the brain and into the world, we come to appreciate that external drawing processes in a cognitive system are at least as important as ‘internal’ ones, and that the marks on paper form an integral part of the apparatus responsible for the shape and flow of thoughts and ideas.
Early generation selection of bread wheat (triticum aestivum L.) genotypes for drought tolerance.
(2018) Shamuyarira, Kwame Wilson.; Shimelis, Hussein Ali.
Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the third most important cereal crop after rice and maize globally. Dryland wheat production in South Africa is challenged by recurrent drought leading to low profitability for farmers. Development of drought tolerant wheat genotypes presents the most sustainable strategy to mitigate the effects of drought stress associated with climate change. In an attempt to develop drought tolerant wheat genotypes, the wheat research group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in collaboration with the Agricultural Research Council-Small Grain Institute (ARC-SGI) developed a breeding population and advanced it to the F2 generation. The breeding population was developed through crosses involving selected promising parents with local drought susceptible cultivars. The F2 families need to be advanced to the F3 generation and selected for genetic advancement with regards to drought tolerance and important agronomic traits. Therefore, the overall objective of this study was to select superior drought tolerant bread wheat families at the F3 generation for further screening in advanced generations. The specific objectives of the study were: 1) to undertake early generation selection of wheat genotypes for drought tolerance and agronomic traits for genetic advancement, 2) to determine the combining ability effects and the mode of gene action that controls yield and yield components in selected wheat genotypes under drought-stressed and non-stressed conditions, and 3) to assess the association between yield and yield-components in wheat and identify the most important components to improve grain yield and drought tolerance. Seventy-eight genotypes consisting of 12 parents and their 66 F3 families were evaluated using a 13 x 6 alpha-lattice design with two replications in two contrasting water regimes under greenhouse and field conditions in the 2017/2018 growing season. The following agronomic traits were assessed: number of days to heading (DTH), days to maturity (DTM), plant height (PH), productive tiller number (TN), spike length (SL), spikelets per spike (SPS), kernels per spike (KPS), thousand kernel weight (TKW), fresh biomass (BI) and grain yield (GY). Highly significant differences (P<0.05) were observed for the assessed traits among the genotypes under the two water regimes. Variance components and heritability estimates among agronomic traits and yield showed high values for days to heading and fresh biomass under drought stress. Genetic advance values of 29.73% and 37.61% were calculated under drought-stressed and non-stressed conditions, respectively, for fresh biomass. The families LM02 x LM05, LM13 x LM45, LM02 x LM23 and LM09 x LM45 were relatively high yielding in both stressed and non-stressed conditions and are recommended for genetic advancement. The above data were subjected to combining ability analysis to discern best combiners. Significant general combining ability (GCA) effects of parents were observed for DTH, PH and SL in both the greenhouse and the field under drought-stressed and non-stressed conditions. The specific combining ability (SCA) effects of progenies were only significant for DTH under all testing conditions. The heritability of most traits was low (0 < h2 < 0.40) except for SL which showed moderate heritability of 0.41 under drought-stressed condition. The GCA/SCA ratio was below one for all the traits indicating the predominance of non-additive gene action. Low negative GCA effects were observed for DTH, DTM and PH on parental line LM17 in a desirable direction for drought tolerance. High positive GCA effects were observed on LM23 for TN and SL, LM04 and LM05 (for SL, SPS and KPS), LM21 (TKW), LM13 and LM23 (BI) and LM02, LM13 and LM23 for GY. Families LM02 x LM05 and LM02 x LM17 were the best performers across the test conditions. Significant correlations (P<0.05) were observed between GY with PH, TN, SL, KPS, TKW and BI under both drought-stressed and non-stressed conditions. Partitioning of correlation coefficients into direct and indirect effects revealed high positive direct effects of KPS and BI on GY under drought-stressed conditions. Among all the assessed traits, BI had significant simple correlations of 0.75 and 0.90, and high direct effects of 0.76 and 0.98 with grain yield under drought-stressed and non-stressed conditions, in that order. The top yielding genotypes such as LM02 x LM05, LM02 x LM23 and LM13 x LM45, showed high mean values for KPS, TKW and BI. The overall association analyses indicated that the latter three traits had significant influence on grain yield performance and are useful for selection of drought tolerant breeding populations of wheat. Overall, the present study identified promising families including LM02 x LM05, LM02 x LM23, LM09 x LM45 and LM13 x LM45 that have drought tolerance and suitable agronomic traits. These families can be advanced using the single seed descent selection method for further characterisation of end-use quality traits and comparison with local checks or commercial cultivars.
The effects of citizen journalism on the ethics of journalism : the case of the Marikana Massacre and the #FeesMustFall movement.
(2019) Shandu, Nothando Happy-Girl.; Okyere-Manu, Beatrice Dedaa.
