Religious beliefs are defined as thinking, feeling and behaving in accordance with the beliefs and teachings of a religious system. In other words, religious beliefs are indicative of the role of religion in the individual and social life of people, as well as adherence to values and beliefs in daily life, performing religious practices and rituals and participating in activities of religious organisations. Religious beliefs are a set of dos and don'ts, and values are considered one of the most important (...) psychological supports that can provide meaning in all moments of life and save a person from meaninglessness by providing explanatory support in specific situations. In addition, work conscience is defined as a feeling of inner commitment to comply with agreed-upon requirements for work. In other words, work conscience means heartfelt satisfaction and practical commitment to the tasks that a person is supposed to perform properly, in a way that there will be no negligence in performing the duty even if no supervisor oversees the activity. Given the significant role of nurses in hospitals, especially during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the religious beliefs of healthcare employees have become more important. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of religious beliefs on the work conscience of 1800 Muslim nurses in Iraq during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Standard questionnaires were applied to assess the respondents' religious beliefs and work conscience. In addition, data analyses (Cronbach's alpha, Pearson's correlation, etc.) were performed in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). According to the results, religious beliefs have a positive effect on nurses' work conscience (p = 0.822). CONTRIBUTION: The findings of this study showed that the employees of an organisation, especially nurses and healthcare staff, can rely on their religious beliefs and benefit from their advantages in order to strengthen their work conscience during a hard time such as the COVID-19 pandemic. (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)

Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most important innovators of the century, Tariq Ramadan is a leading Muslim scholar, with a large following especially among young European and American Muslims. Now, in his first book written for a wide audience, he offers a marvelous biography of the Prophet Muhammad, one that highlights the spiritual and ethical teachings of one of the most influential figures in human history. Here is a fresh and perceptive look at Muhammad, capturing (...) a life that was often eventful, gripping, and highly charged. Ramadan provides both an intimate portrait of a man who was shy, kind, but determined, as well as a dramatic chronicle of a leader who launched a great religion and inspired a vast empire. More important, Ramadan presents the main events of the Prophet's life in a way that highlights his spiritual and ethical teachings. The book underscores the significance of the Prophet's example for some of today's most controversial issues, such as the treatment of the poor, the role of women, Islamic criminal punishments, war, racism, and relations with other religions. Selecting those facts and stories from which we can draw a profound and vivid spiritual picture, the author asks how can the Prophet's life remain--or become again--an example, a model, and an inspiration? And how can Muslims move from formalism--a fixation on ritual--toward a committed spiritual and social presence? In this thoughtful and engaging biography, Ramadan offers Muslims a new understanding of Muhammad's life and he introduces non-Muslims not just to the story of the Prophet, but to the spiritual and ethical riches of Islam. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical care provided by nurses to earthquake victims is one of the main subjects in nursing profession.ObjectivesGiven the information gap in this field, the present study is an attempt to explore the nurses’ experience of ethical care provided to victims of an earthquake.Research design and methodA hermeneutic phenomenological study was performed. The participants were 16 nurses involved in providing care to the injured in Kermanshah earthquake, Iran. They were selected using purposeful sampling, and in-depth and semi-structured interviews were carried out. (...) The transcribed interviews were analyzed based on the hermeneutic approach using the analysis method proposed by Diekelmann et al.Ethical considerationsThe study was approved by the Research Council and Ethics Committee of Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Iran.FindingsData analyses revealed four themes and 10 sub-themes that illustrated nurses’ experience of ethical care during earthquake. The themes were (1) Respecting humanistic values (sacrifice, stepping beyond task description, and voluntary work), (2) Commitment to ethics (honesty, confidentiality, and trustworthiness), (3) Respecting dignity of victims (respecting cultural values, maintaining privacy, having humanistic perspective, and effective communication), and (4) Spiritual support (helping patients to do religious rituals Psychological support).ConclusionThe results showed the nurses’ experience with providing care to earthquake victims. The findings underlined ethics and ethical values in providing nursing care during disasters. It is suggested that special courses on the importance of nursing ethics in critical situations be incorporated into nursing curriculums and in-service educations. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the concept of applied Islamic ethics, the facts, its challenges, and its future. I aim to highlight some of the deep-rooted issues that Muslims have faced historically and continue to experience today as they apply religious guidance to their daily lives. I consider the causes and rationale behind the current situation and look beyond to suggest ways in which this may evolve, calling for a radical reform. Muslims throughout the world are experiencing a deepening crisis (...) of identity and confusion about their faith's principles and practices. I suggest how improvements might be achieved, in order to gain more coherence and understanding. This approach recognizes the importance of inviting an in-depth, deliberate analysis of relevant dialogues between religious experts of the text (scholars) and practitioners, those working at the grassroots. This approach remains faithful to the fundamental principles of the Islamic sources but also considers our present context. I recommend a shift in authority from scholars alone to a more inclusive, critical engagement of practitioners. Through this more comprehensive methodology of applied Islamic ethics, I suggest that Muslim communities, organizations, and individuals can remain faithful to their religious principles while, at the same time, actively participating in and contributing to our evolving societies. While I recognize that this will be a long process, I am confident that with applied Islamic ethics, the current feelings of confusion, self-doubt, and even apathy, given the previous failed processes of adaptation and reform, will give way to a new confidence in knowing how to address contemporary challenges. (shrink)

