Visual Agnosia is a comprehensive and up-to-date review of disorders of higher vision that relates these disorders to current conceptions of higher vision from cognitive science, illuminating both the neuropsychological disorders and the nature of normal visual object recognition.Brain damage can lead to selective problems with visual perception, including visual agnosia the inability to recognize objects even though elementary visual functions remain unimpaired. Such disorders are relatively rare, yet they provide a window onto how the normal brain might accomplish the (...) complex task of vision. Visual Agnosia reviews a century of case studies of higher-level visual deficits following brain damage, places them in the general context of current neuroscience, and draws relevant conclusions about the organization of normal visual processing. It is unique in drawing on research in cognitive psychology, computational vision, visual neurophysiology, and neuropsychology to interpret the agnosias and draw inferences from them about visual object recognition.Following a historical account of agnosia research, Visual Agnosia offers a taxonomy of a wide range of agnosia syndromes, describing and interpreting the syndromes in terms of the latest theoretical models of visual processing and ultimately bringing them to bear as evidence on a variety of questions in the study of higher vision.Martha J. Farah is Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Visual Agnosia is included in the Issues in Biology of Language and Cognition series, edited by John Marshall. (shrink)

This paper investigates the philosophical tensions between secular-liberalism and Islam, and reviews Islamic conceptualisations of knowledge, personhood and education, in order to conceptualise shakhsiyah Islamiyah as an authentic and credible form of personal agency within an Islamic worldview. It begins by examining the liberal critique of Islamic education and explores notions of authority and autonomy in Islamic educational theory. It proposes that these tensions exist to varying degrees in all educational practice. Some theoretical work to develop an Islamic understanding of (...) personal autonomy as selfhood is presented and translated into a concept of shakhsiyah Islamiyah. Finally, the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self is explored. (shrink)

In this essay, the authors analyze the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of inequalities and socio-economic vulnerabilities. We argue that the current pandemic has been looked at mainly through the lens of biology, leaving sociological blind spots in the response to this pandemic that have had adverse effects. We conclude with the suggestion that apart from recommendations from health sciences, policy makers must also take into account local societal structures in order to design effective policies to control the contagion.

Can the theory and practice of the yogic tradition serve as a challenge to dominant cultural and political norms in the Western world? In this essay I demonstrate that modern yoga is a creature of fabrication, while arguing that yogic norms can simultaneously reinforce and challenge the norms of contemporary Western neoliberal societies. In its current and most common iteration in the West, yoga practice does stand in danger of reinforcing neoliberal constructions of selfhood. However, yoga does contain ample resources (...) for challenging neoliberal subjectivity, but this requires reading the yogic tradition in a particular way, to emphasize certain philosophical elements over others, while directing its practice toward an inward-oriented detachment from material outcomes and desires. Contemporary claims about yoga’s counterhegemonic status often rely on exaggerated notions of its former “purity” and “authenticity,” which belie its invented and retrospectively reconstructed nature. Rather than engaging in these debates about authenticity, scholars and practitioners may productively turn their energies toward enacting a resistant, anti-neoliberal practice of yoga, while remaining self-conscious about the particularity and partiality of the interpretive position on which such a practice is founded. (shrink)

BackgroundConsidering ethical issues in midwifery care is essential for improving the quality of health services and the client's satisfaction. This study aimed to develop and validate the code of ethics for Midwives in Iran (ICEM).Materials and methodsThis was a mixed sequential study that was performed in three phases including a qualitative study, a review, and the content validity assessment. The first phase was a qualitative study with a content analysis approach. The data were collected by conducting in-depth semi-structured individual interviews (...) with 14 midwifery and ethics experts. The purposive sampling method was used to recruit the participants and sampling continued until data saturation. The data were analyzed using the conventional content analysis described by Graneheim and Lundman. Lincoln and Guba’s criteria were used to confirm the trustworthiness of the data. Then, a narrative review of the selected national and international codes of ethics for Midwives was performed to complete the items of the ICEM. For validity assessment, the face and content validity of the items of ICEM was assessed by 15 experts to calculate the content validity ratio (CVR) and index (CVI).ResultsFourteen experts were interviewed in the qualitative phase, and 207 codes were extracted from a content analysis which were categorized into 23 sub-categories and 6 main categories. The extracted codes were considered as the items for ICEM that were completed by a review of the selected national and international code of ethics for Midwives. The content validity and ratio assessment of the items demonstrated an average CVI = 0.92 and CVR = 0.85. Then, the final version of ICEM was developed with 92 items in 6 domains about; 1) "professional Commitments" with 30 items; 2) "providing midwifery services to the client and her companions” with 26 items; 3) “relationship with colleagues" with 11 items; 4) “herself” with 6 items; 5) “education and research” with 8 items; and, 6) “management” with 11 items.ConclusionICEM was prepared with 92 items in six sections that facilitate its use for midwives who are working in the different fields of care, counseling, education, research, and management. In this new version of the ICEM, the items related to recent social-, scientific, and technical improvements were considered for providing ethical midwifery care. (shrink)

