A Thomistic Reading of Small-Scale Uses of Force

This thesis makes both a substantive and methodological contribution to knowledge. Firstly, it assesses the moral issue of a worrisome increase in the use of small-scale force post-9/11 from a Thomistic just war perspective. Concentrating on one such use of force, namely the practice of targeted killing, it engages in a “renegotiation” of the inherited Thomistic jus ad bellum in order to address the moral questions raised by this recent development in military conduct. Secondly, the thesis seeks to recover the method of traditional casuistry built around the ethics of Aquinas. Employing “Thomistic casuistry” can, it will be argued, approximate the analytical rigour of the revisionist just war while it does not have to disregard the use of history for moral reflection. In addition, “Thomistic casuistry,” as a distinct “third-way” approach to just war, is capable of triggering an exchange between Walzerians and revisionists, the two dominating contemporary approaches which have faced each other in a “war of ethics within the ethics of war.

A comparison of the philosophical traditions of Neo-Casuistry and situation ethics in the context of morality issues arising in the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’

The purpose of this research is through extensive examination to compare and contrast two very different ethical decision-making frameworks, both forged in the Christian tradition. An examination will be undertaken of Neo-Casuistry and Christian Situationism and their respective abilities to provide their practitioners with the tools for moral decision-making, moral resolution and ultimately moral truth that will serve to positively address moral dilemma and/or moral conflict resulting from the use of Fourth Order Technologies (4OT) in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Neo-Casuistry falls within the Catholic tradition and Christian Situationism falls within the Protestant tradition and the abilities of both religious, ethical decision-making frameworks to provide moral truth in 4IR will be examined, assessed and compared within the contemporary context of ‘privacy’ and the ‘personal’. The results of this research will support that an ethical decision-making framework that judiciously makes use of the ‘best practices’ from each of the traditions would appear to provide 4IR with the most suitable and practical means of finding moral truth in situations of moral dilemma and/or moral conflict.Religious Studies and ArabicD. Phil. (Religious Studies

Hermeneutics and moral imagination: the implications of Gadamer's truth and method for Christian ethics

This study considers the implications for Christian ethics of the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer (in particular, his hermeneutics as presented in Truth and Method). The adequacy of moral deliberation based on autonomous moral reasoning to complex dynamic situations is challenged, as is the Enlightenment conception of abstract, universal rationality. Two mąjor theses are proposed. First, that ethics (including Christian ethics) should adopt a stance that is properly hermeneutical: taking proper account of ethics' embeddedness in history and tradition; and abandoning hope of a universal or objective standpoint from which to make ethical judgements. Second, that human beings are fundamentally imaginative moral beings: imagination is central to ethics because it is central to language and reason. Legalism and utilitarianism are critiqued as examples of the dependence of ethics on notions of absolute truth and universal method. Gadamer’s Truth and Method is considered, highlighting areas of relevance to ethics. In response to Gadamer’s observations on the centrality of language to hermeneutics, the work of Mark Johnson in cognitive science is explored in detail. The centrality of imagination to moral reasoning and to conscience is noted; and parallels are drawn between conscience and taste. It is proposed that a proper emphasis on the metaphorical nature of moral language, together with a notion of reason (and of moral deliberation) that is essentially imaginative, accord better with the phenomenology of ethical deliberation than the traditional accounts and also allow for more flexible responses. The implications of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Johnson's moral imagination for Christian ethics are explored in relation to creation, incarnation, revelation and inspiration. The study concludes that a properly hermeneutical Christian ethics would allow a greater role for the imagination in moral deliberation and provide a system which is flexible, creative, and humane, and which properly reflects the goodness and beauty of God

Collaborative Justice: An Analysis of the Use of Justice in the Writings of Lisa Sowle Cahill

