This unique longitudinal study examines the state of work centrality and other life areas in Israel among the same individuals over a 12-year period. A new representative sample of the Israeli labour force in 1992–93 assists us in exploring whether the changes occurred by cohort, life course or period effect. The restudied sample maturation led to a decrease in the importance of leisure, while the importance of work, family, community and religion remained stable. The increase of work centrality between the (...) 1980s and the 1990s was found to be influenced by period effect; there was no evidence of a life course or cohort effect on work centrality, while life course effect was found on the importance of community. In contrast to findings from other countries showing that young people attributed relatively high importance to leisure and relatively less importance to work, cohort effect regarding the latter was not observed in Israel. There, young people in the 1990s tended to view work and leisure as important as their predecessors did in the 1980s. Compared with research findings from the United States, Germany and Japan, work centrality in Israel was higher and more stable. (shrink)

The longitudinal research presented here is unique, having examined a model of stability and change in work values of the same people over the course of time. The purpose was to reflect the changes in work values that occurred in Israel during this period. The research focused on three domains: work goals, job satisfaction, and work centrality. Following an analysis of research literature, a model of work values was examined by the LISREL method. Instrumental and expressive goals effected work centrality (...) both directly and indirectly. While in 1981 only the positive effect of expressive goals on work centrality was significant, the 1993 analysis revealed that beyond the positive effect of expressive goals, there is also significant negative effect of instrumental goals on work centrality. Our research shows that the main changes occurred in peripheral values as compared with the stability of core values. Slight changes occurred in semi-peripheral values. (shrink)

The Mesillas Yesharim / Path of the Just was the masterpiece of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the great mystic, philosopher, sage, and saint. For centuries, this classic text for better living has been every man's primer for ideal life. Wherever there were Jews there was a well-thumbed Mesillas Yesharim. In this book, Rabbi Twerski applies the text and themes of Mesillas Yesharim to the everyday challenges of the 90s. He shows us how we can succeed in the quest for (...) a better life and in bettering ourselves. (shrink)

Embers and Ashes tells of Sharabi's childhood and boyhood in Palestine, his youth and initial political activism as a university student in Lebanon, and his life and education as a graduate student in the US. He brings his newly acquired ...

In the latter part of the fifteenth century, a Jewish translator, working together with a Slavic amanuensis, translated into the East Slavic language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania three medieval Hebrew translations of Arabic philosophical texts: the Logical Terminology, a short work on logic attributed to Maimonides (but probably by a different medieval Jewish author); and two sections of the Muslim theologian Al-Ghazali's famous Intentions of the Philosophers. Highlighting the unexpected role played by Jewish translators as agents of cultural (...) transmission in the heady messianic atmosphere leading up to the year 1492, these texts drew the attention of the Orthodox Church authorities as being in the possession of the enlightened heretical sect known as the Judaizers, which had emerged in Novgorod and spread to Moscow. Reflecting three and even four layers of translation, Prof. Moshe Taube's new triple-language critical edition of the Logika of the Judaizers displays the Slavic texts alongside the Hebrew translations on which they are based and accompanies them with a modern English translation. In his comprehensive introduction and commentary, Taube surveys earlier scholarly efforts to identify the provenance and purport of the translations, discusses the linguistic and textological issues raised by these early Ruthenian texts, puts forward the likely dissimilar motivations of the Jewish translator and the Christians who commissioned the work, and reveals the translator's probable identity. The present publication, a long-awaited desideratum, will be of interest not only to historians of the Great Duchy of Lithuania and of the principality of Muscovy, but also to scholars of Jewish history and of the history of philosophy and science, as well as to linguists studying the history of the Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian languages. (shrink)