Farah Nayeri addresses the difficult questions plaguing the art world, from the bad habits of Old Masters, to the current grappling with identity politics. For centuries, art censorship has been a top-down phenomenon--kings, popes, and one-party states decided what was considered obscene, blasphemous, or politically deviant in art. Today, censorship can also happen from the bottom-up, thanks to calls to action from organizers and social media campaigns. Artists and artworks are routinely taken to task for their insensitivity. In this (...) new world order, artists, critics, philanthropists, galleries and museums alike are recalibrating their efforts to increase the visibility of marginalized voices and respond to the people's demands for better ethics in art. But what should we, the people, do with this newfound power? With exclusive interviews with Nan Goldin, Sam Durant, Faith Ringgold, and others, Nayeri tackles wide-ranging issues including sex, religion, gender, ethics, animal rights, and race. By asking and answering questions such as: Who gets to make art and who owns it? How do we correct the inequities of the past? What does authenticity, exploitation, and appropriation mean in art?, Takedown provides the necessary tools to navigate the art world"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Like people, academic fields grow, acquire an identity, establish goals, and ultimately impact the world in various ways. Here we check in with our young friend Neuroethics—a field I want to see develop and thrive. This won't happen if it keeps returning to issues like cognitive enhancement or neural causation of behavior and responsibility, with minor adjustments of its analyses. Neuroethics is at its best when scanning the horizon for new scientific and technical developments that intersect in new ways with (...) ethics and law. Consider the development of open‐ and closed‐loop deep brain stimulation for behavioral disorders. Under what conditions are patients responsible for their behavior when it is influenced by an implanted system? Neuroethics has also increased understanding of people's beliefs and attitudes toward neuroscience and its applications because effective policy must take empirical facts into account. (shrink)

Worries about leadership is a new construct tapping worries an individual may feel about possible negative consequences of accepting a leadership role. Three studies investigate how WAL is associated with men’s and women’s willingness for leadership and their perceived leadership potential rated by others. The first is a laboratory study on 328 participants, which shows that WAL is negatively associated with women’s willingness for leadership, while it is not related to that of men. The second study, which is a field (...) study with multilevel-nested data from 429 employees and 101 supervisors, reveals that male subordinates are more likely to receive a favorable judgment of leadership potential by their supervisors when their WAL increases, while female subordinates’ WAL is irrelevant to this judgment. The final study, which is an experimental study on 122 supervisors, shows that supervisors view hypothetical male leadership candidates with high WAL as having higher warmth and lower competence, which both mediate the effect of WAL on judgments of their leadership potential made by the supervisors. Even though supervisors also view female candidates with high WAL as warmer, this does not evoke higher perceptions of leadership potential. Implications for increasing gender parity in leadership are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDeath as an inevitable reality is a subject of study in various philosophical schools. This concept can be reviewed within three realms: semantics, ontology, and epistemology. The objective of this article is to examine death within the ontological realm in the thoughts of Mullā Sadrā and Schopenhauer, and it attempts to answer the question whether philosophical discussions on the concept of death in Sadrā’s transcendental wisdom, despite differences in principles, methods, and objectives, are comparable to Schopenhauer’s intellectual framework. Using a (...) descriptive-analytical approach, the present study first investigates the issue of death in the thought of both philosophers and then focuses on their comparative analysis. The findings of this study show that both philosophers believe in the dichotomy in the world, immortality of human nature after death, existence of suffering in the world, asceticism, austerity, love, and affection to all human beings. However, each of them analyzes and explains the issue of death within his own intellectual framework. (shrink)

