Emily Carroll and Parker Crutchfield propose a new inconsistency argument against abortion restrictivism. In response, I raised several objections to their argument. Recently Carroll and Crutchfield have replied and seem to be under the impression that I’m a restrictivist. This is puzzling, since my criticism of their view included a very thinly veiled, but purposely more charitable, anti-restrictivist inconsistency argument. In this response, I explain how Carroll and Crutchfield mischaracterize my position and that of the restrictivist.

This content analysis examines the ways that genocide is included in the high school world history content standards of eleven states with legislative mandates requiring genocide education, as well as if the content standards in those states differ from those of states without mandated genocide education. The null curriculum theorizes that the content that is not taught may be as important as what is taught; this lens allows for a nuanced analysis of the ways that genocide is included and excluded (...) in state standards. The findings suggest that states with legislative mandates requiring genocide education do not necessarily have high school world history content standards that require genocide education. The content standards in states with legislative mandates often omit acts of genocide, refrain from using the term “genocide,” and frame genocides as less important than the Holocaust, perpetuating the null curriculum of genocides. (shrink)

This research explores the contextual approach within Christian-Jewish religious education, addressing a notable gap in existing literature and offering fresh insights into the application of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model within Christian contexts. Through a qualitative literature study employing a three-step methodology, including an in-depth analysis of Deuteronomy 11:19–20, this study reveals that this biblical text provides both educational guidance and theological significance, serving as a foundational support for the CTL model in Christian-Jewish religious education. The integration of (...) digital media into biblical sources holds promise for future research, while the central challenge lies in harmonising life experiences and empirical phenomena with biblical reflections to seamlessly integrate inquiry processes and pedagogical phases, with potential avenues for further exploration in scripture models endorsing CTL. This research provides valuable insights for educators, parents and policymakers in Indonesia and beyond, advancing educational research in contextualised teaching models within religious education.Contribution: This article demonstrates that the CTL model in the digital era has the potential to revolutionise religious education and profoundly impact learners, making it a significant scientific contribution in the context of Christian-Jewish religious education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:René Girard and the Rhetoric of ConsumptionKathleen M. Vandenberg (bio)The work of René Girard, so productively applied in so many different fields—in theology, in anthropology, in literature, to name a few—has yet to be recognized or applied in the field of rhetorical studies. Yet there exists, I argue, a need precisely for Girard's theories as the over 2000 year-old discipline enters the twenty-first century.Girard's theory of mimetic or triangular (...) desire can be used as a model for understanding persuasion, because it is, among other things, an "expression of a basic set of ideas on... the dynamics of the self and human relations" (1996, vii). Girard's concern is with human relationships and, in a sense, with how individuals in these relationships act rhetorically upon themselves and others. Girard's mimetic theory hinges on the dynamics of imitation and explains how individuals relate through both the conscious and the unconscious sharing of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs in certain situations. These situations are clearly rhetorical, as can be seen by examining the definition of the "rhetorical situation" set forth by Lloyd Bitzer, in his seminal 1968 article, "The Rhetorical Situation." Bitzer proposes three conditions that must be met for a rhetorical situation to exist: an exigency or imperfection marked by urgency; a rhetorical audience or an audience that can act; and constraints, or elements that have the power to constrain the decision and action needed to modify the exigency (7). In mass-mediated modern rhetoric, I argue that the exigencies exist externally (in the culture) and internally, the audience is both others and self, and the constraints are the alienation, mystification, and desire generated by hierarchies. Twentieth-century rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke advises that "we must often think of rhetoric not in terms of some one particular address, but as a general body of identifications that owe their convincingness much more to trivial repetition and dull daily reënforcement than to exceptional rhetorical skill" (1950, 26). Such is the case with this particular form of rhetoric, which is generated and propagated by mimetic contagion and thus is best more narrowly defined as sociological propaganda, a type of propaganda [End Page 259] theorized by Jacques Ellul in Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1975).Ellul, the first to distinguish between political propaganda and sociological propaganda, proposes that the latter encompasses social behaviors "much more vast and less certain" than those of political propaganda (1975, 62). These social behaviors permit the penetration of an ideology in a society, a penetration that is achieved through the active participation of the masses. Sociological propaganda, as Ellul describes it, works from within; it is dependent on the individual's willingness and ability to persuade him- or herself and others. Sociological propaganda, Ellul posits, is created when members of a group behave in such a way as to influence the attitudes, actions, and lifestyles of others; often this behavior is unconscious, unintentional, and spontaneous.In these ways, the rhetoric of sociological propaganda operates in a markedly different fashion than more "traditional" rhetoric, which is largely understood to operate as a unilateral transaction in which an individual orator actively, openly, and orally works to move a relatively passive but physically present audience to act in accordance with the orator's own beliefs through a formally delivered speech. In its reliance on the interaction and cooperation of the many rather than the centrality and dominance of one speaker, in its acceptance of unintentional, spontaneous, and unconscious persuasion, in its dependence on the modern mass media, and in the limitless and nebulous nature of its boundaries in time and space, sociological propaganda constitutes a type of rhetoric heretofore insufficiently addressed by rhetorical studies. Although existing perspectives in rhetorical criticism have certainly addressed some aspects of this rhetoric, sociological propaganda is not easily explained with the terminology of traditional rhetorical criticism or easily approached from traditional rhetorical perspectives.This article asserts that the best way to approach and understand such propaganda is through the perspective of René Girard. Approaching this propaganda from a Girardian perspective permits us to look beyond the symbols of sociological propaganda and analyze our own responsibility in rhetorical... (shrink)