Answers to the questions of what justifies conscientious objection in medicine in general and which specific objections should be respected have proven to be elusive. In this paper, I develop a new framework for conscientious objection in medicine that is based on the idea that conscience can express true moral claims. I draw on one of the historical roots, found in Adam Smith’s impartial spectator account, of the idea that an agent’s conscience can determine the correct moral norms, even if (...) the agent’s society has endorsed different norms. In particular, I argue that when a medical professional is reasoning from the standpoint of an impartial spectator, his or her claims of conscience are true, or at least approximate moral truth to the greatest degree possible for creatures like us, and should thus be respected. In addition to providing a justification for conscientious objection in medicine by appealing to the potential truth of the objection, the account advances the debate regarding the integrity and toleration justifications for conscientious objection, since the standard of the impartial spectator specifies the boundaries of legitimate appeals to moral integrity and toleration. The impartial spectator also provides a standpoint of shared deliberation and public reasons, from which a conscientious objector can make their case in terms that other people who adopt this standpoint can and should accept, thus offering a standard fitting to liberal democracies. (shrink)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Uncertainty examines the intrapsychic features of the self as it presents within OCD compulsive doubting. Moshe Marcus and Steven Tuber suggest a phenomenological framework through which to consider the interplay between the cognitive as well as affective components required to make judgments.

Annotation. In this volume, the third in his classic series of texts surveying the history of art theory, Moshe Barasch traces the hidden patterns and interlocking themes in the study of art, from Impressionism to Abstract Art. Barasch details the immense social changes in the creation, presentation, and reception of art which have set the history of art theory on a vertiginous new course: the decreased relevance of workshops and art schools; the replacement of the treatise by the critical (...) review; and the interrelation of new modes of scientific inquiry with artistic theory and praxis. The consequent changes in the ways in which critics as well as artists conceptualized paintings and sculptures were radical, marked by an obsession with intense, immediate sensory experiences, psychological reflection on the effects of art, and a magnetic pull to the exotic and alien, making for the most exciting and fertile period in the history of art criticism. (shrink)

Physicians frequently ask whether they should give patients what they want, usually when there are considerations pointing against doing so, such as medicine’s values and physicians’ obligations. It has been argued that the source of medicine’s values and physicians’ obligations lies in what has been dubbed “the internal morality of medicine”: medicine is a practice with an end and norms that are definitive of this practice and that determine what physicians ought to do qua physicians. In this paper, I defend (...) the claim that medicine requires a morality that is internal to its practice, while rejecting the prevalent characterization of this morality and offering an alternative one. My approach to the internal morality of medicine is constructivist in nature: the norms of medicine are constructed by medical professionals, other professionals, and patients, given medicine’s end of “benefitting patients in need of prima facie medical treatment and care.” I make the case that patients should be involved in the construction of medicine’s morality not only because they have knowledge that is relevant to the internal morality of medicine—namely, their own values and preferences—but also because medicine is an inherently relational enterprise: in medicine the relationship between physician and patient is a constitutive component of the craft itself. The framework I propose provides an authoritative morality for medicine, while allowing for the incorporation, into that very morality, of qualified deference to patient values. (shrink)

Two problems seem to plague Adam Smith’s account of sympathy and approbation in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). First, Smith’s account of sympathy at the beginning of TMS appears to be inconsistent with the account of sympathy at the end of TMS. In particular, it seems that Smith did not appreciate the distinction between ‘self-oriented sympathy’ and ‘other-oriented sympathy’, that is, between imagining being oneself in the actor’s situation and imagining being the actor in the actor’s situation. Second, Smith’s (...) account of approbation, according to which a sentiment of approval arises when there is recognition of concordance between the spectator’s sympathetic passion and the actor’s original passion, seems to face the following problem: since the spectator attains both his own sympathetic passion and the actor’s original passion by sympathizing with the actor, the sympathetic passion of the spectator and the original passion of the actor will necessarily be identical. Therefore, Smith’s account of approbation requires that the spectator utilize both self-oriented and other-oriented sympathy (‘the double-sympathy model of approbation’). I offer a novel developmental account of sympathy in TMS that renders Smith’s account of sympathy consistent and allows for the utilization of the double-sympathy model of approbation. (shrink)

