The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergraduate students. This paper reports on a research study in which the ethical reasoning of first-year undergraduate engineering students at multiple universities was assessed with both of these tools. In addition to these two instruments, students were also asked to create personal (...) concept maps of the phrase “ethical decision-making.” It was hypothesized that students whose instrument scores reflected more postconventional levels of moral development and more sophisticated ethical reasoning skills would likewise have richer, more detailed concept maps of ethical decision-making, reflecting their deeper levels of understanding of this topic and the complex of related concepts. In fact, there was no significant correlation between the instrument scores and concept map scoring, suggesting that the way first-year students _conceptualize_ ethical decision making does not predict the way they behave when _performing_ scenario-based ethical reasoning (perhaps more situated). This disparity indicates a need to more precisely quantify engineering ethical reasoning and decision making, if we wish to inform assessment outcomes using the results of such quantitative analyses. (shrink)

The integration of biomedical terminologies is indispensable to the process of information integration. When terminologies are linked merely through the alignment of their leaf terms, however, differences in context and ontological structure are ignored. Making use of the SNAP and SPAN ontologies, we show how three reference domain ontologies can be integrated at a higher level, through what we shall call the OBR framework (for: Ontology of Biomedical Reality). OBR is designed to facilitate inference across the boundaries of domain ontologies (...) in anatomy, physiology and pathology. (shrink)

Don didn’t grasp what would eventually come to be one of the most successful ad campaigns ever because he didn’t recognise the person presenting the evidence as being appropriately trustworthy. He failed to know because Dr Guttman’s say-so was not enough to provide justification for a belief. But why would he think that? To get to the bottom of this, we need the help of an analytical approach known as standpoint theory.

In this new explanationist account of epistemic justification, Poston argues that the explanatory virtues provide all the materials necessary for a plausible account of justified belief. There are no purely autonomous reasons. Rather reasons occur only within an explanatory coherent set of beliefs.

abstract This paper examines, from a philosophical point of view, the ethics of the role of the family and the deceased in decisions about organ retrieval. The paper asks: Who, out of the individual and the family, should have the ultimate power to donate or withhold organs? On the side of respecting the wishes of the deceased individual, the paper considers and rejects arguments by analogy with bequest and from posthumous bodily integrity. It develops an argument for posthumous autonomy based (...) on the liberal idea of self‐development and argues that this establishes a right of veto over donation. It claims, however, that whether the family's power to veto would conflict with posthumous autonomy rights depends on how it comes about. On the side of respecting the family's wishes, the paper first considers an argument from family distress. This supports a contingent, non‐rights‐based reason for the family's power that is trumped by the deceased's rights. It then outlines and criticises an argument based on family autonomy. The conclusion is that the individual has the right to veto the family's wish to donate and that, while the family has no right to veto the individual's wishes to donate, it can legitimately acquire this power and has done so in practice. (shrink)

Amongst other countries, the Netherlands currently allows euthanasia, provided the physician performing the procedure adheres to a strict set of requirements. In 2016, Second Chamber member Pia Dijkstra submitted a law proposal which would also allow euthanasia without the reason necessarily having any medical foundation; euthanasia on the basis of a completed life. The debate on this topic has been ongoing for over two decades, but this law proposal has made the discussion much more immediate and concrete. This paper considers (...) the moral permissibility of Pia Dijkstra’s law proposal, focusing on the ethics of the implementation Dijkstra describes in her proposal. I argue that, at present, Dijkstra’s law proposal is unsuitable for implementation, due to a number of as of yet unaddressed problems, including the possible development of an ageist stigma and undue pressure on the profession of end-of-life coordinator. Perhaps adequate responses can be conceived to address these issues. However, the existence of a radically different, yet currently equally unacceptable position regarding the implementation of euthanasia for a completed life as proposed by fellow party member Paul Schnabel suggests it may be difficult to formulate an ethically acceptable implementation for this, in principle, ethically acceptable concept. (shrink)

In this new book, author Russell McCutcheon offers a powerful critique of traditional scholarship on religion, focusing on multiple interrelated targets. Most prominent among these are the History of Religions as a discipline; Mircea Eliade, one of the founders of the modern discipline; recent scholarship on Eliade's life and politics; contemporary textbooks on world religions; and the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyzes the ideological basis for and service of the sui generis argument, demonstrating (...) that it has been used to constitute the field's object of study in a form that is ahistoric, apolitical, fetishized, and sacrosanct. As such, he charges, it has helped to create departments, jobs, and publication outlets for those who are comfortable with such a suspect construction, while establishing a disciplinary ethos of astounding theoretical naivete and a body of scholarship to match. Surveying the textbooks available for introductory courses in comparative religion, the author finds that they uniformly adopt the sui generis line and all that comes with it. As a result, he argues, they are not just uncritical, but actively inhibit the emergence of critical perspectives and capacities. And on the geo-political scale, he contends, the study of religion as an ahistorical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism. (shrink)

1. Mafhūm al-Tarbiyah al-Islāmīyah -- 2. Mfhm uṣūl al-Tarbiyah al-Islāmīyah -- 3. Mafhūm al-naẓarīyah al-Tarbawīyah al-Islāmīyah -- 4. Mafhūm al-naẓarīyah al-Tarbawīyah al-Islāmīyah -- 5. Mafhūm al-Fikr al-tarbawī al-Islāmī Mafhūm al-Turāth al-tarbawī al-Islāmī -- 6. Mafhūm Falsafat al-Tarbiyah al-Islāmīyah.

