Neural tube defects (NTDs) are very serious malformations for the fetus, causing either low life expectancy or a chance of survival only with costly and difficult surgical interventions. In western countries the average prevalence is 1/1000-2000 and in Turkey it is 4/1000. The aim of the study was to characterize ethical approaches at institutional level to the fetus with an NTD and the mother, and the role of health care professionals in four major centers in Turkey. The authors chose perinatology (...) units of four university hospitals and prepared questionnaires for the responsible professionals concerning their own and their institution’s ethical approaches to the fetus with an NTD and the mother. The investigation revealed that there were no institutional ethical frameworks or ethics committees available to professional teams in the units. The roles of the health care professionals and their individual decisions and approaches based on ethical principles are described. The ethical decision-making process concerning fetuses with NTDs, examples of institutional approaches to the topic and institutional frameworks, and the role of nurses and other health care professionals are all discussed, based on a literature review. The authors suggest that institutional ethical frameworks, ethics committees, professionals’ ethics education and multidisciplinary teamwork should be established for critical situations such as fetuses with an NTD. (shrink)

Some compatibilists believe that the principle of alternative possibilities has been shown to be false by Frankfurt-style arguments, and this gives way to the compatibility of causal determination with moral responsibility. Those incompatibilists who defend the principle of alternative possibilities, on the other hand, insist on the truth of the principle and on the incompatibility of causal determination with moral responsibility. In this article, I argue that Frankfurt-stylecounterexamples are unsuccessful in indicating the falsity of the principle of alternative possibilities, and (...) yet this failure is inconclusive to prove the correctness of incompatibilism. In fact, the principle of alternative possibilities is, I show, compatible with causal determination and thus with compatibilism on a specificunderstanding of determinism and compatibilism. (shrink)

Due to its structure, language is open to change with the differentiation of time and events. The importance of language, which has a great importance in interpersonal communication, is much more privileged for Muslims who shape their civilizations according to the Qur’ān. Because the language in question in this medium is not only an element that completes human relations, but also the language of religion with divine characteristics, which communicates with people through revelation and belongs to the supreme creator. It (...) is normal for a language, which is considered to be a social phenomenon, to be constantly open to change due to meaning expansion, meaning narrowing or meaning distortions. It is possible to change the language in proportion to the development of the human mind. However, if the “language of religion” is in question, it is extremely important in terms of the universal messages it carries that the concepts it contains should not be expanded or distorted in order to preserve the purity of that religion. It is certain that the change that will occur in the words of the Qur’ān will affect its interpretation and thus religious life. In a realm where revelation is fixed and unchangeable, time and understanding are variable, what matters to us is how much we are in harmony with the first and essential meaning given to the concepts in our effort to understand the Qur’ān. In this article, with the revelation of the revelation, the expansion of the concept of mustad‘af to gain new political meanings, a case which almost all commentators have agreed on until today, has been analyzed, especially in the last century. The concept of mustad‘af, which is mentioned in four verses in the Qur’ān and is rarely included in the hadiths, basically represents the people who have not had the opportunity to migrate to live their faith, who were persecuted by deniers and oppressors and whose right to worship was taken away. The concept of mustad‘af, which basically means “weak, belittled and oppressed”, gained a religious content with Islam and preserved it. While the concept has been used in a narrow sense in the Sunni world until today and did not develop any meaning, it found a wide place in the Shiite world and underwent new meaning expansions. After the period of Hulefa-i Raşidîn, the Shiites accepted themselves as victims of the treatment they received by the political powers and named themselves as mustad‘af, and they produced a literature of victimization from there. This concept, which is used by Shiite scholars for people who sometimes do not fall into blasphemy and shirk, and sometimes believe in Allah and His Messenger, although they are not subject to the sect of shia, has been made available for new meanings with the change of world politics after the modern period. In the 19th century, the “social justice” and “equality” discourses of communism affected the Islamic world as well as the whole world. In addition to the establishment of many “left”-centered political parties in the Islamic world, contemporary Muslim thinkers were also influenced by this, and after a while many Islamic values started to be considered as left-wing. Especially before the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, the proletariat and bourgeois conflict was evaluated as an affiliate and mustad‘af, and it was hoped that the neglected masses would be converted to Islam with this new discourse. Those who have an imperialist and capitalist character, covet the wealth of third world countries and do all kinds of evil against them. Those who were left weak, exploited and stripped of their resources were regarded as mustad‘af. Again, the dictators who came to power against the will of the Muslims were evaluated as mustaqbir and the masses of the people as mustad‘af. It is possible to read a historical or religious text through any ideology. However, the fact that should not be ignored here is that if every word and concept in the Qur’ān loses its meaning in the medium and culture in which it descended, the language of religion and therefore all values belonging to religion will evaporate over time. (shrink)