Downsizing due to COVID-19 and its consequences on laid-off employees has attracted the attention of many researchers, around the globe. However, the underlying mechanisms that explain the effects of COVID-19 downsizing on the employees who have survived cutoffs remain underexplored. Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, this manuscript aims to study the causal path through which COV-DS reduces the survivors’ affective commitment. The current study proposes the mediation of survivors’ job uncertainty, stress, and organizational identification between COV-DS and survivors’ (...) affective commitment. This study also posits the moderating role of transformational leadership between COV-DS and both the mediators. The extant study has employed WARPED partial least square WARP PLS 7 and Hayes Process Macro to test the hypothesized relationships. Using the sample of 274 employees from the private sector of Pakistan, it was found that job uncertainty’s stress strongly mediates the relationship between COV-DS and survivors’ affective commitment. While mediation of survivors’ organizational identification was not proven to be significant. However, with the moderation of transformational leadership, both the mediators were proven to be significant. (shrink)

One of the reasons why moral enhancement may be controversial, is because the advantages of moral enhancement may fall upon society rather than on those who are enhanced. If directed at individuals with certain counter-moral traits it may have direct societal benefits by lowering immoral behavior and increasing public safety, but it is not directly clear if this also benefits the individual in question. In this paper, we will discuss what we consider to be moral enhancement, how different means may (...) be used to achieve it and whether the means we employ to reach moral enhancement matter morally. Are certain means to achieve moral enhancement wrong in themselves? Are certain means to achieve moral enhancement better than others, and if so, why? More specifically, we will investigate whether the difference between direct and indirect moral enhancement matters morally. Is it the case that indirect means are morally preferable to direct means of moral enhancement and can we indeed pinpoint relevant intrinsic, moral differences between both? We argue that the distinction between direct and indirect means is indeed morally relevant, but only insofar as it tracks an underlying distinction between active and passive interventions. Although passive interventions can be ethical provided specific safeguards are put in place, these interventions exhibit a greater potential to compromise autonomy and disrupt identity. (shrink)

Background Nurses and physicians are key members of healthcare teams. While physicians are responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of patients, nurses are part of the treatment and the primary practitioners of patient care. Nurses’ professional autonomy, collaboration with physicians, and practice behaviors in treatment and patient care practices are interrelated. Objectives In the present study, we examined the mediating effect of physician–nurse collaboration on the relationship between nurses’ practice behaviors and their professional autonomy. Design The present study utilized a (...) cross-sectional survey design following quantitative methods. Methods This study was conducted in the Istanbul Province of Turkiye from September to October 2022. The sampling method used was a convenience sampling strategy to provide easier access to participants when selecting nurses from different health institutions. The mean age of the 295 nurses was 31.23 years, with ages ranging from 21 to 59 years. The data analysis was conducted using IBM’s SPSS 24.0 software package and the Process Macro 4.0 plug-in. Ethical consideration Research ethics approval was obtained from the researcher’s university. Results Physician–nurse collaboration is positively associated with practice behaviors and professional autonomy. Nurses’ professional autonomy in practice behaviors through physician–nurse collaboration is significant (95% CI [0.043, 0.135]). Discussion Our results revealed the relationships among physician‒nurse collaboration, professional autonomy, and practice behaviors among nurses. Conclusion Our results provide evidence on the underlying factors of nurses’ practice behaviors in patient care and guide the development of an intervention program to enhance this collaboration. Hospital managers can contribute to a collaborative physician‒nurse working environment. (shrink)

The cognitive disorders that follow brain damage are an important source of insights into the neural bases of human thought. This work offers state-of-the-art reviews of the patient-based approach to central issues in cognitive neuroscience by leaders in the field.

Personhood is a foundational concept in ethics, yet defining criteria have been elusive. In this article we summarize attempts to define personhood in psychological and neurological terms and conclude that none manage to be both specific and non-arbitrary. We propose that this is because the concept does not correspond to any real category of objects in the world. Rather, it is the product of an evolved brain system that develops innately and projects itself automatically and irrepressibly onto the world whenever (...) triggered by stimulus features such as a human-like face, body, or contingent patterns of behavior. We review the evidence for the existence of an autonomous person network in the brain and discuss its implications for the field of ethics and for the implicit morality of everyday behavior. (shrink)

According to the theory which Julia Kristeva developed moving from Bakhtin’s theory of dialogy (the relationship of words with each other) and called intertextuality in her study dated 1966, no text exists autonomously because every text is in interaction with other text/s either consciously or unconsciously. The function of intertextuality is to determine covered or overt relations between texts, the position of them (receiver/transmitter), in some cases even to search whether the interaction is one-way or two-way and to reveal the (...) traces of the texts in each other. In other words, the texts are analysed layer by layer and the different tastes and colours they embody and which enrich them are discovered. One of the research areas of intertextuality is mythology and religion which are frequently taken as subjects in such studies. Mythology and religion are one of the sources from which almost all the World literature is nourished widely. Generally Turkish literature and specifically Turkish theatre within the World literature, harbour the effects of the myths and various religions intensively. In this context, this study will analyse religious and mythological elements/ allusions in Turgay Nar’s play called Çöplük and will determine how these religious and mythological elements have been changed and transformed, in other words have been deconstructed by the playwright. (shrink)

