Masters Degrees (Philosophy)

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https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/653

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Vergil and the land : Georgic wonder and ethics of place
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) de Villiers, Annemarie; Hattingh, Johan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy. Applied Ethics.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study considers parallels between the environmental thoughts of the ancient Latin poet Vergil and three contemporary frameworks in environmental ethics: Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, Arne Naess’ Deep Ecology, and Peter Berg’s bioregionalism. Long before environmental ethics or even the notion of nature conservation existed, ancient thinkers were already reflecting on human impact on the environment and on our interaction with non-human animals. In his didactic poem on agriculture, the Georgics, Vergil presents us with a farmer who takes a holistic approach to his land. He regards his land and its non-human inhabitants with respect, sympathy and even love in some cases. This farmer is not trying to conquer the land; rather, he is keenly aware that he is taught by the land and that he needs to work with the land and its non-human inhabitants as his partners. Furthermore, he is living in a particular place, where the landscape, soil, weather, and natural vegetation are particular, and the kind of care needed for domestic crops and animals in this place also has to be particular. Vergil does not hesitate to praise the beauty of his native Italy and to wonder at the marvel of new life and new growth. Similarly, he does not conceal his disappointment and sadness, even empathy at times, at the loss of biotic life. Against the background of Leopold’s, Naess’ and Berg’s work, this study therefore argues that there is an ethic which emerges from a close reading of the Georgics, which resembles the thoughts from the land ethic, the Deep Ecology movement and bioregionalism, almost two thousand years before any of these frameworks were conceptualized. The notions of land as a community of which humans are mere members, of co-operation and co-existence, of self-realization through others, localization and of living-in-place may all be detected in Vergil’s ethical thoughts on farming. This ethic guides not only the ancient farmer but should guide humankind today to deal more ethically in our engagement with the natural world. The discussion rests on both emotional and intellectual arguments. Firstly, I argue that the natural world sparks a sense of wonder in the attuned viewer, which is heightened by an embodied experience of the non-human. The georgic farmer clearly has such a relational experience of the land and his co-inhabitants. This is georgic wonder. Secondly, I argue that georgic wonder sparks an attraction, a sense of care which informs ethical engagement with the biotic community. This study thus contends that the georgic farmer’s lived experience reveals a code of conduct which offers timeless moral principles that closely resemble those of Leopold, Naess, and Berg, prescribing how we ought to live in and with the natural world. This is the georgic ethic.
The refugee event : negotiating European identity, sovereignty and democracy.
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) February, Tamlyn Rachel; Woermann, Minka; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy. Applied Ethics.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The primary focus of this thesis is the European Refugee Crisis of 2015, where one million refugees arrived on European shores to exercise their human right of asylum seeking. European nation-states displayed an overwhelming unwillingness to receive the refugees and fulfil the duties of international law. I question why the crisis was depicted as a “crisis of contamination” of Europeanness and European identity, and importantly, how identities are perceived to be contaminable in the first place. I argue that contaminable identities are premised upon the modernist epistemology that identities are centred, fixed, essential and pure. I situate the European Refugee Crisis of 2015 and the discourse of contaminable identities in the broader global political context of the modern nation-state, which is also premised upon the modernist epistemology of identity. This is evident in the way in which the modern nation-state forges and securitises us-them and friend-enemy political identities. I draw upon the French post-structural philosopher, Jacques Derrida, to unsettle the metaphysics of presence that the discourse of contaminable identities relies upon. Derrida argues that identities are the product of a contamination of traces of differences, which undermines the logic of exteriorisation and securitisation to protect Europeanness or the nation from contamination. Derrida’s reinterpretation allows us to reinterpret contaminable identities as hospitable identities and a politics of presence or power as an ethical and just politics to come.
On the moral permissibility of active, voluntary, physician-administered euthanasia
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-11) Joseph, Cameron Albert; Van Niekerk, Anton A. ; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy. Applied Ethics.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Voluntary Physician-Administered Euthanasia (VPAE) is currently illegal in many countries including the Republic of South Africa. Most proponents of VPAE argue for its permissibility by reference to either a respect for autonomy or acting in the patient’s best interest. In this paper I have argued that none of these arguments are solely sufficient to make the case for VPAE. Rather, viewing them as equally important and necessary conditions which rise to the level of justification for VPAE is a more tenable solution to the moral dilemma at hand. Objections related to the Dualistic View, palliative care, slippery slope arguments, the doctrine of double effect and issues relating to the right to life raise important considerations with regards to the practice of VPAE. Whilst these objections serve as prudent safeguards on the practice of VPAE, none of them ultimately rise to the level of a convincing rebuttal to the argument in favour of VPAE. As such, I believe that the arguments outlined in this paper favour the moral permissibility of VPAE. It is my hope that a recognition of the moral permissibility of this practice will spur both the legislature and the judiciary in South Africa to strongly reconsider the current prohibition of VPAE.
