Contemporary Kantianism is often regarded as both a position within normative ethics and as an alternative to metaethical moral realism. We argue that it is not clear how contemporary Kantianism can distinguish itself from moral realism. There are many Kantian positions. For reasons of space we focus on the position of one of the most prominent, contemporary Kantians, Christine Korsgaard. Our claim is that she fails to show either that Kantianism is different or that it is better than realism. Our (...) strategy is to argue that what are supposed to be claims that conflict with realism in fact do not. (shrink)

The maturing of metaethics has been accompanied by widespread, but relatively unarticulated, discontent that mainstream metaethics is fundamentally on the wrong track. The malcontents we have in mind do not simply champion a competitor to the likes of noncognitivism or realism; they disapprove of the supposed presuppositions of the existing debate. Their aim is not to generate a new theory within metaethics, but to go beyond metaethics and to transcend the distinctions it draws between metaethics and normative ethics and between (...) cognitivism and non-cognitivism. In our experience, the differences with traditional metaethics go deep enough that it can feel as if two different paradigms are talking past each other. We attempt to bring clarity and focus to this rather inchoate debate by simultaneously articulating the general issues involved and engaging in a detailed case study of one of the prominent representatives of this discontent, Christine Korsgaard. We argue that Korsgaard fails to go beyond metaethics–indeed, fails even to provide a theory within metaethics. Our strategy for showing this is to argue that her claims are compatible with both cognitivism and non-cognitivism. We have argued elsewhere that her distinctive claims are compatible with realism. Here we focus on the crucial role that claims about agency and the will seem to play her in work and, according to our interpretation, in her attempts to go beyond mainstream metaethics. We show in detail that these claims are actually compatible with non-cognitivism. Though our discussion often focuses on her work in particular, it has clear implications for other attempts to obviate the debates of traditional metaethics. (shrink)

Ethical consumerism has been dramatically increasing in recent decades, but in service sector, fewer research has been conducted especially in the fast-food industry. In this paper, we determined empirically the consumer perceived ethicality effects on repurchase intentions as well as on word of mouth through brand image partial mediation and customer expertise moderation in fast-food sector. The data were collected from 307 consumers of the fast-food restaurants through self-administered questionnaires. Common method variance and social desirability bias were measured before testing (...) hypotheses, and the data were investigated by SPSS and AMOS 21st version. The empirical results demonstrated that consumer perceived ethicality effects on repurchase intentions directly and through brand image partial mediation indirectly. Moreover, the direct and positive effects of repurchase intentions on word of mouth were experienced. This study generalized the results of previous studies of consumer perceived ethicality conducted in western culture in Pakistani fast-food sector. This study also proposed that firms should tackle ethical concerns at corporate and operational strategy levels to improve consumers’ behavioral intentions. (shrink)

Islāmic aesthetic is an outcome of Islāmic civilisation based on Islāmic metaphysics and theology and emphasizes that God is the origin or source of all art and thought, including various art forms. Thus, the essences or forms of all things have their reality in the Divine Wisdom or Intellect (Al-‘Aql-i-Awwal). Islāmic conception of art and beauty has its origin in Islāmic Weltanschauung, so, each object of beauty in nature reflects the Creative and Aesthetic aspect of Jamīl Allāh with His Jamāl. (...) Generally, in Muslim world, art and beauty are almost neglected ones, so, they are not given significant and sufficient importance because of some unauthentic and false notions and consequently, we have almost lost this pristine Islāmic heritage and now we must revisit it and realise its vital function and role in our socio-political and ethico-spiritual life. Islāmic aesthetics has a significant role in the cultural tradition of Islāmic Ummah, so it must be revitalised for a peaceful life’s onward caravan. In the present paper, an effort has been made to discuss the etymological meaning of ‘aesthetics’ in general and the main features of Islāmic conception of aesthetics, including art and beauty, in particular, along with various Islāmic art-forms. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#69-70; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2021 P 119-144. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to define some new operation laws for the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy number and Hamming distance. Furthermore, we define and use the trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy TOPSIS method to solve the multi criteria decision making (MCDM) method. The new ranking method for trapezoidal linguistic cubic fuzzy numbers (TrLCFNs) are used to rank the alternatives. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify and prove the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method.

