Ajit Mookerjee is an expert in the traditional arts and crafts of his native country. After completing a post graduate course in Ancient Indian History and Culture at Culcutta University, he wrote his first book, Folk Art of Bengal. He then went to England for further studies at the University of London, where he received his M.A in History of Art. Since 1945 he has travelled widely both in India, Europe and the United States of America, carrying out research (...) for his many publications and lecturing on the various aspects of the Indian arts. (shrink)

Purpose E-commerce companies use dark patterns to manipulate customer decisions to survive in the crowded online market and make profit. Although some online customers are aware of the dark patterns, they cannot overcome such manipulations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and model the barriers to overcoming dark patterns using total interpretive structural modeling (TISM). Design/methodology/approach Barriers to overcoming dark patterns were identified from the extant literature and were validated by a panel of 18 domain experts. In (...) the modeling phase, TISM technique was used to identify the relationships between the barriers and assign priority to the barriers. Finally, the barriers were plotted and classified into three categories. Findings User unawareness, trust in brands and normalization of aggressive marketing were found to be the highest priority barriers. Whereas, designer bias, user fatigue, short-term user benefits and design complexity were identified as the most challenging barriers because they have least dependence over the other barriers. Research limitations/implications Because TISM results are based on the opinion of domain experts, other statistical techniques could be applied for validation. Practical implications This study would educate online customers, while assisting online user communities and regulatory bodies to devise strategies to overcome dark patterns. Additionally, business managers could use the study’s findings to encourage designers to embrace ethical design methods as a competitive advantage. Originality/value This study contributes to the research as it is first of its kind to examine the link between dark pattern barriers. (shrink)

IntroductionIn November of 1785, Kant published a highly unsympathetic review of the second part of Johann Gottfried Herder'sIdeas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Herder had once been Kant's pupil, and had greatly admired his teacher, but the content of this review shows how profound the philosophical differences between them had by then become. A central area of dispute emerging from the review concerns the nature of happiness, and its place within the ‘destiny’ or ‘vocation’ of the human (...) race. Kant is responding, in particular, to a section of theIdeasentitled: ‘The happiness of human beings is everywhere an individual good; consequently, it is everywhere climatic and organic, a child of practice, tradition, and custom.’ Although Kant is not mentioned by name in this section, it clearly contains critical rejoinders, often quite harsh in tone, to aspects of his practical philosophy and philosophy of history, as Herder understands them. (shrink)

25 years ago, when AI & Society was launched, the emphasis was, and still is, on dehumanisation and the effects of technology on human life, including reliance on technology. What we forgot to take into account was another very great danger to humans. The pervasiveness of computer technology, without appropriate security safeguards, dehumanises us by allowing criminals to steal not just our money but also our confidential and private data at will. Also, denial-of-service attacks prevent us from accessing the information (...) we need when we want it. We are being dehumanised not by the technology but by criminals who use the ubiquity of the technology and its lack of security to steal from us and prevent us from doing what we want. What is more interesting is that this malevolent use of the technology doesn’t come from monolithic corporate structures eager to control our lives but mainly from individuals keen to demonstrate their knowledge of the technology for social networking purposes. The aim of this paper is to turn the clock back 25 years and present an alternative perspective: the single, biggest threat of dehumanisation is not the pervasiveness and ubiquity of computers but the lack of ensuring that humans are provided with the basic security they need for using the technology safely and securely. Cyberspace is not a safe space to be. This was something that even far-sighted researcher colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s overlooked. The paper will explore where we went wrong 25 years ago in our predictions and concerns. We will also present a scenario that allows future generations to have a safer cyberworld. (shrink)

Our concern in this paper lies with a common argument from racial discrimination to realism about races: some people are discriminated against for being members of a particular race (i.e., racial discrimination exists), so some people must be members of that race (i.e., races exist). Error theorists have long responded that we can explain racial discrimination in terms of racial attitudes alone, so we need not explain it in terms of race itself. But to date there has been little detailed (...) discussion of whether it is better to explain racial discrimination in terms of race or in terms of racial attitudes alone. Our goal is to offer a novel and detailed argument in defense of explaining racial discrimination in terms of racial attitudes alone, by attending to the neglected phenomenon of misperception discrimination, which involves differential treatment due to misperceived race. We argue that the discriminatory action in misperception cases must be explained in the same way as cases where (according to the realist) the victim’s race is accurately perceived. Thus, the victim’s actual race cannot provide the best explanation. The main upshot of our argument is that explanatory arguments from racial discrimination to realism about race fail. (shrink)

