The research ethics committee is a key element of university administration and has gained increasing importance as a review mechanism for those institutions that wish to conduct responsible...

This paper, initially published in the Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality, explores the Israeli Haredi community's usage of the male body as a site of social control and surveillance, a bulwark against the non-spiritual world, and a preserver of what is perceived to be 'unchanging' religious values. Through ethnographic research, Yohai Hakak examines how Haredi young men construct their bodies in relation to secular male Israeli bodies and the gender norms of their closed community. This work is particularly recommended (...) for scholars focusing on the anthropology of religion, gender studies, and contemporary Jewish studies -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This collection presents policy and research that addresses digital inequalities, access, and skills, from multiple international perspectives. With a special focus on the impact of the COVID-19, the collection is based on the 2021 Digital Inclusion, Policy and Research Conference, with chapters from both academia and civic organizations. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed citizens’ relationship with digital technologies for the foreseeable future. Many people’s main channels of communication were transferred to digital services, platforms, and apps. Everything ‘went online’: our families, (...) friends, partners, health, work, news, politics, culture, arts and protesting. Yet access to digital technologies remained highly unequal. This brought digital inclusion policy and research to the fore, highlighting to policymakers and the public the ‘hidden’ challenges and impacts of digital exclusion and inequalities. The cutting-edge volume offers research findings and policycase studies that explore digital inclusion from the provision of basic access to digital, via education and digital literacy, and on to issues of gender and technology. Case studies are drawn from varied sources including the UK, Australia, South America, and Eastern Europe, providing a valuable resource in the pursuit of social equity and justice. ​ This is an open access book. (shrink)

Debates about controversial comedy are rife in public discourse. However, despite a great interest in wider issues surrounding freedom of expression, political philosophers have had curiously little to say about comedy. This is a costly omission because in mainstream public debates, many of the worries about the potential harms of comedy are often confused or conflated, and both the defences of comedians to use controversial material and calls for censorship of such material are usually under-theorised. This paper takes a step (...) towards correcting this oversight by explaining the potential harms of comedy and identifying who should be held responsible for these harms. By transposing existing work on hate speech, three harms of comedy are diagnosed: that it can cause status harms, that it can silence speakers, and that it can motivate violence. Using linguistic theory and the philosophy of language, the paper argues that often, it is audience members and third parties who ought to be held morally responsible for these harms, and therefore, that comedians are not usually under moral duties to modify their comedic expression, even if it is harmful. (shrink)

Low mean fundamental frequency (F 0) in men’s voices has been found to positively influence perceptions of dominance by men and attractiveness by women using standardized speech. Using natural speech obtained during an ecologically valid social interaction, we examined relationships between multiple vocal parameters and dominance and attractiveness judgments. Male voices from an unscripted dating game were judged by men for physical and social dominance and by women in fertile and non-fertile menstrual cycle phases for desirability in short-term and long-term (...) relationships. Five vocal parameters were analyzed: mean F 0 (an acoustic correlate of vocal fold size), F 0 variation, intensity (loudness), utterance duration, and formant dispersion (D f , an acoustic correlate of vocal tract length). Parallel but separate ratings of speech transcripts served as controls for content. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the independent contributions of each of the predictors. Physical dominance was predicted by low F 0 variation and physically dominant word content. Social dominance was predicted only by socially dominant word content. Ratings of attractiveness by women were predicted by low mean F 0, low D f , high intensity, and attractive word content across cycle phase and mating context. Low D f was perceived as attractive by fertile-phase women only. We hypothesize that competitors and potential mates may attend more strongly to different components of men’s voices because of the different types of information these vocal parameters provide. (shrink)

In the beginning: introduction -- This I believe: preview -- This they believe: other views -- Where it begins: anatomy and environment -- Where it began: evolution -- What is it?: consciousness -- There was the word: self-consciousness and language -- See here: attention -- Perhaps to dream: sleep -- x=2y: representation -- The dance of life: movement -- They all fall down: dissolution of function -- Been there, done that: experience -- Which have eyes and see not: stimulus hierarchy (...) -- Buy one, get one free: volition -- Play it again: speculative reprise -- In the end: conclusion. (shrink)

