Spirituality in the workplace is gaining recognition and value among researchers, academicians, and business professionals. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of spirituality in the workplace on job satisfaction by measuring four dimensions of spirituality in the workplace: meaningful work, sense of community, organizational values, and compassion. The impact of each dimension on job satisfaction is hypothesized. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 100 payroll employees in private insurance companies in Punjab. A correlation (...) analysis showed a positive relationship between all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace and job satisfaction. A regression analysis revealed that although all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace are important, organizational values and a sense of community are the most important in terms of the job satisfaction level of employees. This work will help insurance companies to better understand the concept of spirituality in the workplace and its importance. Insurance companies can improve their functioning by encouraging employee spirituality in the workplace. (shrink)

Does shame have any role in politics? Far too often, shame is used as a weapon to dominate those who lack social power. For which reason, it is often regarded with skepticism by its many critics. But in an era where lying in order to get ahead in political contests seems to go unpunished by voters, where the sale of life-saving drugs is increased to astronomical proportions in the pursuit of profits, and where daily infractions against the dignity of individuals (...) is both widespread and quickly forgotten, the seeming lack of shame threatens to undermine the shared values on which a democratic world depends. Drawing on the political thought of Hannah Arendt, especially her writings on Jewish and world politics, Worldly Shame constructs a political category of shame that can help us respond to the crises of the present moment. "Worldly shame" can return to us our sense of judgment, can be an inducement to action, and is a panacea for a world torn apart by horrors that diminish humanity. By developing a capacity for "worldly shame," we can create political spaces that are hospitable to a plurality of voices and viewpoints, and which can thus be a bulwark against the world-destroying trends that engulf our world every day. (shrink)

This article addresses Hannah Arendt’s controversial engagement with European imperial ventures in Africa. For many of her critics, Arendt’s description of imperialism either duplicates the ideologically inflected accounts and justifications of mass-murder, or conveys her own personal views of Africans and peoples of African descent. I argue that Arendt’s account in the “Imperialism” chapter of the Origins of Totalitarianism must be read parallel to her discussion of the conflict in Palestine between Jewish settlers and native Arabs. Rather than provide us (...) with an anthropological account of Africans, Arendt provides a political account of the necessity for cooperation in order to blunt imperial power-politics. In a second move, I develop a normative critique from Arendt’s remarks by relying on Heideggerian aspects of “World.” I argue that Arendt’s criticisms are really directed at Europeans who were unable to take the Africans’ point of view. (shrink)

This book offers fresh academic insights, reflections, questions, issues, and approaches to development ethics, taking into account, African values and ethics. Development ethics is an area of applied ethics that examines the moral issues involved in global, social, and economic transformation. While it is a relatively new discipline, there have been numerous scholarly publications on it from Western perspectives. However, only a few studies that focused on development ethics from the African perspective. To address this gap, the book seeks to (...) answer critical questions such as "What does development mean to Africans?", "How can we measure development?", "Who gets to decide?", and "What constitutes just development in Africa?" With contributions from African scholars from diverse backgrounds, the book covers various development themes such as Theories and approaches to development ethics in Africa, Environmental Ethics and African Development, Ethics, Politics and African Development, Migration and African development, Gender, Ethics and Socio-economic Development in Africa, Education, Ethics and African development. It is an essential resource for researchers, lecturers, and students interested in political philosophy and African culture studies. (shrink)

[Pseudo]Apolodoro nos informa acerca de una tradición mitológica que algunos asociaban a la historia de la ofrenda humana que los atenienses enviaban periódicamente a Minos. La tradición incluye elementos que nos remiten a una amplia gama de aspectos sumamente relevantes de la religión griega, tales como la estrecha relación entre las expresiones cultuales y las competiciones atléticas, la extendida convicción de los estados helenos al respecto de la utilidad práctica de las consultas oraculares (incluso conociéndose casos de inoperancia), o el (...) carácter liminar de los rituales de expiación. (shrink)

When learning a new math concept, should learners be first taught the concept and its associated procedures and then solve problems, or solve problems first even if it leads to failure and then be taught the concept and the procedures? Two randomized-controlled studies found that both methods lead to high levels of procedural knowledge. However, students who engaged in problem solving before being taught demonstrated significantly greater conceptual understanding and ability to transfer to novel problems than those who were taught (...) first. The second study further showed that when given an opportunity to learn from the failed problem-solving attempts of their peers, students outperformed those who were taught first, but not those who engaged in problem solving first. Process findings showed that the number of student-generated solutions significantly predicted learning outcomes. These results challenge the conventional practice of direct instruction to teach new math concepts and procedures, and propose the possibility of learning from one's own failed problem-solving attempts or those of others before receiving instruction as alternatives for better math learning. (shrink)

A place in the sun -- A human revolution -- Dwelling poetically on this earth -- Epilogue.

