Inferentialists about scientific representation hold that an apparatus’s representing a target system consists in the apparatus allowing “surrogative inferences” about the target. I argue that a serious problem for inferentialism arises from the fact that many scientific theories and models contain internal inconsistencies. Inferentialism, left unamended, implies that inconsistent scientific models have unlimited representational power, since an inconsistency permits any conclusion to be inferred. I consider a number of ways that inferentialists can respond to this challenge before suggesting my own (...) solution. I develop an analogy to exploitable glitches in a game. Even though inconsistent representational apparatuses may in some sense allow for contradictions to be generated within them, doing so violates the intended function of the apparatus’s parts and hence violates representational “gameplay.”. (shrink)

Two classes of arguments are often deployed by the anti-global egalitarians against attempts to universalize the demands of distributive equality. One are arguments attempting to show that global egalitarians have misconstrued the reasons for why equality matters domestically, and hence have wrongly extended these reasons to the global arena. These arguments hold that the boundary of distributive justice is effectively coextensive with the boundaries of state. The other are arguments that attempt to show that membership in political societies generates special (...) duties among members that may outweigh the demands of global egalitarianism. These arguments appeal to the ethical significance of state boundaries and membership. In my defense of global egalitarianism, I reject both the attempts to limit the boundary of justice and the attempts to give state boundaries special moral significance and priority. In particular, I will argue that the boundary of justice cannot coincide with the boundaries of states when the justice of the boundaries is at issue. (shrink)

Williams puts forward and develops his theory of integrity on the basis of criticizing utilitarianism and Kantian ethics as too demanding to make enough room for personal projects. Instead, his integrity theory advocates that we should act out of commitments with which we deeply identify ourselves. In doing so, we express who we really are and make our life meaningful. If not so, our integrity would be violated and we may lose ourselves. Such a description of the self in moral (...) life is criticized as solipsism for that it makes the relationship between one’s projects and himself only be regulated by himself. This paper aims to point out that such criticism is inappropriate. To show the inaccuracy of the criticism, the author will analyze the relationship between the self and others in two aspects. The first aspect is about the structure of formation of desires and others, and the second one is about the action responsibility and others. After analysis, in the first aspect of desires, the self needs others to form and stabilize desires, beliefs and motivations to cooperate with others. Others help the self to sustain the sense of reality to prevent the self from forming wishful thinking. As to action, others’ need for response is an important element in ascribing the self’s action responsibility. The self acquires self-conception, self-cognition and self-identity through the interaction with others. Thus, others play an essential role in Williams’ theory of integrity. Although there are some flaws in Williams’ integrity theory, to reexamine his theory is conducive to our understanding of moral life. (shrink)

Kant divides moral duties into duties of virtue and duties of justice. Duties of virtue are imperfect duties, the fulfillment of which is left to agent discretion and so cannot be externally demanded of one. Duties of justice, while perfect, seem to be restricted to negative duties (of nondeception and noncoercion). It may seem then that Kant's moral philosophy cannot meet the demands of global justice. I argue, however, that Kantian justice when applied to the social and historical realities of (...) the world can generate positive duties to promote and provide for the well being of others. (shrink)

In recent years numerous questions were raised about the morality of killing and eating animals. Do animals have right to live and not made to suffer? Should people stop eating animal meat? Should laws be enacted to protect animal rights? This essay suggests the following two theses. 1) Animal rights arguments are not logically conclusive; 2) Someone may develop reasons in the future, but for now, there is no morally compelling reason to stop eating animal meat. I shall address various (...) major arguments for animal rights and their weaknesses. (shrink)

Liver transplantation (LT) activities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been curtailed in many countries. The impact of various policies restricting LT on outcomes of potential LT candidates is unclear. We studied all patients on the nationwide LT waitlists in Hong Kong and Singapore between January 2016 and May 2020. We used continuous time Markov chains to model the effects of different scenarios and varying durations of disruption on LT candidates.