Cet article, s’inscrit dans le cadre minimaliste de la syntaxe générative et étudie oui / non et wh-questions dans la langue Ǹjò̩-kóo, parlée dans l’état de Ondo au Nigeria. On observe que la particule interrogative pour des questions de type oui / non qui suit systématiquement le sujet DP se trouve également dans des clauses avec wh-questions. Cet article soutient que oui / non et wh-questions sont projetées par la même tête fonctionnelle Inter˚, et que wh-words ne participent pas à (...) la saisie de wh-propositions comme interrogative. L’article conclut que le mouvement de Wh-éléments vers la position initiale de la clause dans les langues à WH-mouvement n’a pas pour but l’interrogation mais plutôt pour la focalisation. (shrink)

This article argues for the dogmatic rather than just ethical significance of the biotechnological enhancement of human beings. It begins by reflecting on the close theological connections between salvation, sanctification, and affective and bodily transformation in light of the fact that affects and desires are in principle manipulable through biotechnological enhancement. It then examines the implications of this observation for questions of moral responsibility, asking whether biotechnological enhancement can be viewed as a kind of means of grace. The conclusion argues (...) that theological reflection on the relationship between affects, soteriology and bioenhancement reveals limitations of the emphasis on embodiment in recent Christian theology. (shrink)

The study examines the phenomenon of masquerading in Igbo culture. It philosophically explores the cosmology and cultural anthropology of Igbo masquerading, drawing some important implications for which the authors believe they bear on the truth of human existence. It investigates the distortions in and around this Igbo cultural practice against the background of its immanent significance and, thus, attempts to reconstruct it. The paper demonstrates that the huge potential for development inherent in Igbo masquerading outweigh its pitfalls. Igbo masquerading today (...) tends to divide the present generation from the older generation of Igbo. The latter lament that the way masquerading is done nowadays no longer reflects the critical cultural ideals of the people. But, this situation has not been given deserved attention among scholars. The significance of this study, then, lies exactly on its attempt at a theoretical and normative reconstruction of masquerading among the Igbo. The aim of the paper is to critically engage Igbo masquerading with the goal of rescuing it from associated negativities. In the light of the critical Igbo ideals of truth and social justice, the paper proffers the way forward and makes some recommendations. As a philosophical inquiry, the study employs the methods of analysis, prescription and speculation. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 1 Seiten: 326-332.

The revelation of widespread corruption in the Oil-for-Food Programme (the “Programme”) and the recent scandal involving the British arms manufacturer BAE Systems threatens to unravel the fragile global consensus on combating corruption. This paper outlines the emerging global consensus and legal framework on corruption and assesses the extent to which this consensus has been undermined by the above mentioned revelations of corruption. Both incidents provide an interesting context in which to analysesome of the difficult issues presented in the regulation of (...) transnational corruption. The regulation of transnational corruption provides a framework for analyzing the critical dimensions of the interaction between the norms in various domestic communities and the transnational context of these interactions. The paper argues that the current framework of multilateral efforts to curb transnational corruption is unable to tackle the problem effectively and concludes that the liability framework for engaging in transnational corruption has almost exclusively been the result of political expediency rather than that of empirical information. By examining the multilateral efforts by the international community to combat corruption, the paper generates questions about the status and future direction of thefight against corruption under international law. (shrink)

