The Human Organ Transplantation Act came into officially force in Bangladesh on April 13, 1999, allowing organ donations from both living and brain-dead donors. The Act was amended by the Parliament on January 8, 2018, with the changes coming into effect shortly afterwards on January 28. The Act was revised to extend a living donor pool from close relatives to include certain other relatives such as grandparents, grandchildren, and first cousins. The Act was also revised to allow individuals to prioritize (...) family members in receiving their organs after their death. The aim of this paper is not to carry out an ethical analysis of the Act as a whole but only to focus on aspects relating to priority access for family members to organs. Despite Islam encouraging Muslims to be sympathetic, and to save the life of any member of humankind, saving the life of a relative through organ donation is even more highly valued. The collective and extended structure of the family impacts on the provisions of the Act that only allows Bangladeshis to legally donate their organs to save the lives of relatives and allows individuals to prioritize family members. Recent progress in the practice of organ transplantation raises a number of ethical dilemmas around the allocation of available organs in the context of organ scarcity. A key purpose of introducing incentive into the system of organ allocation is to increase the number of donations from living relatives and initiation of vital organ donations from brain-dead donors. However, allocation criteria based on a living organ donation incentive system would appear to be unethical because there is no provision in the Act with regard to financial compensation for a distant relative donor’s post-operative care in the absence of healthcare coverage. Receiving organs from a distant relative without giving financial compensation for post-operative care places them in a grave health condition and violates the biomedical principle of non-maleficence. An incentive system around brain-dead donors would appear to be ethical as the amended Act allows individuals to prioritize relatives in receiving their organs after death. This provision is intended to initiate the transplantation of vital organs from brain-dead donors as families might bear the cost of keeping the organs alive for transplantation. Regular reassessment of the impact of the Act is necessary to maximize the donation rate of transplantable organs using ethical means. (shrink)

The Infectious Diseases Act entered into force officially on 14 November 2018 in Bangladesh. The Act is designed to raise awareness of, prevent, control, and eradicate infectious or communicable diseases to address public health emergencies and reduce health risks. A novel coronavirus disease was first identified in Bangladesh on 8 March 2020, and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued a gazette on 23 March, listing COVID-19 as an infectious disease and addressing COVID-19 as a public health emergency. The (...) gazette empowers the government to monitor the spread of infection. Despite there being an infrastructure of research ethics committees in almost all hospitals in Bangladesh, a lack of such committees in the clinical setting often forces healthcare professionals to allocate scarce healthcare resources to the task. These personnel are often either influenced by materialistic matters or guided by the emergency policies, without reaching a consensus on how to allocate scarce resources in times of need, especially in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethical dilemmas often arise when a number of patients with COVID-19, especially in poor and middle-class areas, are denied care while elites are prioritized to receive such scarce resources. Resource allocation in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh appears to be unethical and in direct conflict with the biomedical principles of non-maleficence and procedural justice. The findings of this study suggest that the Act needs substantive changes in the stipulation of policy directing hospitals in the provision of resource allocation framework. Furthermore, parliament should produce guidance outlining how to successfully implement the law with the aim of protecting public health in times of emergency, especially the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This book discusses Asian medicine, which puts enormous emphasis on prevention and preservation of health, and examines how, in recent decades, medical schools in Asia have been increasingly shifting toward a curative approach. It offers an ethnographic investigation of the scenarios in China and India and finds that modern students and graduates in these countries perceive Asian medicine to be as important as Western medicine. There is a growing tendency to integrate Asian medicine with Western medical thought in the academic (...) curriculum that has led to a gradual decline of Asian medical thought and practices. At the same time, there has been a massive rise in patent drugs, health products and cosmetics being sold under the brand names of Asian medicine or herbal medicine. Most of these drugs and health products do not follow the classical formulas found in the Asian medical texts. The book analyses these texts and concludes that contemporary Asian medicine rarely follows the classical texts, and in fact uses Asian medicine brands to sell Western health products and practices. With a particular focus on the formal and professional sector of Chinese herbal medicine and Indian ayurvedic medicine in urban areas, this book appeals to a broad readership, including undergraduate students and academics as well as non-experts. Md. Nazrul Islam is an Associate Professor in the General Education Office, United International College, Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University. He was a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia (2015-16) during which time he completed this book manuscript. (shrink)

