The long Nineteenth Century spans a host of important philosophical movements: romanticism, idealism, socialism, Nietzscheanism, and phenomenology, to mention a few. Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Marx are well-known names from this period. This, however, was also a transformative period for women philosophers in German-speaking countries and contexts. Their works are less well-known, yet offer stimulating and path-breaking contributions to nineteenth-century thought. In this period, women philosophers explored a wide range of philosophical topics and styles. Throughout the movements of romanticism, (...) idealism, socialism, and phenomenology, women philosophers helped shape philosophy's agenda and provided unique approaches to existential, political, aesthetic, and epistemological questions. While during the Nineteenth Century women continued to be (largely) excluded from formal education and positions, they developed ways of philosophizing that was accessible, intuitive, and activist in spirit. The present volume makes available to English-language readers--often for the first time--the works of nine significant women philosophers, with the hope of stimulating further interest in and scholarship on their works. The Editors' introductions offer a comprehensive introduction to the contributions of women philosophers in the period, but also to individual figures and movements. The translations are furnished with explanatory footnotes and are designed to be accessible to students as well as scholars. (shrink)

One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is Schelling's break from his mentor Fichte. On account of its significance, there have been numerous studies examining the origin and meaning of this transition in Schelling's thought. Not one study, however, considers Goethe's influence on Schelling's development. This is surprising given the fact that in the fall of 1799 Goethe and Schelling meet every day for a week, to go through and edit what came to be Schelling's (...) most path-breaking work. This paper considers Goethe's influence on the development of Schelling's thought, and argues that it was by appropriating Goethe's idea of metamorphosis that Schelling was able to put forth a conception of nature as independent from the mind. (shrink)

The absolute was one of the most significant philosophical concepts in the early nineteenth century, particularly for the German romantics. Its exact meaning and its role within philosophical romanticism remain, however, a highly contested topic among contemporary scholars. In The Romantic Absolute, I offer a new assessment of the romantics and their understanding of the absolute, filling an important gap in the history of philosophy, especially with respect to the crucial period between Kant and Hegel.

The professions have focused considerable attention on developing codes of conduct. Despite their efforts there is considerable controversy regarding the propriety of professional codes of ethics. Many provisions of professional codes seem to exacerbate disputes between the profession and the public rather than providing a framework that satisfies the public''s desire for moral behavior.After examining three professional codes, we divide the provisions of professional codes into those provisions which urge professionals to avoid moral hazard, maintain professional courtesy and serve the (...) public interest. We note that whereas provisions urging the avoidance of moral hazard are uncontroversial, the public is suspicious of provisions protecting professional courtesy. Public interest provisions are controversial when the public and the profession disagree as to what is in the public interest. Based on these observations, we conclude with recommendations regarding the content of professional codes. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the normative teachings of Islam. Justice, honesty, and public welfare are the pillars of Islamic business ethics. These values have two major roots: (1) belief in and devotion to Allah (God), and (2) the earthly trusteeship that grounds moral accountability. The business values of productivity, hard work, and excellence are encouraged. However, at the heart of various injunctions relating to business transactions are the imperatives of lawfulness, honesty, and fair play. Products or services must be lawful, (...) and produced in lawful ways causing no undue harm to others or to the environment. Competition, distribution, and consumption must be lawful as well. Lawful behavior is enforced by consciousness of Allah, supportive social norms, and government control. Islamic norms may not be uniformly or strictly followed, yet they provide a helpful background to practitioners andresearchers. (shrink)

The Origins of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and its relation to his transcendental philosophy have for a long time intrigued historians of philosophy.1 When did Schelling’s interest in the philosophy of nature commence,2 and what inspired this apparent transition in his thought?3 How did his Naturphilosophie figure into his later departure from Fichte, and in what ways did his early commitments influence this departure?4 These have been the overarching questions of the debate, and they have been answered from varying angles. However, by (...) emphasizing a transition or even a break between Schelling’s earlier views and his Naturphilosophie, this debate has been largely concerned with locating a moment in Schelling’s .. (shrink)