The literature on conscientious objection in medicine presents two key problems that remain unresolved: Which conscientious objections in medicine are justified, if it is not feasible for individual medical practitioners to conclusively demonstrate the genuineness or reasonableness of their objections? How does one respect both medical practitioners’ claims of conscience and patients’ interests, without leaving practitioners complicit in perceived or actual wrongdoing? My aim in this paper is to offer a new framework for conscientious objections in medicine, which, by bringing (...) medical professionals’ conscientious objection into the public realm, solves the justification and complicity problems. In particular, I will argue that: an “Uber Conscientious Objection in Medicine Committee” —which includes representatives from the medical community and from other professions, as well as from various religions and from the patient population—should assess various well-known conscientious objections in medicine in terms of public reason and decide which conscientious objections should be permitted, without hearing out individual conscientious objectors; medical practitioners should advertise their conscientious objections, ahead of time, in an online database that would be easily accessible to the public, without being required, in most cases, to refer patients to non-objecting practitioners. (shrink)

My question in the chapter is this: could (and should) the role of the physician be construed as that of a friend to the patient? I begin by briefly discussing the “friendship model” of the physician-patient relationship—according to which physicians and patients could, and perhaps should, be friends—as well as its history and limitations. Given these limitations, I focus on the more one-sided idea that the physician could, and perhaps should, be a friend to the patient (a “physician-qua-friend model” of (...) the physician-patient relationship). I show that given recent developments in our understanding of the physician-patient relationship, this idea is far from asinine. I then make the case that the most plausible conception of the physician-qua-friend model incorporates the following components: (a) a common goal, that is, one that physician and patient share; (b) certain forms of equality between physician and patient; (c) an ideal of a caring physician. Finally, I show how the model can be instantiated in a certain type of physician-patient interaction, namely, in physician-assisted dying. (shrink)

The Humean Theory of Reasons, according to which all of our reasons for action are explained by our desires, has been criticized for not being able to account for “moral reasons,” namely, overriding reasons to act on moral demands regardless of one's desires. My aim in this paper is to utilize ideas from Adam Smith's moral philosophy in order to offer a novel and alternative account of moral reasons that is both desire-based and accommodating of an adequate version of the (...) requirement that moral demands have overriding reason-giving force. In particular, I argue that the standpoint of what Smith calls “the impartial spectator” can both determine what is morally appropriate and inappropriate and provide the basis for normative reasons for action—including reasons to act on moral demands—to nearly all reason-responsive agents and, furthermore, that these reasons have the correct weight. The upshot of the proposed account is that it offers an interesting middle road out of a dilemma pertaining to the explanatory and normative dimensions of reasons for informed-desire Humean theorists. (shrink)

This is the first of a series of papers devoted to the thorough investigation of refinement based on an underlying partial relational model. In this paper we restrict attention to operation refinement. We explore four theories of refinement based on an underlying partial relation model for specifications, and we show that they are all equivalent. This, in particular, sheds some light on the relational completion operator due to Woodcock which underlies data refinement in, for example, the specification language Z. It (...) further leads to two simple alternative models which are also equivalent to the others. (shrink)

I offer a novel two-stage reconstruction of Hume’s general-point-of-view account, modeled in part on his qualified-judges account in ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’ In particular, I argue that the general point of view needs to be jointly constructed by spectators who have sympathized with (at least some of) the agents in (at least some of) the actor’s circles of influence. The upshot of the account is two-fold. First, Hume’s later thought developed in such a way that it can rectify the (...) problems inherent in his Treatise account of the general point of view. Second, the proposed account provides the grounds for an adequate and well-motivated modest ideal observer theory of the standard of virtue. (shrink)