Animals have encountered cruelty and suffering throughout the ages. It is something perpetrated up till this day, particularly, in factory farms, animal laboratories, and even in the name of sports or amusement. However, since the second half of the twentieth century, there has been growing concerns for animal welfare and the protection of animal rights within the discourse of environmentalism, developed mainly in the West. Nevertheless, a recently developed Islamic Ecological Paradigm rooted in the classical Islamic traditions contests the ‘Western’ (...) monopoly of modern environmentalism, sug­gesting that there is much in Islamic traditions dealing with environmental issues in­cluding non-human animal species. IEP asserts that several centuries ago Islamic traditions significantly focused on and strongly advocated for animal welfare and animal rights. This paper explores and examines animal rights within the broader spectrum of Islamic environmentalism or Islamic eco-ethic. While the philosophical roots of IEP concerning animal rights date far back in seventh century, it can potentially make both ethical and educational contributions to the twenty-first century environmentalism and animal rights movements. (shrink)

Organ transplantation from living related donors in Bangladesh first began in October 1982, and became commonplace in 1988. Cornea transplantation from posthumous donors began in 1984 and living related liver and bone marrow donor transplantation began in 2010 and 2014 respectively. The Human Organ Transplantation Act officially came into effect in Bangladesh on 13th April 1999, allowing organ donation from both brain-dead and related living donors for transplantation. Before the legislation, religious leaders issued fatwa, or religious rulings, in favor of (...) organ transplantation. The Act was amended by the Parliament on 8th January, 2018 with the changes coming into effect shortly afterwards on 28th January. However, aside from a few posthumous corneal donations, transplantation of vital organs, such as the kidney, liver, heart, pancreas, and other body parts or organs from deceased donors, has remained absent in Bangladesh. The major question addressed in this article is why the transplantation of vital organs from deceased donors is absent in Bangladesh. In addition to the collection of secondary documents, interviews were conducted with senior transplant physicians, patients and their relatives, and the public, to learn about posthumous organ donation for transplantation. Interviews were also conducted with a medical student and two grief counselors to understand the process of counseling the families and obtaining consent to obtain posthumous cornea donations from brain-dead patients. An interview was conducted with a professional anatomist to understand the processes behind body donation for the purposes of medical study and research. Their narrative reveals that transplant physicians may be reticent to declare brain death as the stipulations of the 1999 act were unclear and vague. This study finds that Bangladeshis have strong family ties and experience anxiety around permitting separating body parts of dead relatives for organ donation for transplantation, or donating the dead body for medical study and research purposes. Posthumous organ donation for transplantation is commonly viewed as a wrong deed from a religious point of view. Religious scholars who have been consulted by the government have approved posthumous organ donation for transplantation on the grounds of necessity to save lives even though violating the human body is generally forbidden in Islam. An assessment of the dynamics of biomedicine, religion and culture leads to the conclusion that barriers to posthumous organ donation for transplantation that are perceived to be religious may actually stem from cultural attitudes. The interplay of faith, belief, religion, social norms, rituals and wider cultural attitudes with biomedicine and posthumous organ donation and transplantation is very complex. Although overcoming the barriers to organ donation for transplantation is challenging, initiation of transplantation of vital organs from deceased donors is necessary within Bangladesh. This will ensure improved healthcare outcomes, prevent poor people from being coerced into selling their organs to rich recipients, and protect the solidarity and progeny of Bangladeshi families. (shrink)

This essay focuses on Mahmoud Darwish’s exilic experience as depicted in Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (1986). For Darwish, the siege of Beirut was a climactic moment in which he realized that he is stuck on a perpetual threshold. Imposed by the sovereign power, this exilic threshold characterizes the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon bereft of their rights as citizens and held outside their homeland and political domain. I wish to argue that, rather than being trapped in this condition, Darwish (...) takes it as a vantage point to critically reconstruct the notions of homeland and political belonging. This involves a contrapuntal approach to the notions of homeland, diaspora, and memory, and acts as a form of resistance. It converts the exilic threshold that keeps the poet neither outside nor inside the political domain into a site of worldliness in both the Arendtian and Saidian sense of the term. Elaborating on Judith Butler’s account of cohabitation and diasporic thinking, I argue that the exilic condition Darwish describes can give rise to a political ethic that resists the homogenization of spaces and temporalities, and allows for an alternative sense of political belonging. (shrink)