I attempt a reconstruction of Adam Smith's view of human nature as explicated in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith's view of human conduct is neither functionalist nor reductionist, but interactionist. The moral autonomy of the individual, conscience, is neither made a function of public approval nor reduced to self-contained impulses of altruism and egoism. Smith does not see human conduct as a blend of independently defined impulses. Rather, conduct is unified, by the underpinning sentiment of sympathy.

This paper addresses the impact of the unethical business conduct of a few individuals that shook the financial market in 1986. Specifically, in the study undertaken for this paper, the wealth status of the shareholders of securities firms was examined in relation to the public disclosure of the insider-trading scandals involving Dennis Levine, Ivan Boesky, and their confederates. It was hypothesized that the expected market-adjusted stock returns for the securities firms would be negative as a result of the scandals. The (...) findings of the study supported the hypothesis. (shrink)

Following a long-term international collaboration between leaders in cosmology and the philosophy of science, this volume addresses foundational questions at the limit of science across these disciplines, questions raised by observational and theoretical progress in modern cosmology. Space missions have mapped the Universe up to its early instants, opening up questions on what came before the Big Bang, the nature of space and time, and the quantum origin of the Universe. As the foundational volume of an emerging academic discipline, experts (...) from relevant fields lay out the fundamental problems of contemporary cosmology and explore the routes toward finding possible solutions. Written for graduates and researchers in physics and philosophy, particular efforts are made to inform academics from other fields, as well as the educated public, who wish to understand our modern vision of the Universe, related philosophical questions, and the significant impacts on scientific methodology. (shrink)

How different do our various religions, philosophies and traditions of thought make us? And can we see past what divides us to discover what we have in common?

Hume and Smith advance different answers to the question of whether sympathy can ever be the foundation of the moral order. They hold contradictory views of sympathy, called here ‘the Fellow-Feeling Paradox’. For Hume, fellow-feeling tends to reverberate in society, leading to the socialization of the individual and even mob (collective) psychology. Hence, sympathy cannot be the foundation of the moral order. In contrast, for Smith, fellow-feeling develops into critical judgment of the emotions/actions, leading to individual moral autonomy even self-command. (...) Hence, sympathy can be the foundation of the moral order. This paper provides a resolution of the two answers. (shrink)

The doctrine of sunyata, or emptiness, is the cornerstone of Buddhist metaphysics. This article explores the doctrine as elaborated by Nagarjuna, as it developed in Mahayana Buddhism and extended into Chinese Hua-Yen teachings. It is the key to understanding the relationship between the discontinuous and continuous aspects of reality, the inter-penetration and identity of “emptiness” and phenomena, the cosmic permeation of Buddhahood, and the role of the Bodhisattva.

There are problems with the thesis of von Hippel & Trivers (VH&T): (1) It entails that self-deception arises from interpersonal deception which is not necessarily so; and (3) it entails that interpersonal deception is optimum – which may not be true.

In the conditions in which dominant global powers is still trying to expand their cultural hegemony, neo-colonialism, over the countries which are trying to hold their independence, through the creation of native intellectuals who are mentally Gharbzadeh, Westoxificated. This study finds it crucial to take the issue a step further ahead to discuss how the ideas of Ale-e Ahamad’s famous theory of Gharbzadegi is still applicable in our time and reveals its representations in Said’s well-known concept of Orientalism. These imperial (...) powers through the controlling of the world’s educational system and thoughts and ultimately the mindsets of the native intellectuals of the downtrodden countries would have produced Intellectuals who are mentally filled with Westernized knowledge. These people who are mostly kind, good in nature, and placid seem to be dominated by a sense of instrumental rationality which makes them obediently adaptable to the dominant power. These people have narrated our history so far and we have had enough. (shrink)

Oaksford & Chater (O&C) would need to define rationality if they want to argue that stomachs are not rational. The question of rationality, anyhow, is orthogonal to the debate concerning whether humans use classical deductive logic or probabilistic reasoning.