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

Palawan is a land of promise, and of paradox. On maps, it appears on the edge of the Philippines, isolated. Indeed, it is a kind of last frontier. Its population remained tiny for centuries, the government offering homestead land in the 1950s practically for free to attract migrants from outside. The Palawan State University was established by law in 1965, but did not become operational until 1972. A commercial airport did not exist until the 1980s, and for many years, flights (...) were limited. Yet Palawan is one of the oldest sites of human habitation in the Philippines with the famous Tabon Cave human fossils. The oldest bone fragment here has been dated to be about 47,000 years. We know, too, that trade with China goes back several centuries. Today, Palawan seems to be making up for lost time with new commercial investments pouring in at breakneck speed. In particular, outsiders have rediscovered its potentials around logging, mining, fisheries, and tourism. This has caused concern among individuals and civil society organizations who want sustainable development, and see the commercial developments mainly as extractive, not just of natural resources but of the human. There’s very cheap labor available. And when potential investors marvel about cheap land, they’re actually talking about displacing earlier settlers, including indigenous people, from their lands. A subtle but still insidious aspect of the exploitation of human resources is a transformation of the very concept of human development. Using the rhetoric of modernity, residents in Palawan are reorienting the way they view themselves as well as their families and friends. The value of a human being now hinges on how they look, and the desired appearance is defined from the outside, as we see in this anthology of research reports coming from the Chemical Youth project of the University of Amsterdam and the University of the Philippines Diliman. We read about the importance of fair skin as a projection of cleanliness, of high social status (meaning someone not engaged in manual labor and therefore not exposed to the sun). We read of how “femininity” is defined around body contours, and cosmetics, and how hormones are used by male-to-female transgenders. We go beyond the visual, reading about the importance of controlling or enhancing body odors among tour guides, who interestingly are especially concerned about the bad odor management of their foreign customers, using car perfumes to keep their work manageable and we learn how difficult it is for security guards to stay alert during their long shifts. Energy drinks and cigarettes help them perform their duties. All these transformations through what the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault has called “technologies of the self” are as paradoxical as Palawan. On the surface, the products—which are technologies—seem to be mainly in the realm of the self but are, in reality, pushed, through marketing, from the outside, in contexts of inequality and exploitative labour relations. Personal aspirations are not personal but are for predefined standards of modernity, related to work-related demands and expectations. The self must be made presentable to the tourist, to the customers in malls, and to those who may threaten the properties that young people protect. It is not surprising that these transformations become problematic for the “self.” The skin whiteners, the hormones, the body deodorants, and the energy drinks are expensive and can distort budgetary priorities. The money for tonic drinks, for example, could well go into more nutritious food. The tragedy, too, many of the products used are of doubtful safety and efficacy. Even the energy drinks have much too high levels of caffeine that can cause cardiac palpitations. Cosmetics and the skin whiteners imported from China and unregistered with the Food and Drug Administration may contain toxic chemicals like mercury. But even registered skin whiteners can be problematic, their so-called “skin-whitening effect” coming about because they take away the upper layers of the skin, leaving behind a red glow (seen as “whitening”) which is actually inflammation. The whitened skin fails to protect against the sun, leading to adverse effects such as black spots. Ultimately though, the problems come with the very definition of the self. As the reports show, young people use the chemicals with some ambivalence, knowing how expensive they are and experiencing some of the undesirable side effects. There is, too, doubt about whether what they’re doing is indeed “good,” captured by how IP women will put on cosmetics only when they’re away from home and about to go to work. The cosmetics have to be removed before they return home because they are not socially acceptable. The research reports are not for Palawan alone. It must make us more critical and discerning as we revisit concepts of development and exploitation, modernity and tradition, self and community. The chemicals, in many ways, are like the products used in precolonial barter trade. For the Chinese, the beeswax and the sea cucumbers, for the inhabitants of Palawan the ceramics, represented faraway lands. To have those products gave prestige. Today, the skin whiteners and tonic drinks and other chemicals described in this anthology represent modernity with promises of not just of a more attractive self, but of better jobs, a better life. We are proud to have worked with the Palawan State University, and the people of Palawan, to gather powerful narratives that will now challenge the outside, the purveyors of modernity, to be more critical and discerning, the chemicals now to be seen not just as stuff applied to the biological body, but as powerful shapers of social bodies. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article we introduce an input-oriented democratic innovation – that we term ‘TaxTrack’ – which offers individual taxpayers the means to engage with their political economies in three ways. After joining the TaxTrack program, an individual can: (1) see and understand how much, and what types, of taxes they have contributed, (2) see and understand how their tax contributions are, or have been, used, and (3) control what their tax contributions can, or cannot, be spent on. We explain (...) this democratic innovation in two ways. The first is through evocation to prefigure what the innovation could look like in future practise which raises the prospects for both good and problematic outcomes. The second is through formal theory to produce a detailed model of the innovation to assist theory building. We conclude by discussing three interactive outcomes of ‘TaxTrack’ through the democratic innovations literature to establish the beginnings of a theory for the model. This theory tells us that ‘TaxTrack’ can return benefits to its users and the democratic regimes in which they are located but it may also place restrictions on output-oriented innovations like Participatory Budgeting. (shrink)

In this paper, we assess the impact of extended reality technologies as they relate to sexual forms of harassment. We begin with a brief history of the nature of sexual harassment itself. We then offer an account of extended reality technologies focusing specifically on psychological and hardware elements most likely to comprise what has been referred to as “the metaverse”. Although different forms of virtual spaces exist (i.e., private, semi-private, and public), we focus on public social metaverse spaces. We do (...) this to better explain how the concept of sexual harassment must be adjusted to such spaces and how approaches aimed at mitigating harassment must be sensitive to the type of metaverse spaces users utilize. We then offer a typology of sexual harassment for the metaverse focusing on three distinct forms of sexual harassment: (1) invariant (2) mixed variance or modified and (3) unique or metaverse specific. Although existing normative and legal frameworks may function well with respect to the first and, possibly, second forms of harassment, we argue such frameworks will not helpfully address metaverse-specific harassment. Ultimately, the changing nature of privately owned public spaces (POPS) which metaverses are likely to represent pose distinct ethical and regulatory challenges. (shrink)

This volume represents a rich multi-disciplinary contribution to an expanding literature on citizenship, identity, and education in a variety of majority and minority Muslim communities. Each of these essays offer important insights into the various ways one may identify with, and participate in, different societies to which Muslims belong, from the United Kingdom to Pakistan to Indonesia. Authors include Robert Hefner, Andrew March, Tariq Modood, Lucas Swaine, Matthew Nelson, Rosnani Hashim, Charlene Tan and Yedullah Kazmi.

Background: Biomedical research nowadays is increasingly carried out in multinational and multicenter settings. Due to disparate national regulations on various ethical aspects, such as informed consent, there is the risk of ethical compromises when involving human subjects in research. Although the Declaration of Helsinki is the point of reference for ethical conduct of research on humans, national normative requirements may diverge from its provisions. The aim of this research is to examine requirements on informed consent in biomedical research in Germany, (...) Poland, and Russia to determine how each national regulatory framework relates to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki. Methods: For this analysis, we conducted a search of the legal databases “Gesetze im Internet” for Germany, “Internetowy System Aktow Prawnych” for Poland, and “ГAPAHT – Garant” for Russia. The search was complemented by a review of secondary literature contained in the databases Google Scholar, PubMed, Polish National Library, and eLibrary ru. We have identified 21 normative regulations containing provisions on informed consent in clinical research in all three countries. The content of these documents was systematically categorized and analyzed. Results: The normative framework in all three countries shows a strong commitment towards the core ethical principles of research envisaged in the Declaration of Helsinki. Nevertheless, provisions on informed consent vary between these three countries. The differences range from the method and language in which information should be provided, through the amount of information required to be disclosed, to the form of documenting consent or withdrawal. In the case of research on vulnerable groups, these differences are particularly visible. Conclusions: The identified differences can negatively impact the ethical conduct of international clinical studies. Attention needs to be paid that flexibilities within national regulations are not misused to undermine the protection of research subjects. Achieving global or regional legislative harmonization might prove impossible. Such lack of legal consensus reinforces the significance of the international ethical agreements. (shrink)