The anthropological approach to mental competence is very interesting. I shall reason that the issue of mental competence and the determination best interests in the decision making process has been integrated together in this anthropological approach. I use the relatively recent Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) for England and Wales (Department of Constitutional Affairs 2005) to illustrate this line of reasoning. I have deliberately chosen the phrase decision-making capacity (DMC) in this commentary to separate it from the concept of determination (...) of best interests. I am writing from the perspective of an old-age psychiatrist who frequently has to assess DMC and make decisions on behalf of those who lack .. (shrink)

RésuméCet article analyse le besoin qu'éprouvent certaines personnes de se «reconnecter», ou renforcer lews liens, à une culture dans laquelle elles n'ont jamais été enchâssées, eu égard aux critères auxquels se mesure généralement un tel enchâssement (langue, valeurs, croyances, modes de vie, coutumes religieuses, etc.). Situant les résultats de son analyse par rapport à la pensée de Kymlicka et autres, il fait valoir que des facteurs tels que les liens de parenté, l'identification à autrui et l'expérience du racisme déterminent largement (...) quel est le groupe culturel que les individus parviennent à considérer comme le leur. (shrink)

Wisdom is almost always associated with doing the right thing in the right way under right circumstances in order to achieve the common good. In this paper, however, we propose that wisdom is more associated with deciding between better and worse wrongs; a winless situation we define as tragic. We suggest that addressing the tragic question is something that leaders and managers generally avoid when focusing on business decisions and choices. Yet, raising and confronting the tragic question is important for (...) three main reasons. Firstly, it emphasises that wisdom is about recognising that doing the ethically responsible thing can sometimes lead to acting in ways that violate different ethical norms and values. Secondly, it foregrounds the issue of emotional perception in ethical decision-making. We argue that emotions are salient in directing attention to the tragic question and recognising morally ambiguous situations. Thirdly, the tragic question has important consequences for moral learning, accepting moral culpability for wrongdoing and organisational commitment to righting the wrong. We illustrate our arguments by drawing on three mini-cases: Arjuna’s dilemma in the Mahabharata, Gioia’s deliberations about his role in the Ford Pinto fires and the production of the abortion pill by French company Roussel-Uclaf. (shrink)

Following Lyotard's death in 1998, this book provides an exploration of the recurrent theme of education in his work. It brings to a wider audience the significance of a body of thought about education that is subtle, profound and still largely unexplored. This book also makes an important contribution to contemporary debates on postmodernism and education.

India's IT industry sudden rise from a minuscule level in the 1990's to the present dominance in the emerging world knowledge economy with annual exports exceeding US $45bn surprised many. This article examines the series of historical events and government policy action that led to its emergence, the social implications of this growth and the challenges that India's education system faces in providing the manpower the IT industry needs to address the immense opportunities that lie ahead.

Herder is often criticized for having embraced cultural relativism, but there has been little philosophical discussion of what he actually wrote about the nature of the human species and its differentiation through culture. This book focuses on Herder's idea of culture, seeking to situate his social and political theses within the context of his anthropology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, theory of language and philosophy of history. It argues for a view of Herder as a qualified relativist, who combined the conception of (...) a common human nature with a belief in the importance of culture in developing and shaping that nature. Especially highlighted are Herder's understanding of the relativity of virtue and happiness, and his belief in the impossibility of constructing a single best society. The book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested both in Herder and in Enlightenment culture more generally. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the validity of what I term the “metaphysico‐religious” interpretation of beauty. This term is intended to cover descriptions and interpretations of beauty which suggest that it indicates: 1) a connectedness of man with nature, of natural things with one another, and/or of man with man in and through some encompassing ground or unity; and, 2) the existence of another and better world, a transcendent reality in which the negative elements of factual existence are somehow cancelled (...) or redeemed. With this interpretation of beauty, and the experiences that lie behind it, at issue, the article considers a number of positions on the relation between beauty and reality. First, it takes up Nietzsche's view of this relation, and the assessment of the metaphysico‐religious interpretation entailed by that view. It then examines Heidegger's reflections on the same topic, including his reading of Nietzsche on art. Formulated in confrontation with Nietzsche, these reflections offer a valuable counterpoint to Nietzsche's position. Finally, it brings Nietzsche's position into confrontation with that of Keats, as one representative of the Romantic tradition, within which the metaphysico‐religious interpretation of beauty is posed and problematized in an interesting way. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the validity of what I term the “metaphysico‐religious” interpretation of beauty. This term is intended to cover descriptions and interpretations of beauty which suggest that it indicates: 1) a connectedness of man with nature, of natural things with one another, and/or of man with man in and through some encompassing ground or unity; and, 2) the existence of another and better world, a transcendent reality in which the negative elements of factual existence are somehow cancelled (...) or redeemed. With this interpretation of beauty, and the experiences that lie behind it, at issue, the article considers a number of positions on the relation between beauty and reality. First, it takes up Nietzsche's view of this relation, and the assessment of the metaphysico‐religious interpretation entailed by that view. It then examines Heidegger's reflections on the same topic, including his reading of Nietzsche on art. Formulated in confrontation with Nietzsche, these reflections offer a valuable counterpoint to Nietzsche's position. Finally, it brings Nietzsche's position into confrontation with that of Keats, as one representative of the Romantic tradition, within which the metaphysico‐religious interpretation of beauty is posed and problematized in an interesting way. (shrink)