This paper will show how the philosopher Maṇḍanamiśra discusses in his Brahmasiddhi the cancellation of a former element by a latter, which is prescribed in Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.5.54. We do not have yet a clear idea of what the value of this text holds for him. I would emphasize that probably more than we had expected, it forms an essential part of Maṇḍana’s philosophy. Its authority is sometimes stated explicitly and sometimes not; and we easily overlook the fact that his argument (...) is highly dependent on the Mīmāṃsā scheme. This rule, 6.5.54, was originally purely concerned with the performance of the sacrifice, but Maṇḍana applies it to his epistemic analysis, i.e. his discussion on the relative strength of the valid means of knowledge, giving this rule the status of basic testimony. Furthermore, he interprets the rule in his own unique way, or at least differently from Kumārilabhaṭṭa, integrating it with the argument by his famous predecessor Bhartṛhari. The mutual relationship among Maṇḍana, Kumārila, and Bhartṛhari, will be illuminated by focusing on what Mīmāṃsāsūtra 6.5.54 really means. (shrink)

GREAT EMPIRES may come and go, but, like the tides, they leave behind a tangled assortment of treasures and trash. In the case of the British Empire, this included much that one might admire, but also a British Protestant morality that was codified in laws that persist to this day. Section 377 of the colonial Penal Code is a striking example. It classed consensual oral and anal sex as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and made it a crime (...) punishable with imprisonment for life. When the British administrators withdrew, they took their soldiers, but left their law books behind. Section 377 was recently repealed in India, but it is still very much on the books in Bangladesh. (shrink)

In recent times, previous studies have reported the manipulation of tools by rats and degus in controlled experimental settings. However, a previous study reported that only one out of eight experimentally naïve rats could manipulate a rake-shaped tool according to the position of a food reward without prior experience of obtaining the reward with the tool before the test. The present study aimed to improve the training of rats and investigate rodents’ ability to manipulate tools according to food position. Stricter (...) criteria were employed when training the rats to promote the rats’ monitoring of their own tool manipulation. Additional training was introduced to give them the opportunity to learn that the reward moved closer to them by pulling an object connected to the reward. The present study showed that only one of eight rats could manipulate a tool according to the position of the reward without prior experience of obtaining the reward with the tool or perceiving that part of the tool came in contact with the reward, as the previous study showed. The change in training did not enhance the rats’ tool-manipulation ability according to the food position. These procedures should be conducted in a wider variety of animals to investigate whether the training in motion control can promote the subjects’ effective tool-use behavior. (shrink)

The present study aims to examine the context of academic dishonesty of research students in a public university setting in Bangladesh. In this regard, the researchers conducted interviews with the concerned authorities of the university, i.e., Chairpersons of the Departments, Deans of the Faculties, Proctor of the University, and Director of Students Guidance and Counselling Cell in order to get an impression about the current practice of academic dishonesty by the students of that university; factors influencing these activities and recommendations (...) to uphold academic integrity among the students. The results showed that though there were several instances of academic integrity violation, negligible actions were taken against them due to the absence of an established policy on academic dishonesty. At the same time, the nonexistence of a course on academic integrity and research ethics in the curriculum is also responsible for this scenario. To mitigate this issue, all the concerned authorities strongly recommended formulating a central policy on academic dishonesty for promoting academic integrity and achieving university ranking success in global competitiveness. (shrink)

The stipulation of living organ transplantation policy and practice in Bangladesh is family-oriented, with relatives being the only people legally eligible to donate organs. There have been very few transplantations of bone marrows, liver lobes, and kidneys from related-living donors in Bangladesh. The major question addressed in this study is why Bangladesh is not getting adequate organs for transplantation. In this study, I examin the stipulations of the policy and practice of living organ donation through the lens of 32 key (...) stakeholders including physicians and nurses, a health administrator, organ donors and recipients, and their family members, as they can shed light on the realities and problems of organ donation for transplantation in Bangladesh. My ethnography reveals that the family members are always encouraged to donate organs for transplantation, and saving the lives of relatives through organ donation is seen as a moral obligation. Many view saving the life of a relative by donating one’s organs as equivalent to saving one’s own life. An assessment of the dynamics of biomedicine, religion, and culture leads to the conclusion that the family-oriented organ donation policy and practice have been widely endorsed and accepted in Bangladesh, and Islamic ethical principles and collective family ethos undergird that policy and practice. However, the unavailability of medical resources, lack of post-operative coverage for organ donors, religious misconceptions and unawareness of the general public, and the absence of posthumously donated vital organs for transplantation are perceived to be the most common barriers to a successful living donor-recipient pair organ transplantation. By overcoming these obstacles, Bangladesh can develop a successful living donor-recipient pair organ transplantation program that will ensure improved healthcare outcomes, promote altruism and solidarity among Bangladeshi families, and protect the poor from having their organs sold to wealthy patients. (shrink)