Si Jose Rizal ay inilalarawan bilang may estilong diplomatiko sa pakikipaglaban. Ito ay naging inspirasyon ng mga Indones sa pagpapaunlad ng kanilang diwang makabayan at pagsulong kanilang laban para sa kalayaan. At sa pagtatamo ng Indonesia ng kabansaan, si Rizal ay naging tampok sa kanilang diplomasya at pakikipag-ugnayan sa Pilipinas. Makikita rin sa iba’t ibang aspeto ang naging dulot na inspirasyon ni Rizal sa mga Indones. Ang mga pagtatampok namang ito ay sinikap ding mabigyang resiprokasyon ng mga Pilipino. Ang pagtingin (...) ng mga Indones kay Rizal, batay sa isinagawang pananaliksik, ay kinakitaan ng mga salik partikular ang pagtingin ni Tan Malaka kay Rizal, pagkabatid sa mga salitang Arabiko gayundin sa kaalaman sa pagsasalin. Ang mga salik na nabanggit, gayunpaman, ay inirerekomenda ng pagaaral na ito na magawan pa ng balidasyon sa mga mamamayang Indones partikular ang ukol sa tuwirang kinalaman, kalawakan ng kamalayan, at/o interpretasyon ng kanilang kapwa Indonesia kay Rizal at/o kanyang mga akda. (shrink)

TTO (05/04/2021) - Hôm nay, theo dự kiến, tân Chủ tịch nước và tân Thủ tướng Chính phủ sẽ tuyên thệ nhậm chức. Rất nhiều gửi gắm đã được nêu ra với tân Thủ tướng và bộ máy Chính phủ, đó là phải tạo đột phá đưa đất nước phát triển nhanh hơn nhưng phải bền vững.

Genetics: Medical, Theological and Ethical Aspects Tibbi, Dini ve Etik Boyutlariyla Genetik -/- Genetik bilimi biyolojinin botanik ve zooloji alanındaki uygulamalarını aşarak, sınırlarını önce antropolojiye sonra tıbba doğru hızla genişletmiştir. Öyle ki artık biyokimyadan onkolojiye kadar neredeyse tüm biyomedikal disiplinler, genetiğin kavramları, ilkeleri ve metodolojisi ile aşılanmıştır. Modern tıbbın uygulama alanında geniş bir yer tutan genetik bilimi, bir hastalığa dair risk analizi, teşhis ve tedavi seçeneklerinin belirlenmesi, prognozun değerlendirilmesi gibi klinik uygulamanın farklı evrelerinde söz sahibi olmaktadır. İçinde bulunduğumuz 21. yüzyılda (...) ise bu etkileşim eskisinden daha da güçlü hale gelerek devam etmektedir. Genetik biliminin klinikteki etkilerinin kapsamlı bir şekilde değerlendirildiği bu kitap, tüm dünyada tıbbın seyrini değiştirecek gelişmelere zemin teşkil eden genetik disiplininin olumlu ve olumsuz etkileri hakkında okuyucuya yetkili ağızlardan bilgiler taşımayı ve daha net bir fikir oluşturmayı hedeflemektedir. Kitapta dört ana bölüm bulunmaktadır. İlk bölümde doğum öncesi genetik uygulamalara, ikinci bölümde doğum sonrası (çocuk ve erişkinde) genetik testlere, üçüncü bölümde tıbbi genetiğin sıcak tartışma konusu olan Spinal Müsküler Atrofi’ye (SMA) ve dördüncü bölümde ise genetik bilgiyi felsefi bakışla ele alan makalelere yer verilmiştir. Genetiğin tıp pratiğini değiştirici ve dönüştürücü etkisine multidisipliner bir yaklaşımla ışık tutmayı amaçlayan bu eserin genetik hakkındaki Türkçe literatüre katkıda bulunmasını ümit ediyoruz. (shrink)

Background: Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, published research from Vietnam related to the pandemic was analysed using bibliometrics. -/- Objectives: To examine the status of research on COVID-19 by authors from Vietnam. -/- Methods: The following bibliometric aspects were considered in the analysis: international collaboration, institutions from Vietnam and their partner institutions worldwide, subjects and topics, types of documents, and individual authors. The basis of the study was data obtained from the Scopus database between 2020 and 2021. The (...) data were analysed using Microsoft Excel, R, and VOSviewer, and the emerging trends illustrated through descriptive analysis and science mapping. -/- Results: Between 2020 and 2021, researchers from Vietnam co-authored 1034 documents related to COVID-19, amounting to 0.35% of the total of 296,148 such documents published worldwide as ascertained from the Scopus database. Vietnam’s top country collaborators in that research were USA, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, and Taiwan ROC. The top Vietnam institutions were Duy Tan University, Ton Duc Thang University, and the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. The research from Vietnam covered many subjects, from medicine and natural sciences to social sciences and economics. Eight clusters of topics related to COVID-19 were identified. In terms of citations, the most highly cited documents were the outcome of collaboration with international authors. Lastly, the study ranked top authors based on either the number of publications or the number of citations. -/- Conclusion: This study provides a preliminary picture of studies related to COVID-19 co-authored by researchers in Vietnam. The picture may help the Vietnam government in devising appropriate strategies for post-COVID-19 restoration of the country’s socio-economic status. (shrink)

Debates on humanitarian intervention have focused on the permissibility question. In this paper, I ask whether intervention can be a moral duty, and if it is a moral duty, how this duty is to be distributed and assigned. With respect to the first question, I contemplate whether an intervention that has met the "permissibility" condition is also for this reason necessary and obligatory. If so, the gap between permission and obligation closes in the case of humanitarian intervention. On the second (...) question, I propose 'institutionalizing" the duty to intervene. In this way, an otherwise imperfect obligation to intervene can be made "perfect" and specific to some agent. (shrink)