Bhakti is a remarkable existential tendency that shows itself in the rich expanse of the tradition originating from the Vedas. Recognized as a prize possession of the religions, philosophies, and culture of India, it has often won fascination and admiration from students of Eastern heritage. However, its nature, role, and history remain misunderstood and have not received all the attention they deserve. Its role as a gatherer of life, love, thought, and the divine is missed in its partial characterizations as (...) “Hindu devotion” or “divine love” or “theism implicit in polytheism.” Its status as a perennial thematic concept of the Indian civilization is missed when its pervasiveness is overlooked by the cultural historians preoccupied primarily with its periodic eruptions. Furthermore, the philosophical role of bhakti is missed when it is deemed as an alternative to jnana (knowledge) rather than “the living of jnana.”. (shrink)

As courts become increasingly technologically sophisticated, it can be expected that the use of the latest visualisation techniques will also increase to make the most of this technology. In particular, the use of computer-generated animations can be expected to become more dominant. There is, however, very little research into the effects of animated evidence on jurors and other members of the judicial process. This paper investigates whether there is a difference in the quality and robustness of memories formed by either (...) hearing an oral testimony or seeing an animated version of it. Also, the paper investigates whether different opinions and attitudes are produced when testimony is presented as an animation as opposed to being verbally presented. Preliminary results reported here indicate that there is indeed a difference in attitude (and therefore potential bias) when animations are used instead of verbal testimony, but that this difference is only apparent in the long term (four weeks or more after the presentation of the animated evidence). The results point to the need for improved knowledge structures for mapping verbal testimony into animations, where issues of implicit knowledge and potential bias are explicitly referenced in the knowledge structure. The paper argues that, until and unless such issues are addressed, it is not safe to use animations in court except to present purely factual information. (shrink)

The mental capacity Act 2005 (MCA; Department of Constitutional Affairs 2005) was partially implemented on April 1, 2007, and fully implemented on October 1, 2007, in England and Wales. The MCA provides a statutory framework for people who lack decision-making capacity (DMC) or who have capacity and want to plan for the future when they may lack DMC. Health care and social care providers need to be familiar with the MCA and the associated legal structures and processes. The MCA is (...) supported by a Code of Practice (Department of Constitutional Affairs 2007), which was developed after extensive consultation and includes case examples. Those involved in the assessment of DMC and the application of the MCA should .. (shrink)

“Altered State of Consciousness” (ASC) has been defined as a changed overall pattern of conscious experience, or as the subjective feeling and explicit recognition that one's own subjective experience has changed. We argue that these traditional definitions fail to draw a clear line between altered and normal states of consciousness (NSC). We outline a new definition of ASC and argue that the proper way to understand the concept of ASC is to regard it as a representational notion: the alteration that (...) has happened is not an alteration of consciousness (or subjective experience) per se, but an alteration in the informational or representational relationships between consciousness and the world. An altered state of consciousness is defined as a state in which the neurocognitive background mechanisms of consciousness have an increased tendency to produce misrepresentations such as hallucinations, delusions, and memory distortions. Paradigm examples of such generally misrepresentational, temporary, and reversible states are dreaming, psychotic episodes, psychedelic drug experiences, some epileptic seizures, and hypnosis in highly hypnotizable subjects. The representational definition of ASC should be applied in the theoretical and empirical studies of ASCs to unify and clarify the conceptual basis of ASC research. (shrink)

Counter-Terrorism makes a connection, unique to terrorism studies, between the mechanisms of colonizing narratives and psychological warfare aimed at recruitment. There is an urgent need to understand the narrative tactics of terrorist recruitment and an equal if not greater need to destabilize and exploit the weaknesses of those narratives.