This dissertation explores the role of justice in the writings of Catholic ethicist Lisa Sowle Cahill. Since 1990, Cahill has supported theological voices participating in the public forum, which she describes as a meeting ground for diverse intellectual and religious traditions. Good argumentation is necessary but not sufficient to resolve ethical dilemmas within the politically liberal context in which Cahill makes her claims. Instead, her commitment to justice underwrites those narratives and practices which demand one\u27s fullest possible participation in contributing toward the common good. Cahill\u27s notion of justice develops correlatively to the degree that she integrates the principles of Catholic Social Teaching into her project. The dissertation describes this expansion in Cahill\u27s later essays as collaborative justice. The dissertation concludes with an examination of her writings on human genetic engineering as a potential application of collaborative justice. Cahill\u27s strong arguments can be helpful in steering the process toward less-harmful outcomes. In doing so, Cahill\u27s principles of collaborative justice look beyond act-focused considerations of Catholic ethics or the procedural justice of liberal traditions, and leaves open the possibility of reconciliation should such future genetic intervention prove undesirable

Interpreting Material Cooperation as a Function of Moral Development to Guide Ministry Formation

While not exactly back room political bargaining, the traditional use of cooperation has been by moral theologians attempting to define the level of cooperation for a particular situation. This chosen definition, in turn, may help focus the range of appropriate actions in response to the situation\u27s circumstances. In this customary usage, an organization\u27s associates (employees) may assist the implementation of relevant responses to a cooperation analysis, whether the issue is clinical or organizational in nature. They have not been integral to the decision-making process - until now. Cooperation has been the proverbial candle under the bushel (Matthew 5:15). This paper proposes the involvement of organizations\u27 associates not only for decision-making and discernment, but for their own moral development. The foundation of this thesis is not only that organizations are moral agents, but also that organizations are reflective of the moral development of their associates when they exercise their agency. Using this model, this theory advances a use of the principle of cooperation by interpreting cooperation as a function of moral development for advancing associates. Advancement, in this case, means that, optimally, the process will expose participants to individuals in various stages of moral development, challenge them in appropriate ways, and enhance their moral development as characterized by Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan. Even if participants do not advance in their moral development, the model proposed here will form participants in moral decision-making within the Catholic moral tradition. To a lesser degree, it is also a useful ministry discernment tool if appointed to discriminate responses to some of the individual and organizational issues (topics) mentioned above

Logic Programming and Machine Ethics

Transparency is a key requirement for ethical machines. Verified ethical behavior is not enough to establish justified trust in autonomous intelligent agents: it needs to be supported by the ability to explain decisions. Logic Programming (LP) has a great potential for developing such perspective ethical systems, as in fact logic rules are easily comprehensible by humans. Furthermore, LP is able to model causality, which is crucial for ethical decision making.Comment: In Proceedings ICLP 2020, arXiv:2009.09158. Invited paper for the ICLP2020 Panel on "Machine Ethics". arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1909.0825

Biomedical ethics and genetic epidemiology

Biomedical ethics developed in the late twentieth century as a challenge to the self- regulatory ethic that previously governed medical practice. Yet in recent years bioethics has come under scrutiny from the social sciences, which claim that the field relies upon an idealised notion of moral agency and fails to consider the extent to which ethical discourse is embedded in a wider societal context. In addition, bioethical concepts such as patient autonomy and informed consent have also recently been challenged by the rise of genetic medicine. After evaluating debates in the historical and philosophical development of biomedical ethics, this thesis uses a case study in genetic epidemiology (commonly referred to as biobanking) to examine competing normative and empirical claims made by bioethicists and social scientists. The study investigates the views and experiences of potential donors to a biobank in north-west England. Data analysis gives particular emphasis to socio-ethical issues such as consent, genetic donation, altruism, and benefit-sharing. Evidence from the case study illustrates that bioethics is susceptible to many of the charges levelled against it - namely that it lacks proper understanding of the processes by which moral concepts and categories are embedded in ongoing forms of social practice and experience. The thesis concludes with suggestions as to how bioethics may better combine philosophical and sociological methods