Background Advocates for a regulated system to facilitate kidney donation between unrelated donor-recipient pairs argue that monetary compensation encourages people to donate vital organs that save the lives of patients with end-stage organ failure. Scholars support compensating donors as a form of reciprocity. This study aims to assess the compensation system for the unrelated kidney donation program in the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a particular focus on the implications of Islam on organ donation and organ sales. Methods This study (...) reviews secondary documents for philosophical argumentation and ethical analysis of human organ donation and sale for transplantation. Results and discussion According to Islamic law, organ donation is an act of _sadaqatul jariyah,_ and individuals are permitted to donate organs with the intention of saving lives. The commercialization of humans as organ sellers and buyers is contrary to the Islamic legal maxim _eethaar_, undermining donors of ‘selfless’ or ‘altruistic’ motivations. Such an act should be considered immoral, and the practice should not be introduced into other countries for the sake of protecting human dignity, integrity, solidarity, and respect. I, therefore, argue that Iran’s unrelated kidney donation program not only disregards the position of the Islamic religion with respect to the provision or receipt of monetary benefits for human kidneys for transplantation but that it also misinterprets the Islamic legal proscription of the sale of human organs. I also argue that the implementation of Iran’s unrelated kidney donor transplantation program is unethical and immoral in that potential donors and recipients engage in a bargaining process akin to that which sellers and buyers regularly face in regulated commodity exchange markets. Conversely, I suggest that a modest fixed monetary remuneration as a gift be provided to a donor as a reward for their altruistic organ donation, which is permissible by Islamic scholars. This may remove the need to bargain for increased or decreased values of payment in exchange for the organ, as well as the transactional nature of ‘buyer and seller’, ensuring the philosophy of ‘donor and recipient’ is maintained. Conclusions Offering a fixed modest monetary incentive to organ donors would serve to increase organ supply while protecting donors’ health and reducing human suffering without legalizing the human organ trade. (shrink)

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, has a national organ donation law that was passed in 1999 and revised in 2018. The law allows living-related and brain-dead donor organ transplantation. There are no legal barriers to these two types of organ donations, but there is no legislation providing necessary costs and incentive measures associated with successful organ transplants. However, many governments across the globe provide different types of incentives for motivating living donors and families of deceased donors. This study assesses the merits (...) and demerits of incentive measures already in use around the world and proposes ethical measures that can promote organ donation in Bangladesh. The primary focus of this paper is to present an ethical analysis of the comparison of incentive measures on organ donation between Bangladesh and the Islamic Republic of Iran as two Muslim countries that operate organ donation for transplantation practices according to Islamic principles. In this paper, I mainly argue that providing a fixed bare minimum financial incentive measure to distantly related living donors and families of deceased donors will encourage Bangladeshis to donate organs in a manner that is ethically justifiable, morally permissible, and socio-economically appropriate. The government of Bangladesh should revise the existing biomedical law to include a provision related to incentive measures and set a strict policy to properly regulate these measures as key stewardship that can ethically promote organ donation for transplantation. (shrink)

Collecting data using an appropriate sampling technique is a challenging task for a researcher to do. The researchers will be unable to collect data from all possible situations, which will preclude them from answering the study’s research questions in their current form. In light of the enormous number and variety of sampling techniques/methods available, the researcher must be knowledgeable about the differences to select the most appropriate sampling technique/method for the specific study under consideration. In this context, this study also (...) looks into the basic concepts in probability sampling, kinds of probability sampling techniques with their advantages and disadvantages. Social science researchers will benefit from this study since it will assist them in choosing the most suitable probability sampling technique for completing their research smoothly and successfully. (shrink)

This article examined the effect of culture and religiosity on perceptions of business ethics among students in a tertiary institution in Malaysia. A structured questionnaire was developed with scenarios on various aspects of business ethics, and self-administered to the students in the business studies program. The results from 767 respondents showed that there were significant differences among the Malays, Chinese, and Indian students on seven scenarios namely selling hazardous products, misleading instructions, selling defective products, padding expense account, taking sick to (...) take a day off, keeping quiet on defective products, and respond to supplier's take good care of clients attitude. There was also an association between culture and religiosity. The MANOVA results also showed that culture and religiosity have an effect on perceptions of business ethics. (shrink)