Accurate and reliable prediction of Perfobond Rib Shear Strength Connector is considered as a major issue in the structural engineering sector. Besides, selecting the most significant variables that have a major influence on PRSC in every important step for attaining economic and more accurate predictive models, this study investigates the capacity of deep learning neural network for shear strength prediction of PRSC. The proposed DLNN model is validated against support vector regression, artificial neural network, and M5 tree model. In the (...) second scenario, a comparable AI model hybridized with genetic algorithm as a robust bioinspired optimization approach for optimizing the related predictors for the PRSC is proposed. Hybridizing AI models with GA as a selector tool is an attempt to acquire the best accuracy of predictions with the fewest possible related parameters. In accordance with quantitative analysis, it can be observed that the GA-DLNN models required only 7 input parameters and yielded the best prediction accuracy with highest correlation coefficient and lowest value root mean square error. However, the other comparable models such as GA-M5Tree, GA-ANN, and GA-SVR required 10 input parameters to obtain a relatively acceptable level of accuracy. Employing GA as a feature parameter selection technique improves the precision of almost all hybrid models by optimally removing redundant variables which decrease the efficiency of the model. (shrink)

Nassar distinguishes an understudied philosophical tradition that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, traces its development, and argues for its continued significance. She shows how four key thinkers, whom she calls the 'romantic empiricists', developed a distinctive approach to the study of nature, which culminated in an ecological understanding of nature and the human place within it. Nassar contends that the romantic empiricist insights and approaches remain crucial for us today, as we seek to address (...) the environmental crisis.--. (shrink)

This article analyzes the unpublished dialogue between James Baldwin and Reinhold Niebuhr where they discussed the role of the Christian church in the wake of six child murders in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. On that catastrophic day—one that is impossible to forget—the Ku Klux Klan bombed The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and two black boys were subsequently shot and killed. In the wake of that violence, this article will show that for Baldwin, the dynamite that exploded the face (...) of the “alabaster Christ” from the stained-glass window presents an opportunity for not only a new depiction of Jesus in terms of presentation—but more significantly—a brand-new Christology rooted in black liberation. Such a reading provides us with an unusual constructive theological position offered by Baldwin, especially once it is read alongside a public essay written by the Association of Artists for Freedom advocating for Black Christmas. (shrink)

I consider Friedrich Schlegel as a philosopher, and argue that Schlegel’s philosophical views must be understood in relation to his emphasis on history and historical knowledge and his claim that philosophy must emerge from and in relation to life. Thus, in deep contrast to two influential interpretations of Schlegel--Hegel’s view of Schlegel’s philosophy as a poetic exaggeration of the Fichtean subject and the postmodern view of Schlegel as a deeply sceptical anti-idealist--I contend that Schlegel sough to develop a historically-informed philosophy (...) and maintained that it is only through concrete knowledge of political and social realities that we can understand the nature of morality and achieve moral progress. Furthermore, I argue that Schlegel did not entirely forgo the possibility of systematic knowledge, but developed a new conception of systematicity based on his understanding of living or organic beings. (shrink)

Since the early 1990s, there has been a resurgence of interest in philosophy between “Kant and Hegel,” and in early German romanticism in particular. Philosophers have come to recognize that, in spite of significant differences between the contemporary and romantic contexts, romanticism continues to “persist,” and the questions which the Romantics raised remain relevant today. The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on Early German Romantic Philosophy is the first collection of essays that offers an in-depth analysis of the reasons why philosophers (...) are (and should be) concerned with romanticism. Through historical and systematic reconstructions, the collection offers a deeper understanding and more encompassing picture of romanticism as a philosophical movement than has been presented thus far, and explicates the role that romanticism plays—or can play—in contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

