Addiction appears to be a deeply moralized concept. To understand the entwinement of addiction and morality, we briefly discuss the disease model and its alternatives in order to address the following questions: Is the disease model the only path towards a ‘de-moralized’ discourse of addiction? While it is tempting to think that medical language surrounding addiction provides liberation from the moralized language, evidence suggests that this is not necessarily the case. On the other hand non-disease models of addiction may seem (...) to resuscitate problematic forms of the moralization of addiction, including, invoking blame, shame, and the wholesale rejection of addicts as people who have deep character flaws, while ignoring the complex biological and social context of addiction. This is also not necessarily the case. We argue that a deficit in reasons responsiveness as basis for attribution of moral responsibility can be realized by multiple different causes, disease being one, but it also seems likely that alternative accounts of addiction as developed by Flanagan, Lewis, and Levy, may also involve mechanisms, psychological, social, and neurobiological that can diminish reasons responsiveness. It thus seems to us that nondisease models of addiction do not necessarily involve moralization. Hence, a non-stigmatizing approach to recovery can be realized in ways that are consistent with both the disease model and alternative models of addiction. (shrink)

A dominant view of guilt and shame is that they have opposing action tendencies: guilt- prone people are more likely to avoid or overcome dysfunctional patterns of behaviour, making amends for past misdoings, whereas shame-prone people are more likely to persist in dysfunctional patterns of behaviour, avoiding responsibility for past misdoings and/or lashing out in defensive aggression. Some have suggested that addiction treatment should make use of these insights, tailoring therapy according to people’s degree of guilt-proneness versus shame-proneness. In this (...) paper, we challenge this dominant view, reviewing empirical findings from others as well as our own to question (1) whether shame and guilt can be so easily disentangled in the experience of people with addiction, and (2) whether shame and guilt have the opposing action tendencies standardly attributed to them. We recommend a shift in theoretical perspective that explains our main finding that both emotions can be either destructive or constructive for recovery, depending on how these emotions are managed. We argue such management depends in turn on a person’s quality of self-blame (retributive or ‘scaffolding’), impacting upon their attitude towards their own agency as someone with fixed and unchanging dispositions (shame and guilt destructive for recovery) or as someone capable of changing themselves (shame and guilt productive for recovery). With an eye to therapeutic intervention, we then explore how this shift in attitude towards the self can be accomplished. Specifically, we discuss empathy-driven affective and narratively-driven cognitive components of a process that allow individuals to move away from the register of retributive self-blame into a register of scaffolding ‘reproach’, thereby enabling them to manage their experiences of both shame and guilt in a more generative way. (shrink)

When doing research among vulnerable populations, researchers are obliged to protect their subjects from harm. We will argue that traditional ethical guidelines are not sufficient to do this, since they mainly focus on direct harms that can occur: for example, issues around informed consent, fair recruitment and risk/harm analysis. However, research also entails indirect harms that remain largely unnoticed by research ethical committees and the research community. Indirect harms do not occur during data collection, but in the analysis of the (...) data, and how the data is presented to the scientific and wider societal community. Highly stigmatized research subjects, like substance‐dependent parents, are especially at risk of encountering indirect harm, because the prejudice against them is so persistent. In this paper we discuss two forms of indirect harm. First, researchers have to be aware how their results will be preceived by society. Even when subjects are presented in an objective way, further, out of porportion stigmatization can occur. Researchers sometimes try to counteract this by whitewashing their results, at the risk of downplaying their respondents’ problems. The second risk researchers face is that their own normative judgements influence how they question such parents, report results and interpret statements. Researchers’ own normative judgements may influence the way they present their subjects. This article reviews a broad range of research that exhibits such indirect harms, discussing how and why indirect harms occur and formulating corresponding recommendations on how to prevent them. (shrink)