The approach of the complex network has well described seismic complex systems. In this paper, this is the first time three classical network construction methods for seismicity are compared. By using the same dataset from the Southern California Seismic Network, three networks are constructed. They all present the scale-free, small-world properties, a strength-degree correlation, and an assortative mixing feature. However, they show some differences in the hierarchical clustering feature. On observing the evolution results, three measures show a similar correlation with (...) seismicity dynamics, but one measure shows a different result. These results show that different network construction methods will present some similarities and differences in network properties. This situation needs to be considered, especially when discussing a predictive indicator of seismicity. (shrink)

In the educational hypermedia domain, adaptive systems try to adapt educational materials according to the required properties of a user. The adaptability of these systems becomes more effective once the system has the knowledge about how a student can learn better. Studies suggest that, for effective personalization, one of the important features is to know precisely the learning style of a student. However, learning styles are dynamic and may vary domain-wise. To address such aspects of learning styles, we have proposed (...) a computationally efficient solution that considers the dynamic and nondeterministic nature of learning styles, effect of the subject domain, and nonstationary aspect during the learning process. The proposed model is novel, robust, and flexible to optimize students’ domain-wise learning style preferences for better content adaptation. We have developed a web-based experimental prototype for assessment and validation. The proposed model is compared with the existing available learning style-based model, and the experimental results show that personalization based on incorporating discipline-wise learning style variations becomes more effective. (shrink)

Measurements play a significant role in the scientific investigation of religious phenomena. The study of religion, in general, has attracted considerable attention from academia and literature. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic analysis of the literature regarding scales that have been developed for measuring variables with Islamic relevance and importance, having a theoretical framework embedded in the primary sources of Islamic literature (the Quran and hadith) and validated on Muslim samples. Six well-known databases were selected—ScienceDirect, Web (...) of Science, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Emerald Insight, and Google Scholar—to conduct an in-depth search of existing literature on the topic. Results revealed three broad concepts that have been the focus of measurement: religiosity, spirituality, and morality. Based on our analysis, it can be suggested that although there has been an increase in measuring Islamic religiousness in recent years, there is scope for improvement. This analytical review can be a valuable resource for researchers interested in selecting a valid and trustworthy scale that meets the criteria of their study settings. (shrink)

This paper illustrates the importance of monitoring health facility-level information to monitor changes in maternal mortality risks. The annual facility-level maternal mortality ratios (MMRs), complications to live births ratios and case fatality ratios (CFRs) were computed from data recorded during 2007 and 2009 in 31 upgraded public sector health facilities across Pakistan. The facility-level MMR declined by about 18%; both the number of Caesarean sections and the episodes of complications as a percentage of live births increased; and CFR based on (...) Caesarean sections and episodes of complications declined by 29% and 37%, respectively. The observed increases in the proportion of women with complications among those who come to these facilities point to a reduction in the delay in reaching facilities (first and second delays; Thaddeus & Maine, 1994); the decrease in CFRs points to improvements in treating obstetric complications and a reduction in the delay in receiving treatment once at facilities (the third delay). These findings point to a decline in maternal mortality risks among communities served by these facilities. A system of woman-level data collection instituted at health facilities with comprehensive emergency obstetric care is essential to monitor changes in the effects of any reduction in the three delays and any improvement in quality of care or the effectiveness of treating pregnancy-related complications among women reaching these facilities. Such a system of information gathering at these health facilities would also help policymakers and programme mangers to measure and improve the effectiveness of safe-motherhood initiatives and to monitor progress being made toward achieving the fifth Millennium Development Goal. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Two Forms of Property‐Owning Democracy What Is Stability? Why Does It Matter? The Sense of Justice Participation in Public Life Three Distinctive Features of Rawls's View Democratic Corporatism and Participation Objections Conclusion References.

