MA, Kent State University, 2014, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

My thesis investigates the virtues of care and compassion as they inform excellent service work. Beginning with Nel Noddings' ethics of care, I argue that care ought to be subsumed as a central virtue in eudaimonistic virtue ethics. However, the concept of care has conceptual difficulty in prescribing actions regarding strangers, the primary target of volunteer work. Given this mismatch between theory and practice, I turn to the virtue of compassion, exploring its conceptual boundaries and aims. I then argue that service providers must cultivate compassion in order to consistently do excellent service work.

Committee: Kim Garchar (Advisor); Michael Byron (Committee Member); Gina Zavota (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

A mixed methods study was conducted to create pedagogical practices to help teachers identify ways of better accommodating students who have been impacted with trauma. Findings suggest that both veteran, as well as entry leveled teachers had insufficient training when it came to trauma informed care, social-emotional learning, and knowledge of the ethics of care. Themes which emerged from the findings allowed for an extensive action plan to be created. By applying Nodding's (2005), ethics of care- implementing care into the classroom, Maslow's hierarchy of needs- making sure the basic needs of students are met (Hooper, 2020), and adopting a social-emotional curriculum to focus on a student's well-being (Bailey et al., 2019), the action plan's objectives were to establish a trauma informed care program. A 3 tiered step by step program was created for teachers to receive the proper training on social-emotional curriculum, professional development, and untimely embed a new trauma informed care program.

Committee: James Olive (Committee Chair) Subjects: Education; Ethics; Teacher Education; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Political Science

Citizenship today is marked by widespread dependence and political disempowerment. Described as political denizenship, this phenomenon entails domination, understood as arbitrary interference in decisions we are otherwise in a position to make for ourselves. As a political theory focusing in the first instance on the reduction of domination, neorepublicanism holds promise as a countervailing political project against contemporary denizenship. However, as I argue, neorepublican political thought lacks a plausible theory by which citizens can be constructed. Without a theory of the citizen, neorepublicanism fails to deliver the agents who can perform the necessary work of accountability, who understand their civic role, who have the knowledge to engage in political processes, and who are motivated to do the preceding work. I therefore turn to care ethics to provide a basis for other-regarding republican citizenship focused on caring for other individuals as well as for the broader community. One of the primary vehicles for the construction of caring citizens has been in civil society. In chapter three, I assess the extent to which civil society can perform the necessary labor of creating caring citizens through the proliferation of social capital and find it lacking. The principal issue with civil society is the problem of homophily, or like seeking like. To combat this, I propose mandatory national service in chapter four as a policy mechanism to overcome the problem of homophily and ultimately reinvigorate civil society as a downstream salutary effect. National service holds promise as a mechanism to promote widespread trust, political engagement, and empowerment of citizens across generations.

Committee: Eric MacGilvray (Advisor); Inés Valdez (Other); Michael Neblo (Other) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Philosophy

