This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to one of the most significant Arab thinkers of the late 20th century and the early 21st century: the Moroccan philosopher and social theorist Mohammed Abed al-Jabri. With his intellectual and political engagement, al-Jabri has influenced the development of a modern reading of the Islamic tradition in the broad Arab-Islamic world and has been, in recent years, subject to an increasing interest among Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, social activists and lay men. The contributors (...) to this volume read al-Jabri with reference to prominent past Arab-Muslim scholars, such as Ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as contemporary Arab philosophers, like Hassan Hanafi, Abdellah Laroui, George Tarabishi, Taha Abderrahmane; they engage with various aspects of his intellectual project, and trace his influence in non-Arab-Islamic lands, like Indonesia, as well. His analysis of Arab thought since the 1970s as a harbinger analysis of the ongoing “Arab Spring uprising” remains relevant for today's political challenges in the region. (shrink)

The two important factors in science development are the social economy (gross domestic product, GDP) and freedom. In order to follow the development of science for both old Arabic-Islamic and Western civilizations, a statistical method is used to trace the variation of scientists' population with time. The analysis shows that: 1- There is a growth in Arabic-Islamic sciences for a period of three centuries (AD 700-1000). Then it is followed by period of declination. The decay time is about of eight (...) centuries. Major factor behind that decay in science activities and the block of the science thoughts may be attributed to religious thoughts domination, and cultural or thoughtful problems, in addition to the normal social problems like wars, disasters..etc. 2- The growth in western civilization started approximately in AD 1200 and remains in its growing. It looks that the wars, political problems have no serious effect in western sciences growth. The growth behaviour has a natural growth form. That may prove that, the secular society is quite perfect for such activities. For present time Arab-Islam societies have no distinguished contributions. The most important factor for that catastrophic retardation is the absence of the freedom of thought and believes. The obtaned curve has similarities with world GDP curve. (shrink)

This paper explores the important role of critical science, and in particular of post-colonial and decolonial theories, in understanding and shaping the ongoing advances in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is viewed as amongst the technological advances that will reshape modern societies and their relations. While the design and deployment of systems that continually adapt holds the promise of far-reaching positive change, they simultaneously pose significant risks, especially to already vulnerable peoples. Values and power are central to this discussion. Decolonial theories (...) use historical hindsight to explain patterns of power that shape our intellectual, political, economic, and social world. By embedding a decolonial critical approach within its technical practice, AI communities can develop foresight and tactics that can better align research and technology development with established ethical principles, centring vulnerable peoples who continue to bear the brunt of negative impacts of innovation and scientific progress. We highlight problematic applications that are instances of coloniality, and using a decolonial lens, submit three tactics that can form a decolonial field of artificial intelligence: creating a critical technical practice of AI, seeking reverse tutelage and reverse pedagogies, and the renewal of affective and political communities. The years ahead will usher in a wave of new scientific breakthroughs and technologies driven by AI research, making it incumbent upon AI communities to strengthen the social contract through ethical foresight and the multiplicity of intellectual perspectives available to us, ultimately supporting future technologies that enable greater well-being, with the goal of beneficence and justice for all. (shrink)

Central to the identity of modern medical specialities, including psychiatry, is the notion of hypostatic abstraction: doctors treat conditions or disorders, which are conceived of as “things” that people “have.” Mad activism rejects this notion and hence challenges psychiatry’s identity as a medical specialty. This article elaborates the challenge of Mad activism and develops the hypostatic abstraction as applied to medicine. For psychiatry to maintain its identity as a medical speciality while accommodating the challenge of Mad activism, it must develop (...) an additional conception of the clinical encounter. Toward elaborating this conception, this article raises two basic framing questions: For what kind of understanding of the situation should the clinical encounter aim? What is the therapeutic aim of the encounter as a whole? It proposes that the concepts of “secondary insight” and of “identity-making” can allow the clinical encounter to proceed in a way that accommodates the challenge of Mad activism. (shrink)

The enlarging domain of psychiatric intervention is frequently associated with the undue medicalization of unusual experiences. In such a climate, it becomes of utmost importance to carefully choose appropriate candidates for the psychiatric gaze. This suggests a need to draw a distinction between religious experiences (with psychotic form) and pathological psychotic experiences. As Jackson and Fulford (1997) maintain, “spiritual experiences, whether welcome or unwelcome, and whether or not they are psychotic in form, have nothing (directly) to do with medicine. It (...) would be quite wrong, then, to “treat” spiritual psychotic experiences with neuroleptic drugs, just as it is quite wrong to “treat” political .. (shrink)