There is a widespread, popular view—and one I basically endorse—that Nietzsche is, in one sense of the word, a nihilist. As Arthur Danto put it some time ago, according to Nietzsche, “there is nothing in [the world] which might sensibly be supposed to have value.” As interpreters of Nietzsche, though, we cannot simply stop here. Nietzsche's higher men, Übermenschen, “genuine philosophers”, free spirits—the types Nietzsche wants to bring forth from the human, all-too-human herds he sees around him with the fish (...) hooks, as he says, of his books—seem to engage in what looks like valuing. These free spirits are supposed to revalue the old values—revaluing, as is clear from the texts, is not simply to remove the old values from circulation (Nietzsche uses “umwerten” and not “entwerten”)—and they are supposed to create new values. And, of course, Nietzsche himself, free spirit that he is, takes on the task of revaluing all values and seems to assert many a strident evaluation. So we need to say more here. What are Nietzsche and his free spirits up to when they engage in what looks, for all the world, like a practice of valuing? What is the practice of valuing Nietzsche is recommending for his free spirits? I argue for two claims: (i) First, we end up facing an interpretive puzzle when we attempt to explain how Nietzsche's free spirits are supposed to engage in a practice of valuing. (ii) Second, we can solve the interpretive puzzle by taking Nietzsche's free spirits to be engaged in a fictionalist simulacrum of valuing. (shrink)

Friedrich Albert Lange (b. 1828, d. 1875) was a German philosopher, pedagogue, political activist, and journalist. He was one of the originators of neo-Kantianism and an important figure in the founding of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. He is also played a significant role in the German labour movement and in the development of social democratic thought. His book, THE HISTORY OF MATERIALISM, was a standard introduction to materialism and the history of philosophy well into the twentieth century.

Most theorists believe that when it comes to freedom, no economic system does better than laissez-faire capitalism the system may have other problems, but as far as freedom is concerned, laissez-faire is as good as it gets. The goal of this paper is to show that this view is mistaken. I begin by criticising two important contemporary conceptions of freedom, the libertarian and the liberal egalitarian conceptions, both of which support the dominant view. I then develop a better alternative, one (...) that I call the social democratic conception of freedom. Using this conception, I go on to show that an economic system that requires firms to have an internal structure that makes decision-making more transparent and responsive to the concerns of workers actually shows greater respect for freedom than laissez-faire capitalism does. (shrink)

This experiment investigated the effect of format (line vs. bar), viewers’ familiarity with variables, and viewers’ graphicacy (graphical literacy) skills on the comprehension of multivariate (three variable) data presented in graphs. Fifty-five undergraduates provided written descriptions of data for a set of 14 line or bar graphs, half of which depicted variables familiar to the population and half of which depicted variables unfamiliar to the population. Participants then took a test of graphicacy skills. As predicted, the format influenced viewers’ interpretations (...) of data. Specifically, viewers were more likely to describe x–y interactions when viewing line graphs than when viewing bar graphs, and they were more likely to describe main effects and “z–y” (the variable in the legend) interactions when viewing bar graphs than when viewing line graphs. Familiarity of data presented and individuals’ graphicacy skills interacted with the influence of graph format. Specifically, viewers were most likely to generate inferences only when they had high graphicacy skills, the data were familiar and thus the information inferred was expected, and the format supported those inferences. Implications for multivariate data display are discussed. (shrink)