Care exploitation pervades our lives, appearing prevalently in our homes, education system, military, and medical facilities. Consider the public schoolteachers that care about helping children achieve their goals by providing them with a proper education and are expected to do so by parents, administrators, or legislators – even with abysmal pay and little appreciation. I argue that the unique wrong of care exploitation is the failure to respect one's dignity by taking advantage of their vulnerability arising from caring about. Care exploitation occurs when a caring party answers another's call to aid in the flourishing of some person or project. This call to aid is made with the presumption that the caring individual will answer it, and is actively or passively made. The call isn't necessarily coercive or manipulative, and is made because the individual called has a general disposition to care about, or cares about the subject of the call in particular. It is presumed by the exploiter that the individual will likely accept the call because they care – where this care is a source of vulnerability. Upon articulating the unique wrong of care exploitation, I explore where responsibility for care exploitation lies both in structural and interpersonal relationships. I ultimately argue that, contingently, structural care exploitation arises against a background of gender injustice, and Iris Marion Young's Social Connection Model can help us understand who bears responsibility. Identifying those responsible in purely interpersonal cases is arguably more straightforward as a matter of scale. From here, I suggest a general framework for understanding one's responsibilities for preventing and addressing care exploitation in personal and structural relationships. I argue that one ought to respect caring individuals' self-authorship and ensure that their well-being is not undermined in all relationships, and in structural relationships orient oneself to a stance of solidarit (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Piers Turner (Advisor); Dana Howard (Committee Member); Benjamin McKean (Committee Member); Tristram McPherson (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2015, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Despite a general agreement across health care disciplines that Advanced Care Planning (ACP) and Advanced Directives (ADs) add important elements to a patient's end-of-life care desires, and can inform their loved ones and advocates, help create ease of mind, and enhance quality of care, they continue to remain significantly underused. More than half of Americans transition to chronic and terminal illness without having completed them. The aim of this study was to increase the frequency and enhance the quality of communication about Advance Directives and Advance Care Planning within the clinical relationship. The resulting Interdisciplinary Relational Model of Care (IRMOC) can help clinicians engage in more frequent and effective communication about ADs and ACP. This ontological hermeneutic study considered scholarly and professional, practice-based health services literature, along with juridical, legislative, policy, and philosophical texts that have informed previous models of care. Tacit and explicit phenomena, conditions, and practices of communication about ADs and ACP in the patient-clinician relationship were identified. In response to the phenomena, conditions, and practices identified in this study the IRMOC was formulated and applied to communication about Advance Directives and Advance Care Planning in the patient clinician relationship. The IRMOC was then expanded, made more nuanced, and contextualized within the overall philosophical, theoretical, and practical frameworks that informed the model. The electronic version of this dissertation is at OhioLink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd

Committee: Philip Cushman PhD (Committee Chair); Mary Wieneke PhD (Committee Member); Judith Gordon PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Aging; Clinical Psychology; Communication; Counseling Psychology; Gerontology; Health Care; Health Education; Health Sciences; Medical Ethics; Medicine; Oncology; Philosophy of Science; Psychology; Psychotherapy; Public Health Education; Therapy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Comparative Studies

Contemporary research practices in palliative medicine attempt to reduce, define, and study spirituality in end-of-life care with “scientific rigor” by isolating what counts as “spiritual.” Contrary to this move, informants from multisite hospice and bereavement spaces in this ethnographic study insist that encounters with death and dying lead to irreducible transformations that cannot be quantified or objectively defined. I argue that humans are irreducibly beings-in-relation (intimacy) rather than essentially isolated individuals (integrity), and thus “spiritual end-of-life care” necessitates attention to fluid, inextricably woven personal and relational processes. The thick social matrix of end-of-life scenarios supports the use of research methods and ethical models that acknowledge the contingent, particular, culturally embedded nature of humans as beings-in-relation. To that end, contemporary scholarship in the study of religion and feminist ethics can contribute much to debates about spirituality in end-of-life care. This study specifically analyzes relational orientations between the living and the dead to illustrate complex transformations during mourning. Using Thomas Kasulis's intimacy/integrity heuristic to analyze ethnographic interview texts, I argue that the death of a beloved other ruptures relational boundaries and destabilizes the mourner's imagined relation to the self, to the deceased, and to others. Narratives attest to oscillation among a range of wildly fluctuating relational orientations, yet suggest that internal relation to the deceased persists long after the death. Informants report intense affective dynamics akin to “labor,” yet these are interpreted as continued intimacy with the deceased. Esoteric experiences are framed tentatively, yet mourners see them as comforting “true signs” of connection to the deceased. Beliefs about death are speculative, personal, eclectic, and do not rely on participation in a religious tradition, yet all (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Kasulis Phd (Advisor); Tanya Erzen Phd (Committee Member); Daniel Reff Phd (Committee Member) Subjects: Religion

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2012, Antioch New England: Clinical Psychology

The cost of health and mental health care is a growing problem for the United States. Managed care evolved as a way to continue providing quality services in a cost-effective fashion. In the mental health field, some individuals believe managed care reduces the quality of treatment. This exploratory study investigates current sentiments among mental health clinicians regarding managed care's impact on mental health treatment and looks at how clinicians practice in light of managed care's guidelines for treating patients. This study explores the current impact of managed care compared with managed care's first detectable impact in the 1980s.