Buildings energy consumption is growing gradually and put away around 40% of total energy use. Predicting heating and cooling loads of a building in the initial phase of the design to find out optimal solutions amongst different designs is very important, as ell as in the operating phase after the building has been finished for efficient energy. In this study, an artificial neural network model was designed and developed for predicting heating and cooling loads of a building based on a (...) dataset for building energy performance. The main factors for input variables are: relative compactness, roof area, overall height, surface area, glazing are a, wall area, glazing area distribution of a building, orientation, and the output variables: heating and cooling loads of the building. The dataset used for training are the data published in the literature for various 768 residential buildings. The model was trained and validated, most important factors affecting heating load and cooling load are identified, and the accuracy for the validation was 99.60%. (shrink)

Este artículo se ocupa de los reyes tribales en la Arabia pre-islámica. Estos reyes, eran en realidad jefes tribales que llevaban el título de malik y se tocaban con coronas. Algunos derivaban su poder del emperador sasánida, que eran quien les concedía las coronas. Su autoridad era principalmente local y limitada al territorio concreto de sus propias tribus; en algunos casos, a través de una confederación tribal, podía extenderse a otros territorios. Apoyados por guarniciones de la caballería persa, los reyes (...) podían ejercer su poder sobre el territorio y la población, lo que se traducía en un tributo anual pagado por los habitantes de las áreas bajo control. Asimismo, los reyes controlaban los mercados estacionales que se celebraran en su territorio y las rutas comerciales que lo atravesaban. A cambio, eran responsables de las vidas de sus contríbulos y de la seguridad de sus propiedades. (shrink)

When the Taliban destroyed the famous statues of the Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, the outrage of the global community, including that of prominent Muslim religious leaders, was matched perhaps only by the pious euphoria of Afghanistan’s hardliners. They had finally succeeded in removing visible signs of idolatry from their landscape, and fulfilled, at least in their own eyes, a long overdue religious mission. In the words of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, “Muslims (...) should be proud to destroy idols. Our destroying them was an act of praise for God.”1Yet such extreme acts of puritanical iconoclasm at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists, at least within modern history, have more.. (shrink)

The rational-decision approach is superior to the associative-learning approach of Cook et al. at explaining why mirror neurons (MNs) fire or do not fire – even when the stimulus is the same. The rational-decision approach is superior because it starts with the analysis of the intention of the organism, i.e., with the identification of the specific objective or goal that the organism is trying to maximize.

Textual exegesis is used to show that Marx's concept of social labor is transhistorical, referring to a collective activity of humans as a species. The collective nature of labor is suspended in capitalist production because of the anarchic character of market relations. But the suspension is skin deep: The sociality of labor asserts itself in a mediated manner through the alienated empowerment of goods with value. This is commodity fetishism, which vanishes when relations of production become actually collective?matching the transhistorical (...) essence of labor. Marx's concept of social labor is adjudged inadequate. It amounts to asserting that the actions of agents could be ex ante calculated according to a global rationality. In this respect, Marx's concept of social labor is reminiscent of the equally deficient notion of perfect competition in mainstream neoclassical economics. (shrink)

Social robots are expected to take over a significant number of jobs in the coming decades. The present research provides the first systematic evaluation of occupation suitability of existing social robots based on user perception derived classification of them. The study was conducted in the Middle East since the views of this region are rarely considered in human–robot interaction research, although the region is poised to increasingly adopt the use of robots. Laboratory-based experimental data revealed that a robot’s appearance plays (...) an important role in the perception of its capabilities and preference for it to perform a particular job. Participants showed a preference for machine-like robots to perform dull and dirty occupations and humanoids, but not androids, to perform jobs requiring extensive social interaction with humans. However, other aspects of appearance than morphology determine whether a robot is preferred for a job irrespective of its perceived capability to do it. (shrink)