I build on Adam Smith’s account of the impartial spectator in The Theory of Moral Sentiments in order to offer a modest ideal observer theory of moral judgment that is adequate in the following sense: the account specifies the hypothetical conditions that guarantee the authoritativeness of an agent’s (or agents’) responses in constituting the standard in question, and, if an actual agent or an actual community of agents are not under those conditions, their responses are not authoritative in setting this (...) standard. However, in the account that I provide, the hypothetical conditions can themselves be constructed from the psychology and interactions of actual human beings. In other words, facts about the morally appropriate and inappropriate are determined from hypothetical conditions that––while agents in a given society might have yet to attain them––can be constructed from those agents’ shared experiences. Thus, the account offers both an attainable standard of moral judgment and a standard that can transcend the biases of the society which gave rise to it. I also defend the account against three challenges: (a) ideal observer theories do not offer the right kind of motivation to act on the verdicts of the ideal observer; (b) ideal observer theories cannot explain why the idealization in question is well-motivated and not objectionably ad hoc; (c) the standard used in ideal observer theories cannot be defended upon further reflection, because we would need a non-arbitrary, second-order standard to govern our reflection on the first-order standard of moral judgment. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1971.

Using the work of Emmanuel Levinas, this article sheds light on Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, a piece that so far eluded the critics, despite its immense popularity with theater viewers. I show that it is not Chaplin's lack of inventiveness that makes the Tramp risk his life on the tightrope 'for nothing'. It is, on the contrary, Chaplin's intuitive sense that makes him believe, anticipating Levinas, that it is human and simple for a person to help another for no benefit. (...) It is this point that cinema-goers understood more easily than we, scholars, may think. Starting with The Circus I demonstrate that this film, which critics have underestimated due to its 'pointless' ending, becomes meaningful once interpreted as promoting radical for-the-other ethics. My argument about The Circus is supported by close reading as well as Chaplin's own remarks and his later talkie Limelight in which similar ideas are expressed more openly through language and through the ending scene, with the protagonist dying on stage, to the sounds of roaring laughter of the audience. (shrink)

John Rawls raises three challenges – to which one can add a fourth challenge – to an impartial spectator account: (a) the impartial spectator is a utility-maximizing device that does not take seriously the distinction between persons; (b) the account does not guarantee that the principles of justice will be derived from it; (c) the notion of impartiality in the account is the wrong one, since it does not define impartiality from the standpoint of the litigants themselves; (d) the account (...) would offer a comprehensive, rather than a political, form of liberalism. The narrow aim of the article is to demonstrate that Adam Smith's impartial spectator account can rise to Rawls's challenges. The broader aim is to demonstrate that the impartial spectator account offers the basis for a novel and alternative framework for developing principles of justice, and does so in the context of a political form of liberalism. (shrink)

This book describes Carmeli's cosmological general and special relativity theory, along with Einstein's general and special relativity. These theories are discussed in the context of Moshe Carmeli's original research, in which velocity is introduced as an additional independent dimension. Four- and five-dimensional spaces are considered, and the five-dimensional braneworld theory is presented. The Tully-Fisher law is obtained directly from the theory, and thus it is found that there is no necessity to assume the existence of dark matter in the (...) halo of galaxies, nor in galaxy clusters.The book gives the derivation of the Lorentz transformation, which is used in both Einstein's special relativity and Carmeli's cosmological special relativity theory. The text also provides the mathematical theory of curved space?time geometry, which is necessary to describe both Einstein's general relativity and Carmeli's cosmological general relativity. A comparison between the dynamical and kinematic aspects of the expansion of the universe is made. Comparison is also made between the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker theory and the Carmeli theory. And neither is it necessary to assume the existence of dark matter to correctly describe the expansion of the cosmos. (shrink)

In The Sources of Normativity, Korsgaard argues for what can be called “The Universality of Humanity Claim” (UHC), according to which valuing humanity in one’s own person entails valuing it in that of others. However, Korsgaard’s reliance on the claim that reasons are essentially public in her attempt to demonstrate the truth of UHC has been repeatedly criticized. I offer a sentimentalist defense, based on Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, of a qualified, albeit adequate, version of UHC. In particular, valuing my (...) humanity, understood as (my awareness of) my perspective and the reasons determined from within it, entails valuing your humanity, understood as (your awareness of) your perspective and the reasons determined from within it. Given Korsgaard’s emphasis on the publicity of reasons in her argument for UHC, I also discuss the role of reasons in my account. I argue that the relative weights of (at least some of) an agent’s reasons are determined from within a shared evaluative point of view, namely, the standpoint of what Smith calls “the impartial spectator.” These reasons have normative authority over and constrain the agent’s private reasons, that is, those that are determined from within her own particular evaluative point of view. (shrink)