Gilbert et al. argue that the concerns about the influence of Deep Brain Stimulation on – as they lump together – personality, identity, agency, autonomy, authenticity and the self are due to an ethics hype. They argue that there is only a small empirical base for an extended ethics debate. We will critically examine their claims and argue that Gilbert and colleagues do not show that the identity debate in DBS is a bubble, they in fact give very little evidence (...) for that. Rather they show the challenges of doing research in a field that is stretched out over multiple disciplines. In that sense their paper is an important starting point for a discussion on methodology and offers valuable lessons for a future research agenda. (shrink)

This article gives an overview of the influence of the work of Michel Foucault on the philosophy of Agamben. Discussed are Foucault’s influence on the Homo Sacer cycle, on (the development) of Agamben’s notion of power (and on his closely related notion of freedom and art of life), as well as on Agamben’s philosophy of language and methodology. While most commentaries focus on Agamben’s interpretation of Foucault’s concept of biopower, his work also contains many interesting references to Foucault on freedom (...) and possibilities—and I think that it is here that Foucault’s influence on Agamben is most deeply felt. This article focuses on the shifts Agamben takes while looking for the Entwicklungsfähigkeit in the work of Foucault. (shrink)

This article critical examines Gilbert and colleagues’ study (Gilbert et al. 2017) claims on how deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD) can influence people’s self-concept.

Addictions are commonly accompanied by a sense of shame or self-stigmatization. Self-stigmatization results from public stigmatization in a process leading to the internalization of the social opprobrium attaching to the negative stereotypes associated with addiction. We offer an account of how this process works in terms of a range of looping effects, and this leads to our main claim that for a significant range of cases public stigma figures in the social construction of addiction. This rests on a social constructivist (...) account in which those affected by public stigmatization internalize its norms. Stigma figures as part-constituent of the dynamic process in which addiction is formed. Our thesis is partly theoretical, partly empirical, as we source our claims about the process of internalization from interviews with people in treatment for substance use problems. (shrink)

Preconception expanded carrier screening (PECS) informs prospective parents about the risk of conceiving a child with a heritable genetic condition. PECS will also, for many, become an important screening test, and websites will likely play a vital role in providing information on this practice. The aim of this article is to examine rationalities in the information on PECS on Dutch websites. The method used is multimodal critical discourse analysis. This method allows an examination of norms and assumptions in the descriptions, (...) as well as of the positions that are discursively made available. The data consist of publicly available material on websites from two genetics departments in the Netherlands. In the results, we present the three main discourses and subject positions that were identified: risk and the couple as possible mediators of severe conditions; the focus on scientific facts and rational conceivers; and severity of the conditions and the responsible couple. In this study, we highlight the importance of acknowledging the interrelation between epistemology and ethics in the discourse on PECS. Finally, it is claimed that the focus on scientific facts in information on PECS risks making existential and ethical dilemmas and choices invisible. (shrink)

Addiction involves a chronic deficit in self-governance that treatment aims to restore. We draw on our interviews with addicted people to argue that addiction is, in part, a problem of self-narrative change. Over time, agents come to strongly identify with the aspects of their self-narratives that are consistently verified by others. When addiction self-narratives become established, they shape the addicted person’s experience, plans, and expectations so that pathways to recovery appear implausible and feel alien. Therefore, the agent may prefer to (...) enact her disvalued self-narrative because at least it represents who she takes herself to be. To recover, the agent needs to conduct narrative work, adjusting her existing self-narrative so that it better supports recovery-directed narrative projections. Reducing cravings, managing withdrawals, increasing self-control, and developing goals are all important for recovery but those approaches will often be in vain if the influence of self-narrative is ignored. If our analysis is correct, addiction treatment will typically be more effective if it incorporates support for self-narrative change. (shrink)