This chapter examines two basic philosophical challenges for the idea of reparations for past injustices (using colonialism as the focal point). The first challenge is that requiring people today to make reparations for an injustice they themselves did not commit is unfair. The second is that if reparative claims are invoked because of lingering injustices, then recalling the past is in fact normatively redundant if lingering present injustices can be handled by forward-looking principles. In response to the first challenge, I (...) argue that the unfairness worry is deflected if we adopt a collectivist-model of responsibility, ie, one that holds states instead of individuals to be the responsible actor. Against the redundancy objection, I suggest that reparative arguments can supplement and reinforce forward-looking distributive principles. (shrink)

This paper compares criticisms of Singapore’s meritocracy, especially against its impact on income disparities and class divisions, with Michael Sandel’s critique of the meritocratic ethic in the United States. Despite significant differences in their history and politics, meritocracy has similar dysfunctions in both societies, allowing us to draw theoretical conclusions about meritocracy as an ideal of governance. It then contrasts Sandel’s communitarian critique of meritocracy with recent Confucian promotion of political meritocracy and meritocratic justice and argues that the Confucian principle (...) of “promoting the virtuous and talented” is different from the contemporary conception of meritocracy. Textual evidence indicates that a Confucian understanding of “merit” is contrary to the technocratic expertise of contemporary meritocracies. Furthermore, pre-Qin Confucian texts do not support a conception of justice that emphasizes individual desert; they address distributive problems from the perspective of needs and sustaining social relations. The texts also support limiting the reign of merit when it results in inequalities that cause suffering, inhibit personal cultivation of some groups, or undermine social relations. The paper concludes with an assessment of Singapore’s on-going attempts to improve its meritocracy from a Confucian perspective. (shrink)

I outline what I call a relational account of toleration. This relational account helps explain the apparent paradox of toleration in that it involves two competing moral stances, of acceptance and disapproval, towards the tolerated. It also helps clarify the way toleration is a normative ideal, and not a position one is forced into out of the practical need to accommodate or accept. Specifically, toleration is recommended out of respect for that which the tolerant agent also disapproves of. This combination (...) of respect entangled with disapproval results from two different evaluative perspectives of the tolerant agent. The relational account explains how an agent can hold these competing evaluative perspectives. I also discuss the proper scope of state toleration under this relational account. (shrink)

Sometimes, scientific models are either intended to or plausibly interpreted as representing nonactual but possible targets. Call this “hypothetical modeling”. This paper raises two epistemological challenges concerning hypothetical modeling. To begin with, I observe that given common philosophical assumptions about the scope of objective possibility, hypothetical models are fallible with respect to what is objectively possible. There is thus a need to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate hypothetical modeling. The first epistemological challenge is that no account of the epistemology of (...) hypothetical models seems to cohere with the most characteristic function of scientific modeling in general, i.e., surrogative representation. The second epistemological challenge is a version of “reliability challenges” familiar from other areas. There is a challenge to explain how hypothetical models could be a reliable guide to what is possible, given that they are not and cannot be compared against their nonactual targets and updated accordingly. I close with some brief remarks on possible solutions to these challenges. (shrink)

How should liberal societies respond to nonliberal ones? In this paper I examine John Rawls’s conception of international toleration against what is sometimes called a cosmopolitan one. Rawls holds that a just international order should recognize certain nonliberal societies, to which he refers as decent peoples, as equal members in good standing in a just society of peoples. It would be a violation of liberalism’s own principle of toleration to deny the international legitimacy of decent peoples who, among other things, (...) affirm human rights and accept peaceful coexistence with other societies. According to the cosmopolitan idea of international toleration, on the contrary, only societies that are liberal in character meet the criteria for toleration. I suggest that, against the Rawlsian conception of international toleration, the cosmopolitan idea is more consistent with the fundamentals of liberal political morality. I then clarify the ways in which cosmopolitan toleration is not worryingly interventionist even as it is not altogether toothless; and I end with some reflections on why cosmopolitism is not morally imperialistic. (shrink)

This article argues that the contemporary acceptability of abortion is not solely due to the Liberal imperative to exercise individual choice. Rather, abortion's acceptability needs to be explained with reference to the techniques of consumer culture. This article will begin by explaining how practices in general predispose one to gravitate towards one form of practices rather than another. It will then look at how consumer practices generate a biopolitics of economic efficiency and corporeal commodification which culminates in a politics of (...) visibility. Under such conditions, even basic categories like mere existence is dependent on its ability to be displayed for public view. This article will conclude by reflecting on the necessity of forging the Church not as a subsection of a public framed by consumerism, but as an alternative public in its own right. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to the Dogmatism Puzzle presented by Gilbert Harman, knowledge induces dogmatism because, if one knows that p, one knows that any evidence against p is misleading and therefore one can ignore it when gaining the evidence in the future. I try to offer a new solution to the puzzle by explaining why the principle is false that evidence known to be misleading can be ignored. I argue that knowing that some evidence is misleading doesn't always damage the credential of (...) the evidence, and therefore it doesn't always entitle one to ignore it. I also explain in what kind of cases and to what degree such knowledge allows one to ignore evidence. Hopefully, through the discussion, we can not only understand better where the dogmatism puzzle goes wrong, but also understand better in what sense rational believers should rely on their evidence and when they can ignore it. (shrink)

The gig economy is a phenomenon that is rapidly expanding, redefining the nature of work and contributing to a significant change in how contemporary economies are organised. Its expansion is not unproblematic. This article provides a clear and systematic analysis of the main ethical challenges caused by the gig economy. Following a brief overview of the gig economy, its scope and scale, we map the key ethical problems that it gives rise to, as they are discussed in the relevant literature. (...) We map them onto three categories: the new organisation of work (what is done), the new nature of work (how it is done), and the new status of workers (who does it). We then evaluate a recent initiative from the EU that seeks to address the challenges of the gig economy. The 2019 report of the European High-Level Expert Group on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets is a positive step in the right direction. However, we argue that ethical concerns relating to algorithmic systems as mechanisms of control, and the discrimination, exclusion and disconnectedness faced by gig workers require further deliberation and policy response. A brief conclusion completes the analysis. The appendix presents the methodology underpinning our literature review. (shrink)

Đầu tư vào rừng đô thị không chỉ là một chiến lược môi trường, mà còn là đầu tư cho sức khỏe cộng đồng và phúc lợi kinh tế.