Kebahagiaan adalah tema abadi yang selalu dibicarakan manusia. Banyak filosof yang membicarakan kebahagiaan, dihitung dari zaman Yunani kuno hingga zaman filosof muslim. Al-Farabi, seorang filosof muslim di masa awal, menawarkan pandangan menarik tentang kebahagiaan: Negeri Utama sebagai pondasi meraih kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaan didefinisikan sebagai kebaikan tertinggi yang membuat manusia terlepas dari alam materi dan hidup bersama dengan makhluk non-materi selama-lamanya. Negeri Utama yang diumpamakan dengan sebuah tubuh, memiliki pemimpin yang telah mencapai kesempurnaan manusiawi. Melalui pemimpin itulah, masyarakat Negeri Utama berusaha secara (...) kolektif membangun negerinya demi mencapai kebahagiaan yang hakiki. Tulisan ini meneliti literatur yang ada, demi memberikan sebuah pandangan yang baik tentang kebahagiaan perspektif al-Farabi. Diharapkan, tulisan ini bisa menjadi jendela bagi yang lain dalam meneliti tema ini. (shrink)

Even as the conventional energy system is fundamentally challenged by the “energy-environment crisis,” its adherents have presented the prospect of “abundant” and purportedly “green” nuclear power as part of a strategy to address the crisis. Surveying the development of nuclear power in India, this article finds that it is predisposed to centralization and secrecy, that nuclear power as energy policy is based on a presumption that overabundance is imperative for viable forms of social and economic development; its institutionalization has tended (...) to reduce deliberations on energy policy and human well-being to narrowly technocratic terms. Given these proclivities, nuclear power, as evaluated in this article, is considered unlikely to facilitate a viable response to the energy-environment crisis. Alternatives are thus surveyed here to include the sustainable energy utility and the capability approach as well as synergies between them, to challenge the offer of nuclear power as a response to the energy-environment crisis. (shrink)

Drawing on Zen as well as on Nietzsche's thought and its ramifications in and for western culture, this book is a fervent call for a re-visioning of philosophy ...

_Therapy & the Counter-tradition: The Edge of Philosophy_ brings together leading exponents of contemporary psychotherapy, philosophers and writers, to explore how philosophical ideas may inform therapy work. Each author discusses a particular philosopher who has influenced their life and therapeutic practice, while questioning how counselling and psychotherapy can address human ‘wholeness’, despite the ascendancy of rationality, regulation and diagnosis. It also seeks to acknowledge the distinct lack of philosophical input and education in counselling and psychotherapy training. The chapters are rooted (...) in the Counter-Tradition, whose diverse manifestations include humanism, skepticism, fideism, as well as the opening of philosophy and psychology to poetry and the arts. This collection of thought-provoking essays will help open the discussion within the psychological therapies, by providing therapists with critical philosophical references, which will help broaden their knowledge and the scope of their practice. Therapy & the Counter-tradition: The Edge of Philosophy will be of interest to mental health professionals, practitioners, counselling and psychotherapy trainees and trainers, and academics tutoring or studying psychology. It will also appeal to those interested in psychology, meditation, personal development and philosophy. (shrink)

Research investigating the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions under which leader humility influences employee voice remains underdeveloped. Drawing from approach–inhibition theory of power and leader humility literature, we developed a moderated-mediation model in which personal sense of power (i.e., employees’ ability to influence other individuals such as their leader) was theorized as a unique mechanism underlining why employees feel motivated to speak up under the supervision of humble leaders. Additionally, the cultural value of power distance was proposed to be a (...) relevant boundary condition to influence such relationship. We tested the model using time-lagged supervisor–subordinate matched data. Results of mixed models analyses provided support for our hypotheses confirming that employees’ personal sense of power mediates the relationship between leader humility and employee voice, and such relationship was found to be stronger when employees’ power distance was lower rather than higher. (shrink)

The word ‘development’ can mean different things to different people. It is one of the most elusive concepts to define, alongside the concept of modernization. Often and perhaps due to its elusive nature, people tend to rely on an economic definition of development where definite parameters and indices can be used to assess and determine levels of development ‘objectively’. Thus, a nation’s development is measured in terms of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Income (GNI), Per-Capita Income and Foreign (...) Exchange Reserves. But does the attainment of these economic parameters really translate into development qua development? Historical and current development predicaments of many sub-Saharan African nation points to a negative response to the question. How, then, do we define or approach development that encompasses all the relevant development factors? Is there anything like an ideal definition of development at all or do we need to contextualize what development should mean for each society, culture, or nation? What does development ethics in an African context look or should like? This chapter explores these questions at an introductory level. (shrink)

This article is a contribution to overpopulation discourse in environmental ethics. It is based on the hypothesis that, even though the idea and reasoning behind Garret Hardin’s lifeboat metaphor are crucial within the current environmental crisis, from an African perspective, the metaphor raises a number of questions. The article argues that the lifeboat metaphor poses an ethical challenge to most communities particularly in Africa because it runs contrary to their political and cultural worldview. I advance two central claims in the (...) framework of insights from an African worldview. First, the ethics behind the lifeboat metaphor is deeply dependent upon political power differentials, particularly between affluent and poor nations. Second, the metaphor fails to take into consideration the cultural understanding of population in Africa. (shrink)