Sadece tarihi ilgilendiriyor gibi görünen felsefenin başlangıcı problemi, şüphesiz tarihsel bir meseledir, ama aynı zamanda felsefenin kendisine de ait bir konudur, çünkü bu probleme ilişkin değerlendirmeler zorunlu olarak felsefenin doğasını açığa vurmaktadır. Felsefeyi Miletli Thales’in başlattığına ve ilk filozof olduğuna dair yerleşik bir gelenek söz konusudur; bununla birlikte, felsefe kendine özgü belirlenimler kazanıp kendini belirlemesini sağlayan belli bir gelişme sürecinin ürünüdür ve bu bakımdan birçok filozofun emeğine gerek duymuştur. Felsefe tarihinin ilk döneminde Grek filozoflar yeni başlangıçlar yapmışlar ve böylelikle felsefenin (...) yeni yönlerinin açığa çıkmasına hizmet etmişlerdir. Bu çalışmada, felsefenin sadece bir kurucusu değil kurucuları olduğunu vurgulamak üzere Thales’ten Aristoteles’e dek Grek filozofların felsefenin oluşumuna sağladıkları katkı irdelenecektir. (shrink)

Fate has always existed in life both as a faith issue appearing in most of the religions and as a vital phenomenon. The unknown sides of fate and the uncertainties related to fate have been a factor that always keeps a human’s sense of curiosity alive. The fate perceptions’ potential of affecting life is high. As an individual’s fate perception is one of the factors determining his attitude to life, and it also affects his behaviours. The fate perceptions’ power of (...) influencing human behaviours was effective in specifying the research topic. The subject of the research was determined as “fate perception”, and university students were selected as the sample group. The research was carried out through metaphor analysis technique based on the phenomenological method. The reason for referring this method rather than directly asking questions related to fate is to reach the real thoughts in the depths of youths’ minds. A total of 211 students participated in the study performed with undergraduate students from different departments of different universities, and the analysis was continued with 163 data sets since the inappropriate data were sorted out. First of all, groups that included the same theme according to the meanings attributed to the fate in the metaphors were formed, and rather than the metaphor, the “because…” part that described it was based on in the grouping. The categories and the metaphors collected in the themes under them were again reviewed relationally, and then the research was analysed by two specialists to ensure the validity and reliability. As a result of the research, it was determined that some of the participants tried to clarify equivalents of the problems related to fate in their minds and to conceptually define the fate while producing metaphors. It was seen that some of the participants associated the fate with religious beliefs in forming metaphors while some of them dealt with it separately from the religion. The most frequently repeated metaphor is the "path" metaphor in the study, in which university students were found to have produced 106 metaphors related to the concept of "fate". This is followed by the metaphors "book" and "wheel". "Scenario, pen, map, crossroads, bunker, line, ship" metaphors are among the top ten most preferred metaphors. After the explanations of the metaphors produced in the scope of the research were examined, they were grouped in terms of their common features, themes were formed, and categories were formed by grouping the themes among themselves. Accordingly, the first category was identified as “fate in the context of characteristic” and its sub-themes were “fate as a(n) unchanging/determined phenomenon, fate as a divertible/preferable phenomenon, fate as an unknown/uncontrollable phenomenon, fate as both determined and divertible phenomenon and fate as a defence mechanism”. The second category was “fate in the context of faith/freedom”. The sub-themes of this category were determined as “the phenomenon of fatalist-inclined fate, the phenomenon of pure faith-based fate, the phenomenon of faith-based voluntaristic fate, the phenomenon of faith-based Cebrî fate, the phenomenon of not faith-based voluntaristic fate, fate contrast”. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Covid-19 pandemic has impacted compassion fatigue and the mental health of health care providers, particularly midwives and nurses. Although there are studies involving health workers...