Committee: Victor Pantesco EdD (Committee Chair); David Hamolsky PsyD (Committee Member); William Slammon PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2010, Leadership and Change

The process of restorative justice involves the caring compassion of others by providing support for the peaceful resolution of the conflict. The term restorative justice is used to describe a justice practice that has been in existence for hundreds of years in many indigenous communities. Recently, it is emerging in modern criminal justice systems as a way to obtain fair reparation for the victim and to offer an opportunity for the victim and the offender to mediate and reconcile after the offense to restore balance and peace to the community. The process involves the participation of the victim, offender, and selected community members in all phases of the process. Restorative justice requires community involvement, thus encouraging community building, empowerment, and capacity enhancement. It can be adopted as a proactive method for preventing wrongdoings and misbehavior. Care theory supports the ethic that all individuals are responsible for meeting the basic needs of others. Its premise is based on the fact that we are all interconnected, and therefore, obligated to ensure all humanity has the basic necessities and the capacity to live a meaningful life. Care theory supports the tenets of restorative justice. The obligation to care involves ensuring the well being of all individuals including the fair treatment and the rehabilitation of those who have been victimized. The focus moves from punishment of the offender to restitution and reparation of harm for the victim. Restorative justice can be the modern model for conflict resolution. In this theoretical dissertation, I will present documentation to support my thesis that adopting the tenets of care ethics and restorative justice and recognizing the value of women's voices (specifically in matters of social and global justice) will provide a holistic and reconciliatory process for justice, a recognition for the need to be concerned for all of humanity, and a renewed commitment to establishing a sustainable wor (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carolyn Kenny PhD (Committee Chair); Laurien Alexandre PhD (Committee Member); Debora Halbert PhD (Committee Member); Brenda Morrison PhD (Other) Subjects: Criminology; Psychology; Social Research; Womens Studies

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, Arts and Sciences: Philosophy

Thus far, little research has been done to explain moral cognition and the experience of morality from the perspective of embodied cognitive science. My dissertation addresses this issue. Drawing on work from ethics, moral psychology, embodied cognitive science, ecological psychology, and feminist moral theory, I put forth a theory of ecological moral learning. The first chapter outlines the commitments of ecological psychology and identifies the conceptual tools required for an account of ecological moral learning. The second chapter examines ecological learning theory. The third chapter starts my positive proposal where I develop the theory of ecological moral learning. In this chapter I argue for two key ecological moral learning procedures. The first is ecological attentiveness, where agents learn to attune and calibrate to the features of the environment that indicate caregiving affordances. Second is ecological competency, where agents learn how to act upon these moral affordances given their coordination of action systems. In the fourth and final chapter, I argue for a third component of ecological learning theory, ecological responsibility, where agents learn to perceive a moral responsibility to act upon moral affordances. Agents learn to perceive ecological responsibility by learning which features of a specific situation indicate an obligatory, invitation to act. These three learning processes set the foundation for the exploration of moral affordances and the development of ecological moral psychology.

Committee: Anthony Chemero Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Alva Noe Ph.D. (Committee Member); Tehran Davis Ph.D. (Committee Member); Vanessa Carbonell Ph.D. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Philosophy

Ed.D., Antioch University, 2024, Education

Beginning at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education experienced a sea change in reduced enrollment, altered course delivery models, and increased need for student support. While observing staff's actual impact on the student experience during this time, this study will address the question, “How do professional staff in small private universities a) perceive their contributions to the retention of students and b) perceive their overall value to the institutions they serve?” Owing to gaps in research on professional staff experiences, the literature review synthesizes current trends related to enrollment, retention, and persistence, focusing on small, private, non-profit 4-year institutions; discusses the disparate impact of these trends; examines the context of academic staffing trends; reviews the experiences of professional staff, focusing on critical connections between student and institution, student learning within liminal spaces, gender, and relational practice; and, examining social justice leadership in postsecondary education staffing. This qualitative study employs a constructivist grounded theory method using an initial anonymous questionnaire and interviews with volunteers for a deeper exploration of themes. The pool of nine interview participants comprises mid-level professional staff with at least three years of experience in student-supporting roles from five private universities with under 5,000 students. Potential implications relate to improving student retention practices and eliminating barriers by rethinking staff structures, resource allocation, and investment in student support areas. Further implications are related to staff role satisfaction, socially just models for professional development, and training of the next generation of professional staff. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Committee: Emiliano Gonzalez Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Douglas Judge Ph.D. (Committee Member); Cristy Sugarman Ed.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Educational Leadership; Ethics; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Organizational Behavior