The debate between Uniqueness and Permissivism concerns whether a body of evidence sometimes allows multiple doxastic attitudes towards a proposition. An important motivation for Uniqueness is the so-called ‘arbitrariness argument,’ which says that Permissivism leads to some unacceptable arbitrariness with regard to one's beliefs. An influential response to the argument says that the arbitrariness in beliefs can be avoided by invoking epistemic standards. In this paper, I argue that such a response to the arbitrariness argument is unsuccessful. Then I defend (...) a new response: contrary to common conception, the arbitrariness resulted by Permissivism is acceptable. The basic idea is that the arbitrariness resulted by Permissivism is analogous to the arbitrariness in permissive actions and the latter arbitrariness is intuitively acceptable. I answer three possible objections against this analogy, which are all motivated by the thought that beliefs aim at the truth. In addressing the last objection, I draw inspiration from the recent debate on transformative experience. (shrink)

The Value of Evidence thesis (VE) tells us to gather evidence before deciding in any decision problem, if the evidence is free. This appar- ently plausible principle faces two problems. First, it fails on evidence externalism or nonclassical decision theories. Second, it’s not general enough: it tells us to prefer gaining free evidence to gaining no evi- dence, but it doesn’t tell us to prefer gaining more informative evidence to gaining less informative evidence when both are free. This paper defends (...) an alternative value-of-evidence principle that solves the above two problems. We call it ‘the Comparative Value of Evidence for the Resolute (CVER).’ CVER not only generalizes VE to the comparative case but is also compatible with evidence externalism and nonclassical decision theories. Our argument, if successful, broadens the scope of the value-of-evidence principle and shows that it’s more robust than previously imagined. (shrink)

In this context, the study explored the relationship between organizational climate and employee innovative work behaviour among food manufacturing industries in Malaysia. The study is a descriptive correlational survey research design where data is sourced out from a total of randomly sampled 260 employees. Results revealed that a favourable organizational climate on innovation, proactivity, and risk-taking is prevailing among the companies. A very high level of innovative work behaviour is emanating among the employees on idea exploration, generation, championing, and implementation. (...) Test of differences showed that employee gender, position, unit, and years of service spelt significant differences in the perception of the employees on organizational climate and innovative work behaviour. A meaningful relationship surfaced between organizational climate and employee innovative work behaviour, suggesting that for food manufacturing industries to sustain innovative and competitive advantages, there is a need to promote a nurturing and encouraging entrepreneurial organizational climate. Finally, a congruency among the domains of organizational climate and employee innovative work behaviour emerged. It suggests that when higher positive organizational climate surfaces, the more likely the employee's manifest innovation work behaviour. This study addressed the gap by providing organizational climate and employee innovative work behaviour among food manufacturing industries in Malaysia. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism provides one powerful way of defending global egalitarianism. The basic luck egalitarian idea that persons ought not to be disadvantaged compared to others on account of his or her bad luck seems to extend naturally to the global arena, where random factors such as persons’ place of birth and the natural distribution of the world’s resources do affect differentially their life chances. Yet luck egalitarianism as an ideal, as well as its global application, has come under severe criticisms (...) in recent debate. My aim in this article is to restore plausibility to the luck egalitarian idea, and to suggest how it could then provide a plausible grounding for global egalitarianism. To do this, I will propose a more modest but also more defensible conception of luck egalitarianism that can also strengthen the case for global distributive justice. (shrink)

Richard Foley has presented a puzzle purporting to show that all attempts in trying to find a sufficient condition of rationality are doomed. The puzzle rests on two plausible assumptions. The first is a level-connecting principle: if one rationally believes that one's belief that p is irrational, then one's belief that p is irrational. The second is a claim about a structural feature shared by all promising sufficient conditions of rationality: for any such condition, it is possible that one's belief (...) satisfies it and yet one rationally believes that it doesn’t. With the two assumptions, Foley argues that a sufficient condition of rationality is impossible. I explain how exactly the puzzle goes and I try to offer a solution. If my solution works, all theorists of rationality who accept certain level-connecting principles need to add an extra condition to their favourite rationality-making condition. (shrink)

This paper explores the epistemological challenges in using computer simulations for two distinct goals: explanation via hypothesis-testing and prediction. It argues that each goal requires different strategies for justifying inferences drawn from simulation results due to different practical and conceptual constraints. The paper identifies unique and shared strategies researchers employ to increase confidence in their inferences for each goal. For explanation via hypothesis-testing, researchers need to address the underdetermination, interpretability, and attribution challenges. In prediction, the emphasis is on the model's (...) ability to generalize across multiple domains. Shared strategies researchers employ to increase confidence in inferences are empirical corroboration of theoretical assumptions and adequacy of computational operationalizations, and this paper argues that these are necessary for explanation via hypothesis-testing but not for prediction. This paper emphasizes the need for a nuanced approach to the epistemology of computer simulation, given the diverse applications of computer simulation in scientific research. Understanding these differences is crucial for both researchers and philosophers of science, as it helps develop appropriate methodologies and criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of computer simulation. (shrink)

We call attention to certain cases of epistemic akrasia, arguing that they support belief-credence dualism. Belief-credence dualism is the view that belief and credence are irreducible, equally fundamental attitudes. Consider the case of an agent who believes p, has low credence in p, and thus believes that they shouldn’t believe p. We argue that dualists, as opposed to belief-firsters (who say credence reduces to belief) and credence-firsters (who say belief reduces to credence) can best explain features of akratic cases, including (...) the observation that akratic beliefs seem to be held despite possessing a defeater for those beliefs, and that, in akratic cases, one can simultaneously believe and have low confidence in the very same proposition. (shrink)