PurposeThe information technology related ethical issues will only increase in frequency and complexity with the increasing diffusion of IT in economies and societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore Egyptian students' attitudes towards the information ethics issues of privacy, access, property, and accuracy, and it evaluates the possible impact of a number of personal characteristics on such attitudes.Design/methodology/approachThis research utilized a cross‐sectional sample and data set to test five hypotheses. It adopted an instrument to collect the respondents' background (...) information and assess their attitudes towards the information ethics issues of privacy, property, accuracy, and access. Egyptian business students at Alexandria University were asked to participate in the survey. A total of 305 responses were collected and analyzed.FindingsThe analysis revealed that students are sensitive to the ethicality of information privacy, information accuracy, and information access. However, students are insensitive to the ethicality of property right. In addition, years of education have a main effect on students' attitudes towards property, and gender and age have an interaction effect on students' attitudes towards access.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this research are based on a cross‐sectional data set collected from a sample of business students at a public university. Students, however, may make poor surrogates for business or IT professionals. Future similar research designs that employ large samples from Egyptian working professionals and students in other private and public universities are needed to verify the findings of this research.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that the investigated university as well as the other similar Egyptian universities should consider integrating ethics education into their curricula. Teaching information ethics, especially from an Islamic perspective, is expected to positively influence students' information ethical attitudes. The enforcement of the existing property right protection laws should also curb software piracy in the Egyptian market.Originality/valueIt is vital to expand the ethical research currently being performed in IT in order to help bridge the gap between behavior and IT. The findings of this research extend the understanding of students' attitudes towards the information ethics issues in Egyptian culture and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on global information ethics. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza los cambios que se produjeron en el estatus legal de las esclavas (yawari) con la introducción y expansión del islam entre los árabes. El autor analiza tanto las causas religiosas como las debidas a factores históricos y sociales: cambio en los criterios del reparto del botín de guerra, en el trato y uso de las prisioneras de guerra, introducción del concepto de umm al-walad, etc. Igualmente, se estudia la repercusión social que tuvieron estos cambios para las esclavas (...) y para las familias a las que pertenecían. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Organisms change their shape and behavior during ontogenesis in response to incentives—what biologists call “phenotypic plasticity” or what is called here more specifically “behavioral plasticity.” Such plasticity is usually in the direction of enhancing welfare or fitness. In light of basic concepts in economics, such behavioral plasticity is nothing but rationality. Such rationality is not limited to organisms with neural systems. It also characterizes brainless organisms such as plants, fungi, and unicellular organisms. The gist of the article is the distinction (...) between rationality and intelligence. Whereas rationality is ubiquitous in all organisms, intelligence varies in degrees depending on division of labor that may involve the evolution of a neural system. This article aims to defend the universality of rationality—the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. It argues that neither the notion of bounded rationality of behavioral economics nor Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” can ultimately undermine the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. (shrink)

The article examines the nature of tawba, usually translated as ‘repentance’, in the thought of Abū Țālib al-Makkī . Makkī’s most comprehensive discussion of this topic appears in the thirty-second chapter of his Qūt al-qulūb , one of the most widely reads works of the early Sufi tradition. It is the longest single sustained treatment of tawba, written from the perspective of Sufi spiritual psychology, currently available to us from the first four centuries of Islam. By drawing on Revelation as (...) well as the earlier Sufi tradition he is heir to, Makkī delineates certain conditions which have to be met in order for tawba to be sound. The article explores Makkī’s treatment of these conditions as well as their relation to notions of tawba in the broader Islamic tradition. (shrink)

Expert systems are knowledge-based information systems which are expected to have human attributes in order to replicate human capacity in ethical decision making. An expert system functions by virtue of its information, its inferential rules, and its decision criteria, each of which may be problematic. This paper addresses three basic reasons for ethical concern when using the currently available expert systems in a decisions-making capacity. These reasons are (1) expert systems' lack of human intelligence, (2) expert systems' lack of emotions (...) and values, and (3) expert systems' possible incorporation of intentional or accidental bias. For these reasons artificial ethics seems to be science fiction. Consequently, expert systems should be used only in an advising capacity and managers should not absolve themselves from legal and ethical responsibility when using expert systems in decision making. (shrink)

For the authors of the target article, innovations are underdetermined by environmental inducement underdetermination.sourceinducement” that makes the organism adopt it in the future.

Rachlin basically marshals three reasons behind his unconventional claim that altruism is a subcategory of self-control and that, hence, the prisoner's dilemma is the appropriate metaphor of altruism. I do not find any of the three reasons convincing. Therefore, the prisoner's dilemma metaphor is unsuitable for explaining altruism.

Preston & de Waal conflate familiarity with similarity in their attempt to account for empathy. If distinguished, we may have at hand two different kinds of empathy: egocentric empathy and empathy proper.