In today’s ‘networked’ public sphere, arguers are faced with countless controversies roaming out there. Knowing what is at stake at any point in time, and keeping under control the contribution one’s arguments make to the different interrelated issues requires careful craft Keeping in touch with Pragma-Dialectics. In honor of Frans H. van Eemeren. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 2011). In this paper, I explore the difficulty of determining what is at stake at any moment of the argumentative situation and explore the challenge (...) that that creates for examining the strategic shape of arguments. I argue that a meaningful examination of networked argumentative encounters requires that the boundaries of an encounter remain ‘fluid. In dealing with the fluid boundaries, I suggest to identify “argumentative associates” and “standing standpoints”. (shrink)

The ethical climate in Turkey is beset by ethical problems. Bribery, environmental pollution, tax frauds, deceptive advertising, production of unsafe products, and the ethical violations that involved politicians and business professionals are just a few examples. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the ethical beliefs of American and Turkish consumers using the Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ) of Forsyth (1980), the Machiavellianism scale, and the Consumer Ethical Practices of Muncy and Vitell questionnaire (MVQ). A sample of 376 (...) subjects that consists of American consumers (n = 188) and Turkish consumers (n = 199) was used to compare the ethical beliefs and practices of the two samples. The MANOVA results for the two nationality groups found that five out of six criterion variables differed between the two groups. The implications of this study are intended to assist marketers to develop strategies that suit a particular market and lessen their risk of entry. (shrink)

Death is the opposite not of life, but of power. And as such, Mohammed Bamyeh argues in this original work, death has had a great and largely unexplored impact on the thinking of governance throughout history, right down to our day. In Of Death and Dominion Bamyeh pursues the idea that a deep concern with death is, in fact, the basis of the ideological foundations of all political systems. Concentrating on four types of political systems—polis, empire, theocracy, and modern mass (...) society systems—Bamyeh shows how each follows a specific strategy designed to pit power against the equalizing specter of death. Each of these strategies—consolation, expansion, preparation, and repression—produces a certain style of political behavior, as well as particular psychic traumas. In making his argument, Bamyeh revisits a wide range of empirical and theoretical discussions in existentialist philosophy, psychoanalysis, comparative historical sociology, literary studies, and anthropology. By demonstrating how schemes of power are by definition also schemes for defying death—despite their claims to the contrary—his book encourages us to think of a new style of politics, one oriented toward life. (shrink)

At a time when different groups in society are achieving notable gains in respect and rights, activists in mental health and proponents of mad positive approaches, such as Mad Pride, are coming up against considerable challenges. A particular issue is the commonly held view that madness is inherently disabling and cannot form the grounds for identity or culture. This paper responds to the challenge by developing two bulwarks against the tendency to assume too readily the view that madness is inherently (...) disabling: the first arises from the normative nature of disability judgements, and the second from the implications of political activism in terms of being a social subject. In the process of arguing for these two bulwarks, the paper explores the basic structure of the social model of disability in the context of debates on naturalism and normativism; the applicability of the social model to madness; and the difference between physical and mental disabilities in terms of the unintelligibility often attributed to the latter. (shrink)

The centenary of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology was recognised in 2013 with the publication of a volume of essays dedicated to his work. Leading phenomenological-psychopathologists and philosophers of psychiatry examined Jaspers notion of empathic understanding and his declaration that certain schizophrenic phenomena are ‘un-understandable’. The consensus reached by the authors was that Jaspers operated with a narrow conception of phenomenology and empathy and that schizophrenic phenomena can be understood through what they variously called second-order and radical empathy. This article offers (...) a critical examination of the second-order empathic stance along phenomenological and ethical lines. It asks: Is second-order empathy possible? Is the second-order empathic stance an ethically acceptable attitude towards persons diagnosed with schizophrenia? I argue that second-order empathy is an incoherent method that cannot be realised. Further, the attitude promoted by this method is ethically problematic insofar as the emphasis placed on radical otherness disinvests persons diagnosed with schizophrenia from a fair chance to participate in the public construction of their identity and, hence, to redress traditional symbolic injustices. (shrink)