What is the role and value of pleasure in addiction? Foddy and Savulescu have claimed that substance use is just pleasure-oriented behavior. They describe addiction as "strong appetites toward pleasure" and argue that addicts suffer in significant part because of strong social and moral disapproval of lives dominated by pleasure seeking. But such lives, they claim, can be autonomous and rational. The view they offer is largely in line with the choice model and opposed to a disease model of addiction. (...) Foddy and Savulescu are sceptical of self-reports that emphasize the ill effects of addiction such as loss of family and possessions, or that claim an absence of pleasure after tolerance sets in. Such reports they think are shaped by social stigma which makes available a limited set of socially approved addiction narratives. We will not question the claim that a life devoted to pleasure can be autonomously chosen. Nor do we question the claim that the social stigma attached to the use of certain drugs increases the harm suffered by the user. However our interviews with addicts reveal a genuinely ambivalent and complex relationship between addiction, value, and pleasure. Our subjects did not shy away from discussing pleasure and its role in use. But though they usually valued the pleasurable properties of substances, and this played that did not mean that they valued an addictive life. Our interviews distinguished changing attitudes towards drug related pleasures across the course of substance use, including diminishing pleasure from use over time and increasing resentment at the effects of substance use on other valued activities. In this paper we consider the implications of what drug users say about pleasure and value over the course of addiction for models of addiction. Well don't get me wrong, I love using mate. If I could use successfully I would. I'd still be using. I love using. I just don't like the shit that comes with it. (shrink)

Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2023, Page 86-90.

Bowman-Smart and colleagues (2023) argue that techniques to screen and analyze the fetal genome are rapidly evolving, and are sometimes already offered commercially. These new developments will all...

Ethical frameworks can support professionals’ decision‐making. Here, we identify two ethical frameworks to analyse the best support for families that struggle with parental substance or alcohol abuse. The first framework, which we call ‘the framework of conflicting interests’, is most prominent in the literature. Here, the interests of parents and children are weighed against each other using the medical ethical principles of respect for autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non‐maleficence. The second framework is most prominent in a series of interviews we (...) conducted with alcohol‐dependent parents and professionals working in addiction care and youth care. This framework aligns more with an ethics of care, and starts with the assumption that the interests of people who are close to each other are often intertwined. This framework does not so much look at conflicting interests, but at relationships and vulnerability. We label this the ethics of care framework. In this article, we show the value of both frameworks and how they can support ethical decision‐making. (shrink)

In this paper I will analyze several cases from the American Civil War, the two World Wars and the American Vietnam War, and contemporary research in enhancement substance, to determine how drug use can be analyzed and understood in both physical and moral (ethical) terms. This will require a discussion of drug use at different levels. First, I will address the consequences of drug use for the physical and mental sanity of soldiers, during and after wartime, irrespective of the reason (...) for drug use. Second, I will look into the moral questions related to drug use for the enhancement of soldiers, that is, as a method for modern warfare. The moral dimension has at least two different angles: (i) the moral responsibility of superiors administering drugs to their inferiors who are exposed to the rule of full obedience, and (ii) the ethical consequences of enhancement for moral judgment by soldiers in the gray zone between acts of war and war crimes (the difference between the Super soldier and the Killing machine). (shrink)

Pickard (2012) claims that the neurobiological or disease model of addiction hinders the recovery of people because it undermines their feeling of self-efficacy and agency. Sub- stance users are “not aided by being treated as victims of a neurobiological disease, as opposed to agents of their own recovery” (40).Although Pickard acknowledges that claims of powerlessness or loss of agency can have a functional role in the self-narratives of substance users in excusing them from blame, she primarily focuses on the negative (...) effects of the diseasemodel on the recovery of substance users. Preliminary evidence from in-depth interviews with heroin-dependent participants in our current cohort study on addiction and moral identity supports Pickard’s claims in part: Substance users describe grades of control, psychological distress, and loss of options, and an ambivalent attitude toward their belief in self-efficacy. However the interviews also provide points of critique. While Pickard is right to dismiss the more extreme claims of proponents of the disease model—namely, that drug use in addicts is literally compelled—user responses suggest that an understanding of the neurobiology of addiction might in some respects support rather than undermine a sense of agency. Moreover, there is reason to suppose that the relation be- tween substance use and psychological distress is not as straightforward as Pickard claims. In this respect we believe the debate must become more nuanced and move beyond a simple opposition between the disease model and the rational choice model endorsed by Pickard. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to question the punitive approach towards substance dependent parents, especially substance dependent parents struggling with poverty, by outlining the complex ways in which poverty can shape reasoning, and hence capacities for self-control. I will outline two ways in which poverty can shape reasoning: a rational shift from a global to a local perspective, and a more invasive one: resignation. I will argue that when people with addictions become resigned, it is especially important to not (...) hold a punitive approach, but to treat them with compassion while simultaneously bootstrapping their sense of agency. I will argue that having children can be an important turning point for people struggling with addiction, and possibly resignation. In order to successfully turn their lives around, they must feel comfortable to seek professional support without fear for retribution or stigma. This paradigm shift in how we treat substance dependent parents will be an important contribution to breaking the circle of intergenerational transmission of resignation, poverty and substance abuse. (shrink)