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

In this thesis, I evaluate substance abuse and the treatment of addicted persons through a lens of care ethics. The current policies in place focus on criminalization, which is largely ineffective at preventing and lowering rates of substance abuse. I use the relational definition of autonomy put forward by Onora O'Neill to analyze how addiction affects autonomy. I appeal to Stephanie Collins' four key claims of care ethics as the best ethical model to treat addiction using harm reduction policies.

Committee: Deborah Barnbaum (Advisor); Daniel Palmer (Committee Member); Polycarp Ikuenobe (Committee Member); Clare Stacey (Other) Subjects: Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, Bioethics

Clinical ethicists have become increasingly integrated at hospitals across the United States since the 1980s, prompting sustained efforts to professionalize the field of clinical ethics including the introduction of core competencies, a professional code of ethics, and a certification program. Despite these important milestones, the field still lacks a clear, unified scope of practice and discussions about the roles clinical ethicists ought to assume in health care are ongoing. Up until now, discourse has largely focused on what clinical ethicists can contribute to the health care environment; such a utility-based orientation to the efforts of clinical ethicists has resulted in the emotional impact of clinical ethics work on clinical ethicists going largely unrecognized. This dissertation establishes a foundational understanding of the emotional experiences of clinical ethicists, drawing on qualitative interviews with 34 clinical ethicists in the United States conducted between May and September of 2023 as well as a detailed conceptual analysis of burnout, moral injury, and moral distress as studied in other health professions. Results from this research suggest that clinical ethicists are assuming a significant emotional burden as a result of their clinical ethics work stemming from a variety of factors, including their regular exposure to ethically challenging situations, the variety of expectations placed on them by others, the diversity of the roles that they are playing in decisions regarding patient care, and the increasingly therapeutic nature of their work. Furthermore, the experiences of clinical ethicists are not sufficiently captured by existing terminology; this dissertation introduces the concept of secondary moral distress to describe the negative emotional impact that results from assuming a therapeutic role in a morally distressing situation. This work ultimately suggests that the burden assumed by these professionals is reason for significant concer (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Monica Gerrek (Committee Chair); Marsha Michie (Committee Member); Esther Bernhofer (Committee Member); Oliver Schirokauer (Committee Member); Mark Aulisio (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethics; Health Care; Medical Ethics; Medicine

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Bioethics

As technologies are developed and implemented at increasingly faster rates, an ethical assessment of human enhancement theory is warranted for the creation and efficacy of public health policy and medical practices. I will begin this assessment with a critique of one popular approach to ethical enhancement through the work of Allen Buchanan, who advocates for an ethics of development based on distributive justice, then I offer an ecofeminist ethics of care as an alternative way forward for the field of healthcare. At the root of an ethics of care is the concept of the human as a socially and ecologically embedded being, with shared dependencies and vulnerabilities. I will explore the implications of such a framing of humanity for the enhancement debate through the works of Chris J. Cuomo and Val Plumwood, then examine in vitro fertilization as a case study for the applicability of ecofeminist theory. In the end, I argue for a collaborative pursuit, despite the differences between these ethical methods, and call for further research in applying an ethics of care in the clinical enhancement setting.

