Most discussions of racial fetish center on the question of whether it is caused by negative racial stereotypes. In this paper I adopt a different strategy, one that begins with the experiences of those targeted by racial fetish rather than those who possess it; that is, I shift focus away from the origins of racial fetishes to their effects as a social phenomenon in a racially stratified world. I examine the case of preferences for Asian women, also known as ‘yellow (...) fever’, to argue against the claim that racial fetishes are unobjectionable if they are merely based on personal or aesthetic preference rather than racial stereotypes. I contend that even if this were so, yellow fever would still be morally objectionable because of the disproportionate psychological burdens it places on Asian and Asian-American women, along with the role it plays in a pernicious system of racial social meanings. (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)

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)

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)

Statistics play a critical role in biological and clinical research. To promote logically consistent representation and classification of statistical entities, we have developed the Ontology of Biological and Clinical Statistics (OBCS). OBCS extends the Ontology of Biomedical Investigations (OBI), an OBO Foundry ontology supported by some 20 communities. Currently, OBCS contains 686 terms, including 381 classes imported from OBI and 147 classes specific to OBCS. The goal of this paper is to present OBCS for community critique and to describe a (...) number of use cases designed to illustrate its potential applications. The OBCS project and source code are available at http://obcs.googlecode.com. (shrink)

This article presents a robust defense of the concept of “datafied enhancement” as a subset of human enhancement. Firstly, the author notes that the widespread development of ICT and AI technologies has made it possible to collect and analyze human biometric data, thus integrating data into the concept of embodiment. Secondly, the author explores the cultural and intellectual history of datafied enhancement, highlighting the significant role data has played in human evolution. Thirdly, the author examines the functional classifications of datafied (...) enhancement, arguing that conversational, wearable, ingestible, and embeddable technological devices can enhance individuals’ physical, cognitive, emotional, and moral capacities by collecting body data. Fourthly, the author underscores the importance of distinguishing datafied enhancement from dataism to avoid misconceptions. Finally, the author addresses potential ethical issues, such as data exclusivity, the uncontrollable data self, and privacy invasion. By acknowledging these risks, datafied enhancement can be guided to become a technology that respects human dignity and promotes the common good. (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)

The main aim of this paper is to illustrate human–nature relations from a comparative study of the contexts of later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi. I argue that the Zhuangzi has its own phenomenology of the natural world, which is worth comparing to Merleau-Pontian later phenomenology. To compare the arguments on human–nature relations in the contexts of later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi in detail, first, I briefly compare the cultural philosophies of nature in ancient Greece and China and their possible influences (...) on our contemporary understanding of nature. Second, I compare the concept of “flesh” of Merleau-Ponty with the concept of “vital energy” in the Zhuangzi and point out the main roles of these concepts in their respective theories of the natural world. Third, I use the “reversibility thesis” created by Merleau-Ponty to analyze the ontological significance of illness in the arguments of Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi. Fourth, inspired by Merleau-Pontian and Zhuangzian ideas about language and expression, I expound on a view of illness as a primordial language of nature and its possible role in mediating human–nature relations. Ultimately, I conclude that the comparative study of thoughts on human–nature relations in the literatures of later Merleau-Ponty and the Zhuangzi can help us reconsider and readjust our main attitudes toward nature, illness and nonhuman beings in the contemporary postpandemic era. (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)

Statistics play a critical role in biological and clinical research. However, most reports of scientific results in the published literature make it difficult for the reader to reproduce the statistical analyses performed in achieving those results because they provide inadequate documentation of the statistical tests and algorithms applied. The Ontology of Biological and Clinical Statistics (OBCS) is put forward here as a step towards solving this problem. Terms in OBCS, including ‘data collection’, ‘data transformation in statistics’, ‘data visualization’, ‘statistical data (...) analysis’, and ‘drawing a conclusion based on data’, cover the major types of statistical processes used in basic biological research and clinical outcome studies. OBCS is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and extends the Ontology of Biomedical Investigations (OBI), an OBO (Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry ontology supported by over 20 research communities. We discuss two examples illustrating how the ontology is being applied. In the first (biological) use case, we describe how OBCS was applied to represent the high throughput microarray data analysis of immunological transcriptional profiles in human subjects vaccinated with an influenza vaccine. In the second (clinical outcomes) use case, we applied OBCS to represent the processing of electronic health care data to determine the associations between hospital staffing levels and patient mortality. Our case studies were designed to show how OBCS can be used for the consistent representation of statistical analysis pipelines under two different research paradigms. By representing statistics-related terms and their relations in a rigorous fashion, OBCS facilitates standard data analysis and integration, and supports reproducible biological and clinical research. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