The concepts of ‘biopolitics’ and ‘naked life’ have become increasingly relevant in the debate on substance dependency due to the growing prominence of neuroscience in defining the nature of addiction1 and its threat to agency. However, these concepts are not necessarily well understood, and therefore may lead to oversight rather than insight. In this article we review the literature on Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, whose founding works on both concepts shed a different light on addiction. We argue that the current (...) debate is missing a key insight from Agamben's work: the idea of agency past the subject, of agency past identity. We will illustrate how this can be an important form of agency against the stigmatization of users, making use of empirical data from our ongoing work on addiction and agency. (shrink)

Neuroparenting: Between apocalypse and utopiaNeuroscience increasingly invades all domains of our lives, including the intimate realm of child raising and parenting. The current trend of neuroparenting, that is parenting advice based on neuroscientific research, fits this development. This article analyses this development from an ethical point of view. We will outline the current developments in the domain of neuroparenting with a special focus on the so-called ‘baby brain’ and ‘adolescent brain’. To discuss corresponding promises and perils, we do not only (...) provide an overview of current studies developing ethical arguments, but we will also present several blind spots in that debate. We will conclude with some advice on how to integrate neuroscience findings in parenting practice in the most ethical way and point out limits that ought to be respected. (shrink)

Parenting books and early childhood policy documents increasingly refer to neuroscience to support their parenting advice. This trend, called ‘neuroparenting’ has been subject to a growing body of sociological and ethical critical examination. The aim of this paper is to review this critical literature on neuroparenting. We identify three main arguments: that there is a gap between neuroscientific findings and neuroparenting advice, that there is an implicit normativity in the translation from neuroscience to practice, and that neuroparenting is a form (...) of neoliberal self-management. We will critically discuss these arguments and make suggestions for ethically responsible forms of neuroparenting that can foster child development but avoid pitfalls. (shrink)

Neuroscientific findings have often been argued to undermine notions of free will and to require far-reaching changes of our political and legal systems. Making a difference between the metaphysical notion of free will and the political notion of autonomy,Dubljevi´c (2013) argues this switchover to be mistaken. While we appreciate attention to the social limits of neuroscientific findings, we also have a twofold concern with his proposal. The first covers the nontransparent way in which he either rejects or embraces certain scientific (...) findings, which renders the background andmotivation of his argument unclear. The second revolves around his idea of a “rational life-plan,” which, while it covers a person’s capacity to conform to social and external factors, misses out what it means to act for a reason or be the source of one’s actions. Revisiting the example of former addict Tommy McHugh and invoking the example of a resigned addict, we present the idea of an “autonomous life-plan,” which is metaphysically sound and practically relevant. (shrink)