_The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam_ is Muhammad Iqbal's major philosophic work: a series of profound reflections on the perennial conflict among science, religion, and philosophy, culminating in new visions of the unity of human knowledge, of the human spirit, and of God. Iqbal's thought contributed significantly to the establishment of Pakistan, to the religious and political ideals of the Iranian Revolution, and to the survival of Muslim identity in parts of the former USSR. It now serves as new (...) bridge between East and West and between Islam and the other Religions of the Book. With a new Introduction by Javed Majeed, this edition of _The Reconstruction_ opens the teachings of Iqbal to the modern, Western reader. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Islamic intellectual history, the renewal of Islam in the modern world, and political theory of Islam's relationship to the West. (shrink)

In assisted dying, the end-of-life trajectory is shortened to relieve unbearable suffering. Unbearable suffering is defined broadly enough to include cognitive (early dementia), psychosocial or existential distress. It can include old-age afflictions that are neither life-threatening nor fatal in the “vulnerable elderly”. The voluntary refusal of food and fluids (VRFF) combined with continuous deep sedation (CDS) for assisted dying is legal. Scientific understanding of awareness of internal and external nociceptive stimuli under CDS is rudimentary. CDS may blunt the wakefulness component (...) of human consciousness without eradicating internal affective awareness of thirst and hunger. Patients may suffer because of the slow dying process following dehydration and starvation. The difficulty to adequately control distress, without bringing the dying process to a rapid conclusion by lethal pharmacological interventions, can cause feelings of guilt among hospice and medical staff. Furthermore, the double-effect principle is not applicable in these situations because the primary objective of VRFF is to hasten death. Legal and societal debate should focus on sharpening the boundaries between assisted dying and palliative care. This separation is necessary to: 1) uphold trust in the patient-phyician relationship, and 2) preserve integrity and ethics of the medical profession. (shrink)

Exposure of the banking system to the Global Financial Crisis attracted attention to the study of riskiness and spillover. This paper studies the pattern of systemic risk and size effect in the Indian banking sector. Based on market capitalization, three public sector banks and three from the private sector were taken. Data are taken from the year 2007 to 2020. The analysis is done through quantile- CoVaR and TENET measure. State variables like Indian market volatility and global risk measures negatively (...) influence the Indian banks’ returns. Liquidity risk is a crucial aspect of private banks. Public banks experience public confidence even in the distress period. Large banks like HDFC and SBI bank offer the highest degree of systemic risk contribution. The role of private banks in transmitting systemic risk has been intensifying since 2015. Small-sized banks like PNB and BOB have become significant receivers and transmitters of risk. (shrink)

Normativity is assessed as we evaluate and compare the environmental reporting practices of a sample of French and Canadian companies through the lens of institutional legitimacy. More specifically, we examine how French and Canadian firms changed their reporting practices in reaction to the promulgation of laws and regulations in their respective countries, i.e., the NER and Grenelle II Acts in France, and National Instrument 51-102 and CSA Staff Notice NR 51-333, issued by the Canadian Securities Administrators. The firms’ voluntary disclosures (...) according to GRI guidelines are also investigated. Substantive legitimacy theory is used to explore the level of substantive disclosures provided by Canadian and French firms. The findings reveal that the French parliamentary regime is more successful than the Canadian stock exchange regulation in triggering environmental reporting, and that the GRI combined with local regimes prompts environmental disclosures. Notwithstanding the improvements in environmental reporting under all three regimes, a very low level of substantive disclosure is noted in both countries. (shrink)