Taking the Hagar story as the central biblical resource to address the particular plight of Black women—a plight that reckons with patriarchal and White supremacist forces that desire its enclosure—Delores Williams challenges both the traditional understanding of atonement theory which embraces the Cross as salvific and Black liberation theologies’ apocalyptical conceptions of a mighty liberating God. This article seeks to read Delores Williams closely to take seriously her theological development through literature more broadly and her soteriological critiques of the Cross (...) specifically. A rereading of Williams will provide the grounds for continuing the debate of the Cross’s significance within Black theological thought at large. Analyzing Williams’ soteriological critiques will allow me to offer a reading of the Cross that ultimately relies on Williams’ emphatic rejection. Such a rejection of the Cross is necessary for understanding how Black Christianity centers the Cross in order to reject it, as it is intended to be. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court’s approach to human rights is a global outlier. In conceiving of rights adjudication in categorical terms rather than embracing proportionality analysis, the Court limits its ability to make the kinds of qualitative judgments about rights application required to adjudicate claims of disparate impact, social and economic rights, and horizontal effects, among others. This approach, derivative of a private-law model of dispute resolution, sits in tension with the rights claims typical of a pluralistic jurisdiction with a mature (...) rights culture, in which litigants more often disagree, reasonably, about the scope of rights rather than deny that others have them at all. In order to overcome the mismatch between the nature of the rights claims the Court faces and its anachronistic technology of adjudication, it will need not only to adopt a form of proportionality analysis but it will also need to adjust the ways in which it receives and assesses empirical social facts and it will need to broaden its remedial toolkit to include, for example, suspensions of invalidity. While proportionality is far from perfect, its flaws are anticipated by the challenges of constitutional democracy itself under conditions of pluralism. (shrink)

Este ensayo aborda el curioso desdén que muchos originalistas muestran respecto de la Enmienda Decimocuarta a la Constitución estadounidense. De acuerdo a las premisas teóricas originalistas, el análisis del texto, la historia y la estructura de esta Enmienda deberían ocupar un lugar central en las discusiones sobre derechos incorporados, acción afirmativa y federalismo; sin embargo, en estas discusiones los originalistas la minimizan, como lo hacen, en general, con el período de la Reconstrucción. El artículo sugiere que tanto la Enmienda como (...) la Reconstrucción representan para ellos una historia poco útil, en comparación con la del momento de la Fundación, por varias razones: las enmiendas de la Reconstrucción fueron en gran parte fracasos en su tiempo; el lenguaje abstracto de la Enmienda XIV no facilita la resolución de las controversias actuales sobre su significado, y la Reconstrucción se asocia en la memoria nacional con un momento doloroso de división y guerra civil. Estas limitaciones, observa el autor, sugieren que el originalismo en la práctica es un proyecto moral, tanto o más que un proyecto hermenéutico. (shrink)

This article explores a phenomenon found in Berber whereby the extraction of dative arguments (of verbs, nouns and prepositions) gives rise to two occurrences of wh. One is a wh-word located in Spec,C and the other a wh-clitic in the dative form located in C (wh-clitic-doubling). Close examination reveals that the wh-word in Spec,C functions as an operator base-generated in its scope position and the dative wh-clitic in C provides it with a derivational link to the variable in the dative (...) position it binds (wh-Cliticisation). Wh-clitic-doubling and wh-Cliticisation amount to direct evidence for Cliticisation as a derivational interpretive mechanism of Grammar that obviates the need for indexing (Lebeaux 1983, Chomsky 1986, 1995). They also provide evidence for the conclusion in Kayne (1989) that Cliticisation is an instance of Head-Movement, more precisely, feature-based Head-Movement. (shrink)