Self-narrative is often, perhaps primarily, a tool of self- constitution, not of truth representation. We explore this theme with reference to our own recent qualitative interviews of substance-dependent agents. Narrative self- constitution, the process of realizing a valued narrative projection of oneself, depends on one’s narrative tracking truth to a certain extent. Therefore, insofar as narratives are successfully realized, they have a claim to being true, although a certain amount of self-deception typically comes along for the ride. We suggest that, (...) because agents typically value certain outcomes more highly than truth for truth’s sake, it makes sense to narrate in ways that aren’t strictly true if that helps ensure highly valued outcomes do come true. Walker (2012) outlines three ways of defending the truth of past-directed narratives, but the role of future-directed narratives in realizing highly valued truths provides her a fourth way. (shrink)

In this chapter we focus on the structure of close personal relations and diagnose how these relationships are disrupted by addiction. We draw upon Peter Strawson’s landmark paper ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (2008, first published 1962) to argue that loved ones of those with addiction veer between, (1) reactive attitudes of blame and resentment generated by disappointed expectations of goodwill and reciprocity, and (2) the detached objective stance from which the addicted person is seen as less blameworthy but also as less (...) fit for ordinary interpersonal relationships. We examine how these responses, in turn, shape the addicted person’s view of themselves, their character and their capacities, and provide a negative narrative trajectory that impedes recovery. We close with a consideration of how these effects might be mitigated by adopting less demanding variations of the participant stance. (shrink)

In this introduction we set out some salient themes that will help structure understanding of a complex set of intersecting issues discussed in this special issue on the work of Marc Lewis: conceptual foundations of the disease model, tolerating the disease model given socio-political environments, and A third wave: refining conceptualization of addiction in the light of Lewis’s model.

Recent studies reveal some of the neurophysiological mechanisms involved in drug addiction. This prompts some theorists to claim that drug addiction diminishes responsibility. Stephen Morse however rejects this claim. Morse argues that these studies show that drug addiction involves neither compulsion, coercion, nor irrationality. He also adds that addicted people are responsible for becoming addicted and for failing to take measures to manage their addiction. After summarizing relevant neuroscience of addiction literature, this chapter engages critically with Morse to argue that (...) a subgroup of addicted people does meet plausible criteria for compulsion, coercion, or irrationality; that few addicted people are fully responsible for becoming addicted; and that some addicted people can be at least partly excused for failing to manage their addiction. Pickard and Lacey’s “responsibility without blame” approach is also suggested as a fruitful basis for future work in this field. (shrink)

People struggling with addiction are neither powerless over their addiction, nor are they fully in control. Lewis vigorously objects to the brain disease model of addiction, because it makes people lose belief in their self-efficacy, and hence hinders their recovery. Although he acknowledges that there is a compulsive state in addiction, he objects to the claim that this compulsion is carved in stone. Lewis argues that the BDMA underestimates the agency of addicted people, and hence hinder their recovery. Lewis’s work (...) offers us a very much to be welcomed neurobiology of recovery. It offers addicted people a hopeful and respectful narrative for their recovery that treats them as agents rather than as damaged brains. However, I argue that overestimating people’s agency can also result in people losing belief in their self-efficacy. Lewis’s strong focus on the agency of addicted people might not match their experiences of struggle, hence reinforcing their feelings of guilt when they fail to control their use. I propose to replace the notion of addiction as a disease with a notion of a disease-like stage in addiction. I call this stage the duress stage in addiction, in which the addictive behaviour is largely impervious to the agent’s values and to available techniques of self-control. However, the agent can overcome this stage by developing new techniques of self-control, by building on their self-concept and belief in self-efficacy, by changing their environments and habits, and by engaging in projects that are meaningful to the agent. (shrink)

Diagnostic terms in psychiatry like ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘bipolar disorder’ are deeply contested in the professional community, by mental health activists and the public. In this paper, we provide a theoretical framework for considering diagnostic terms as ordinary linguistic expressions and illustrate this approach by a corpus linguistic analysis of ‘schizophrenia.’ Our aim is to show how a focus on language itself can inform current and future debates about psychiatric terminology and provide new insights on relevant processes concerning their actual usage (...) and change over time. We hope that this contributes to enhancing mutual understanding between different discourse spheres and stakeholders. (shrink)

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There have been few empirical studies into what non-medical factors influence physicians and nurses when deciding about admission and discharge of ICU patients. Information about the attitudes of healthcare professionals about this process can be used to improve decision-making about resource allocation in intensive care. To provide insight into ethical problems that influence the ICU admission and discharge process, we aimed to identify and explore ethical dilemmas healthcare professionals are faced with.