Dinî tecrübe Friedrich Schleiermacher (ö.1768) ile önem kazanan ve William James’in (ö.1842) eserleriyle din felsefesinde teistik delillerin içine dahil olan bir delildir. Dini tecrübelerin birçok şekilde meydana geldiği iddia edilmektedir. Bunlardan biri de sezgidir. Bu bildirinin amacı sezgisel bilginin Tanrı’nın varlığına delil olup olmadığını ortaya koymaktır. Sezgisel yetenek, insanın fiziksel gelişimine (yani beyin) paralel olarak gelişen bir yetidir ve zihnin gelişmesiyle birlikte kapasitesi artmaktadır. Önce çocukta duygusal bir sezgi hakim iken (4-7 yaş), daha sonra çocuğun somut işlemlere geçmesiyle sezgisel yetenek (...) somutla ilişkili hale gelir. (7-11 yaş) Ve somut nesne ve durumlar (deney ve pratikler) çocuğun sezgisel yeteneğinin gelişmesine yol açar. En son aşamada yani soyut işlemler döneminde (11-17 yaş) çocuğun beyninde prefrontal lobun gelişmesine bağlı olarak akli muhakeme gelişir ve bunun etkisiyle sezgisel yetenek, akli verileri kullanarak soyut sezgiye yönelir. Sezgisel yetenek böylece üç dönemin özelliklerini gösterebilir; çocukluktan aldığı duygusal sezgi ve somut/nesnenin çağrıştırdığı somut sezgi ve aklın dış dünyadan aldığı bilgileri zihinsel süreçlerden geçirerek işlemesi sonucu gelişen akılcı sezgi. O nedenle insanlarda tek bir sezgiden bahsetmek yanlıştır. Sezginin üç türü birbiriyle eş güdümlü olarak bilgiyi elde etmek için çalışır. Bu üç sezgi türünden akılcı sezgiye önem veren İbn Sina, sezgi bilgisini rasyonel, epistemolojik alana dahil eder. Yaptığı ilim sınıflamasında sezgi bilgisini deneye dayalı bilgi türü olarak görür ve akla/deneye dayalı bir sezgi anlayışı geliştirir. Bu sezgi anlayışı, peygamberliği rasyonel bir temele oturtmak ve irrasyonel olmadığın açıklamak için de kullanır. Kudsi akla sahip peygamberler üstün zekalarının etkisiyle güçlü sezgiye sahip olurlar ve vahiy alırlar. Vahiy alan sezgisel yetenek diğer insanlarda ortaya çıkıp dini tecrübeleri şekillendirebilir mi? Peygamberlerin vahiy tecrübesini taklit ederek kendilerinde yüksek sezgisel yeti olduğunu savunan bazı kişiler (veli) ilham yoluyla bilgi elde ettiklerini iddia etmişlerdir. Dini tecrübe delilinde bu tür tecrübeler dini delil olarak sayılmaktadır. Fakat bu sezgisel bilginin kaynağı duygu mudur, somut bir gösterge (deney) midir yoksa akıl mıdır? İlham ürünü olan eserlerde her zaman duygu vardır ve bu tür ifadeler insanı duygunun hakim olduğu zihinsel bir duruma götürür. Fakat vahiy tecrübesinde duygunun yanında, somut dünyanın varlığı ve akla dayalı bir sezginin olduğu da vurgulanmaktadır. O nedenle sezgisel bilgi ürünü vahiy üç tür sezgi bilgisine dayalı iken, ilham ürünü olan sezgisel bilgi sadece duyguya dayalıdır. O nedenle ‘dini’ bir delil olarak değil ‘mistik’ bir delil olarak değerlendirmeyi hak eder. (shrink)

Trong bối cảnh toàn cầu đang đối mặt với những thách thức ngày càng nghiêm trọng từ biến đổi khí hậu, tín chỉ carbon đã được xem như một giải pháp tài chính nhằm khuyến khích việc giảm phát thải khí nhà kính. Tuy nhiên, liệu giải pháp này có thực sự hiệu quả trong việc bảo vệ môi trường, hay chỉ đơn thuần là một cách để thương mại hóa thiên nhiên, mang lại lợi ích ngắn hạn nhưng tiềm (...) ẩn nhiều rủi ro lâu dài? (shrink)

