The Scientific Enterprise and Social Conscience

The scientific enterprise is constantly changing, and the moral conscience of society changes as well. The moral obligations of scientists to society change with both of these changes. Four such changes are especially relevant here. Over time, society has come to accept the idea of intervening to change the course of nature. Both science and society have begun to believe that there are no principled barriers to progress in science. Within society, there has emerged an “ecological mode of thought.” Finally, the relationship between theory and practice has changed. All four of these changes profoundly affect the ethics of science in society today

Language endangerment and language documentation in Africa

Non peer reviewe

Ethical Theory in Twentieth-Century America

Ethics in twentieth-century America is examined for the development of its theoretical approaches, the successive methodologies that furnished its intellectual tools, and some indication of sociohistorical problems it addressed. The account covers : general theory of value in the controversies over naturalizing man ; emotivism and the debate over relativism ; analytic ethics ; the growth of human rights theory ; the renewal of systematic theory contractarian, utilitarian, rationalist, pragmatic ; the emergence of a widespread applied ethics ; and the attempted redirection of ethical theory.Dans cet article, l'auteur examine l'éthique en Amérique au XXe siècle sous les rubriques suivantes : l'évolution de ses approches théoriques ; les méthodologies qui lui ont fourni successivement des outils intellectuels ; les problèmes socio-historiques auxquels elle s'est attaquée. Cette étude passe en revue : la théorie générale de la valeur dans les controverses concernant le naturalisme ; l'émotivisme et le débat sur le relativisme ; la morale analytique ; le développement d'une théorie des droits de l'homme ; le renouvellement des systèmes : contractualiste, utilitariste, rationaliste, pragmatique ; l'émergence d'une éthique appliquée générale ; et la tentative de donner une nouvelle direction à la théorie éthique.Edel Abraham. Ethical Theory in Twentieth-Century America. In: Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines, N°34, novembre 1987. La philosophie américaine. pp. 515-527

Security Management in a Peace Observation Mission

The aim of this thesis is to provide an understanding of how the concept of security is looked upon at,and how security regulations are being implemented and organized in peace observation missions, within the framework of Civilian Crisis Management (CCM). This thesis has been carried out as a research project. The topic was chosen independently by the author, and not as a assignment by a beneficiary, due to the fact that the political pressure in missions can be very high. Any thesis conclusion could easily be interpreted as contradictive, or in favor to one of the party’s interests. The objective in this thesis is to see whether common security theories are used, to what extent, if there is space for improvement and in that case what kind. The knowledge base in the thesis is constructed on a combination of the author’s own work experience of twenty years within security and civilian crisis management, and an extensive use of the most relevant literature and electronic publications within the field concerned. The research method used, is the participating observation method. This method was chosen, due to the fact that the author currently works in a peace observation mission. The author intensively observed and personally experienced the phenomena and procedures concerned, on the spot, during a period of six months. The main conclusion of this research project is that improvements could be made regarding the security regulations in the peace observation mission, within the framework of Civilian Crisis Management (CCM), which the author used for this research project. Instead of implementing general mission wide security risk assessments and using general security regulations, it could increase the effectiveness of the mission if the mission instead would implement tailor made security regulations and security risk assessments. The security regulations and security risk assessments could for example be based on the current situation in a specific area, instead of focusing on the general security situation in the country. In this particular research case, the security principles of TEAR and ALARP were used, but not in the most effective way. Since the political pressure in Civilian Crisis Management missions can be very high, a tendency that the security design is not focused on effectiveness, but rather on prevention of any type of liability, can sometimes be seen