Recently, due to the rapid progress of computer technology, researchers develop an effective computer program to enhance the achievement of the student in learning process, which is Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Science is important because it influences most aspects of everyday life, including food, energy, medicine, leisure activities and more. So learning science subject at school is very useful, but the students face some problem in learning it. So we designed an ITS system to help them understand this subject easily (...) and smoothly by analyzing it and explaining it in a systematic way. In this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching science for grade seven to help students know the 7 characteristics for living things smoothly. The system provides all topics of living things and generates some questions for each topic and the students should answer these questions correctly to move to the next level. In the result of an evaluation of the ITS, students like the system and they said that it is very useful for them and for their studies. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of rhetoric and rhetorical strategies that are implicit in the standalone sustainability reporting of the top 24 companies of the Fortune 500 Global. We adopt Bormann’s :396–407, 1972) SCT framework to study the rhetorical situation and how corporate sustainability reporting messages can be communicated to the audience. The SCT concepts in the sustainability reporting’s communication are subject to different types of legitimacy strategies that are used by corporations as a validity (...) and legitimacy claim in the reports. A content analysis has been conducted and structural coding schemes have been developed based on the literature. The schemes are applied to the SCT model which recognizes the symbolic convergent processes of fantasy among communicators in a Society. The study reveals that most of the sample companies communicate fantasy type and rhetorical vision in their corporate sustainability reporting. However, the disclosure or messages are different across locations and other taxonomies of the SCT framework. This study contributes to the current CSR literature about how symbolic or fantasy understandings can be interpreted by the users. It also discusses the persuasion styles that are adopted by the companies for communication purposes. This study is the theoretical extension of the SCT. Researchers may be interested in further investigating other online communication paths, such as human rights reports and director’s reports. (shrink)

End-of-life organ donation is controversial in Islam. The controversy stems from: scientifically flawed medical criteria of death determination; invasive perimortem procedures for preserving transplantable organs; and incomplete disclosure of information to consenting donors and families. Data from a survey of Muslims residing in Western countries have shown that the interpretation of religious scriptures and advice of faith leaders were major barriers to willingness for organ donation. Transplant advocates have proposed corrective interventions: reinterpreting religious scriptures, reeducating faith leaders, and utilizing media (...) campaigns to overcome religious barriers in Muslim communities. This proposal disregards the intensifying scientific, legal, and ethical controversies in Western societies about the medical criteria of death determination in donors. It would also violate the dignity and inviolability of human life which are pertinent values incorporated in the Islamic moral code. Reinterpreting religious scriptures to serve the utilitarian objectives of a controversial end-of-life practice, perceived to be socially desirable, transgresses the Islamic moral code. It may also have deleterious practical consequences, as donors can suffer harm before death. The negative normative consequences of utilitarian secular moral reasoning reset the Islamic moral code upholding the sanctity and dignity of human life. (shrink)

Academic institutions aim at achieving the highest standards of education and learning. Consequently, they prohibit academic corruption such as cheating or plagiarism. This article examines how international accreditation and quality assurance standards embody academic integrity as a main factor in deciding whether an academic institution should be accredited, and what ranking should an academic institution acquire in a competitive contest for educational excellence. Academic integrity is broadly defined to include, in addition to cheating and plagiarism, compliance with standards of human (...) rights, labor rights, corporate social responsibility, ant-corruption measures, environmental protection, social media usage, protection of underage students, anti-radicalization and extremism, avoidance of conflict of interest, faculty professionalism, students codes of conduct and human experimentation. Academic institutions should adopt policies that are designed to address these diverse standards and accommodate diversity and enhance access to education for all without discrimination. Academic institutions should also strictly require the highest standards in teaching and research. This article will discuss the different policies, laws, rules and regulations adopted by Qatar University as a model for incorporating academic integrity, which may be of interest to the international higher education community. This article will ask two main questions; are accrediting institutions asking the right questions to find out whether an academic institution strictly adheres to a policy of academic integrity, and whether policies adopted by academic institutions, Qatar University as a model, are adequate to address various violations of academic integrity. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to better understand how sustainability rating agencies, through discourse, promote an “ideology of numbers” that ultimately aims to establish a regime of normalization governing social and environmental performance. Drawing on Thompson’s (Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication, 1990 ) modes of operation of ideology, we examine the extent to which, and how, the ideology of numbers is reflected on websites and public documents published by a range (...) of sustainability rating agencies. Our analysis indicates that the ideology of numbers promotes a relatively narrow vision of corporate social and environmental responsibility. That is, it establishes some areas of visibility while leaving in the shadow certain aspects of the ways in which companies fulfill, or fail to meet, their social and environmental responsibilities. The ideology of numbers also exerts power by identifying those companies that are deemed to be worthy of inclusion, or not, in a supposedly socially responsible corporate elite. (shrink)