Citizen journalism has for many years, been conceived as a new phenomenon of the twenty-first century, whereas, it has been around long before this period. Due to the creation of the internet and the readiness and accessibility of technology, the general public has drastically been exposed to various ways of communicating and engaging with news. This often includes the capability of reporting breaking news at a swifter speed than the average professional journalist. The profession of journalism has been significantly affected by the overwhelming phenomena of citizen journalism because professional journalists have to write, edit and crosscheck news at a far more rapid pace. Thus, placing pressure on the profession of journalism and its ethics. Citizen journalism is undeniably a heavily appreciated tool of the present-day as it enables a free flow of news content. This makes it possible to cover the majority of events happening around the world that professional journalists might miss out on. This might be a problem because from an ethical point of view, citizen journalism also presents news content that is unregulated and haphazard in quality and coverage. While this challenge is immense, research on its implications to the profession of journalism and its ethics is minimal. The existing literature focuses on the new and advanced technological way of newsgathering, its production and dissemination with a lack of emphasis on journalism ethics. The current study seeks to examine how citizen journalism affects the ethics of journalism. This is done with the use of the ethical theory of consequentialism. The theory is used to explore and evaluate the consequences of the activities taking place in the use of social media platforms as a source of information and news coverage. The study uses the case of the Marikana massacre and the #FeesMustFall movement as classic examples of how citizen journalism affects the ethics of the profession of journalism.
Embodied minds: a critical response to McMahan on personal identity.
(2009) Oyowe, Oritsegbubemi Anthony.
No abstract available.
Environmental ethics : the adequacy and applicability of extensionist approaches.
(2001) Sivil, Richard.; Gouws, Andries Stefanus.
No abstract available.
Ethical correlates of Indian metaphysics with special emphasis on Samkhya, Advaita and Visistadvaita.
(1988) Dewa, Harilal G.; Zangenberg, F.
The work undertakes an examination of Indian metaphysical theories and their relationship to ethical ideas and moral conduct, as these operate in Indian thought. Special account is taken of the samkhya, advaita and visistadvaita systems, the metaphysical conceptions presupposed in these systems, and the ethical theories proposed by them. The peculiarities characteristic of each system in terms of both metaphysics and ethics are set out and examined in terms of the vital concepts of dharma, karma and mok~a. It is demonstrated that, in the case of each system the original classical formulations, as supported by a relatively consistent dialectic through the centuries down to modern times, in fact accentuate and harden the distinctions among the systems . se fuat 1he three systems appear to be supporting distinctly differing patterns of ethical behaviours. The safukhya is seen to be supporting a somewhat simplistic model of life-denying ethics as flowing from its metaphysical premises, while the visistadvaita, with its clear accent on theism, gives the impression of a more positive attitude in ethical thought and practice. Its ethical concerns, however, are seen to be markedly individualistic in character and operation. The advaita system, with its singular peculiarity of a splitlevel theoretic orientation, is seen to vac~te between a negative withdrawal from life, and a mor-e positive concern towards life in the world. The complex character of advaita metaphysical constructs, in their relation to the more ~ractical aspects of life, are seen to be related to the operation of some stresses and tensions reflected at the individual and social levels.
Evo-existentialism: facing death.
(2021) Stencel, Daniel Michael.; Spurrett, David.
Mortality awareness is a uniquely human phenomenon that the existentialists believed science was unable to explain. However, excluding the topic from scientific enquiry doesn’t make as much sense as it previously did. The recent advances in evolutionary biology and neuroscience have provided new ways to access the previously inaccessible existential features of people. Mortality awareness exerts various psychological effects on people which motivate them to behave in different ways. In order to capture the scope of these responses I have developed an integrative defensive behavioural model comprised of six levels coinciding with the Threat Imminence Continuum (Fanselow and Lester, 1988), Survival Optimization System (Mobbs, 2015), A New Defensive Taxonomy (Ledoux and Daw, 2018) and Dennett’s Tower of Generate and Test (Dennett, 1997). I argue that mortality awareness can result in a multitude of defensive behaviours, including fixed reaction patterns, learned habits as well explicit deliberate actions, and there may be competition between them. This range of defensive behaviours can be explained by the following key factors: The intensity of the reinforcer, proximity and appraised emotional intensity. A rigorous evolutionary approach to mortality awareness has not as yet been presented, however recently in psychology a theory has emerged called Terror Management theory (TMT) which has gained influence and support (Greenberg et al., 1986). The proponents of TMT argue that in order to cope with potentially debilitating fear of death, people engage with cultural ideas, beliefs, values, and concepts in an attempt to regulate this fear. People invent, absorb, and cling to cultural worldviews which ultimately avoid and suppress the awareness of death by providing a theory of reality that provides meaning, purpose, significance and the hope of immortality. Death awareness exerts motivational force on human behaviour due to the emotions of fear, anxiety, dread and terror that are associated with it. This is supported by the current findings in both TMT and biology which show that anxiety and fear motivate specific behaviours toward avoidance and continued survival. Hence the avoidance of death- related concerns seems natural. The avoidance and/or suppression of death was a position the existentialists were concerned about. In contrast most existentialists favoured acceptance but they were sceptical whether people could truly face their mortality and accept it. However, recent research in neuroscience provides support for acceptance as a potential coping mechanism. An unlikely convergence presents itself between science and existentialism which provides scope for a cooperative approach.

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