Markets, just like states, are systems of governance. Their justification must therefore meet similar standards of moral scrutiny, despite the fact that their authority structure is impersonal. In order to argue for the role of markets as systems of governance that raise similar justificatory burdens, this book provides a philosophical account of market institutions. According to this view, shared social institutions define a framework for how members of a political community think and act toward one another, consistent with citizens respecting (...) themselves and one another as free persons, each entitled to guide their activities in light of their own judgments. The market is one of these shared institutions, so its rules must also be consistent with mutual respect as free persons. This perspective represents a fundamentally different way of thinking about economic life, which rejects both the view of economic actors as disconnected individuals in a state of nature and the view of economic actors as mere preference orderings that are inputs to a giant social welfare function. The book formulates a deeper framework for thinking about economic life, which can displace the familiar ideas that underpin contemporary neoliberalism and finance capitalism. In so doing, the book works out the implications of the idea that the burdens of equal citizenship extend to economic life, such that appropriately regulated markets and workplaces elicit and realize a system in which people respect one another as free. The book concludes with a defense of economic democracy, elements of which can be found under German codetermination. (shrink)

Current formal dialectical models postulate normative rules that enable discussants to conduct dialogical interactions without committing fallacies. Though the rules for conducting a dialogue are supposed to apply to interactions between actual arguers, they are without exception theoretically motivated. This creates a gap between model and reality, because dialogue participants typically leave important content-related elements implicit. Therefore, analysts cannot readily relate normative rules to actual debates in ways that will be empirically confirmable. This paper details a new, data-driven method for (...) describing discussants’ actual reply structures, wherein corpus studies serve to acknowledge the complexity of natural argumentation. Rather than refer exclusively to propositional content as an indicator of arguing pro/contra a given claim, the proposed approach to dialogue structure tracks the sequence of dialogical moves itself. This arguably improves the applicability of theoretical dialectical models to empirical data, and thus advances the study of dialogue systems. (shrink)

The U.S. Federal regulations allow institutional review boards (IRBs) to approve non-beneficial pediatric research when the risks are a minor increase over minimal, provided that the research is likely to develop generalizable knowledge about the subjects' disorder or condition. This “subjects' condition” requirement is quite controversial; commentators have argued for a variety of interpretations. Despite this considerable disagreement in the literature, there have not been any attempts to apply principles of legal interpretation to determine how the subjects' condition requirement should (...) be understood. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 118-138, January 2022.

When the focus is on black or Asian minorities, Britain is frequently described as a multi-cultural state. But when the focus is on Scotland, England and Wales, Britain is also described as a multi-national state. Yet debates about multiculturalism and nationalism have been held in parallel without sharing even a common vocabulary. This book is a pioneering study of how multiculturalism interacts with multinationalism, especially within post-devolution Scotland. It gives equal attention to Scotland's largest 'visible' and 'invisible' minorities: ethnic Pakistanis (...) and English immigrants. Rising Scottish self-consciousness could have posed a challenge both these minorities. But in practice, potential problems have proved themselves to be solutions, integrating rather than alienating. In the eyes of the minorities, devolution has made Scots at once more proud and less xenophobic. Even English immigrants feel devolution has defused tensions, calmed frustrations, and forced Scots to blame themselves rather than others for their problems. Pakistanis have suffered increasing harassment - but they attribute that to 9/11 not to devolution. And Muslims adopt Scottish identities, Scottish attitudes, even Scottish nationalism - consciously or unconsciously using these as tools of integration. The book is based in part on large-scale surveys: of Pakistani and English minorities within Scotland, and of the majority populations in Scotland and England. But it is also based on systematic analysis of transcripts of focus-group discussions with minorities revealing the variety of opinion within minorities as well as the contrasts between them. In particular, it presents a unique account of how Scottish Muslims express their feelings in a time of crisis. (shrink)

This important and comprehensive work of 18th-century Islamic religious thought written in Arabic by a pre-eminent South Asian scholar provides an extensive and detailed picture of Muslim theology and interpretive strategies on the eve of the modern period.

