Department of Philosophy

From dis-enclosure to decolonisation : in dialogue with Nancy and Mbembe on self-determination and the other

Gerber, Schalk Hendrik (MDPI, 2018-04-13)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: What might a sense of decolonisation (not)/be? Or, what comes after the logic of the coloniser? This question is at the centre of many debates in South Africa and extends to all countries worldwide who ...

Supply chain slavery : the case for corporate responsibility beyond direct suppliers

Schoeman, Cynthia Therese (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Human rights abuse in employment practices is especially widespread in corporate supply chains. These abuses are increasingly recognised as modern slavery, which is defined as “forced labour, debt ...

Attenuating the problem of moral luck : how moral luck either does not exist or does not create a paradox for our moral systems

Bock, Ivan (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the 1970’s Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel formally introduced the problem of moral luck. Moral luck can be understood as the seeming paradox between the control principle and the moral judgements ...

Authenticity of informed consent in anaesthesia : ethical reflection on the dilemma of informed consent in anaesthesia

Potgieter, Helet Elizabeth (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Informed consent is the process by which the treating health care provider discloses appropriate information to a competent patient so that the patient may make a voluntary choice to accept or refuse ...

The value of being wild : a phenomenological approach to wildlife conservation

Cruise, Adam John (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Given that one-million species are currently threatened with extinction and that humans are undermining the entire natural infrastructure on which our modern world depends (IPBES, 2019), this dissertation ...

Is life to be taken seriously?

Du Plessis, Daniel Willem (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, the question “is life serious?” is posed and answered. To answer this question, a conceptual analysis of the concepts ‘life’ and ‘serious’ is undertaken along with an extrapolation and ...

Whose morality, whose burden : abortion, international development and grandstanding

Thetard, Rudolph Court Heinrich (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT : The Roe v. Wade decision (1973) by the American Supreme Court is a pivotal moment in American history when the onus of choice about abortion shifted to pregnant women. While this signified victory for ...

Oor die vraag na identiteit in ŉ postapartheidwêreld : ko-skepping as alternatief vir onto-rasselogie

Gerber, Schalk (Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, 2018)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: How does one understand who one is in a post-apartheid world? Put differently: what comes after the logic of apartheid? In this article I take up the question by arguing for a notion of identity as action ...

Stories of us and them : Xenophobia and political narratives

Cilliers, Judy-Ann (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation aims to make sense of xenophobia as a specific idea of belonging and exclusion based on the idea of foreignness. I provide a conceptual and normative framework to help us understand ...

Human embryonic stem cell research in transplantation and regenerative medicine : a principlist assessment

Kidha, Dan Kidha (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Bioethics and scientific literature present transplantation and regenerative medicine as the next frontier for medical practice. The status of global disease burden also indicates that traditional ...

A utilitarian assessment of the relevance of genetic therapies for HIV-AIDS in Africa, with special reference to the situation in Kenya

Obengo, Tom Joel (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University., 2020-03)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: As African countries continue to bear the largest global burden of HIV-AIDS, the use of Highly Active Antiviral Treatment (HAART) for suppression of viral multiplication is the best available treatment ...

They can be choosers : Aid, Levinas and unconditional cash transfers

Andrade, Julio (Medknow Publications, 2019)

In this paper I seek to critically examine UCT’s and CCT’s and consider how a Levinasian ethics might offer normative guidelines to evaluate such aid programmes. Such an analysis will serve to both critique and supplement ...

Ladyman’s Realism, van Fraassen’s Anti-Realism and Fine’s Middle-Way

Van der Merwe, Ragnar (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to critically analyse and evaluate the current debate between scientific realists and anti-realists. Some thinkers claim that the debate is a stalemate, with both parties appealing ...

Moral Encounters of the Artificial Kind: Towards a non-anthropocentric account of machine moral agency

Tollon, Fabio (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to advance a philosophically justifiable account of Artificial Moral Agency (AMA). Concerns about the moral status of Artificial Intelligence (AI) traditionally turn on questions ...

Toward a naturalistically explicable folk psychology

Hougaard, Deryck Simon (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the gap between what our science says and how many theorists and everyday people have characterised how we conceive of mental states. I argue that looking at our folk psychology ...

Developing an understanding of agricultural sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa through African relational envirnmentalism

Steyn, Adele (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The objection to anthropocentrism as a worldview is not new to environmental ethics. Many philosophers argue that anthropocentrism is the root cause of humanity’s destructive attitude towards the non-human ...