The Dutch system of obstetric care is often recommended for midwife-attended births, the high number of home deliveries, and the low rate of intervention during pregnancy and labour. In this contribution, the question is addressed whether processes of medicalization can be demonstrated in the Dutch midwife practice. Medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth is often criticized because it creates dependency on the medical system and infringement of the autonomy of pregnant women. It is concluded that medicalization is present in the practice (...) of Dutch independent midwives, however it is less clear and outspoken than in hospital policies. (shrink)

This article supports calls for an increased integration of patients into taxonomic decision making in psychiatry by arguing that their exclusion constitutes a special kind of epistemic injustice: preemptive testimonial injustice, which precludes the opportunity for testimony due to a wrongly presumed irrelevance or lack of expertise. Here, this presumption is misguided for two reasons: the role of values in psychiatric classification and the potential function of first-person knowledge as a corrective means against implicitly value-laden, inaccurate, or incomplete diagnostic criteria (...) sets. This kind of epistemic injustice leads to preventable epistemic losses in psychiatric classification, diagnosis, and treatment. (shrink)

While Gabriel Watts and Ainsley Newson argue that diagnostic laboratories do not have a general duty to routinely reinterpret genomic variant classifications, they do formulate several restricted duties to actively reinterpret specific types of classifications.1 They place these duties with laboratories, acknowledging that they are setting aside any responsibilities that might arise for clinicians. Here, we will discuss the implications of this obligation for clinicians and the moral tension it may confront them with. We focus in particular on the consequences (...) of the proposed moral obligation to actively reinterpret variant classifications that carry a higher risk of being false positives. Such reclassification is likely to result in ‘downgrades’: previously pathogenic variants (pathogenic/likely pathogenic, P/LP) reclassified to benign (likely benign/benign, LB/B) or uncertain variants (variant of uncertain significance, VUS). Any laboratory policy to actively reinterpret (specific sets of) classifications will confront the clinician with the question whether the person tested should be recontacted on a reinterpretation of previously reported results. As others have pointed out, recontacting in general comes with challenges, since patients may not want to be recontacted or have forgotten about their genetic test.2 3 Recontacting in case of a downgrade, however, is particularly impactful. Previous studies on the psychosocial impact of reclassification on patients …. (shrink)

This paper gives insight into the Islamic bioethical discussion on harvesting and using human embryonic and adult stem cells. It describes some of the Islamic legal mechanisms involved in the bioethical discourse among Muslims. As the contemporary Islamic bioethical discourse is very diverse, the paper focuses on the critical discussion of related resolutions of the Saudi-based Islamic Fiqh Academy due to the esteem in which the IFA is held in the Islamic world and the pertinence of their rulings on this (...) issue. This study discusses the different sources of human adult and embryonic stem cells and their use from an Islamic perspective, while questioning some directions the Islamic bioethical discourse has taken. The paper invites interested parties to deliberate the use of some of the legal means resorted to in the ongoing Islamic bioethical discourse. (shrink)

»Artistic Research« ist in aller Munde - ein Modewort der Gegenwartsdebatte, das Vereinnahmungen ebenso provoziert wie Zurückweisungen. Doch was meinen wir, wenn wir von der Kunst als Forscherin sprechen? Kann Kunst als eine Einsichten generierende, reflexive Praxis angesehen werden, die sich in ästhetischen Artikulationen formuliert? Welche Einsicht über welche Welt könnte sie bereitstellen? Eine umfassende epistemologische Ästhetik, die sich dem künstlerischen Forschen als Methode und Praxis annimmt, gibt es bisher nicht. In diesem Grundlagenwerk stellt sich Anke Haarmann den Fragen (...) nach den originären Methoden, historischen Vorläufern, spezifischen Artikulationsformen und konkreten Handlungsweisen künstlerischen Forschens. (shrink)