Dini sahada tartışılan bazı kavramlar birden fazla disipline konu olmuş ve bu kavramlar her disiplinde farklı açılardan ele alınmıştır. Dinî nasların anlaşılmasında önemli yeri olan hakikat ve mecaz bu tür kavramlardandır. Hakikat ve mecaz salt dilbilimsel kavramlar gibi görünseler de birçok dini disipline önemli ölçüde konu olmuşlardır. Fıkıh usûlü, bu kavramları yoğun bir şekilde konu edinen temel dini disiplinlerden biridir. İlk dönem dil kaynaklarında mecaza dair bir tanım yapılmamışsa da ana hatlarıyla “lafzın dilde vazedildiği anlam dışında kullanılması” mecaz kabul edilmiştir. (...) Günümüze ulaşan ilk fıkıh usulü eserinin müellifi İmam Şâfiî (öl. 204/820) ve Mu‘tezilî öncülerden Câhiz (öl. 255/869), Ebû Ali el-Cübbâî (öl. 303/916) ve Ebû Hâşim el-Cübbâî (öl. 321/933) de görüşlerini temellendirirken kavram tanımı yapmadan mecazı kullanmışlardır. Kelamcı usûlcülerden ilk defa mecaz tanımı yapan Ebû Abdullah el-Basrî’den (öl. 369/979-80) iki farklı tanım nakledilmiştir. Ebû Abdullah’ın yaptığı bu tanımlar ana hatlarıyla sonraki asırlarda yaşayan usûlcülerin tanımları üzerinde etkili olmuşsa da yakın takipçileri tarafından kabul görmemiştir. Cessâs (öl. 370/981) ve Bâkıllânî (öl. 403/1013) düşünsel mülahazalar içermeyen sade bir tanım yaparken Mu‘tezilî usûlcülerden Ebü’l-Hüseyin el-Basrî (öl. 436/1044) mecaza dair kelâmî mülahazalar içeren komplike bir tanım geliştirmiştir. Ebü’l-Hüseyin, yaptığı tanımda lafzın mecazi anlamda kullanıldığını ortaya koymak için ilk olarak hitabın türünün temel belirleyici unsurlardan biri olduğuna dikkat çekmiştir. Ebü’l-Hüseyin yaptığı tanımda ikinci olarak lafzın hakiki anlamı gibi mecazi anlamının da bir vazՙ ile olduğuna işaret etmiştir. Ayrıca yaptığı tanımda açık şekilde ifade etmese de konu çerçevesinde yaptı değerlendirmelerde lafzın mecazi anlamda kullanıldığını ortaya koymak için karinenin temel belirleyici unsurlardan biri olduğunu vurgulamıştır. Ona göre lafız, ancak hakiki anlamda kullanılmasına engel bir karinenin olması durumunda mecazi anlama hamledilir. Mu‘tezilî usûlcülerin mecaz tanımlarını konu edinen bu çalışmada öncelikle İlk beş asırda dilcilerin ve Mu‘tezile dışındaki fıkıh usûlcülerinin ortaya koydukları mecaz tanımları incelenmiştir. Daha sonra Mu‘tezilî usûlcülerin mecaz tanımları değerlendirilmiştir. Mu‘tezilî âlimlerin mecaz tanımları içerisinde ekolün düşünsel mülahazalarını dikkate alan Ebü’l-Hüseyin el-Basrî’nin tanımı yakından incelenmiştir. Mu‘tezilî düşünürlerden Kādî Abdülcebbâr’ın mecaz anlayışını yansıtan tanımı günümüze ulaşmadığı için Ebül-Hüseyin’in tanımı incelenirken Kādî Abdülcebbâr’ın görüşleri de irdelenmiştir. Böylece Ebül-Hüseyin’e ait fıkıh usulü sahasında yoğun kelâmî mülahazalar ihtiva eden mecaz tanımının temelde Kādî Abdülcebbâr’a dayandığı ortaya konulmuştur. Çalışmamızda son olarak Ebül-Hüseyin’den nakledilen mecaz tanımının diğer ekollere mensup usûlcüler üzerindeki etkisi de ortaya konulmuştur. Bu tanımın söz konusu usûlcülerden Fahreddin er-Râzî (öl. 606/1210) tarafından kabul gördüğü belirtilmiş ve Râzî’nin bu tanım çerçevesindeki görüşleri Mu‘tezile’nin düşünsel zemininde tartışılmıştır. (shrink)