So-called basic self-knowledge (ordinary knowledge of one's present states of mind) can be seen as both 'baseless' and privileged. The spontaneous self-beliefs we have when we avow our states of mind do not appear to be formed on any particular epistemic basis (whether intro-or extro-spective). Nonetheless, on some views, these self-beliefs constitute instances of (privileged) knowledge. We are here interested in views on which true mental self-beliefs have internalist epistemic warrant that false ones lack. Such views are committed to a (...) form of disjunctivism about basic self-knowledge. We begin by presenting an influential disjunctivist view about perceptual knowledge (Pritchard 2008, 2012, and elsewhere) and articulate a problem for it. We then consider two versions of disjunctivism about basic self-knowledge – one 'constitutivist', the other 'neo-expressivist' – and argue that both can avoid an analogue of this problem for self-knowledge. However, we give reasons for preferring the disjunctivism yielded by neo-expressivism. We conclude by considering briefly whether an acceptable disjunctivism about mental self-beliefs can point the way toward a sensible disjunctivism about perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

The task of explaining language evolution is often presented by leading theorists in explicitly Gricean terms. After a critical evaluation, I present an alternative, non‐Gricean conceptualization of the task. I argue that, while it may be true that nonhuman animals, in contrast to language users, lack the ‘motive to share information’ understoodà laGrice, nonhuman animals nevertheless do express states of mind through complex nonlinguistic behavior. On a proper, non‐Gricean construal of expressive communication, this means that they show to their designated (...) audience (without intentionally telling)—and their designated audience recognizes (without rationally inferring)—both how things are in the world and how things are with them. Recognizing that our nonhuman predecessors were already proficient—though non‐Gricean—sharers of such information would free us to focus on the more tractable problem of explaining how linguistic expressive vehicles came to replace, augment, and transform the nonlinguistic expressive means to which nonhuman animals are consigned. (shrink)

This paper argues that functionalist metasemantic views, such as Conceptual Role Semantics and Interpretivism, face a Euthyphro challenge. The challenge, put roughly, is this: functionalist metasemantic views reverse the order of explanation. According to such views, representational mental states have the contents that they do partly because they play certain roles in our mental lives. According to an intuitive picture of the roles that representational mental states play in our mental lives, however, these states play the roles they do partly (...) because they have the contents that they do. Since explanations—even partial ones—are asymmetric (call this principle ‘the Euthyphro Principle’), we can’t accept both this intuitive picture and a functionalist metasemantics. Hence, we should reject all versions of the latter. This paper can be seen as an attempt to better articulate an intuition that has been suggested in various forms in the literature. The paper proceeds as follows. First, it shows that functionalist metasemantic views imply certain ‘partly because’ claims. Second, it argues for the Euthyphro Principle. Third, it defends the intuitive picture of representational mental states and shows that it implies ‘partly because’ claims that conflict with those made by functionalist metasemantic views. Finally, it considers ways of relaxing the intuitive picture and finds them all wanting. (shrink)

In 2019, Kathryn Frost looks for conjunction where mimetic theory and attachment theory can agree on the issue of human proximity. Her search starts from an apparent conflict between René Girard's cautionary stand against proximity and attachment theory that favors proximity-seeking as a formative experience in one's personal development. She comes with a plan for "a hybrid of mimetic theory that privileges attachment … and caregiving,"1 and designs a program "to break through the mimetic vortex of conflict cycles."2Both mimesis as (...) the "parsimonious principle" that undergirds Girard's theory and proximity-seeking in attachment theory are working at a prerepresentational level.3 This explains why her conflict... (shrink)

Expressivism, broadly construed, is the view that the function of utterances in a given area of discourse is to give expression to our sentiments or other (non-cognitive) mental states or attitudes, rather than report or describe some range of facts. This view naturally seems an attractive option wherever it is suspected that there may not be a domain of facts for the given discourse to be describing. Familiarly, to avoid commitment to ethical facts, the ethical expressivist suggests that ethical utterances (...) (e.g., “Gratuitous torture is wrong”, “What John did was morally good”) do not serve to ascribe ethical properties to objects, actions, persons, or states of affairs. Instead, they simply function to give voice to certain of our sentiments (or ‘pro/con’ attitudes). Along similar lines, philosophers have entertained versions of expressivism about the aesthetic, the modal, the mental, what is funny, even about theoretical science and knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)