Felsefe Optiğinden Aşkın Renkleri kitabı Senail Özkan’ın bir takdim yazısı, giriş ve yedi bölümden oluşmaktadır. Kitapta kaynakçaya yer verilmemiştir. Halilov, kitabın giriş kısmında ‘aşk’ın ne olduğunu ve hangi ilim dalı tarafından ele alınması gerektiğini açıklamıştır. Ona göre aşk insanın manevi âleminin en derin katmanlarında ortaya çıktığı için temel itibariyle bilinçdışı alana aittir. İlim onu irdeleyemez, aşk, ilim için muğlak bir alandır ve mantıki düzlemde değerlendirilmesi oldukça zordur. İlim açısından incelenemediği için bu işi felsefe ve şiir üstlenmektedir.(s.16, s. 55) Şiir ve (...) aşk ilişkisine değinen Halilov, şiirin aşk ile büyük bir ilgisi olduğunu Doğu’da ve Batı’da aşk konusunun şiir sanatının kapsamı içinde değerlendirildiğini söyler. Doğu’da Nizami, İbn Arabi, Mevlana, Fuzuli, İkbal ve Cavid’e kadar Doğu şairlerinin aşk konusunu ele aldığı ve bununla ilgili eserler verdiğini ekler. Halilov’a göre Doğu’da aşk, ‘ilahi nitelikte’ ele alınmaktadır. Bütün kitap boyunca ‘ilahi aşk’ meselesi üzerinde duran Halilov bazen bu görüşü savunmuş bazen de tutarsız ve gerçek hayattan uzak olduğunu anlatmaya çalışmıştır. Ona göre aşk, ilahi olmaktan ziyade ferdi, bireysel veya insanidir. Aşk, ‘yerle gök arasında’ olması gerekmektedir. Bu açıdan Halilov aşkı, rasyonel bir düzlemde alan Batı öğretisini tercih ettiğini söylemektedir.(s.18) Fakat kitabına baktığımızda aslında Halilov’un bazı gerekçeler nedeniyle bu konuda biraz tereddütte kaldığını göreceğiz. (s.25). (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)

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)

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)

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)

This paper primarily investigates the following questions: The first question：What is the basic structure of consciousness? I proposed that objects moving at the speed of light form the fundamental structure of consciousness. The second question:How is the unified field of the conscious self formed? The study suggests that countless particles moving at the speed of light, through quantum entanglement, form the unified field of each individual's consciousness. Each individual's unified field consists of countless particles originating from a source, which can (...) be referred to as the "soul quantum." The third question:What is the mechanism underlying the formation of different forms of imagery (images, sounds, and bodily sensations)? The study posits that when the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics collapses, it results in different forms of imagery. (shrink)

John Locke (1632 – 1704) is one of the thinkers of Enlightenment philosophy. His moral views are a reflection of the natural understanding of religion formed by the Enlightenment philosophy. The purpose of natural religion is to build a religion that is separate from the traditional view and historical religious understanding. Advocates of this view necessarily base the existence of God and adopt a deist view. Locke advocated a similar idea, and because he was an empiricist thinker, he wanted to (...) base his understanding of morality and God, which he emphasized in nature. He thinks there is a law in nature. This law of nature can be discovered with the light of nature, man can live ethically by reaching this law and reach the existence of God. But Locke cannot explain and obscure what he means here with the light of nature in his Essays on the Law of Nature. This natural light is sometimes an innate ability, sometimes mind, and sometimes sensory data. Sometimes he thinks of these three as complementary elements. After all, the combination of these three is known as the law of nature, and people have to comply with the moral principles that are necessarily caused by the knowledge of the law of nature. In this sense, Locke, who also restricts human liberty, reaches a deterministic understanding of morality, human and existence depending on nature. Emile Boutroux (d. 1921) criticized this determinist view. (shrink)

As global temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more frequent, the focus on urban trees is intensifying. Research highlights their crucial role in mitigating climate change, improving public health, and providing significant economic benefits.