In this paper, we designed and developed an intelligent tutoring system for teaching Photoshop. We designed the lessons, examples, and questions in a way to teach and evaluate student understanding of the material. Through the feedback provided by this tool, you can assess the student's understanding of the material, where there is a minimum overshoot questions stages, and if the student does not pass the level of questions he is asked to return the lesson and read it again. Eventually this (...) administration is a special teacher for the students and can continue with him until he fully understands the lesson without weariness or boredom, regardless of the level of student. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly creeping into the work sphere, thereby gradually questioning and/or disturbing the long-established moral concepts and norms communities have been using to define what makes work good. Each community, and Muslims make no exception in this regard, has to revisit their moral world to provide well-thought frameworks that can engage with the challenging ethical questions raised by the new phenomenon of AI-mediated work. For a systematic analysis of the broad topic of AI-mediated work ethics from (...) an Islamic perspective, this article focuses on presenting an accessible overview of the “moral world” of work in the Islamic tradition. Three main components of this moral world were selected due to their relevance to the AI context, namely (1) Work is inherently good for humans, (2) Practising a religiously permitted profession and (c) Maintaining good relations with involved stakeholders. Each of these three components is addressed in a distinct section, followed by a sub-section highlighting the relevance of the respective component to the particular context of AI-mediated work. The article argues that there are no unsurmountable barriers in the Islamic tradition against the adoption of AI technologies in work sphere. However, important precautions should be considered to ensure that embracing AI will not be at the cost of work-related moral values. The article also highlights how important lessons can be learnt from the positive historical experience of automata that thrived in the Islamic civilization. (shrink)

Medical futility is often defined as providing inappropriate treatments that will not improve disease prognosis, alleviate physiological symptoms, or prolong survival. This understanding of medical futility is problematic because it rests on the final outcomes of procedures that are narrow and medically defined. In this article, Walker's `expressivecollaborative' model of morality is used to examine how certain critical care interventions that are considered futile actually have broader social functions surrounding death and dying. By examining cardiopulmonary resuscitation and life-sustaining intensive care (...) measures as moral practices, we show how so-called futile interventions offer ritualistic benefit to patients, families, and health care providers, helping to facilitate the process of dying. This work offers a new perspective on the ethical debate concerning medical futility and provides a means to explore how the social value of treatments may be as important in determining futility as medical scientific criteria. (shrink)

This study was designed to examine the determinants of and differences between the ethical beliefs of two groups of Japanese students in religious and secular universities. Multiple regression analysis revealed that students of the Japanese religious university perceived that young, male, relativistic, and opportunistic students tended to behave less ethically than did older, female, and idealistic students. Students of the Japanese secular university perceived that male, achievement-oriented, and opportunistic students tended to behave less ethically than did female and experience-oriented students. (...) Opportunism was found to be one of the most important determinants in explaining misconduct. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) revealed that students of the Japanese secular university tended to score higher on achievement and humanism, and lower on theism and positivism than did students of the Japanese religious university. In addition, students of the Japanese secular university were somewhat more sensitive to academic dishonesty practices than were students of the Japanese religious university. (shrink)

The determination of death by neurological criteria remains controversial scientifically, culturally, and legally, worldwide. In the United Kingdom, although the determination of death by neurological criteria is not legally codified, the Code of Practice of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges is customarily used for neurological death determination and treatment withdrawal. Unlike some states in the US, however, there are no provisions under the law requiring accommodation of and respect for residents' religious rights and commitments when secular conceptions of death (...) based on medical codes and practices conflict with a traditional concept well-grounded in religious and cultural values and practices. In this article, we analyse the medical, ethical, and legal issues that were generated by the recent judgement of the High Court of England and Wales in Re: A [2015] EWHC 443. Mechanical ventilation was withdrawn in this case despite parental religious objection to a determination of death based on the code of practice. We outline contemporary evidence that has refuted the reliability of tests of brainstem function to ascertain the two conjunctive clinical criteria for the determination of death that are stipulated in the code of practice: irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness and somatic integration of bodily biological functions. We argue that: the tests of brainstem function were not properly undertaken in this case; the two conjunctive clinical criteria set forth in the code of practice cannot be reliably confirmed by these tests in any event; and absent authentication of the clinical criteria of death, the code of practice wrongly invokes a secular definition of death based on the loss of personhood. Consequently, the moral obligation of a pluralistic society to honor and respect diverse religious convictions to the greatest extent possible is being violated. Re A is contrasted with the US case of Jahi McMath in which the court accommodated parental religious objection to the determination of neurological death codified in the Uniform Determination of Death Act. We conclude that the legal system in the United Kingdom should not favour a secular definition of death over a definition of death that is respectful of religious values about the inviolability and sanctity of life. We recommend the legal recognition of religious accommodation in death determination to facilitate cultural sensitivity and compassionate care to patients and families in a pluralistic society. (shrink)