This article teases out Ella Sykes’ responses to the differences she encounters in the contact zone in Persia in her much-neglected travel narrative Through Persia on a Side-Saddle. The authors argue that Ella Sykes’ position/self-positioning in relation to difference is shaped by various, and at times opposing, factors, which contribute to the ambivalent nature of her representations of Persia and its people in her travel narrative. The paper proposes that even though Through Persia seems to be moulded by and moulds (...) hegemonic Orientalist perspectives, it has its own specificities, as Ella Sykes’ representations of difference are also informed by implications of English gender ideology. It further shows how Ella Sykes’ representations of the differences she encounters in Persia offer her an empowering medium through which she can indulge in self-criticism and self-assertion. (shrink)

It is possible to say that the modern culture in Turkey leans against the Western culture-civilization understanding, system of values in terms of both lifestyle and philosophy of life in other words it is a European-based (Eurocentric) culture. Missionaries’ paternalistic attitudes and contribution to the fact that nations neglect and even despise of their cultures, values and perceptions based on their own belief systems is worth discussing. To reveal the struggles to achieve their plans during the colonialism age, and motivational (...) elements of the missionaries who sustain their activities today although they have been suspected for centuries due to the methods they have used and the close relations they have had with the politics should be enlightening in understanding the present of missionary discussions which has not lost/ will never lose its place in the agenda. In this context, it is necessary to research the organizational structure and mission understanding of missionary societies that worked most effectively in Arab provinces of the empire, and the arguments developed to identify this understanding for the purposes of better assessment of the missionary movement that is still in progress both in our country and around the world. (shrink)

Background and ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to draw the attention toward the implications of COVID-19 and the related restrictions imposed worldwide especially in Pakistan. The primary objective was to highlight the levels of psychological distress, anxiety, family violence, suicidality, and well-being due to COVID-19 and the secondary objective was to associate it to social demographic factors.Materials and MethodsIt is designed as a cross-sectional study by employing an online questionnaire in the English language and obtaining responses using a snowball (...) sampling technique. We used three validated measures including Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) index and World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5).ResultsA sample of 420 participants was recruited from across Pakistan, with most participants were females (79%), students (89.8%) and belonging to Punjab (54%). Nearly one-fourth of the participants (23.8%) scored above the minimum value set for moderate or high psychological distress (K10 > 12). There was a higher prevalence of distress among females and resident of province Punjab. The majority of individuals reported that they were living with their family (94.5%) and more than half (52.6%) were neutral regarding their satisfaction with their living conditions. 40.5% believed that the lockdown has had a negative impact on their mental health. 31.4% have reported that they themselves have experienced abuse from a family member. 48.6% scored high on the GAD-7 scale and low wellbeing score was found among 80.2%. Students were found to be more vulnerable to mental illness and anxiety.ConclusionWith the lockdown restrictions, psychosocial distress has become prevalent in Pakistan. (shrink)

Neuroethics has developed rapidly, driven in large part by developments in neuroscience. This article reviews neuroethics from the standpoint of its growing real-world relevance. It opens up with an analysis of the history of neuroscience that suggests the reason for the emergence of neuroethics now, in the early twenty-first century. It proceeds to survey current applications of neuroscience to diverse real-world problems. Published research in the field of neuromarketing is more focused on academic issues, such as the nature of the (...) brain activity underlying consumer behavior and the accuracy of brain-behavior predictions, than it is on the real-world utility of neuromarketing for improving business. Finally, this article concludes with a discussion of the ethical issues raised by these developments, and outlines three general challenges for society in the age of neuroscience. (shrink)