La "question" de l'islam obsède l'Occident. Religion, laïcité, citoyenneté, immigration, intégration, multiculturalisme, extrémisme : sur ces sujets, tout concourt à détériorer son image. Et que dire de ces jeunes qui partent follement en guerre, au jihâd pensent-ils, pour rejoindre des groupes violents qui trahissent les enseignements les plus élémentaires de l'islam? Dans cette confusion sans précédent, il importe de revenir aux principes et aux notions premières, en quête de solutions concrètes. Quelle conception de l'homme trouve-t-on au coeur du message islamique? (...) Comment le comprendre et l'incarner dans le contexte occidental? Qu'en est-il de l'indispensable libération des femmes? De la conception islamique de la paix et de la guerre? Comment lutter contre l'islamophobie? Questions ici posées, avec rigueur et simplicité, à l'usage des femmes et des hommes, musulmans ou non, désireux de se comprendre, de dialoguer et de vivre ensemble dans la justice et la paix. C'est à un retour aux sources qu'invite Tariq Ramadan, par un nécessaire travail de "défrichage terminologique" autour des notions centrales et trop souvent dévoyées de shahâda (témoignage), de sharî â (voie) et de jihâd (effort). Une introduction sereine à l'humanisme de l'islam. (shrink)

The paper examines the ramifications of naturalism with regard to the question of individuality in economics and biology. Economic theory has to deal with whether households, firms, and states are individuals or are mere entities such as clubs, networks, and coalitions. Biological theory has to deal with the same question with regard to cells, organisms, family packs, and colonies. To wit, the question of individuality in both disciplines involves three separate problems: the metaphysical, phenomenist, and ontological. The metaphysical problem is (...) concerned with purposeful action: Is the firm or organism exclusively the product of efficient causality (optimization) or is it motivated by final causality (purposefulness)? The phenomenist problem is interested in the substantiality of essences: Is the firm''s or organism''s scheme of institutions/traits deep or is it extraneous to identity? The ontological problem is related to the issue of reductionism: Is the behavior of lower-level organization governed by a pre-constituted entities or is it context-sensitive? The paper finds that theoretical differences run along the naturalist/anti-naturalist divide rather than along disciplinary specialization. Also, the paper finds that it is not inconsistent for the same theorist to be naturalist with regard to one problem and anti-naturalist with respect to the other two problems. (shrink)

Based on case studies of religious Muslim and Christian family firms operating in a religiously diverse country, we explain the multiplicity of family, business, religion, and community logics in the family firm. In particular, we give attention to the religion logic and how it interacts with other logics when family firms are considering ethical issues. We show that religion has a rule-based approach in Muslim family firms and a principle-based approach in Christian family firms. We also draw attention to the (...) fluidity characteristic of the religion logic, through which family firms interpret the role of religion among other logics in influencing ethical decisions. Our study advances institutional logics literature in highlighting the plurality between and within logics in family firms, and contributes to the growing recognition of the influence of religious beliefs on the ethical behaviors of family firms. (shrink)

According to Tocqueville, the freedom of the press, which he treats as an extension of the freedom of speech, is a primary constituent element of liberty. Tocqueville treats the freedom of the press in relation to and as an extension of the right to assemble and govern one’s own affairs, both of which he argues are essential to preserving liberty in a free society. Although scholars acknowledge the importance of civil associations to liberty in Tocqueville’s political thought, they routinely ignore (...) the importance he places on the freedom of the press and speech. His reflections on the importance of the free press and speech may help to shed light on the dangers of recent attempts to censor the press and speech. (shrink)

Que sont le bien et le mal, le licite et l'illicite? Comment déterminer le «bon comportement» et le sens de la vertu? Tout comme dans la pensée occidentale, la préoccupation éthique est centrale dans la tradition islamique. Pour comprendre ce que recouvre cette notion, il importe de se plonger dans l'histoire de la pensée musulmane. Une mise en perspective qui permet de lier la question des valeurs et de la moralité aux réflexions juridiques (fiqh), mystiques (soufisme) et philosophiques (kalam). Qui (...) détermine le «bon» et le «mauvais» au coeur de l'islam, et comment? Doit-on se référer en priorité aux sources scripturaires (Coran et traditions prophétiques)? La raison n'a-t-elle rien à ajouter? Comment l'éthique islamique s'applique-t-elle dans les domaines de la médecine, de l'économie, de l'environnement, de la psychologie, de l'éducation, des arts? Et comment la relier aux autres traditions religieuses et philosophiques? Le questionnement éthique invite à réfléchir aux finalités des savoirs. A la croisée du droit, de la foi et des sciences, cet ouvrage de synthèse ouvre une voie d'accès claire et rigoureuse à l'essence des débats ayant donné corps à l'éthique islamique. (shrink)