High quality monitoring of mental health and well-being over an extended period is essential to understand how communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and how to best tailor interventions. Multiple community threats may also have cumulative impact on mental health, so examination across several contexts is important. The objective of this study is to report on changes in mental health and well-being in response to the Australian bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilized an Experience-Sampling-Method, using the smartphone-based mood monitoring (...) application, MoodPrism. Participants were prompted once a day to complete a brief survey inquiring about symptoms of depression and anxiety, and several well-being indices, including arousal, emotional valence, self-esteem, motivation, social connectedness, meaning and purpose, and control. Participants were N = 755 Australians who downloaded and used MoodPrism, between 2018 and 2020. Results showed that anxiety symptoms significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not during the bushfires. This may be explained by concurrent feelings of social connectedness maintained during the bushfires but not during the pandemic. In contrast, depressive symptoms increased significantly during the bushfires, which maintained during the pandemic. Most indices of well-being decreased significantly during the bushfires, and further again during the pandemic. Study findings highlight the unique responses to the bushfire and COVID-19 crises, revealing specific areas of resilience and vulnerability. Such information can help inform the development of public health interventions or individual clinical treatment, to improve treatment approaches and preparedness for potential future community disasters. (shrink)

This essay begins by focusing on four cultural characters that signify different but associated aspects of the changing destiny of the human figure at the end of the twentieth century and beyond. These characters embody the human figure, in the double sense of form and metaphor, at work, at leisure and at war, and as gendered cultural and philosophical ideal. It is our suggestion that they provide excellent images of a general economy of the future present. Their significance as indices (...) of the destiny of the human resides in the way that they disclose the effects of a restricted economy that overflows its boundaries to incorporate, utilise and restrict every element of its generalised expenditure, to use the categories of Georges Bataille: its sumptuary excess, its sacred forms, its abjected waste, its modes of eroticism, its violence. The essay continues by discussing the implications of, and consequences for, human life in the face of the corporate or techno‐bureaucratic drive to incorporate the ‘impossible‐real’. For Paul Virilio, the technological desire to overwrite the temporal and spatial dimensions of ‘the actual’ discloses something of the ‘divine’ in this new technology. In conclusion, then, the essay questions what resistance there might be to the law of the machine‐God who lies, impossibly, as the immanent being of machinic efficiency, operativity and becoming excellence. (shrink)

تشخيص فكري ومعرفي لمفهوم الأسرة ومكانتها في الفكر الإسلامي، وتفحّصٌ علمي ومنهجي لأسس البناء الأسري ومقاصده، وكشفٌ عن تأثير التحوّلات الاجتماعية في الأسرة والتحديات التي تواجهها، وتتبعٌ لانعكاسات الفكر الغربي في المنظومة القيمية للأسرة، وتبيّنٌ لبعض التجارب والخبرات في مجال المحافظة على دور الأسرة، لا سيما بعد هيمنة النموذج المعرفي الغربي، ومحاولة طمسه للخصوصيات الثقافية والمجتمعية. حاولت بحوث هذا الكتاب أن تجيب عن تساؤلات معرفية ومجتمعية مهمة مثل: ما أهم التحديات التي تواجه الأسرة المسلمة في الراهن المعاصر وكيفية مواجهتها، وما (...) التغيرات التي طرأت على الأسرة المسلمة في ظل التطورات والتسارعات المجتمعية والاقتصادية والتقنية إلخ، وما التصوّر الإسلامي لدور الأسرة في بناء المجتمع، وما دور مؤسسات المجتمع المدني في الحد من تأثير الاستلاب الثقافي، وما الإسهام الذي قدمته حركات الإصلاح الإسلامية في مجال المحافظة على الدور المحوري للأسرة في تشكيل الشخصية الإسلامية القادرة على تفعيل النهوض الحضاري؟ وقد أسهم المشاركون في هذا العمل الجماعي، الذين بلغ عددهم واحداً وعشرين باحثاً، في محاورة هذه الأسئلة المعرفية، وفي التأسيس لمنظومة معرفية مجتمعية قادرة على الإسهام في البناء الحضاري، وفي توجيه دفة الأسرة بما ينسجم مع التوجيهات الربانية والفطرة الإنسانية. (shrink)

Translated from Telugu by Adivi Radha Krishna and Seeta Rama Hanuma Kumari.