The line separating the “good life” and the savagery that the “good life” requires, or, perhaps what might be articulated as the line between the space of biopolitics and the space of necropolitics, is maintained in the present through both practices of global policing and imperial war. These practices of policing and war produce the very global refuse that constantly threatens the “good life”—actively wasting the lives and livelihoods of people and non-human lifeworlds Western colonialism established as the raw materials, (...) instruments, and objects of its civilizational goal—against which violence acts to protect a fundamentally human life worth living. At the same time, through capital-intensive projects of “saving” the very targeted populations it destroys, permanent war also produces the subordinated life that will come to serve as the means of maintaining and upholding that “good life.” Beyond this mode of colonial inhabitation, however, subsist other ecologies of life-making practices on the part of those deemed disposable, a planetary remainder which might well be our only hope for a possible future. (shrink)

Seth MacFarlane’s space adventure, The Orville, is not “Family Guy in Space.” It is a social commentary of the most direct and compelling sort. Through satire, humor, and symbolism, The Orville explores the potential dangers of religion. It does so in individual episodes, such as “If the Stars Should Appear” and “Mad Idolatry,” as well as through the series as a whole in its depiction of how the Union resolves its political differences with the Krill and the Moclans. In this (...) chapter, we will look at how The Orville criticizes religion, both generally and specifically. We will see that while it is not a condemnation of all religious believers, it is a critique of religion itself, suggesting that it can become dangerous when it merges religious dogma with political power. (shrink)

Exploring the darkest side of organizations may have a potential to change our previous assumptions about business life. Scholars both in management and organizational research fields have shown interest in the "bright" side of behavioral life and have looked for the ways to create a positive organizational climate and assumed a positive relation between happiness of employees and productivity. These main assumptions of the Human Relations School have dominated the scientific inquiry on organizational behavior. However, "the dark side of organizational (...) life" may have more explanatory power than "the bright side". Hostility, jealousy, envy, rivalry, gossip, problematic personalities, dislike, revenge, and social exclusion are the realities of business life. A manager may devote most of their time to cope with conflicts, deviant behaviors, ambitious individuals, gossips, and dysfunctional rivalry among employees. It is evident that negative events and interactions among employees cost more time and energy for a manager than the positive side of organizational life. This edited collection specifically focuses on these issues and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of management, organizational studies and behavior, sociology, social psychology, and human resource management. (shrink)

Forms and Functions of Pendant Koran Manuscripts. By Cornelius Berthold. Arabische Studien, vol. 17. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021. Pp. x + 291, illus. €68.