The study aims to identify the reality of management of electronic documents and electronic archiving retirement in the Palestinian Pension Agency -analytical study, as well as to recognize the reality of the current document management system in the Palestinian Pension Agency. The study found the following results: that the reality of the current system for the management of documents in the agency is weak and suffers from many jams. Employee in the agency understand the importance and benefits of the management (...) of electronic documents system, where the application of electronic document management system provide important features and benefits most of which reduce the loss of documents between departments, illustrates the flow path, the speed, accuracy, transparency, and reduce the proportion of damage and destruction of files. Furthermore, the electronic documents system cost will be less than the cost of the current system and it will reduce the tasks assigned for the staff. The existence of a clear adoption of the agency for the policies and procedures established for the application of electronic documents management system. There are weak plans for training and developing of staff in the agency to raise their efficiency. The study found a set of recommendations, including: increased interest and awareness of the need to implement policies, mechanisms, and procedures to ensure the success of electronic document management system through benefiting from the experiences of other organizations and the private sector. The agency need to increase and develop its services for retirees in order to encourage the private sector, universities, and institutions to join the agency, and open the way for all segments of society in Gaza and West Bank and enhance its competitiveness between international social security institutions. The need to focus its attention on developing and publishing appropriate clear plans and specific goals about management of electronic documents and the agency should be committed to apply them. The need to focus on the establishment of a public management of archiving in the structure dealing with all technical operations and having competent and qualified employees in the field of electronic document management. The need to focus on the Palestinian National Archives and the follow-up with the international standards by the International Council Archives (ICA). (shrink)

In this paper I shed light on the multi-purposive nature of debates in the European Parliament. As a case in point, I examine a debate on immigration in the wake of a migratory crisis in the Italian island of Lampedusa in early 2011. I analyze the points of view argued for by MEPs, aiming at identifying the different institutional goals that are typically pursued and characterizing the ways in which these goals shape the argumentative exchanges. The link between the multiple (...) goals communicators have and the discourse choices they make can be assumed on the basis of previous research. In line with the pragma-dialectical view of argumentative discourse taking place in the context of more or less institutionalized argumentative activity types, institutional goals are understood as those goals that can be attributed to arguers on the basis of the type of activity in which they are engaged. In identifying the institutional goals, I follow Craig and consider not only goals which are intentional, formal, and directly responsible for a certain discourse choice, but also goals which are functional, strategic, and only indirectly responsible for discourse choices. The analysis shows that the MEPs pursued three kinds of goals: goals that are 1) assigned to them by the occasion of the debate; 2) related to the powers of Parliament; and 3) associated with the different identities they assume in Parliament. While the pursuit of the occasion-related and powers-related goals gave rise to multiple simultaneous discussions, the pursuit of the identity-related goals guided the MEPs’ choices and formulations in these discussions. (shrink)

Hacking and other entity realists suggest a strategy to build scientific realism on a stronger foundation than inference to the best explanation. They argue that if beliefs in the existence of theoretical entities are derived from experimentation rather than theories, they can escape the antirealist's criticism and provide a stronger ground for realism. In this paper, an outline and a critique of entity realism are presented. It will be argued that entity realism cannot stand as a separate position from classical (...) realism. Thus, entity realism cannot avoid the problems facing classical realism.. (shrink)

We respond to Morgan and Feeley’s critique on our article “Mass Media in Organ Donation: Managing Conflicting Messages and Interests.” We noted that Morgan and Feeley agree with the position that the primary aims of media campaigns are: “to educate the general public about organ donation process” and “help individuals make informed decisions” about organ donation. For those reasons, the educational messages in media campaigns should not be restricted to “information from pilot work or focus groups” but should include evidence-based (...) facts resulting from a comprehensive literature research. We consider the controversial aspects about organ donation to be relevant, if not necessary, educational materials that must be disclosed in media campaigns to comply with the legal and moral requirements of informed consent. With that perspective in mind, we address the validity of Morgan and Feeley’s claim that media campaigns have no need for informing the public about the controversial nature of death determination in organ donation. Scientific evidence has proven that the criteria for death determination are inconsistent with the Uniform Determination of Death Act and therefore potentially harmful to donors. The decision by campaign designers to use the statutory definition of death without disclosing the current controversies surrounding that definition does not contribute to improved informed decision making. We argue that if Morgan and Feeley accept the important role of media campaigns to enhance informed decision making, then critical controversies should be disclosed. In support of that premise, we will outline: (1) the wide-spread scientific challenges to brain death as a concept of death; (2) the influence of the donor registry and team-huddling on the medical care of potential donors; (3) the use of authorization rather than informed consent for donor registration; (4) the contemporary religious controversy; and (5) the effects of training desk clerks as organ requestors at the Department of Motor Vehicles offices. We conclude that organ donation is a medical procedure subject to all the ethical obligations that the medical profession must uphold including that of transparency and truthfulness. (shrink)