Committee: Martin Fitzgerald (Committee Chair); Donal O'Mathuna (Committee Member); Dana Howard (Committee Member) Subjects: Biomedical Research; Ethics; Health; Health Care; Medical Ethics; Medicine; Philosophy; Public Health; Public Health Education; Public Policy

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

This qualitative action research study used the researcher's client-centric, ethicsof-care framework to explore how clients experienced their relationships with their attorneys. The study involved semi-structured, one-on-one interviews of nine former and current clients who provided in-depth accounts of their lived experiences with their attorney/s and the Firm. The results of the candid interviews revealed the themes of trust, support, attentiveness, safety, and communication; the shared experience of being handed off to a different attorney; inconsistencies in the clients' journeys; and gaps in the information needed and provided. The proposed action was to create a Client Journey Map, to emphasize the team approach within the Firm, and to provide documents to be distributed during clients' journeys

Committee: Davin Carr-Chellman (Committee Chair) Subjects: Law; Legal Studies

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2022, Educational Leadership

Through a critical phenomenological approach, this study captured the lived experiences of directors in the Ohio Private Academic Libraries (OPAL) consortium and their responses to dual pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic of racism. Individual qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten OPAL directors to examine their roles as leaders in times of upheaval. Findings indicate that the pandemics amplified challenges in emotional and practical ways. Directors contended with emotional labor marked by ambiguity and burnout. Practical challenges (staff reductions, enforcing safety protocols, and the Great Resignation) further impacted morale. Racially just, equitable systems encourage workplaces defined by compassion, autonomy, and respect. Thus, directors must prioritize antiracism actions to dismantle white supremacy and racial capitalism in their libraries.

Committee: Meredith Wronowski (Committee Chair); Miriam Matteson (Committee Member); Thomas Oldenski (Committee Member) Subjects: Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Library Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Political Science

Liberalism has traditionally been suspicious of considering the concept of care as a political principle fit for the public realm. Against this current, I propose a Liberalism with Care (LWC) where liberalism and care ethics lie in a complementary relationship. A liberalism that ignores the place of care in political life falls victim to two immanent critiques, of liberal subjectivity and liberal understanding. I argue that liberalism can best respond to these critiques by incorporating a principle of care which is a synthesis of care ethics and Dewey's affective epistemology. To locate a latent commitment to care in the liberal canon, I present a novel reading of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism and his collected works where I argue that a commitment to the cultivation of caring characters is a linchpin of his liberal utilitarianism. Mill's caring liberal utilitarianism also reveals the dangers of scaling up care to the public realm, and I consider reasons for why contemporary liberalism would rather prefer the concept of civic friendship than care as a political principle. I conclude that LWC dispels these concerns and better addresses the problems of liberalism than liberal skeptics often assume. Finally, I consider how our understanding of intersubjective boundaries can be reimagined into a caring view of boundaries. Considering two political events, one in South Korea and one in Nevada, I argue that the caring view of boundaries helps us avoid the unsatisfying features of existing accounts.

Committee: Eric MacGilvray (Advisor); Benjamin McKean (Committee Member); Michael Neblo (Committee Member) Subjects: Epistemology; Ethics; Philosophy; Political Science; Sociology; Theology

Master of Arts in Medical Ethics and Humanities, Northeast Ohio Medical University, 2021, College of Graduate Studies

Despite 20% of its population living with a disability, the United States continues to produce physicians who are inadequately trained in delivering equitable healthcare to disabled patients (United States Census Bureau, 2012; Wen, 2014). With patients and healthcare providers alike acknowledging this discrepancy, the medical education system ought to integrate the lived disability experience into existing medical curricula and establish standardized training requirements and competencies for trainees (Santoro et al, 2017). As a solution, I propose a disability-focused medical curriculum. Centered around the theory of care ethics, this longitudinal curriculum redefines “care” as a mutual exchange amongst team members, with the patient as the expert of his or her body, experiences, and community (Kittay, 2011). Both medical students and residents are exposed to didactics and practical experience- based learning that provide a strong understanding of (1) this theory of care ethics, (2) the combination of the positive elements of the medical and social models of disability, and (3) intersectionality. Upon successful implementation of this curriculum, trainees will acknowledge and affirm the patient's lived experience, heal patients in accordance with their personal values, desires, and goals, and work towards the alleviation of any extra burdens endured by patients who exist at multiple intersections of marginalization (Reynolds, 2018). As medical students and residents master these competencies, they will build a medical community that humanizes their patients rather than reinforcing the cycle of misconceptions fashioned by their predecessors.