Moral Understanding of Al-Ghazali In order to evaluate the moral understanding of Ghazali correctly, we should pay attention to how he handles the basic concepts and how he views the life of the hereafter. Ghazali sees moral descriptions such as good, bad and absurd as “knowledge pre-existing in the mind” and believes that it is inherent to do good and avoid evil. Reason naturally encourages people to avoid harm. Reason has the universal knowledge of good and evil. The concepts of (...) moral good and bad are necessary in the mind, and it cannot be known with the mind that individual verbs are good and bad (particular). Particulars, for example, if lying is bad, it is known by 'experience'. In this respect, he has been influenced by philosophers in his statements pointing to the rational aspect of morality. The second important factor that determines Ghazali's view of morality is Sufism. He adopts a morality that advises to stay away from the world in accordance with the mystical understanding of life, and is shaped by compassion and consent. In Ghazali, morality has assumed an individual character with this aspect and the social ethics understanding has been pushed to the second plan. In such an individual understanding of morality, activities and activities aimed at achieving the hereafter and the hereafter are considered important. For this purpose, worship takes on a moral character and points out our responsibilities towards Allah. Those who worship are moral and deserve salvation. Thus, worship becomes a "goal", not a "tool" in the acquisition of morality. Those who fulfill their responsibilities to God behave morally. As a result, the two main pillars that make up the Ghazali understanding of morality are philosophical reason and mystical world view. Since reason is an innate feature of human beings, man knows the good and the bad as a fundamental and can behave morally with this knowledge. Again, knowing that this world is a temporary place, people will work with the focus on the hereafter and live morally by worshiping Allah. (shrink)

Mehmet Akif criticized the way Muslim societies understand religion in his poems and articles. He constantly criticized Muslims' inertia, understanding of trust, false beliefs and imitation. The ideas of Cemaleddin Afganî and his student Muhammed Abduh, Said Halim Pasha on Islamism, and Fahrettin Razi, who struggled for Muslims to gain their independence, set an example for Mehmet Akif in this sense. He believed in the idea of 'Islamic unity' and saw it as a prescription for salvation. It is important how (...) Mehmet Akif looks and evaluates the Quran in his understanding of religion and, consequently, in his understanding of religious experience. He looks at the Quran as a dynamic book. For this reason, he thinks that the Quran is in direct relation with current events and tries to relate the Qur'an to current events by seeing it as if it was being revealed again. According to him, the Quran is not a book to be "read in a cemetery", but a book "addressing the living". Koran; It is a book that needs to be read, understood, interpreted and re-experienced. In this context, understanding the Quran means 'experiencing' it. The Quran is a book that will bring people to the highest level if it is obeyed. It is understood correctly when people establish a direct relationship with the Quran and its orders are fulfilled. However, inertia, indolence and superstitions in society prevented the Quran from being understood correctly and applied to life. The primary way to correct this is to make new studies in the field of religious sciences and to give up the "tradition of annotation" and to bring new-updated interpretations to religion. Thus, the reflections and effects of religion on life will be corrected and a new civilization will be established around a religion that is far from superstitions. (shrink)

Nurettin Topçu (1909-1975) built religious philosophy on the philosophy of willpower and motion. For him, willpower is the existence of a conscious balance between driving and braking forces that are innate and flowing from the inside out of us. Willpower is constantly rising towards God and infinity with a historical motion. The aim of willpower is to help human reach eternity. This historical motion occurs in accordance with certain steps. Willpower is affected not only by individual habits and passions but (...) also by the social structure. The function of willpower for humans, who are longing for eternity, is to make them recognize the consciousness and anguish of God. With this awareness, the human moves on to the motion. The willpower, which realizes the direction and aim of the motion, emerges in social structures such as State and nation, and takes up the role of establishing and sustaining these structures. Willpower lastly shows itself in art. The artist, who longs for eternity and can’t find a way to reach it, feels the lack in his willpower, acts to complete the lack and gets engaged in an existence or a thing. This engagement is a savior illusion and love that means sheltering someone other than himself with his total willpower is born. Upon the completion of this lacking, faith (love) emerges. The spirit falls in love with motion. Faith has two dimensions. When the artist turns to ‘the only” and “the internal”, this is called religious faith. If he leans to/relies on/believes in plurality and the external, this is called aesthetical faith. When, in time, the body that leans to the external and the spirit that turns to the internal surrenders to the eternity, the transcendent, God as a whole, mystic faith occurs. ‘Truth’ rises from this mystic union and surrender to love and thereby renaissance initiates. Because the driving power that starts renaissance is art. The understanding of religious experience of Topçu is nested with art. As art generates religious experience, renaissance emerges as a result of religious experience and the human reaches salvation in every sense. (shrink)

Host-microbiome interactions (HMIs) are critical for the modulation of biological processes and are associated with several diseases, and extensive HMI studies have generated large amounts of data. We propose that the logical representation of the knowledge derived from these data and the standardized representation of experimental variables and processes can foster integration of data and reproducibility of experiments and thereby further HMI knowledge discovery. A community-based Ontology of Host-Microbiome Interactions (OHMI) was developed following the OBO Foundry principles. OHMI leverages established (...) ontologies to create logically structured representations of microbiomes, microbial taxonomy, host species, host anatomical entities, and HMIs under different conditions and associated study protocols and types of data analysis and experimental results. (shrink)