Arabic language; grammar; syntax; linguistics.

Moral character and ascetic practice have not been major themes in contemporary analytic religious epistemology, but they have been major themes in the religious epistemologies of several influential historical figures, including the medieval Islamic philosopher al-Ghazalı. This article will be concerned with the place of moral character and ascetic practice in both al-Ghazalı’s religious epistemology and in contemporary analytic religious epistemology. By reading al-Ghazalı alongside contemporary work, I aim to highlight some fruitful ideas about how moral character and ascetic practice (...) could play important roles in religious epistemology. I argue that the exploration of these ideas may be enriched via engagement with recent developments in mainstream epistemology and virtue theory, pointing toward future avenues for such work. (shrink)

Background Regulations on research ethics in France have evolved considerably over the past four years: the implementation of the Jardé law and of the General Data Protection Regulations have changed the landscape of research ethics for research involving or not involving human persons. In a context of creation of an Institutional Review Board at the University of Bordeaux, France, we sought to explore research ethics practices and perceptions in the medical community of our University Hospital. Methods A short questionnaire was (...) sent to all physicians of the University Hospital of Bordeaux. The questionnaire included closed questions and main topics were: physicians’ education in research ethics, ethics practices concerning researches non implying human persons, and physicians’ perceptions about current regulations. Results 86 questionnaires were sent back. If a majority of physicians have validated Good Clinical Practices trainings, there was a low rate of specific training on fundamental references in research ethics and a high proportion of responders do not consider themselves as educated in research ethics after completion of GCPs. Regulations on research ethics have many implications on medical research, especially by inducing changes in protocols in order to alleviate ethical requirements. Malpractices were acknowledged like false mention of positive opinion from an ethics committee. If If a majority of responders considers regulations as a positive answer to research ethics, a large majority considers it as a constraint and a complexification of research process. For 58%, regulations in research ethics are perceived as a hindrance for research initiatives. Conclusion Because of their impact on research process, regulations seem to constitute a scarecrow for physicians. Lack of training, bad representations and questionable practices highlight the need to improve education and to propose concrete guidance for medical researchers. (shrink)

The elite theory of Max Weber has recently been rediscovered by political scientists and political theorists who have sought to explore both the heuristic and the normative potential of plebiscitary leader democracy. Notwithstanding the merits of this wave of studies, this paper argues that attention should be shifted from Weber's context-specific defence of plebiscitary leadership in post-WWI Germany to his broader conception of charisma as an attempt to grasp the enigma of significant social and political change. Contemporary democratic theory, this (...) paper contends, can fruitfully draw on Weber to sink into the antinomies and ambiguities of a transformative democratic politics. (shrink)

This draft now appears (in revised form) as Chapter 6 of _Self-Reflection for the Opaque Mind_. See http://philpapers.org/rec/PARSFT-3.

Author's reply about various questions regarding Islamic teachings for an ordinary Muslim.

On Visishtadvaita vedanta philosophy of Rāmānuja, 1017-1137, Hindu philosopher.

One of the many striking theses for which Virginia Held argues in How Terrorism Is Wrong is that terrorism is not necessarily morally wrong. In principle, she argues, terrorism can sometimes be permissible . Call this "the Non-necessity Thesis," or NNT. As so often in this deep and thought-provoking book, Held gives a powerful and illuminating argument to this thesis. The argument begins by asserting what we may call "the Violations Distribution Principle" : if we must have rights violations, then (...) a more equitable distribution of such violations is better than a less equitable . It then claims that this implies that "it is better to equalize rights violations in a transition to bring an end to rights violations than it is to subject a given group that has already suffered extensive rights violations to continued such violations" . But this in turn implies that where one group's rights are severely and systematically violated— say, by an oppression, in which their right to personal safety is systematically violated—and another group's rights are not so violated, then a transition which involves a sharing of proportionate rights violations between the oppressed and the non-oppressed is permissible, "if this and only this can be expected to lead to a situation in which rights are more adequately respected" . In those and only those circumstances, terrorism would be permissible, since it centrally violates the right to personal safety. Hence NNT. The idea, then, is that VDP implies that where there is a systematic imbalance in the distribution of severe rights violations between one group and another , and where only a transition which involves a sharing of proportionate rights violations between the oppressed and the non-oppressed can be expected to achieve a situation in which rights are more adequately respected , then terrorism aimed at the oppressors and in conformity with the Uniqueness condition is permissible. (shrink)

Duns Scotus has a remarkably unique and comprehensive theory concerning the nature of justice. Alas, commentators on his work have yet to full flesh out the details. Here, we begin the process of doing so, focusing primarily on his metaethical views on justice, i.e., what justice is or amounts to. While Scotus’s most detailed account of justice can be found in his Ordinatio, we find further specifics emerging in a number of other contexts and works. We argue that Scotus offers (...) a unique contribution in the history of philosophy: justice in God is a formality, in humans a virtue, and when attributed to actions, a relation. Even though formalities, virtues, and relations are ontologically distinct items, each can satisfy Scotus’s preferred Anselmian definition of justice—rectitude of will preserved for its own sake—since each characterizes a will aimed at rendering to goodness what is its due. (shrink)