Committee: Julie Aultman PhD (Advisor); Rachel Bracken PhD (Advisor) Subjects: Medical Ethics

MA, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Benevolent government is the central theme of Jeong Do-jeon's political philosophy, which in turn is primarily inspired by the Mencian view of human morality. Mengzi believed that all humans equally possess the capacity to become virtuous, and the role of the state will resemble that of a benevolent father, in that its primary function is to nurture and educate the people so they can adequately develop their moral capacities. Jeong's idea of benevolent government and the politics of peace of Sara Ruddick share certain similarities. In this thesis, I will argue that maternal thinking – as proposed by Sara Ruddick – is the underlying mode of thought behind Jeong's political theory. Such a connection can be established through a close reading of Mengzi and identifying the theme of maternal thinking apparent in the classical Confucian text, as interpreted by the contemporary scholar Joanne Birdwhistell. Some common aspects of both Jeong and Ruddick's philosophy is their stern opposition to blind obedience to hierarchy, and defense of respectful communications. I will reveal these common aspects by mainly focusing on the idea of remonstrance promoted by Jeong, and its resemblance to the emphasis on Ruddick's view of maternal thinking and politics.

Committee: Jung-Yeup Kim (Advisor); Michael Byron (Committee Member); Andreea Smaranda Aldea (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Bioethics

Secular bioethicists such as Ronit Stahl and Ezekiel Emmanuel (among others) look at controversial issues such as abortion and reproductive health and have declared that consensus has been reached. Those who disagree are told that if they cannot sacrifice their consciences, they should sacrifice their careers. They assert that people who agree to enter the field of medicine are bound by the decisions of various medical societies, even ones they do not belong to. It is those societies alone who will determine what it means to be a physician. But what happens if conscience is removed from the moral equation and ceded to a medical society? While there are limits to conscientious objection where there is imminent risk of injury or death, the cleansing from the practice of medicine of persons who have moral objections would harm not only physicians and the medical profession, but most importantly, harm patients. First, the impact of the removal of conscience will be decidedly negative. Physicians will know that they cannot be trusted based on their own moral values, that even their own medical societies don't trust them. They can be forced to act against their conscience without any evidence than what they were doing is causing anything more than subjective patient disagreement or inconvenience. Stahl and Emmanuel's argument would claim that health care professionals are to do whatever the bureaucracy of medicine tells them to do as long, as it satisfies the demands of the patients. Physicians must submit to the paternalism of external agents. Second, the limitations on conscience in medicine. While the legal protections are beyond the scope of this paper, there needs to be an ethical evaluation of the conditions for limitations. I will defend Daniel Sulmasy's view that treatment should be provided in an emergency as defined as imminent risk of actual illness or injury and, if there are objections to what is provided by the objector, it should be evidence based, n (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ashley Fernandes (Committee Chair); Courtney Thiele (Advisor); Ryan Nash (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethics

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2020, Journalism (Communication)

Although previous research has been targeted at the aspects of journalistic cultures within nations through the views of their population, such as the multinational Worlds of Journalism Study (2019), other avenues of study can offer a new perspective on these differences. To this end, the study provides a comparison of journalistic codes of ethics. Such codes (while differing in structure, implementation, and reach) share a common purpose in providing and defining standards of ethical action within the field of journalism. By making note of what standards are discussed within journalistic codes of ethics with national reach, and in what manner the ethical rationale is constructed and defended within said ethical codes, the study aims to provide insight into the similarities and differences of the journalistic cultures in which they are set. The study found that the 25 ethical codes examined discussed over 100 distinct generalized ethical situations, the documents often stretched beyond outlining the practice of ethical journalism. The codes of ethics were also found to primarily make use of deontological and virtue-based justifications, although examples of the other selected ethical frameworks were found in small numbers. Additionally, both the deontological and virtue-based justifications occurred dominantly within the examined codes of ethics with such frequency as to be considered ethical norms within the standards set by the study. In both cases, the findings provide a means to critique and point to ways these ethical codes could be improved in order to better relate to both the journalists they hope to guide and the public they hope to educate while laying the groundwork for similar examinations in the future.

Committee: Bernhard Debatin (Committee Chair); Aimee Edmondson (Advisor); Rosanna Planer (Committee Member); Bill Reader (Committee Member) Subjects: Journalism; Mass Communications