Religious experiences in folk culture are generally handled outside the rational field. Individual qualities are emphasized, and emotion-oriented aspects are highlighted. Therefore, religious experiences can display very different features. Experiencing religion at a cultural level leads to the mystification of religious experiences. Even if there are many studies on tomb visits in the fields of folk literature, history of religions etc., tomb visits, which can be included in mystical experiences, have not been handled as a matter of religious philosophy according (...) to the possibility of providing people with “evidence of the existence of God”. In this report, it will be tried to reveal how the tomb visits in Baskil affected people's belief in Allah, how they feel and turn towards God. For this purpose, the effect of visiting the tombs on individuals was determined through interviews with people who visited or had visited the tombs in Baskil, and the issue of being an evidence for the existence of God was explained. With the questions asked to twenty-four people living in Baskil, the importance of the tomb visits was revealed in terms of religious experience. And the effects of visits on individuals have been determined. There are those who say that these effects are sometimes of a religious nature and cause the visit to feel God, and sometimes there are those who say they visited the tomb for completely different purposes. People who think of the tomb visit as a "place of prayer and help" with a mystical experience instead of thinking of the existence of God as evidence; He is visiting the tomb for healing from illnesses, finding jobs, getting rid of family incompatibilities, being successful in exams, seeking fortune, raining, healing of animal diseases, etc.. Very few people visit the tomb to search for 'evidence of God's existence' and think it as a religious experience. (shrink)

The first serious scientific studies on the brain date back to the 1800s. Two events led the studies on the brain. The first incident is an accident involving Phineas Gage, a railway worker. The two-meter-long piece of iron that entered Gage's left eye and broke up the anterior frontal lobe of the brain prompted scientists to rethink the brain. Having lived a moral life before the accident, Gage became immoral and evil after the accident. This incident revealed that the brain (...) has a relationship with evil. -/- The second event affecting the brain studies is the split brain syndrome that occurs when the corpuscallosum of patients with epilepsy is cut. The separation of the right and left brains has caused some problems in individuals. For example, while the left brain smokes, the right brain tries to block it, while the left brain drives a car, the right brain wants to get out of the way. The right brain behaves in a childish and impulsive manner and cannot be controlled. -/- After all, any disease, accident or surgery that occurs in the brain can negatively affect people's behavior and make them worse. Then, the neuroscientific origins of the evil issue should be investigated and evaluated according to neuro-philosophy. In this paper, the limits of human freedom, scientific determinism and human responsibility will be set forth. Thus, in the issue of evil, it will be shown that the biological (and psychological) structure of the human being, together with external factors such as the environment, society, education, and culture, and the changes that occur in it, are determined in the human will and choosing evil. (shrink)