We show that the conceptual distance between any two theories of first-order logic is the same as the generator distance between their Lindenbaum–Tarski algebras of concepts. As a consequence of this, we show that, for any two arbitrary mathematical structures, the generator distance between their meaning algebras (also known as cylindric set algebras) is the same as the conceptual distance between their first-order logic theories. As applications, we give a complete description for the distances between meaning algebras corresponding to structures (...) having at most three elements and show that this small network represents all the possible conceptual distances between complete theories. As a corollary of this, we will see that there are only two non-trivial structures definable on three-element sets up to conceptual equivalence (i.e., up to elementary plus definitional equivalence). (shrink)

Hacking and other entity realists suggest a strategy to build scientific realism on a stronger foundation than inference to the best explanation. They argue that if beliefs in the existence of theoretical entities are derived from experimentation rather than theories, they can escape the antirealist's criticism and provide a stronger ground for realism. In this paper, an outline and a critique of entity realism are presented. It will be argued that entity realism cannot stand as a separate position from classical (...) realism. Thus, entity realism cannot avoid the problems facing classical realism. (shrink)

We show that the U.S. anti-discriminatory laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity identities) spur innovation, which ultimately leads to higher firm performance. We use the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index of 398 U.S. firms between 2011 and 2014, and find a significantly positive relationship between CEI and firm innovation. We also find that an interacting effect of CEI and firm innovation leads to higher firm performance. We use our understanding of Rawls’ Theory (...) of Justice and stakeholder theory to show that firms with workplace diversity policies are likely to be more innovative and perform better than those without such policies. Our results are robust to endogeneity, reverse causality and simultaneity issues. Our results will trigger debate in similar markets around the globe on the economic benefits of LGBT workplace diversity policies for firms. (shrink)

Islamic bioethics is in good health, this article argues. During the twentieth century, academic researchers had to deal with a number of difficulties including the scarcity of available Islamic sources. However, the twenty-first century witnessed significant breakthroughs in the field of Islamic bioethics. A growing number of normative works authored by Muslim religious scholars and studies conducted by academic researchers have been published. This nascent field also proved to be appealing for research-funding institutions in the Muslim world and also in (...) the West, such as the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). On the other hand, the article argues that contemporary Islamic bioethics is in need of addressing news issues and adopting new approaches for the sake of maintaining and improving this good health in the future. (shrink)

Madness is a complex and contested term. Through time and across cultures it has acquired many formulations: for some, madness is synonymous with unreason and violence, for others with creativity and subversion, elsewhere it is associated with spirits and spirituality. Among the different formulations, there is one in particular that has taken hold so deeply and systematically that it has become the default view in many communities around the world: the idea that madness is a disorder of the mind. -/- (...) Contemporary developments in mental health activism pose a radical challenge to psychiatric and societal understandings of madness. Mad Pride and mad-positive activism reject the language of mental 'illness' and 'disorder', reclaim the term 'mad', and reverse its negative connotations. Activists seek cultural change in the way madness is viewed, and demand recognition of madness as grounds for identity. But can madness constitute such grounds? Is it possible to reconcile delusions, passivity phenomena, and the discontinuity of self often seen in mental health conditions with the requirements for identity formation presupposed by the theory of recognition? How should society respond? -/- Guided by these questions, this book is the first comprehensive philosophical examination of the claims and demands of Mad activism. Locating itself in the philosophy of psychiatry, Mad studies, and activist literatures, the book develops a rich theoretical framework for understanding, justifying, and responding to Mad activism's demand for recognition. (shrink)