The filial relationship between Christian ethics and Comparative Religious Ethics (CRE) need not be perniciously distortive and can be salutary for comparative work. I suggest that the suspicions about CRE as a disguised form of a “Christian ethical enterprise” are overstated and that we can appreciate the value of the legacy of Christian ethics for comparative work in the focal themes of emancipatory criticism and common morality. Both of these themes, even if influenced by Christian ethics, reflect more universal social‐moral (...) problems that can be discerned in cross‐cultural contexts. (shrink)

This article builds on contemporary debates about the doctrine of justification by faith alone to revisit the old question of the “nature of Protestantism”. Traditionally a core feature of Protestant theology, the doctrine of sola fide has been under assault for the past forty years, including within Protestant theology. This essay begins by showing that the major contemporary critique that sola fide bases salvation on a “legal fiction” misses the way that early Reformers like Luther and Melanchthon understood the doctrine (...) very substantially in terms of its pastoral power to “console” consciences. Attending to the theme of “consolation” reveals a psychological and affective realism close to the heart of the doctrine of justification by faith alone as it was originally understood. This article then shows that traditional Protestant critiques of the reliability of external mechanisms and instruments in the mediation of grace were shaped by the same orientation to psychological and affective factors that are evident in the doctrine of justification. Together, these observations suggest that “the nature of Protestantism” may be usefully understood in terms of a foundational prioritization of psychological and affective considerations over metaphysical considerations in theology. (shrink)

Human dignity, even when analyzed through the lens of human rights, has received surprisingly little attention in the Journal of Religious Ethics, in contrast to a resurgent global interest in it. This article examines some possible reasons for this diminutive interest and makes a case for dignity's integration into the mainstream of religious ethics scholarship. A social conception of human dignity understands it as a conferment that entitles its holder to certain respectful treatments unavailable to those without it. As a (...) naturalistic conception, human dignity assumes certain features to be inherent in human nature. An emancipatory theory of dignity offers a fuller accounting of the concept as it is informed by a grassroots human rights praxis and social movements across a spectrum of historical periods and cultural and political contexts. (shrink)

Globalization is being celebrated in many circles as a distinctive achievement of our age, drawing peoples and societies more closely together and creating far greater wealth than any previous generations ever knew. While the first of these assertions is correct in the sense that societies and cultures are colliding, hitherto relatively closed horizons are opening up, and spaces and time are compressing, the second deserves critical interrogations. Using Africa's experience with globalization as a case study, this article argues that globalization (...) be understood as an emerging preference for certain institutional and policy practices that are creating and coercively imposing pervasive but avoidable conditions of material deprivations on many societies. The article defends a motivational rationale anchored in the normative vision of socio‐economic and development rights as a way to mitigate the deleterious effects of unguarded globalization. (shrink)

The violent encounter between Africans and the forces of globalization raises the question of whether Africans should capitulate to these forces or seek to morally transform them, notwithstanding the uncertainty of achieving success. This essay argues that an exclusively existentialist interpretation of the African predicaments is inadequate because it erects a false dichotomy between African religious and moral sensibilities. It proposes instead an ethic of responsibility that affirms the interdependence of not only these two realms of life, but also of (...) communal well-being and individual's subjectivity. (shrink)

Naive realism in philosophy of perception is the view that (successful) perception involves a direct relation between perceiving subjects and the world. The naive realist says that your perception of a cat on the mat is a worldly relation which is partially constituted by the cat and the mat; a spatio-temporal chunk of the world is presenting itself to you. Recently, Elijah Chudnoff and John Bengson have independently developed an extension of this view to intellectual experiences, or intuitions, for traditionally (...) a priori domains. We argue that this view, which we call ‘Intuitional Naive Realism’ (INR), will not have the epistemic advantages that Chudnoff and Bengson claim that it does. In perception, but not intuition, there is a deeper explanation of what makes it the case that one experience is constituted by the world while another is not. Whether or not INR is true, then, it does no interesting epistemological work for traditionally a priori domains. (shrink)