After the death of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi (d.1273), the cult of Mevlevi continued its structuring. Rumi's son Sultan Veled (d.1312) and his grandson Ulu Arif Çelebi (d.1320) contributed greatly to this structuring. Sultan Veled tried to turn the lodge he took over from his father into a systematic sect around Rumi's mystical thought and Mevlevi disciples. Ulu Arif Çelebi, on the other hand, is a very effective name in organizing Mevleviism as a cult. With his systematic studies and travels, he (...) made Mevlevi's spread in lodges and madrasahs, and he made efforts to teach Masnavi, the work of his grandfather Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, in madrasahs. In addition, Ulu Arif Çelebi asked Ahmet Eflakî to write a book called Ariflerin Menkıbeleri about Rumi’s life, in order to keep his grandfather's memory alive. The entry of Mevlevi into the Ottoman State was through marriage. Mutahhare Hatun, daughter of Sultan Veled, was married to Süleyman Şah, the Germiyanoğulları leader. Süleyman Şah married the daughter of this marriage, Devlet Hatun, to Yıldırım Beyazıt, and left as a dowry Kütahya, Tavsanlı, Simav and Eğrigöz to Ottoman Empire. Yıldırım Bayezıd was appointed as the governor of Kütahya. Mehmet Çelebi was born from this marriage. The title of Çelebi is a title given to the descendants of Rumi, and Mehmet Çelebi, one of the sultans of the Fetret Period (A period of great depression), was one of the grandchildren of Rumi. The children of Mehmet Çelebi are remembered with the title of 'Çelebi'. Through this marriage, Mevlevi began to spread to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Mevleviism would prevail in the Ottoman Empire, where Ahilik organization and Ahi culture prevailed, and Mevlevihane and Asitane would be established in many parts of the country with the support of the Ottoman State. Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi’nin (ö.1273) ölümünden sonra Mevlevilik bir tarikat olarak yapılanmasını sürdürmüştür. Mevlana’nın oğlu Sultan Veled’in (ö.1312) ve torunu Ulu Arif Çelebi’nin (ö.1320) bu yapılanmada katkısı oldukça büyüktür. Sultan Veled babasından devraldığı dergâhı, Mevlana’nın mistik düşüncesi çerçevesinde ve Mevlevi müritler etrafında sistemli bir tarikat haline getirmeye çalışmıştır. Ulu Arif Çelebi ise Mevleviliği bir tarikat olarak örgütlemede oldukça etkili bir isimdir. O sistematik olarak yaptığı çalışmalar ve seyahatlerle Mevleviliğin tekke, zaviye ve medreselerde yayılmasını sağladığı gibi dedesi Mevlana Celaleddin ’in eseri Mesnevi’nin medreselerde okutulması için de çaba sarf etmiştir. Ayrıca Ulu Arif Çelebi, dedesinin hatırasını canlı tutabilmek Ahmet Eflaki adındaki bir yazıcıya Mevlana’nın hayatını yazdırmıştır. (Ariflerin Menkıbeleri kitabı) Mevleviliğin Osmanlı Devleti’ne girişi evlilik yoluyla olmuştur. Sultan Veled’in kızı Mutahhare Hatun, Germiyanoğulları Beyi Süleyman Şah ile evlidir. Süleyman Şah bu evlilikten olan kızı Devlet Hatun’u Osmanlı Devleti’nin o dönem şehzadesi olan Yıldırım Beyazıt ile evlendirmiş ve çeyiz olarak Kütahya, Tavşanlı, Simav ve Eğrigöz dolaylarını Osmanlılara bırakmıştır. Yıldırım Bayezıd ise Kütahya valiliğine getirilmiştir. Bu evlilikten Mehmet Çelebi dünyaya gelmiştir. Çelebi unvanı Mevlana’nın soyundan gelenlere verilen bir unvandır ve Fetret Dönemi padişahlarından olan Mehmet Çelebi, Mevlana’nın torunlarındandır. Mehmet Çelebi’nin çocukları ‘çelebi’ unvanıyla anılmaktadır. Bu evlilik yoluyla Mevlevilik Osmanlı’da yayılmaya başlamıştır. Böylece daha önce Ahilik teşkilatı ve Ahi kültürünün hâkim olduğu Osmanlı Devleti’ne Mevlevilik hâkim olacak ve Osmanlı Devleti’nin desteğiyle ülkenin birçok yerinde Mevlevihane ve Asitane kurulacaktır. (shrink)

When a widely reused ontology appears in a new version which is not compatible with older versions, the ontologies reusing it need to be updated accordingly. Ontobull has been developed to automatically update ontologies with new term IRI(s) and associated metadata to take account of such version changes. To use the Ontobull web interface a user is required to (i) upload one or more ontology OWL source files; (ii) input an ontology term IRI mapping; and (where needed) (iii) provide update (...) settings for ontology headers and XML namespace IDs. Using this information, the backend Ontobull Java program automatically updates the OWL ontology files with desired term IRIs and ontology metadata. The Ontobull subprogram BFOConvert supports the conversion of an ontology that imports a previous version of BFO. A use case is provided to demonstrate the features of Ontobull and BFOConvert. (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.

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)

Deep Brain Stimulation is currently being investigated as an experimental treatment for patients suffering from treatment-refractory AN, with an increasing number of case reports and small-scale trials published. Although still at an exploratory and experimental stage, initial results have been promising. Despite the risks associated with an invasive neurosurgical procedure and the long-term implantation of a foreign body, DBS has a number of advantageous features for patients with SE-AN. Stimulation can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of the particular patient, (...) is relatively reversible, and the technique also allows for the crucial issue of investigating and comparing the effects of different neural targets. However, at a time when DBS is emerging as a promising investigational treatment modality for AN, lesioning procedures in psychiatry are having a renaissance. Of concern it has been argued that the two kinds of interventions should instead be understood as rivaling, yet “mutually enriching paradigms” despite the fact that lesioning the brain is irreversible and there is no evidence base for an effective target in AN. We argue that lesioning procedures in AN are unethical at this stage of knowledge and seriously problematic for this patient group, for whom self-control is particularly central to wellbeing. They pose a greater risk of major harms that cannot justify ethical equipoise, despite the apparent superiority in reduced short term surgical harms and lower cost. (shrink)