Rescued in 1972 from a storeroom in which rats and seeping water had severely damaged the fifty-year-old manuscript, this text is the earliest major work (1919-1921) of the great Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin. Toward a Philosophy of the Act contains the first occurrences of themes that occupied Bakhtin throughout his long career. The topics of authoring, responsibility, self and other, the moral significance of "outsideness," participatory thinking, the implications for the individual subject of having "no-alibi in existence," the difference (...) between the world as experienced in actions and the world as represented in discourse--all are broached here in the heat of discovery. This is the "heart of the heart" of Bakhtin, the center of the dialogue between being and language, the world and mind, "the given" and "the created" that forms the core of Bakhtin's distinctive dialogism. A special feature of this work is Bakhtin's struggle with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Put very simply, this text is an attempt to go beyond Kant's formulation of the ethical imperative. Toward a Philosophy of the Act will be important for scholars across the humanities as they grapple with the increasingly vexed relationship between aesthetics and ethics. (shrink)

The essays assembled here are all very early and differ in a number of ways from Bakhtin's previously published work.

AN inquiry into the use of paradeigma in theIliadmust begin with Niobe. At 24. 602 Achilles introduces Niobe in order to encourage Priam to have some food. The dead body of the best of Priam's sons has now been placed on the wagon ready for its journey back to Troy. Achilles says, ‘Now let us eat. For even Niobe ate food, and she had losttwelvechildren. Apollo and Artemis killed them all; they lay nine days in their blood and there was (...) no one to bury them, because Zeus had turned the people into stone. On the tenth day the gods buried them. But she managed to eat some food, when she was tired of weeping. And now among the mountains, although turned into stone, she still broods over her sorrows. But come, let us also eat. You can weep for your son again later’. (shrink)

Next SectionOne of the major concerns about surrogacy is the potential harm that may be inflicted upon the surrogate mother and the child after relinquishment. Even if one were to take the liberal view that surrogacy should be presumptively allowed on the basis of autonomy and/or compassion, evidence of harm must be taken seriously. In this paper I review the evidence from psychological studies on the effect that relinquishing a child has on the surrogate mother and while it appears that (...) many surrogates are able to cope with relinquishment, I argue that there are good reasons, grounded in empirical evidence, to support the view that the subsequent management of the relinquishment necessarily objectifies the surrogate mother. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to conceptualise Islamic workplace rectitude. Based on a comprehensive literature review, the study proposes that Islamic workplace rectitude is composed of a harmonious blend of Islamic workplace spirituality, Islamic workplace ethics, and submission to Allah. The study involved an inductive interpretive analysis, where critical aspects of workplace rectitude were extracted based on the agreed-upon Qur’anic verses and Hadith. The study augments the literature on workplace behaviour through divine command theory by offering new theoretical evidence (...) from an Islamic perspective. As presented in the current study, Islamic workplace rectitude is a higher-order, stable psychological construct that can be distinguished from other constructs. It comprises Islamic workplace spirituality, Islamic workplace ethics, and submission to Allah. However, further research is needed to accomplish conceptual and empirical distinctiveness for the proposed construct of Islamic workplace rectitude. This study presents an alternative approach to Islamic workplace behaviour, facilitating fresh insights and further development and research in this exciting area. The study adopts a holistic approach, contributing to identifying commonalities between workplace attitudes and Islam. It introduces Islamic workplace rectitude, a novel concept not present in the existing literature. The present work is, therefore, expected to trigger further interest and research in Islamic workplace rectitude. (shrink)

Nursing, a scientific and practical discipline, faces continuing challenges of finding new direction in order to decipher its core values and develop current ethical codes for nursing practice. In 2009–10, 28 nurses were purposely selected and interviewed using a semi-structured format in focus groups and individually. Thematic Content Analysis helped explore the perception of Iranian nurses on ethical values in patient care. Seven major themes emerged: respect for dignity, professional integrity, professional commitment, developing human relationships, justice, honesty, and promoting individuals (...) and the nursing profession. Iranian nurses revealed a unique and culture-based set of ethical values. This study found that Iranian nurses place a greater emphasis on preserving the dignity of those accompanying the patient and in showing regard for patients' religious beliefs in a gender appropriate environment. (shrink)