In recent years, the practices of artists in non-artistic environments have set my mind in motion. Where before I could marvel at the visual outcomes of the artistic process and would want to understand how processes of creating meaning could be described, I am now particularly struck by the way in which artists are present, by their way of looking, how they make decisions, when and how they act, how they take responsibility. I have conversations with them and ask questions (...) to better understand their processes, and I explore literature to find people with a similar quest. This process of moving and being moved lies at the heart of the book 'The Artistic Attitude'"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have identified pervasive gender discrimination in science as an institution, as well as gender bias in the very content of many scientific theories. An ameliorative project at heart, feminist philosophy of science has inquired into the social and epistemological roots and consequences of these problems and into their potential solutions. Most feminist philosophers agree on a need for diversity in scientific communities to counter the detrimental effects of gender bias. Diversity could thus serve as a unifying concept for (...) a potential consensus of the field. Yet there are substantial differences in the kinds and roles of diversity envisaged. This element argues that we need diversity, both in terms of social locations and of values, to overcome former biases and blind spots. Diversity as such, however, is insufficient. To reap its epistemic benefits, diversity also needs to be institutionalised in a way that counters various forms of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

The nomadic Kazaks inhabiting Xinjiang Province, China, retain many aspects of their pre‐Islamic way of life, including the use of methods of traditional healing usually classified under the rubric of "shamanism." These practices are closely related to those in Kazakstan, Mongolia, and other parts of the former Soviet Union.The present study addresses aspects of traditional healing in use among the Xinjiang Kazaks in recent times, and presents a native taxonomy of these practices obtained during recent fieldwork in Xingjiang. Special attention (...) is paid to the use of words, sound, and movement in healing contexts by elders and specialized individuals. (shrink)

IntroductionBurnout is a growing problem among young researchers, affecting individuals, organizations and society. Our study aims to identify burnout profiles and highlight the corresponding job demands and resources, resulting in recommendations to reduce burnout risk in the academic context.MethodsThis cross-sectional study collected data from young researchers at five Flemish universities through an online survey measuring burnout risk, work engagement, sleeping behavior, and the most prominent job demands and resources. We conducted Latent Profile Analysis to identify burnout profiles in young researchers (...) and subsequently compared these groups on job demands and resources patterns.ResultsFive burnout profiles were identified: High Burnout Risk, Cynical, Overextended, Low Burnout Risk, and No Burnout Risk. Each burnout profile was associated with a different pattern of job demands and resources. For instance, high levels of meaningfulness decreased the odds to being classified in the Cynical profile.ConclusionOur findings show that the Cynical profile corresponds to a relatively high number of young researchers, which may imply that they are particularly vulnerable to the cynicism dimension of burnout. Additionally, work-life interference and perceived publication pressure seemed the most significant predictors of burnout risk, while meaningfulness, social support from supervisor and learning opportunities played an important protective role. (shrink)

Islamic education, from a holistic point of view, is more than just the direct transmission of the pure Islamic sciences. It encompasses other branches of specialisation and ideally accompanies Muslims, through reflections of the Islamic worldview, during their formal and informal formation. This paper reflects how, in the contemporary tertiary education in the Islamic world, commodified concepts stemming from a non-Islamic worldview are being proliferated, and what the expected results are for Muslim students. The paper expounds on differences in worldview (...) and educational systems and the commodification of ideas. It gives examples from business school curricula, psychology and the impact of teaching in a foreign language, to summarise intended consequences on the students’ educational developments. It also shows how the agency of the theory of Maqāṣid, the higher objectives of Islamic law, has immersed Islamic thought in reaction to the bias in the educational system. (shrink)