There are various philosophers who have discussed the role of language in ancient India. Among them, Bhart ṛ hari considered the relation between the superficial appearance of speech and its essential nature. In actual life, we pronounce and perceive the word. He held that there must be some link between ideal logic and worldly truth. His focus in the Brahmakā n ̣ ḍ a of the Vākyapadīya, is on the process of communication, the process of the internalization of speech. He (...) differentiates the perspective of the speaker and the hearer, and explains the movement of sounds. The spho ṭ a theory addresses both how to pronounce the word and how to perceive it. Traces of his discussion are found in the works of his follower Ma n ̣ ḍ anamiśra in his book, Spho ṭ asiddhi. (shrink)

The Cold War has affected the communities around the world. Malaysia was no exception in being affected by the turmoil the international world, particularly after the World War 2, due to ideological conflicts. Based on the domino theory, the ups and downs of particular country in terms of its, strong ideology, brings about network impacts to each country in the world. Thus, a freedom of Malaya and the establishment of Malaysia came from the history of Cold War which influenced the (...) international scene. The establishment of Malaysia is seen as a mechanism to stop the influence of communism. The involvement leaders from Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak as well as Brunei Darussalam in the agenda to ‘build’ Malaysia with the approval from democratic countries showed a very strong cooperation that communism was a threat. This contributed to the creation of a new and bigger country. The wise Malaysian leaders in negotiating and being united in facing the global threats at that time, has shown that Malaysia’s ‘project’ in stopping the communist theory which is also known domino theory, was successfully carried out and maintained till today. Therefore, Malaysia as a case study, on how a country was ‘built’ on the basis of stopping the spread of communism in saving the Southeast Asia from falling into the hands of communists, is unique and its effectiveness should be studied. (shrink)

The impact of culture and religion on sexual and reproductive health and behavior has been a developing area of study in contemporary time. Therefore, it is crucial for people using reproductive procedures to understand the religious and theological perspectives on issues relating to reproductive health. This paper compares different perspectives of three Abrahamic faiths, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on ARTs. Procreation, family formation, and childbirth within the context of marriage have all been advocated by these three major religions of (...) the world. Judaism permits the use of all assisted reproductive technologies when the oocyte and sperm come from the husband and wife, respectively. The different denominations of Christianity have diverse views on reproductive practices. Although the Vatican does not approve of assisted reproduction, Protestant, Anglican, and other religious groups are free to use it. ARTs are acceptable in Sunni Islam, although they can only be carried out if the couples are married. Shia Islam, however, permits third-party donations to married couples under specific restrictions. This comparison reveals that while the three major world religions utilize assisted reproduction in distinct ways, there are also many comparable aspects of each religion. (shrink)

Can language capture objective reality? N. J. Enfield’s Language vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists probes into this question and argues how language performs poor...

The aim of teaching philosophy to children ultimately is not to teach them the history of philosophy, but rather to teach them to think, starting from philosophical concepts. This will help to develop high-level skills in children such as questioning, research, understanding and interpreting knowledge, establishing meaningful relationships between knowledge, creating original ideas, and problem-solving. Models of philosophizing with children have been developed, and systematic application attempts have been made, producing successful results in many countries of the world. According to (...) Matthew Lipman, these skills should be developed at a very young age with use of the model of philosophy for children (P4C). Our aim is to show and explore how to develop and sustain creative thinking, which is one of the achievements of P4C. If Lipman is right, children participating in these activities will start to gain creative thinking skills from an early age and will apply this foundation in other knowledge acquisition processes at more advanced developmental stages. This presentation aims to reveal the interrelation between P4C and creative thinking activity. First P4C will be explained, and then creative thinking and the interrelation between the two will be expanded upon in the conclusion. (shrink)