In many areas, technology has facilitated many things, diagnosing diseases, regulating traffic and teaching students in schools rely on Intelligent systems to name a few. At present, traditional classroom-based education is no longer the most appropriate in schools. From here, the idea of intelligent e-learning for students to increase their culture and keep them updated in life began. E-learning has become an ideal solution, relying on artificial intelligence, which has a footprint in this through the development of systems based on (...) education without a teacher taking into account the individual differences of students. This study describes intelligent tutoring system for teaching the Data Manipulation Language (DML) Commands Using SQLite to non IT students to overcome the difficulties they face. The System was built as education system by using the researcher own authoring tool that based on mobile and web App. The basic idea of this system is a systematic introduction into the concept of Database and its DML query. The system presents the topic of DML Commands, help student to execute what they are learn from the system content using the practical part of the system and administers automatically adapted at run time to the student’s individual growth. The system was assessed by a group of teachers and students and the outcome showed as 91% from the database specialists, 94% from Diploma students group and 89% from the secondary school students group. (shrink)

Some aspects of the Schrödinger equation in quantum field theory are considered in this article. The emphasis is on the Schrödinger functional equation for Yang-Mills theory, arising mainly out of Feynman's work on (2+1)-dimensional Yang-Mills theory, which he studied with a view to explaining the confinement of gluons. The author extended Feynman's work in two earlier papers, and the present article is partly a review of Feynman's and the author's work and some further extension of the latter. The primary motivation (...) of this article is to suggest that considering the Schrödinger functional equation in the context of Yang-Mills theory may contribute significantly to the solution of the confinement and related problems, an aspect which, in the author's opinion, has not received the attention it deserves. The relation of this problem with certain others such as those of quarks, superconductivity, and quantum gravity is considered briefly, together with certain basic aspects of the formalism that may be of interest in their own right, especially for the beginner. (shrink)

Ce travail consiste à développer un sujet très spécial dans le corpus de la philosophie du moyen âge, plus précisément question de noétique chez un philosophe de l�occident musulman, mais l�article présent est juste la première partie de l�ensemble du travail, mais il reflète déjà la nouveauté et l�originalité de ce philosophe de l�Espagne musulmane. Le plus essentiel dans la noétique d�Ibn Bajja c�est l absence de l�intellect en puissance dans le schème des intellects, il y a juste l�intellect en (...) acte et la faculté cogitative, et la matière de la faculté cogitative ce sont les formes spirituelles intermédiaires, et là (nous pensons) un point important de l�originalité d�Ibn Bajja, ce sont des formes très proches de la nature des intelligibles grâce à la division des formes de la fantasia en deux parties: 1. par antériorité sur ce qui ressemble au sensible. 2. par postériorité sur ce qui ressemble à l�espèce. (shrink)

Drawing on the historical insight of Emer de Vattel to build on the contemporary arguments of Michael Walzer and David Luban, this article develops a model of sufficient risk as a necessary condition for anticipatory war to be deemed self-defence. This model holds that an anticipatory war may constitute legitimate self-defence (as opposed to aggression) when it aims to forestall a threat that poses a sufficient risk to the anticipating state. This is the point where a threat is both sufficiently (...) likely to materialise and sufficiently large to pose a grave risk. Due to crucial problems with the imminence condition for self-defence, I propose that the sufficient risk condition subsume that of imminence. The power of this model lies in its ability to encapsulate all factors raised by previous authors that are morally relevant specifically for anticipatory wars and categorise them as contributing to the judgement of the likelihood of the threat materialising and/or the magnitude of the potential threat. This parsimonious categorisation increases the accuracy and clarity of the moral theory on anticipatory war, making it more robust to change in the types of threats faced by states, and less ripe for manipulation to justify immoral wars. (shrink)

In this paper, I trace a ‘leading thread’ from Kant’s Critique of Judgment to Goethe that involves a shift from a conceptual framework, in which a priori concepts furnish necessity and thereby science, to a framework in which sensible experience plays a far more significant and determining role in the formation of knowledge. Although this shift was not enacted by Kant himself, his elaboration of organic unity or organisms paved the way for this transformation. By considering both the methodological difficulties (...) that Kant encounters in his attempt to articulate the structure of organisms and Goethe’s response to these difficulties, my goal is to locate a specific trajectory in the history of nineteenth century philosophy, in which empirical experience and sensibility play a far more significant role than otherwise acknowledged. (shrink)