This book asks how identity is created and examines the history of conceptions of the self, from Aristotle to Postmodernism, to find the answers. Maan finds the human capacity to self creation exists in what have previously been problematic areas of experience—conflict, marginalization, disruption, exclusion, subversion, deviation and contradiction.

A critical interpretation of Sikh literature from a feminist perspective.

This paper compares the findings of content analyses of the corporate codes of ethics of Canada's largest corporations in 1992 and 2003. For both years, a modified version of a technique used in several other studies was used to determine and categorize the contents of the codes. It was found, inter alia, that, in 2003, as in 1992, more of the codes were concerned with conduct against the firm than with conduct on behalf of the firm. Among the changes from (...) 1992 to 2003 were a significant increase in the frequency of mention of environmental affairs, legal responsibility as the basis of codes and enforcement/compliance procedures. (shrink)

Violence risk assessment tools are increasingly used within criminal justice and forensic psychiatry, however there is little relevant, reliable and unbiased data regarding their predictive accuracy. We argue that such data are needed to (i) prevent excessive reliance on risk assessment scores, (ii) allow matching of different risk assessment tools to different contexts of application, (iii) protect against problematic forms of discrimination and stigmatisation, and (iv) ensure that contentious demographic variables are not prematurely removed from risk assessment tools.

This book incorporates seven 'Introductions' that Hegel wrote for each of his major works: the Phenomenology, Logic, Philosophy of Right, History, Fine Art, Religion and History of Philosophy, and includes an Introduction and Epilogue by the Editors, serving to introduce Hegel to the reader and to situate him and his works into their wider context.

We investigated whether inconsistencies in previous studies regarding emotional experiences in dreams derive from whether dream emotions are self-rated or externally evaluated. Seventeen subjects were monitored with polysomnography in the sleep laboratory and awakened from every rapid eye movement sleep stage 5 min after the onset of the stage. Upon awakening, participants gave an oral dream report and rated their dream emotions using the modified Differential Emotions Scale, whereas external judges rated the participants’ emotions expressed in the dream reports, using (...) the same scale. The two approaches produced diverging results. Self-ratings, as compared to external ratings, resulted in greater estimates of emotional dreams; positively valenced dreams; positive and negative emotions per dream; and various discrete emotions represented in dreams. The results suggest that this is mostly due to the underrepresentation of positive emotions in dream reports. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed. (shrink)

Psychiatric diagnosis depends, centrally, on the transmission of patients’ knowledge of their experiences and symptoms to clinicians by testimony. In the case of non-native speakers, the need for linguistic interpretation raises significant practical problems. But determining the best practical approach depends on determining the best underlying model of both testimony and knowledge itself. Internalist models of knowledge have been influential since Descartes. But they cannot account for testimony. Since knowledge by testimony is possible, and forms the basis of psychiatric diagnosis, (...) its very existence is a factor in support of an externalist model of knowledge in general. Internalist and externalist models of knowledge also suggest different ways of responding to the practical challenges of basing psychiatric diagnosis on testimony. Thus the argument in favour of externalism also supports a potentially empirically testable hypothesis about interpretation of non-native speakers for accurate psychiatric diagnosis: interpretation of non-English speakers should be as transparent and unhindered by specialised medical knowledge as possible. (shrink)

Heidegger has often been seen as having no moral philosophy and a political philosophy that can only support fascism. Sonia Sikka's book challenges this view, arguing instead that Heidegger should be considered a qualified moral realist, and that his insights on cultural identity and cross-cultural interaction are not invalidated by his support for Nazism. Sikka explores the ramifications of Heidegger's moral and political thought for topics including free will and responsibility, the status of humanity within the design of (...) nature, the relation between the individual and culture, the rights of peoples to political self-determination, the idea of race and the problem of racism, historical relativism, the subjectivity of values, and the nature of justice. Her discussion highlights aspects of Heidegger's thought that are still relevant for modern debates, while also addressing its limitations as reflected in his political affiliations and sympathies. (shrink)