Many studies have been conducted on the effect of item order in self-report questionnaires on mean scores. This research aims to study the effect of item order on measurement invariance in addition to mean scores. To this end, two groups randomly obtained from the same sample were presented a fixed order form in which all items belonging to the same dimension were adjacent to each other, and a random order form in which the items were randomly sequenced respectively. The results (...) obtained revealed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two forms. In the next stage of the study, the fit indices obtained from the confirmatory factor analysis applied to the two separate forms and the modification indices suggested by the software were compared. Both forms returned high modification suggestions for adjacent items or items presented near each other. Additionally, it was found that high χ2 reductions suggested by the MIs in one form resulted in low χ2 reductions in the other. Lastly, multiple group CFA was conducted to determine whether or not measurement invariance was achieved through different item order presentations of the scale. The findings indicate that measurement invariance could not be achieved even at the first stage of analysis. It may specifically be stated that presenting respondents items under the same dimension together ensures empirical findings congruent with theoretical structure. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the late modern era, modern constitutions have been trying to keep both group rights as minority rights and individual rights. But, in some cases, it is still ambiguous if an action or a phenomenon must refer to individual rights or group rights. Abortion discussions, with regard to political rights, are one example of these ambiguous cases. In this context, whereas Liberal view tends to regard abortion as individual rights of a woman, Communitarian view can be against (...) it by pointing out the right to life and this case may lead to a kind of liberal constitutional crises. This article gains importance as such constitutional crises still emerge even nowadays. John Rawls’s theory of overlapping consensus in Political Liberalism tries to solve these political conflicts that emerged in liberal constitutions by prioritizing public reason. This article conceptionally aims to examine Rawls’s theory in terms of prioritization and value relativity in abortion discussions. The method of article is hermeneutics. In order to extend the universe of the discussion, some important thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Isaiah Berlin and John Gray, who have related studies on the topic, were included. In conclusion, it is asserted that Rawl’s theory is weak both practically and theoretically as to the principle of utilitarianism violates the rights of communitarians. (shrink)

Dil, dünya ile düşünce ilişkisini dil aracılığıyla kurma ve dil bağlamında bilgiye açıklık kazandırma amacını güden mantıkçı pozitivizm, 20. yüzyılın önemli düşünsel eğilimlerinden biridir. Bu anlayışa göre başta felsefe olmak üzere disiplinlerdeki çeşitli konu ve problemler, yeni mantığın metotları eşliğinde geliştirilen dilsel çözümleme bağlamında tahlil edilmelidir. Bu çerçevede, bilgi değeri taşıyan anlamlı tümceler ile bilgi değeri taşımayan anlamsız tümceler arasına çizilebilecek sınırın işareti olan “anlam kriteri”, mantıkçı pozitivist düşünürlerin temel meselesi haline gelmiştir. Buna dayanarak bilgi değeri taşımamaları ve anlamsız olmaları (...) nedeniyle metafiziğin tümcelerini, felsefeden elimine etme girişimleri ortaya çıkmıştır. Çalışma içerisinde dikkate alınacak olan hususlar, bahsi geçen bu girişimin ilk oluşturucularından olan ve anlamı, yeni mantık çerçevesinde öncelikli bir şekilde inceleyen Frege, Russell ve Wittgenstein’ın yaklaşımlarını incelemektir. Öyle ki bu düşünürlerin izinden giden mantıkçı pozitivistler, anlam sorunu etrafında metafiziğin felsefeden elenmesi çabasını taşımış ve ilerletmişlerdir. Dolayısıyla “anlam”ın yeni mantığın metotları bağlamında nasıl temellendirildiği konusu, bu girişimin kökenlerinin açıklığa kavuşturulması noktasında oldukça mühim bir yere sahiptir. Çalışmanın sınırları içerisinde mantıkçı pozitivist düşünürlerden, dilin mantıksal sentaksına bağlı bir şekilde “doğrulama ile anlam” arasındaki ilişkiyi vurgulayan Carnap’ın ve “anlam kriteri ile doğrulama ilkesi” arasında kurulan bağ ile ön plana çıkan Ayer’in düşüncelerine değinilecektir. (shrink)

In spite of several attempts to explicate the relationship between a scientific hypothesis and evidence, the issue still cries for a satisfactory solution. Logical approaches to confirmation, such as the hypothetico-deductive method and the positive instance account of confirmation, are problematic because of their neglect of the semantic dimension of hypothesis confirmation. Probabilistic accounts of confirmation are no better than logical approaches in this regard. An outstanding probabilistic account of confirmation, the Bayesian approach, for instance, is found to be defective (...) in that it treats evidence as a formal entity and this creates the problem of relevance of evidence to the hypothesis at issue, in addition to the difficulties arising from the subjective interpretation of probabilities. This essay purports to satisfy the need for a successful account of hypothesis confirmation by offering an original formulation based on the notion of instantiation of the relation urged by an hypothesis. (shrink)

This article describes stigmatization and its impact on the mentally ill and on the advancement of psychiatry. The article highlights an ethical review of stigmatization establishing a link between the psychosocial factors, culture and moral development. This paper offers an examination of studies conducted in Turkey and the Western world, and socio-cultural frameworks for dealing with ethical values and psychosocial development. The paper then argues for the need to discuss moral, psychosocial and cultural meanings embedded in various ethical issues in (...) arriving at conclusions and suggestions to prevent stigmatization.The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of ethical training, cultural diversity and moral development giving reasons and examples why these are important against stigmatization and suggesting ways of handling mentally ill. (shrink)