Public health decisions made by the state involve considerable disagreements on the course of actions, uncertainties, and compromises that arise from moral tensions between the demands of civil liberties and the goals of public health. With such complex decisions, it can be extremely difficult to arrive at and justify the best option. In this article, we propose an ethical decision-making framework based on the philosophy of Ubuntu and argue that in sub-Saharan African settings, this approach provides attractive alternative conventions of (...) moral decision-making and a useful language for understanding moral reasoning and ethics. Through its emphasis on humanity, compassion, and social responsibility, Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) has the potential to facilitate solutions to and avert conflicts between individual rights and public health. The use of Ubuntu shifts the moral reasoning and ethics of decision-making from a field of philosophy shaped by the global north, to the everyday values, decision-making, and consequent practices of people in much of Africa. Using examples of Ebola, pandemic influenza, and tuberculosis, we illustrate how Ubuntu can be applied to tackle conflicting ethical problems in public health and medicine. (shrink)

Ethical problems are addressed in various ways within countries in planning for and response to pandemic influenza. Here we report on a qualitative study, in which 46 policymakers in Malawi and Ghana were interviewed on how they identified and resolved ethical problems. The study results revealed that ethical problems involving conflicts of values and choices were raised in reference to the extent and role of resources and nature of public health interventions, including the extent and processes of decision making, reasoning, (...) and justification. There is a need for an ethical framework within pandemic preparedness plans to resolve and avert these problems. (shrink)

Counter to the popular impression that Adam Smith was a champion of selfishness and greed, Jerry Muller shows that the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations maintained that markets served to promote the well-being of ...

Bu çalışmada, Koronavirüs (Covid-19) salgını sürecinde bireylerin yaş, cinsiyet, medeni durum, eğitim durumu, aylık gelir, ikamet edilen yer, meslek, kronik hastalık durumu, aile içi fert sayısı, bilgisayar ve internet erişimi, yalnızlık ve hayatın anlamı verileri ile dini başa çıkma durumunu yordayan bir modelin geliştirilmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubu 2020 yılı Covid-19 sürecindeki bireyleri kapsamaktadır. Araştırma, rastgele örnekleme esasıyla, 783 birey ile yapılmıştır. Araştırmacı tarafından geliştirilen demografik bilgi formuyla veriler elde edilmiştir. Araştırmada 14 değişken girdi ve 2 alt boyutlu 1 çıktı (...) toplam 15 değişken ile Yapay Sinir Ağları yöntemiyle geliştirilen bir tahmin modeli ortaya koyulmuştur. Modelin geliştirilmesine ait yaş, medeni durum, cinsiyet, eğitim durumu, ikamet edilen yer, aylık gelir, meslek, kronik hastalık durumu, aile içi fert sayısı, bilgisayar ve internet erişimi, yalnızlık ve hayatın anlamı verileri kullanılarak gerçeklemişken, geliştirilen bu model ile dini başa çıkma durumları tahmin edilmiştir. Elde edilen tahmini ve gözlenen sonuçlar doğrulanmış ve karşılaştırılmıştır. Bulgulara göre, tahmin edilen olumlu-olumsuz dini başa çıkma durumlar ile gözlenen olumlu- olumsuz dini başa çıkma sınıflandırılmasının önemli ölçüde benzerlik gösterdiği tespit edilmiştir. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the well-being and mental health of populations worldwide. This study sought to examine whether religious coping mediated the relationship between COVID-19-related fear and death distress. We administered an online survey to 390 adult participants (66.15% females; Mage = 30.85 ± 10.19 years) across Turkey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring the fear they had experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, their levels of religious coping and their levels of death anxiety and depression. Our findings revealed (...) that (a) fear of COVID-19 was associated with positive religious coping, negative religious coping, death anxiety and death distress; (b) negative religious coping was associated with death anxiety and depression and (c) negative religious coping mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and death anxiety and depression. These results highlight the detrimental effect of negative religious coping in increasing the adverse effect of the COVID-19 fear on death depression. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Organizing the Notes for On Certainty Groundlessness and Language‐games Searching for Primary Links Between Language and Reality Seeing Logic and Practice Pictures, Propositions and Reality Forms of Life Practices and Parallels Is the Title on Certainty a Happy One? Is on Certainty a Polemic against Moore? Is Wittgenstein's Main Interest in Moore's Propositions the Nature of Nonsense? Does Wittgenstein Say that the Propositions he is Interested in Form a Class, and Does he Say the Same (...) of all of Them? Are Wittgenstein's Propositions Context‐free? What is the Connection between Wittgenstein's Propositions and Logic? Is Wittgenstein Appealing to Primitive, Pre‐linguistic Reactions as the Basis of our Language‐games? What is Meant by the Sureness in Our Language‐games? How are Our Conclusions Related to the Notions of a Form of Life or World‐picture? How do Wittgenstein's Conclusions Differ from Some Classical and Contemporary Views of Our Relation to the World? Rhees's Development of Wittgenstein's Concerns. (shrink)

This case study of discussion-based teaching finds improvements in student concentration; scaffolding towards higher critical thinking; inclusion of non-traditional learning styles; and reduction of student absenteeism. However, this study did not find effective socialization in discussion-based disciplinary methods.

The volitional theory of human action has formed a basis for a prominent account of voluntary behavior since at least Aquinas. But in the twentieth century the notions of will and volition lost much of their popularity in both philosophy and psychology. Gilbert Ryle’s devastating attack on the concept of will, and especially the doctrine of volition, has had lingering effects evident in the widespread hostility and skepticism towards the will and volition. Since the 1970s, however, the volitional theory has (...) received some renewed interest in the philosophy of action. Some philosophers even consider that ‘in current philosophy of action it is perhaps the most widely held view, at least regarding the immediate antecedents of action.’. (shrink)