Kant’ın (ö.1804) felsefesi eklektik bir felsefedir ve Aydınlanma felsefesinin devamı niteliğindedir. Aydınlanma felsefesine benzer şekilde felsefesinin temeli akıldır ve aklın sınırları ve kullanımı hakkında fikirler ileri sürmüştür. Kant, dini ele alırken Tanrı’nın varlığının saf akılla ispatlanamayacağı sonucuna varmıştır. Çünkü akılla yapılan ispatlarda Tanrı’nın varlığına getirilen deliller kadar yokluğuna da eşit derecede deliller getirilebilir. O nedenle Tanrı’nın varlığının ispatında saf aklın değil pratik aklın önemli olduğunu ve ahlâksal yasaların bizi Tanrı’nın varlığına götüreceğini ileri sürer. Bu görüşünü desteklemek için eserlerinde teistik delillerin (...) akla uygun olmadığını ve akılla bilinemeyeceğini ispatlamaya çalışmıştır. Ona göre ontolojik, kozmolojik, teleolojik.. vb. teistik delillerin işlevi zihni tanrıbilim için hazırlamaktan ibarettir. Fakat tek başına Tanrı’nın varlığını ispat etmekten uzaktır. Ontolojik delili Tanrı’nın varlığının ispatı ile ilgili belli bir felsefi delilin adı olarak kullanan ilk kişi 18.yy. filozoflarından Christian Wolff’tur (ö.1754). Ontolojik delil, diğer deliler gibi ‘olgulara dayalı’ değildir. Bu delil tamamen kavramsal ve a priori önermelere dayanır. Delil, Tanrı’nın doğrudan doğruya ve hiçbir vasıtaya gerek kalmadan bilineceği üzerine kurgulanmıştır. Tanrı’nın mükemmelliği, ‘Tanrı vardır’ önermesinin sadece düşünsel bir önerme mi yoksa dış varlığa karşılık gelen bir önerme mi olduğu, Tanrı’nın varlığının zorunluluğu meselesi ontolojik delil içinde tartışılan konulardır. Ontolojik delilde ‘Tanrı vardır’ önermesi a priori ve analitik bir önerme olarak kabul edilmektedir. Analitik önermeler ise Tanrı’nın varlığının zorunluluğunu gösterir. Kant’ın eleştirisine göre a priori kavramlar yoluyla her şeyi olanaklı düşünebiliriz ve bunun için zihnimizde herhangi bir sınırlama olamaz. Tanrı ve zorunlu varlık kavramlarını zihnimizde düşündüğümüz gibi Anka Kuşu, Kaf dağı, Pamuk Prenses..vb. kavramların da var olduğu düşünülebilir ve bizim düşünmemiz bunları zorunlu yapmaz, tıpkı Tanrı’yı düşündüğümüzde Tanrı’yı zorunlu var kılmadığı gibi. Bu bildiride Kant’ın düşüncesi ortaya konulduktan sonra onun düşüncesindeki tutarlılık ve tutarsızlıklara değinilecektir. Anka Kuşu, Kaf Dağı, Pamuk Prenses ..vb. gibi hayali kavramlarla Tanrı kıyaslanabilir mi? Biz hayali varlıkları zihnimizde oluştururken yine duyu verilerinden yararlanır ve dış dünyada gözlemlediğimiz canlılara benzer ‘hayali varlıklar’ üretiriz. Dış dünyada, kuş, dağ ve prenses vardır. Bizim tek yaptığımız bunu hayali adlar takmaktır. Fakat Tanrı söz konusu olduğunda dış dünyada gözlem yaparak bir Tanrı’ya şahit olmayız ve bu şahit olduğumuz Tanrı’ya benzer bir Tanrı’yı hayal ederek zihnimizde hayali bir varlık oluşturmayız. Tam tersine Tanrı kavramını zihnimizde oluştururken hiçbir şeye benzemeyen, sebebi olmayan, her şeyi varlığa getiren, mükemmel bir varlık çıkarımını akıl ve mantığımızın bizi götürdüğü sonuçla ortaya koyarız. Çünkü insan olarak biz birbirimize benzeriz, bizim bir sebebimiz vardır, hiçbir şey yaratamayız ve mükemmel değilizdir. Ve evrenin sonsuzluğu, yıldızlar, gezegenler, insanın biyolojik yapısı, matematiksel düzen bizi zorunlu olarak ‘sebebi olmayan mükemmel bir sebep’ aramaya iter. Ve Ontolojik Delil ortaya çıkar. Bu bakımdan Kant’ın eleştirisini kabul etmek mümkün değildir. (shrink)

The criticism of the theist arguments for the existence of God by philosophers like Spinoza, Hume and Kant has led religious thinkers to new searches. One of these is the argument of religious experience. Religious experience is classified according to its ways of occurrence. It needs be criticised whether mystic experience, which is included under this classification, should be taken as ‘religious’ or not. This is because many claims of mystic thought, which can be found in any religious tradition in (...) different disguises, do not comply with theistic religions’ understanding of religion, morals and God. Whereas the mystic thought argues for union with the God, this is out of question in the theistic understanding of religion. The duality, that is; the separateness of God and man, that they cannot unite, the impossibility of man to become a God are oft-repeated in the sacred texts and the oneness of God is the main theme being taught to mankind. For this reason, the teachings of mystic thought should not be included in ‘religious experience’. (shrink)

This review essay on John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples focuses on two of its more contentious claims. The first is that international economic justice is secured by a principle of assistance and that a principle of distributive justice will in fact have “unacceptable” results. The other is that certain non-liberal societies, or peoples, fall within the limits of international toleration. The essay evaluates and critiques these claims from a liberal cosmopolitan perspective.

It’s widely accepted that higher-order defeaters, i.e., evidence that one’s belief is formed in an epistemically defective way, can defeat doxastic justification. However, it’s yet unclear how exactly such kind of defeat happens. Given that many theories of doxastic justification can be understood as fitting the schema of proper basing on propositional justifiers, we might attempt to explain the defeat either by arguing that a higher-order defeater defeats propositional justification or by arguing that it defeats proper basing. It has been (...) argued that the first attempt is unpromising because a variety of prominent theories of propositional justification don’t imply that we lose propositional justification when gaining higher-order defeaters. This leads some scholars to take the second attempt. In this paper, I criticize this second attempt, and I defend the first attempt by arguing that a theory of propositional justification that requires intellectual responsibility can nicely account for higher-order defeat. My proposal is that we lose doxastic justification when we gain higher-order defeaters because there is no intellectually responsible way for us to maintain our original beliefs due to the defeaters. (shrink)