Within the United States, the most prominent justification for criminal punishment is retributivism. This retributivist justification for punishment maintains that punishment of a wrongdoer is justified for the reason that she deserves something bad to happen to her just because she has knowingly done wrong—this could include pain, deprivation, or death. For the retributivist, it is the basic desert attached to the criminal’s immoral action alone that provides the justification for punishment. This means that the retributivist position is not reducible (...) to consequentialist considerations nor in justifying punishment does it appeal to wider goods such as the safety of society or the moral improvement of those being punished. A number of sentencing guidelines in the U.S. have adopted desert as their distributive principle, and it is increasingly given deference in the “purposes” section of state criminal codes, where it can be the guiding principle in the interpretation and application of the code’s provisions. Indeed, the American Law Institute recently revised the Model Penal Code so as to set desert as the official dominate principle for sentencing. And courts have identified desert as the guiding principle in a variety of contexts, as with the Supreme Court’s enthroning retributivism as the “primary justification for the death penalty.” While retributivism provides one of the main sources of justification for punishment within the criminal justice system, there are good philosophical and practical reasons for rejecting it. One such reason is that it is unclear that agents truly deserve to suffer for the wrongs they have done in the sense required by retributivism. In the first section, I explore the retributivist justification of punishment and explain why it is inconsistent with free will skepticism. In the second section, I then argue that even if one is not convinced by the arguments for free will skepticism, there remains a strong epistemic argument against causing harm on retributivist grounds that undermines both libertarian and compatibilist attempts to justify it. I maintain that this argument provides sufficient reason for rejecting the retributive justification of criminal punishment. I conclude in the third section by briefly sketching my public health-quarantine model, a non-retributive alternative for addressing criminal behavior that draws on the public health framework and prioritizes prevention and social justice. I argue that the model is not only consistent with free will skepticism and the epistemic argument against retributivism, it also provides the most justified, humane, and effective way of dealing with criminal behavior. (shrink)

This paper discusses the use of deep brain stimulation for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders in children. At present, deep brain stimulation is used to treat movement disorders in children and a few cases of deep brain stimulation for psychiatric disorders in adolescents have been reported. Ethical guidelines on the use of deep brain stimulation in children are therefore urgently needed. This paper focuses on the decision-making process, and provides an ethical framework for (future) treatment decisions in pediatric (...) deep brain stimulation. I defend a shared decision-making model in case of deep brain stimulation for neurological and psychiatric disorders in children. To protect the vulnerable child patient, a dual consent process is needed where parents or parental guardians give their consent, and the child gives his/her assent. (shrink)

What if neurofeedback or other types of neurotechnological treatment, by itself or in combination with behavioral treatment, could achieve a successful “rewiring” of the psychopath’s brain? Imagine that such treatments exist and that they provide a better long-term risk-minimizing strategy compared to imprisonment. Would it be ethical to offer such treatments as a condition of probation, parole, or prison release? In this paper, I argue that it can be ethical to offer effective, non-invasive neurotechnological treatments to offenders as a condition (...) of probation, parole, or prison release provided that: the status quo is in no way cruel, inhuman, degrading, or in some other way wrong, the treatment option is in no way cruel, inhuman, degrading, or in some other way wrong, the treatment is in the best interests of the offender, and the offender gives his/her informed consent. (shrink)

This paper presents a conceptual framework drawn from philosophies of education underpinned by an Islamic worldview. The framework offers an interconnecting network of Islamic educational concepts that can be used by contemporary educators in Muslim contexts think through how they might reconstruct preK-12 education in a more authentic and culturally coherent manner for their communities. This work of reconstruction and renewal is needed to decolonise schooling in Muslim contexts and offers scope for intercultural pedagogical discourse amongst philosophers of education.

Die Frage des Krieges müsse mit Ernst und nicht mit „blindem Ungefähr“ behandelt werden. Sonst werde.

When cognitive neuropsychologists make inferences about the functional architecture of the normal mind from selective cognitive impairments they generally assume that the effects of brain damage are local, that is, that the nondamaged components of the architecture continue to function as they did before the damage. This assumption follows from the view that the components of the functional architecture are modular, in the sense of being informationally encapsulated. In this target article it is argued that this “locality” assumption is probably (...) not correct in general. Inferences about the functional architecture can nevertheless be made from neuropsychological data with an alternative set of assumptions, according to which human information processing is graded, distributed, and interactive. These claims are supported by three examples of neuropsychological dissociations and a comparison of the inferences obtained from these impairments with and without the locality assumption. The three dissociations are: selective impairments in knowledge of living things, disengagment of visual attention, and overt face recognition. In all three cases, the neuropsychological phenomena lead to more plausible inferences about the normal functional architecture when the locality assumption is abandoned. Also discussed are the relations between the locality assumption in neuropsychology and broader issues, including Fodor's modularity hypothesis and the choice between top-down and bottom-up research approaches. (shrink)