The government of Bangladesh approved the human organ transplantation law in 1999 and updated it in 2018. This legislation approved both living‐related donor and posthumous organ transplantation. The law only allows family members to legally donate organs to their relatives. The main focus of this study was to explore how Bangladeshis make donation decisions on familial organs for transplantation. My ethnographic fieldwork with forty participants (physicians and nurses, a healthcare administrator, organ donors, recipients, and their relatives) disclosed that the organ (...) donation decision was family‐based. An assessment of the relationship between religion, culture, and biomedicine leads to the conclusion that deciding on donating organs to relatives is primarily family‐based and is perceived to be steeped in Islamic ethical principles and religious cultural tradition. The family‐based consent and motivation for donor‐recipient pair organ transplantation strengthen an altruistic environment for the family and act as the moral and legal authority that ensures ethical healthcare outcomes for Bangladeshis. (shrink)

Intersectionality is a travelling theory; now enjoying significant contemporary visibility and popularity in the feminist blogosphere, it has moved across disciplines and borders in ways that are quite distinct from the scholarly critique developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw some time ago. In this article, I consider how intersectionality is translated, and retheorised, as an intertwined set of everyday knowledges and associated governmental practices that both echo and diverge from some of the complexities and politics of its wide-ranging scholarly uptake. Drawing on (...) interviews with self-identifying feminists in a pilot project mapping contemporary Australian digital feminisms, this article explores two overarching patterns in intersectionality’s mobilisation. First, the shift to understanding intersectionality as an everyday conceptual grid plotting women’s differences along one axis, and measuring relative privilege and disadvantage on the other, recentring whiteness and liberal multicultural models of diversity and inclusion. Second, the transformation of intersectionality into an abstract, individualistic model of conduct, involving the citation and classification of ‘white feminist’ behaviour elsewhere, in frequent judgments on US celebrity culture. As such, intersectionality, while seemingly popular, often remained curiously ‘theoretical’ and divorced from embodied, everyday practices. I suggest in what follows that such a model of intersectionality raises questions of the commercial, racialised, political and mediated conditions that shape the theory’s visibility and materialisation. (shrink)

Multiple modernities has emerged as the post-Huntingtonian paradigm in the study of secularism and religion, and the concepts ‘imaginary’ or ‘ verstehen’ are the most common candidates guiding research aiming to articulate this multiplicity. This article revisits Shmuel Eisenstadt’s original ‘Multiple Modernities’ thesis, Charles Taylor’s concept ‘imaginary’ and Max Weber’s ‘ verstehen’, and offers concise examples on how they are put into practice in the current literature on secularism and religion. I argue that the original Eisenstadt thesis is built upon (...) interactions of modernities, and the ‘imaginary’ and ‘ verstehen’ analytics eliminate from sight non-isomorphic relations between ideas and actions, despite the ample presence of both interactions and non-isomorphic relations in the politics of secularism and modernity. Turning multiple modernities into an exercise in typologies of non-interacting modernities articulated in isomorphic relations between ideas and actions produces new kinds of post-Huntingtonian culturalism. I finally sketch a comparative politics of new meanings as the counter-hypothesis to which ‘imaginary’, ‘ verstehen’ and non-interacting typology analytics of modernities have to respond. (shrink)

Assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have become a widely utilized medical technology for treating infertility worldwide. However, societies and countries have applied these technologies in accordance with their cultural practices and belief systems. This paper presents an overview of ART providers in Bangladesh and analyzes their online content in addressing potential infertile couples. Examining the topic within the context of socio-economic and public health challenges in Bangladesh, particularly overpopulation, poverty, and lack of education, the research conducted a web content analysis of (...) ART providers in Bangladesh from July 1 to September 1, 2023. Twenty active ART providers were identified using Google searches and an exploratory key. The analysis considered locations, landing page information, ethical standards, quality certification, foreign affiliations, and success rates. The findings revealed a concentration of centers in urban areas, raising concerns about equitable access. The absence of regulation and guidelines, coupled with the lack of ART clinic registration, highlighted potential risks to patient well-being. Landing page statements utilized highly emotive language and ambiguous terms, raising ethical concerns. The absence of explicit mention of quality standards, including ISO 9001:2000 certification, indicated potential gaps in transparency. Foreign affiliations were employed for credibility, raising concerns of misleading advertising. Limited and ambiguous reporting of success rates posed challenges for informed decision-making. Evident exploitative and commercialized practices raised concerns about potentially commodifying reproductive services. The study emphasizes the need for regulatory frameworks, transparency in reporting, adherence to ethical advertising, and increased cultural sensitivity to enhance the ethical standards of ART providers in Bangladesh. (shrink)