This paper aims at elaborating a very special topic relative to the medieval philosophy; particularly, the question of noetic as was dealt with by a philosopher of the Islamic occident. Although the article is but the first part of the whole work, it still reveals the originality and the innovative tendency brought about this philosopher. What is most essential in Ibn Bajja’s noetic is the absence of intellect in power and the presence of intellect in act, in the design of (...) intellects, in addition the substance of the cogitative faculty is the intermediate spiritual forms. It is here where shows up the most important aspect of his originality; the forms which are closer to the nature of the intelligible, by virtue of the division into two parts: 1. By anteriority with regard to who/what resembles the sensible. 2. By posteriority with regard to who/what resembles the species/the kind. (shrink)

Despite the fact that Islam is one of the major religions, the frameworks of this faith are yet to be fully understood. As a consequence, it is being confused with activities contrary to its teachings. Islam has an elaborate treatment for almost every aspect of life including the affairs of business. Business is an acceptable and dignified occupation, which has to be conducted within the given frameworks. Islam encourages the creation, acquisition and consumption of wealth, and the fulfilling of certain (...) conditions in so doing. Wealth is held in trust as a gift from God. The terms of reference of this trust are to be complied with. Ethical principles do play a major role in shaping the behavior of a Muslim, in or out of business. In an era of globalization, the need for a better understanding of the premises of Islamic faith cannot be overemphasized. (shrink)

Journal Name: The Law & Ethics of Human Rights Issue: Ahead of print.

As a type of evidence glass can be very useful contact trace material in a wide range of offences including burglaries and robberies, hit-and-run accidents, murders, assaults, ram-raids, criminal damage and thefts of and from motor vehicles. All of that offer the potential for glass fragments to be transferred from anything made of glass which breaks, to whoever or whatever was responsible. Variation in manufacture of glass allows considerable discrimination even with tiny fragments. In this study, we worked glass classification (...) and testing of artificial neural network model created by the JustNN. The aim of the study is help investigator in identifying the type of glass found in arena of the crime. The Neural Network model was trained and validated using the type of glass dataset. The accuracy of model in predicting the type of glass reached 96.7%. Thus neural network is suitable for predicating type of glasses. (shrink)

In spite of a renewed interest in the relationship between spirituality and managerial thinking, the literature covering the link between Islam and management has been sparse – especially in the area of ethics. One potential reason may be the cultural diversity of nearly 1.3 billion Muslims globally. Yet, one common element binding Muslim individuals and countries is normative Islam. Using all four sources of this religion’s teachings, we outline the parameters of an Islamic model of normative business ethics. We explain (...) how this ethics model seeks to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, and discuss its enforcement mechanisms. This Islamic approach to business ethics is centered around criteria that are in common with stakeholder theory such as justice and balance, and includes unique additional criteria such as trust and benevolence. (shrink)

Respect for patient autonomy has served as the dominant ethical principle of genetic counselling, but as we move into a genomic era, it is time to actively re-examine the role that this principle plays in genetic counselling practice. In this paper, we argue that the field of genetic counselling should move away from its emphasis on patient autonomy and toward the incorporation of a more balanced set of principles that allows counsellors to offer clear guidance about how best to obtain (...) or use genetic information. We begin with a brief history of how respect for patient autonomy gained such emphasis in the field and how it has taken on various manifestations over time, including the problematic concept of nondirectiveness. After acknowledging the field's preliminary move away from nondirectiveness, we turn to a series of arguments about why the continued dominance of patient autonomy has become untenable given the arrival of the genomic era. To conclude, we describe how a more complete set of bioethical principles can be adapted and used by genetic counsellors to strengthen their practice without undermining patient autonomy. (shrink)

These have been passed down from generation to generation. This book invites readers of any religion or none to drink from the wellspring of Islamic spirituality and use its wisdom to nourish their own spiritual path.