Der folgende Artikel gibt einen Überblick, wie gegenwärtige chinesische Philosophen über die intellektuelle Beziehung von Hegel und Marx forschen – und möchte damit einen Eindruck vermitteln, in welcher Weise in China über die denkerischen Ursprünge des geistigen Vaters der eigenen sozialistischen Ideologie nachgedacht wird. Die intellektuelle Beziehung zwischen Karl Marx und G. W. F. Hegel ist seit langem ein Schlüsselthema auf dem Gebiet der marxistischen Philosophie. Dabei geht es um das Verständnis der Quelle von Marx' Denken, sowie der Art und (...) Weise, wie er seine eigene Theorie auf der Grundlage der Hegelschen Philosophie entwickelte. Diese Verhältnisbestimmung berührt wichtige Strömungen sowohl der Hegelschen als auch der marxistischen Studien. Die Wiederbelebung der Hegelforschung und der Bedeutungszuwachs der Marxforschung im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert drängen dazu, die intellektuellen Ursprünge dieser beiden Denker neu zu fassen. Die chinesischsprachige Forschung zur Marx-Hegel-Beziehung basiert auf der Grundidee, das Denken von Marx durch das Denken von Hegel zu verstehen ("von Hegel zu Marx"). Dabei lassen sich drei Ansätze identifizieren: den Weg über die Phänomenologie des Geistes, den Weg über die Wissenschaft der Logik und den Weg über die Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. Streng genommen ließe sich auch der Ansatz der "Ent-Hegelisierung" von Marx, einschließlich der Versuche, Kant als seine entscheidende Inspirationsquelle zu positionieren, als eine Spielform der Marx-Hegel-Beziehung betrachten und als weiterer wichtiger Forschungsweg nennen. Jedem dieser Wege entspricht eine relativ fixe Gruppe an Texten von Marx und Hegel. Entwicklungsgeschichtlich fand Marx‘ erste Auseinandersetzung mit Hegel in der Philosophie des Rechts statt. Rezeptionsgeschichtlich wurde diese Auseinandersetzung in China jedoch als letzte diskutiert, was vor allem auf zwei Gründe zurückzuführen ist: Zum einen wurde die moderne politische Philosophie in China erst in den 1990er Jahren als Disziplin eingeführt. Zum anderen haben chinesische Wissenschaftler erst allmählich die Bedeutung und vielfältigen Dimensionen von Marx' frühem Denken erkannt und näher zu erforschen begonnen. (shrink)

The issue of emotion is discussed in three stages in this article. Thus, emotion is built on a realistic and explanatory basis. In the first stage, the relationship between the physiological structure of the human brain and emotion is emphasized. The connection between the lower/primitive brain (the region/emotion center where emotions arise) and the upper/developed brain (mind-logic center, prefrontal lobe) is mentioned. Secondly, the emotional and mental development of human according to Jean Piaget's Mental Development Theory is explained. In the (...) emotional / intuitive period of 4-7 years (Emotional Intuition), while the person is completely under the influence of emotions, at the age of 7-11, he becomes aware of a concrete world accompanying emotions and passes to the Concrete Operations Period. It experiences the universe by "experiment" in the concrete operational period. And at the age of 11-17, the human reaches the Abstract Operations Period with the addition of reason and logic to his mental structure, which he built by putting a concrete universe on the core of emotions. Emotion is one of the most important functions of the human brain, and the reasoning system has evolved as an extension of the emotional system. Emotion plays different roles in the reasoning process. Emotion can increase the weight of a proposition, affecting the result in favor of that proposition. Emotion also helps in the process of remembering the many facts that need to be taken into account in order to make a decision. It has been explained through examples that emotion has a very important function in reasoning and that the mind is also important in controlling emotions. Again, emotion can help the mind / logic process scientific knowledge correctly and make good decisions. (shrink)

Jean Piaget's theory of human mental development mirrors many issues related to human. According to this theory, one's view of himself, nature/universe and God is changing. According to this theory, which is basically divided into four main periods and subtitles, the thinking skill of man changes according to age, physical development, education and society. These differences affect the way individuals obtain information. Individuals who acquire knowledge with an emotional intuition before the age of seven acquire information through an inductive way, (...) in other words, through concrete intuition, through concrete processes, experimentation and observation, in parallel with the development of the brain and senses. At the age of eleven and after which intellectual reasoning develops, information becomes abstract and information is obtained through abstract intuition based on theories, hypotheses and assumptions. In the love experience of Rumi, a mystical thinker, knowledge is obtained only with emotional intuition, and it is claimed that the only way to obtain information is love-based emotional intuition. In this love-based emotional intuition, the ways of obtaining concrete/experimental and abstract/rational knowledge requiring high level mental skills are rejected and these methods are said to be 'devil’s work'. In this study, Rumi's approach to human, universe and God in this one-sided and emotional way is criticized and its inconsistency is revealed. (shrink)

12th century scholar al-Ghazali wrote about a variety of topics and his distinctive points of view of them allowed him to make his marks on a civilization. The first topics that come to mind with regards to al-Ghazali are suspicion, knowledge and experience. He went through an era of crisis of suspicion at one point of his life and he managed to make it out of that crisis of depression thanks to ‘a divine light Allah put in his heart”. This (...) paper aims to study and clarify his view about knowledge in the context of suspicion and the point he arrived at as a result. It also aims to emphasize the parts for which he was influenced by previous philosophers while constructing his views, Avicenna and Farabi in particular, and makes comparisons on some occasions. This method applies particularly to the part where his view of the inadequacy of reason in the field of metaphysics is discussed. This Study is composed of the topics of how aGhazali approaches reason, what he means by reason, how knowledge could be obtained and finally, the breakthrough he brought about in the classification of sciences. Sourcing from his understanding of knowledge. (shrink)

The claims regarding to the existence of God has been encountered in every period and part in the history of mankind. These claims sometimes have only religious or philosophical, or mystical features. However, we can see these three perceptions interlocked, in harmony with each other, or that a religious claim can be nurtured with philosophical sources or a mystic claim can be nurtured by religious and philosophical arguments. Certainly, we can not make a specific differentiation among these three sides but (...) we will be able to see the differences if we define the factors that build the base of them. The most important point that shows the difference among religious, philosophical and mystic claims is the oneness of God in religion (tevhid=la ilahe illallah), ‘the first commentator’ in philosophy (the infinite power, efficient cause), ‘the communion with God’ in mysticism (initiation, joining= La mevcude illa hu). The issue of the existence and characteristics of God offers various features and these differences in the understanding of God create divergent perceptions of universe, world, existence and human. The more the perception of God changes, the more changes happen in all the systems like dominoes. The issue of the oneness and existence of God is a mental process of humans as it is an understanding, interpreting making implications. If we learn the physical development of human (brain and its functions) and Mental Development Phases presented by Jean Piaget, it will be possible explain the various understanding and interpretation of God. The objective and subjective sides of cognizing the God will come out and the way to make a ‘rational’ explanation will be opened. This paper aims to prove that an individual who has reached the formal operational period can have access to a true understanding of God with ‘rational intuition’. (shrink)