This study examines the theory of media systems and the models offered by Hallin and Mancini (2004) by focusing on critical junctures in which changes occur. Based on critical political economy and historical institutionalism, we analyzed the Israeli media system transition in the 1980s and early 1990s, seeking to understand the nature of this change and its theoretical implications. Our findings show a combination of government, market, and public forces in a unique situation where political, economic, and social circumstances change. (...) Accordingly, we conclude that a distinction between politics and economy, as the media system theory and, specifically, the liberal model suggests, is invalid under neoliberalism. We argue that research attention should be paid to critical junctions, and that a closer analysis of government and market interrelations can enrich theories of media systems. (shrink)

An important measure of the success of an academic institution is evaluation of its moral health. In order to investigate academic integrity in our institution, we administered the Academic Integrity Survey to a representative sample of 384 students from different departments. In addition we performed content analysis on 24 disciplinary hearing files from the previous academic year in order to ascertain which students were brought before the committee and why. Results show that the majority of students perceived academic misconduct as (...) a serious matter. Those who reported high on academic misconduct were concentrated among those who had not done national service, studied in the science faculty, and were Arabic-speaking students. Evaluation of the disciplinary hearings revealed that half the student brought before the committee were Arabic-speaking students despite their relatively small numbers in the college. The findings suggest that prevention of academic misconduct should focus on supporting specific at-risk populations. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

I defend the feasibility of a medical conscience in the following sense: a medical professional can object to the prevailing medical norms because they are incorrect as medical norms. In other words, I provide an account of conscientious objection that makes use of the idea that the conscience can issue true normative claims, but the claims in question are claims about medical norms rather than about general moral norms. I further argue that in order for this line of reasoning to (...) succeed, there needs to be an internal morality of medicine that determines what medical professionals ought to do qua medical professionals. I utilize a constructivist approach to the internal morality of medicine and argue that medical professionals can conscientiously object to providing treatment X, if providing treatment X is not in accordance with norms that would have been constructed, in light of the end of medicine, by the appropriate agents under the appropriate conditions. (shrink)

The argument moves from the art and civilization of ancient Egypt to that of modern Europe and effortlessly reveals a full and surprising range of language in art - from the magical to the impious, from the ambiguous to the didactic, scientific, and propagandistic.

_ Source: _Volume 26, Issue 1, pp 34 - 66 During his final years, R. Nahman of Bratslav endeavored to find a solution for the paradox of unrealized messiahs. His solution was outlined in his dream about birds in December 1806, on the Sabbath of _Parashat Va-yeḥi_. This dream was influenced by his reading of a story told in the _Zohar, Parashat Va-yeḥi_, of a “vision of birds” of R. Yehudah, a disciple of R. Shimon bar Yohai, that exemplifies the (...) crisis experienced by the circle of disciples of R. Shimon following his death. The essay elaborates on the connections between the dream and the _Zohar_ story and their influence on R. Nahman’s messianic endeavor. (shrink)

This study proposes that Moses’ agape and storge love of his people was the motivation for his adoption of fatherly leadership style. The study relies on a direct reading of Hebrew language version of the relevant books of the Old Testament. We provide examples that anchor Moses fatherly leadership style in biblical texts, and reference it to modern leadership thoughts and practical wisdom. Moses’ traits, such as humility, gratitude, forgiveness, and altruism, and his unparalleled grit provided him with the capabilities (...) required to perform as a father leader. This leadership style is characterized by availability (awareness), building community, commitment to the growth of people, disciplining, foresight, healing, involvement, listening, persuasion, providing, relinquishing control, role modeling, showing empathy, stewardship (serving), supporting, and teaching. We provide leaders with a list of fatherly leadership behaviors that lacks the authoritarian component of eastern paternalistic leadership style, and that may be well practiced in the health care, social work, education, sport management and other people service industries. (shrink)