Despite the fact that Islam is one of the major religions, the frameworks of this faith are yet to be fully understood. As a consequence, it is being confused with activities contrary to its teachings. Islam has an elaborate treatment for almost every aspect of life including the affairs of business. Business is an acceptable and dignified occupation, which has to be conducted within the given frameworks. Islam encourages the creation, acquisition and consumption of wealth, and the fulfilling of certain (...) conditions in so doing. Wealth is held in trust as a gift from God. The terms of reference of this trust are to be complied with. Ethical principles do play a major role in shaping the behavior of a Muslim, in or out of business. In an era of globalization, the need for a better understanding of the premises of Islamic faith cannot be overemphasized. (shrink)

Contra widespread readings of Karoline von Günderrode’s 1805 “Idea of the Earth ” as a creative adaptation of Schelling’s philosophy of nature, this article proposes that “Idea of the Earth” furnishes a moral account of the human relation to the natural world, one which does not map onto any of the more well-known romantic or idealist accounts of the human-nature relation. Specifically, I argue that “Idea of the Earth” responds to the great Enlightenment question concerning the human vocation, but from (...) a distinctive romantic-idealist angle. I begin by demonstrating the influence of Fichte’s 1800 Vocation of Humanity on Günderrode’s thinking, which involves an investigation of both Fichte’s text and Günderrode’s critical response to it. I then turn to “Idea of the Earth” where I analyse Günderrode’s understanding of nature and the self in light of her critique of Fichte, and thereby distinguish her position from Fichte’s and from the position espoused by her fellow romantics and idealists. By reading “Idea of the Earth” alongside Fichte’s text and Günderrode’s remarks on it, this article sheds new light on both Günderrode’s understanding and defence of Naturphilosophie – against Fichte’s critique of it – and her distinctive contribution to romantic philosophies of nature. (shrink)

This study explores the sustainability reporting (SR) and assurance market in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region from the Big 4 auditors' perspectives and investigates the drivers and barriers of SR and assurance in the GCC region. We have interviewed ten representatives of auditing firms (i.e., members of Big 4) in the GCC region. The results of study reveal the immaturity of the SR and assurance market in the region but are hopeful for the future contingent upon certain factors. In (...) addition, the voluntary nature of SR, the cost of reporting and assurance, and religious concerns among others are primary barriers in front of the eagerness of firms to adopt SR and its assurance. Reputation building and accessing international markets among others are the main motivations for the adoption of SR and assurance. The interviewees have firmly expressed that there is no direct relationship between SR assurance and financial report audit. (shrink)

In contrast to the previously widespread view that Kant's work was largely in dialogue with the physical sciences, recent scholarship has highlighted Kant's interest in and contributions to the life sciences. Scholars are now investigating the extent to which Kant appealed to and incorporated insights from the life sciences and considering the ways he may have contributed to a new conception of living beings. The scholarship remains, however, divided in its interest: historians of science are concerned with the content of (...) Kant's claims, and the ways in which they may or may not have contributed to the emerging science of life, while historians of philosophy focus on the systematic justifications for Kant's claims, e.g., the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of Kant's statement that living beings are mechanically inexplicable. My aim in this paper is to bring together these two strands of scholarship into dialogue by showing how Kant's methodological concerns (specifically, his notion of reflective judgment) contributed to the ontological concern with life as a distinctive object of study. I argue that although Kant's explicit statement was that biology could not be a science, his implicit and more fundamental claim was that the study of living beings necessitates a distinctive mode of thought, a mode that is essentially analogical. I consider the implications of this view, and argue that it is by developing a new methodology for grasping organized beings that Kant makes his most important contribution to the new science of life. (shrink)

This study sought to gauge ethical attitudes about professional boundary issues of physicians and nurses in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Respondents scored 10 relevant boundary vignettes as to their ethical acceptability. The group as a whole proved “aware/ ethically conservative,” but with the physicians' score falling on the “less ethically conservative” part of the spectrum compared to nurses. The degree of ethicality was more related to profession than to gender, with nurses being more “ethical” than physicians.

