This article juxtaposes the notion of wuwei in Daoism and philosophical principles of self-organization in systems theory to re-imagine classroom dynamics in which pedagogical relationships...

In this paper, I argue that, if ‘the overrepresentation of Christian theists in analytic philosophy of religion is unhealthy for the field, since they would be too much influenced by prior beliefs when evaluating religious arguments’ (De Cruz and De Smedt (2016), 119), then a first step toward a potential remedy is this: analytic philosophers of religion need to restructure their analytical tasks. For one way to mitigate the effects of confirmation bias, which may be influencing how analytic philosophers of (...) religion evaluate arguments in Analytical Philosophy of Religion (APR), is to consider other points of view. Applied to APR, this means considering religious beliefs, questions, and arguments couched in non-Christian terms. In this paper, I focus on Islam in particular. My aim is to show that Islam is a fertile ground of philosophical questions and arguments for analytic philosophers of religion to engage with. Engaging with questions and arguments couched in non-Christian terms would help make work in APR more diverse and inclusive of religions other than Christianity, which in turn would also be a first step toward attracting non-Christians to APR. (shrink)

The conservation of biological diversity and the necessity of using biological resources sustainably became crucial within the socio-political milieu from the beginning of the 1990s when the global community began revisiting this issue following the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This was further augmented by the IUCN Guide that reminds parties to the CBD that in order to: i) institutionalize the development and implementation of the biodiversity strategy cycle; and ii) create an oversight mechanism, the National Biodiversity Strategy (...) and Action Plan needs to be anchored in legislation and policy. However, apart from these intricate legal paradigms, there are innate ethical frameworks of values and principles for policy options that have proven useful in combating the biodiversity challenges. Bangladesh has nearly a hundred laws that deal with numerous environment related issues including biodiversity. Additionally Bangladesh is also a party to the various international environmental instruments, including the CBD, albeit with certain reservations. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which the environmental legislation of Bangladesh coheres to the ethical approaches in addressing the issue of biodiversity, as well as to delve into examples of implementation. An interdisciplinary approach with legal and ethical analysis of biodiversity backed up by secondary data is used. In order to actualize the objective the study, after providing conceptual clarity on certain related issues such as ethical approaches to the environment, biodiversity and so forth, focuses on the legal framework for addressing environment and biodiversity in Bangladesh. The ethical approaches to environmental legislation and biodiversity in Bangladeshis thereafter critically appraised. The study argues and concludes that intrinsic reorientation is necessary in the way the government advocates before the environmental legislation of Bangladesh can be said to reverberate the demands of a general ethical approach to the environment and in particular to biodiversity. (shrink)

Recent bioethical issues that have emerged in the field of medicine include, but are not limited to, eugenics, palliative care, euthanasia, abortion, and the development of enhanced human body parts. These bioethical issues have raised ethical questions related to the use of modern technology and how it may affect the future of society. These questions consider issues such as: what is the identity of future children? Have human beings become a commodity exchanged by those who have the ability to own (...) them? What is the meaning of justice in medical treatment? How can physicians and nurses perform humanitarian work? Discussions of these questions should begin by determining their relationships with typical social and cultural values in society, such as life and death, marriage, family, fatherhood, motherhood, relatives, and next-of-kin. This paper presents a review of the important Arabic literature that has been written on these bioethical issues to show the contributions of Arab scholars in this field. Arabic studies in bioethics can be classified into three types: original Arabic writings, translated studies, and congresses held in the Arab region. (shrink)