A story of the scoliotic body: reimagining the posture of philosophy with Adriana Cavarero and feminist disability theory
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-11) den Besten, Lauren Marion; du Toit, Louise; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis ventures to reimagine the body posture of the philosophical subject as inclined and scoliotic, as opposed to vertical. The first main objective is to elucidate the symbolic and physical denigration faced by women in general and people/women with disabilities, who are said to deviate from the vertical, erect, posture of the normative philosophical subject, emblematic of the Western symbolic order. I draw extensively from feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s seminal works, especially Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude (2016) and Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence (2009), together with feminist disability theory, to facilitate a nuanced and creative analysis of the vertical figure’s motive to denigrate bodies that incline. I show how this vertical figure has ‘disabled’ women’s bodies and the multifaceted ways in which vulnerability, gender, violence, and ethics intersect. The second main objective is to use Cavarero's concept of the inclined figure and feminist disability theory to reconceptualize the philosophical subject's body posture. In the place of the traditional upright figure, I seek to reimagine the philosopher’s posture as inclined and scoliotic, leading to a transformative understanding of ontology, ethics, and politics. Viewed from the philosophical perspective of the scoliotic subject, these domains of philosophy appear as concerned with the human condition of being inclined, corporeal, and vulnerable. The traditional reign of the philosophical subject characterised by verticality, self-sufficiency, disembodiedness and invulnerability, must end. I further aim to explore the potential of narrative language as a tool for deconstructing the symbolic order of the vertical figure and reinventing a language in which women, the disabled, and of course disabled women can speak philosophically in their own language and on their terms. Each chapter will be thematically marked by at least one of my disabilities or bodily differences: the curved spine, the naked pate of a woman with Alopecia, and the story of a girl with epilepsy serve as the corporeal tapestries or templates for my philosophical investigations. In so doing, my project has a fleshy, visceral outline and gestures towards my first act of philosophical disobedience, namely, to theorise through my own flesh. I will therefore read philosophy through a prism of narration about bodily existence, through relaying historical stories of discrimination, through relaying stories of pain and public humiliation, as well as, importantly, a political story of resistance to the injustices that accompanied these experiences.
The ethical complexities of palliative sedation
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-12) Odell, Shannon; Hall, Susan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy. Applied Ethics.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Within the realms of the continuum of palliative care at the end-of-life, is the rare, last-resort practice of palliative sedation. Palliative sedation is the intentional lowering of an imminently dying patient’s consciousness to relieve their suffering, when despite all prior attempts at reprieve, the patient’s intolerable symptoms remain refractory. This thesis probes whether palliative sedation can be justified sufficiently at the end-of-life for the reasons set out in the literature, including existential suffering, and whether these reasons are relevant in the South African context. The research objectives were multiple. Initially, it was necessary to establish the conceptual boundaries of palliative sedation by reviewing the various definitions and guidelines available in the literature, and clarifying concepts such as refractoriness, tolerability, pain, suffering, proportionality, terminality and consciousness. The arguments pertaining to the application of palliative sedation to existential suffering were presented. Reviewing the available evidence regarding palliative sedation not hastening death, and other types of sedation and practices such as voluntary euthanasia, physicianassisted suicide and the withholding and withdrawal of nutrition and hydration helped to define the conceptual framework for palliative sedation further. Subsequently, the doctrine of double effect was critically analysed for its applicability as a moral justification of palliative sedation. In addition, analysis of other relevant moral frameworks - namely principlism, utilitarianism, Kantianism and virtue ethics - provided a broader framework for the ethical discernment of the complexities inherent to palliative sedation. Finally, the tentative suggestion was made to consider Aristotle’s “golden mean” and the concepts of tolerability and compassion being represented on a spectrum, with the healthcare practitioner and multidisciplinary team pursuing the intermediate between the extremes. This seems reasonable to equip healthcare practitioners in the South African context to strengthen their moral reasoning regarding palliative sedation. Further research is required to increase empirical knowledge relating to the practical aspects of palliative sedation implementation and guideline development, and also to clarify ethical constructs to guide healthcare practitioners navigating end-of-life decisions and to reduce their moral distress pertaining to palliative sedation.

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