Moving beyond poetry’s affective and semantic powers, south Indian rubrics of poetic analysis often examined poetry’s metaphysical dimensions. The poeticians of the Telugu country developed an especially rich body of work in this field, elaborating an analysis of auspiciousness in poetry and classifying minor genres of praise poetry called cāṭuprabandha wherein auspiciousness was particularly important. This article focuses on one witness to that tradition, the Lakṣaṇadīpikā of Gaurana. Previous scholars have cited the Lakṣaṇadīpikā as exemplifying this particular strand of thinking (...) in poetics in Andhra and contiguous regions. This paper concentrates on the metaphysical evaluation of poetry offered in the Lakṣaṇadīpikā as a way of detailing its sources and its place in the history of Sanskrit poetics more generally. Gaurana’s work is shown here to constitute an attempt at revising and reinforcing this analytical method by linking it to wider Sanskritic traditions of scholarship and ritual, specifically tantra and astrology. Ultimately, the paper argues that Gaurana’s project was meant to support a larger social argument for brahmanical prerogatives in the domain of poetic work. (shrink)

In this paper we theorize that cognitive ethical orientations play an influential role in the beliefs of consumers when faced with different ranges of moral dilemmas. We examine this proposition in transitional Eastern Europe and results from a sample of 210 Romanian consumers suggest that Romanians are faced with a moral situation where low levels of Machiavellianism and high levels of idealism appear to relate to a higher ethical concern about passively benefiting at the expense of others.

Termination of pregnancy (TOP) is offered in many countries, for foetuses prenatally diagnosed with congenital malformations that are deemed incompatible with life or that are associated with a high morbidity. In Lebanon, a middle income country where religion plays a focal role, the law prohibits any form of TOP unless it is the only means to save the mother's life. It is the contention of the authors of this article that even if the foetus is a person, if it were (...) medically revealed that there is a substantial risk that the newborn will suffer severe physical abnormalities that will cause it to be seriously handicapped; it is morally acceptable to terminate the pregnancy. Hence, TOP carried out for these indications is justified in the interest of the foetus and the child. Whatever the status of the foetus is, once born, it will become a full-fledged sentient being with all that this entails. When given the option of starting an existence, this person-to-be has the right to a minimum that allows him/her to enjoy a relatively good quality of life. Today, Lebanese obstetricians are confronted with the burden placed on them under the law to refuse TOP, or, when performing them, to forge records or deny having done them. This is why we strongly believe that the Lebanese policy on abortion should be amended. (shrink)

The concept of sustainability was developed in response to stakeholder demands. One of the key mechanisms for engaging stakeholders is sustainability disclosure, often in the form of a report. Yet, how reporting is used to engage stakeholders is understudied. Using resource dependence and stakeholder theories, we investigate how companies within the same industry address different dependencies on stakeholders for economic, natural environment, and social resources and thus engage stakeholders accordingly. To achieve this objective, we conducted our research using qualitative research (...) methods. Our findings suggest that the resource dependencies on different stakeholders lead to development of different stakeholder relationships and thus appropriate resources within the company to execute engagement strategies that are informing, responding, or involving. Our research explains why diversity exists in sustainability disclosure by studying how it is used to engage stakeholders. We find that five sustainability reporting characteristics are associated with the company’s stakeholder engagement strategy: directness of communication, clarity of stakeholder identity, deliberateness of collecting feedback, broadness of stakeholder inclusiveness, and utilization of stakeholder engagement for learning. Our study develops the literature by providing insight into companies’ choices of stakeholder engagement strategy thus explaining diversity in sustainability reporting based on the characteristics and relationships with specific stakeholders. (shrink)