LET ME BEGIN this inquiry with the simple but fundamental fact that the flow of time, or passage, as it is also known, is given in experience, that it is as indubitable an aspect of our perception of the world as the sights and sounds that come in upon us, even though it is not the peculiar property of a special sense. Consider, by way of illustration, that I am now sitting at the desk in my study. This particular event (...) was not present at any earlier time, nor will it be present shortly as I become involved in other activities. The present, as I experience it, is regularly associated with later and later events. It does not hop about capriciously from here to a later time, to a previous time, and then to a much later time, or trace out some other such indiscriminate pattern; instead I find it always in association with the next moment, and as I look backward and inward, so to speak, I find that the prior moment was present and that this next-later moment is present. Quite often this condition is expressed by means of imagery. We are asked to envision either a moving present racing along a fixed track of moments or events from earlier to later, or alternatively a fixed present through which stream a series of moments or events, first the earlier and then the later ones. One is in truth hard-pressed to find references to passage which do not employ quasi-poetical tropes and metaphors, and while these do help in some sense to say what we mean, great caution is required when handling them because of their ready tendency to draw us away from the actual phenomenon requiring explanation. (shrink)

AN inquiry into the use of paradeigma in the Iliad must begin with Niobe. At 24. 602 Achilles introduces Niobe in order to encourage Priam to have some food. The dead body of the best of Priam's sons has now been placed on the wagon ready for its journey back to Troy. Achilles says , ‘Now let us eat. For even Niobe ate food, and she had lost twelve children. Apollo and Artemis killed them all; they lay nine days in (...) their blood and there was no one to bury them, because Zeus had turned the people into stone. On the tenth day the gods buried them. But she managed to eat some food, when she was tired of weeping. And now among the mountains, although turned into stone, she still broods over her sorrows. But come, let us also eat. You can weep for your son again later’. (shrink)

Incessantly cited by critics, Bakhtin's work none the less remains relatively unavailable: partly through lack of suitable editions, partly because no individual text conveys all the key concepts or arguments. This anthology provides in a convenient format a good selection of the writing by Bakhtin and of that attributed to Voloshinov and Medvedev. It introduces readers to the aspects most relevant to literary and cultural studies and gives a focused sense of Bakhtin's central ideas and the underlying cohesiveness of his (...) thinking. (shrink)

In the long 20th century, modern China experienced perhaps the world’s most radical and systematic secularization process and the decimation of traditional religious and ritual cultures. This article seeks to account for this experience by engaging with postcolonial theory, a body of discourse seldom found relevant to China Studies. The article attempts a two-pronged critique of both state secularization and some aspects of existing Postcolonial Studies/theory. It shows the many ways in which nationalist elites in modern China unwittingly absorbed Western (...) Orientalist discourse even as their words and actions were ostensibly anti-colonial, and much of the article examines the consequences of this native Orientalism upon Chinese religiosities. Finally, the article suggests that one cannot discuss governmentality in modern China without understanding how it is intertwined with a sovereign power that is both archaic and, at the same time, has experienced renewal and expansion in modernity. (shrink)

Philosophy of science is the organized expression of a growing intent among philosophers and scientists to clarify, perhaps unify, the programs, methods and results of the disciplines of philosophy and of science. The examination of fundamental concepts and presuppositions in the light of the positive results of science, systematic doubt of the positive results, and a thorough-going analysis and critique of logic and of language, are typical projects for this joint effort. It is not necessary to be committed to a (...) belief that science and philosophy are or should be one, or else that “never the twain shall meet.” If anything, there is to be expected a wholesome regard for the value of established science in furnishing a foil for philosophy and a check on its old extravagances. This does not mean that even the best-established science may not be subject to most devastating criticism by analysis of its foundations. In fact, despairing of the philosophy of the schools, science has done it largely for itself. The theories of gravitation, atomicity, electro-magnetism, evolution, relativity and quanta have all arisen through drastic revisions of complacent fundamental “truths.”. (shrink)