An overview and assessment of the current state of research on individual consumption of Fair Trade (FT) products is given on the basis of 51 journal publications. Arranging this field of ethical consumption research according to key research objectives, theoretical approaches, methods, and study population, the review suggests that most studies apply social psychological approaches focusing mainly on consumer attitudes. Fewer studies draw on economic approaches focusing on consumers’ willingness to pay ethical premia for FT products or sociological approaches relying (...) on the concept of consumer identity. Experimental, qualitative and conventional survey methods are used approximately equally often. Almost all studies draw on convenience or purposive samples and most studies are conducted in the USA or the United Kingdom. Several problems in current research are identified: amongst others, studies’ rather narrow theoretical focus, potential hypothetical and social desirability bias of conventional survey data, and a lack of generalizability of empirical findings. In turn, we suggest that research would benefit from both a multiple-motives and a multiple-methods perspective. Considering competing theories can help to single out key behavioral determinants of individual FT consumption. The combination of different methods such as conventional surveys and field experiments contributes to uncovering respondents’ truthful answers and improves generalizability of results. Scholars in the field of ethical consumption research should use experiments to detect causal relations proposed by theories and conduct cross-country surveys to gather insights as to how differences in market structures, cultural traits, and other path dependencies affect patterns of individual FT consumption. (shrink)

Contract cheating is currently one of the most serious academic integrity issues around the globe. Numerous studies have been conducted, mostly in English speaking countries. So far, no such research has been conducted in Czechia, and consequently there have been no specific data available on Czech students’ fraudulent behaviour. For this study, we created a questionnaire to obtain primary data on student usage of essay mills and their self-reported exposure to contract cheating. The questionnaire focused on students and graduates of (...) Czech universities and collected a total of 1016. Of that number, 8% of respondents admit having engaged in contract cheating. The questionnaire responses yielded useful information and insight into students’ attitudes regarding contract cheating and the extent of this phenomenon in Czechia. We now know more about their reasons for contract cheating and have insight into their thoughts regarding possible discovery. (shrink)

The internet is a major part of our lives today. This applies to politics as well, and accordingly, the question of whether it is possible to realize democracy on the internet has arisen. Using the arguments of Hannah Arendt, the paper aims to determine what online democracy should look like. It is argued that the internet's decentralized structure is advantageous because it facilitates the implementation of the Arendtian system of political councils. Due to the character of online political platforms – (...) mainly social media – these political councils should ideally revolve around shared issues that simultaneously create the common world on the internet. At the same time, clear rules need to be laid down for the functioning of these online political councils. Based on Arendt's arguments, it is claimed in the paper that these rules include the principles of mutual promises and covenants on the issues themselves. It is also argued that because Arendt emphasizes the role of appearing in the public sphere, the process of authentication – that is, verifying that there is a concrete person with a physical body behind each online account that wants to actively participate in a particular online political council – is required. (shrink)

This Element provides an introduction to the hiddenness argument, as presented by John Schellenberg, and its up-to-date discussion in a comprehensible way. It concludes with a brief assessment of where things stand, from the author's point of view, and why divine hiddenness should not reduce a reflective theist's confidence in theism.

Focusing on Giorgio Agamben’s early writings this paper investigates the peculiar status of aesthetics that is disclosed by these texts, highlighting particularly the shift that emerges therein from aesthetic to ethical concerns. Agamben’s idea of a ‘destruction of aesthetics’ will bring attention to the question of the destination of aesthetics. The claim that only ruins can outline the original structure of works of art, providing a possible basis for creative criticism, will also be examined in the conclusion.

New York may be most easily recognized by its trademark skyscrapers and brick tenement buildings, but the truth is that the city is actually teeming with luxurious roof gardens and private courtyard oases. Creative gardeners and architects have risen to meet the unique challenges of the urban landscape, designing spaces that celebrate the city while providing a restful escape. New York City Gardens presents New York’s evolving tradition of garden culture through images and discussions of thirty of its most outstanding (...) gardens, from world-famous botanical gardens to richly re-cultivated public urban spaces, luxurious penthouse terraces, and innovative art gardens without soil or plants. Many of the gardens are set against vistas of the quintessential New York—Central Park, the Empire State Building, skyscrapers of Midtown, and the sensational skyline of Lower Manhattan. Other gardens reveal surprising and exotic intimate retreats from the bustle of the city. While most were designed by noted landscape architects, including Dan Kiley, Hideo Sasaki, Ken Smith, and Halsted Wells, many others were created over decades by talented homeowners themselves. As more and more city dwellers in New York and beyond look to cultivate their own kitchen and container gardens and individual outdoor sanctuaries, this book provides hundreds of inspiring images as well as historical background and insight into the practical and imaginative solutions of city garden designers. (shrink)

Je vše, co se ve světě nějak děje či existuje, resp. každá jednotlivá událost, podmíněna příčinným vztahem a procesy v přírodě a v duchovním životě tedy probíhají na základě daných zákonů, anebo alespoň v určité míře vládne náhoda, svévole či svoboda? Těmito a veškerými jim podobnými otázkami, vztahujícími se svou podstatou k otázce platnosti zákonu kauzality, potažmo determinismu či indeterminismu, se filozofové zabývali v podstatě odjakživa a filozofie vědy se jimi zabývá dodnes. V Plackově době pak představovaly zvláště v exaktních (...) přírodních vědách velmi diskutovaný problém a sám Max Planck na toto téma přednesl několik přenášek, kde se velmi přístupným způsobem snaží dané problémy rozebírat na základě mnohých smýšlených situací i konkrétních případů. Příspěvek se zabývá Planckovým pohledem na zákon kauzality obecně, postavením pojmu kauzality přímo ve fyzice, v rámci které je nutné osvětlit pojem "fyzikální světoobraz", současně pak na možnou míru slučitelnosti zákona kauzality se svobodnou lidskou vůlí. Celým příspěvkem pak nutně prolíná neustálá Planckova polemika s pozitivismem a přívrženci indeterminismu. (shrink)

In this comment we critically review an argument against the existence of objective physical outcomes, recently proposed by Healey [1]. We show that his gedankenexperiment, based on a combination of “Wigner’s friend” scenarios and Bell’s inequalities, suffers from the main criticism, that the computed correlation functions entering the Bell’s inequality are in principle experimentally inaccessible, and hence the author’s claim is in principle not testable. We discuss perspectives for fixing that by adapting the proposed protocol and show that this, however, (...) makes Healey’s argument virtually equivalent to other previous, similar proposals that he explicitly criticises. (shrink)

Given the prevalence of misconduct in research and among students in higher education, there is a need to create solutions for how best to prevent such behaviour in academia. This paper proceeds on the assumption that one way forward is to prepare students in higher education at an early stage and to encourage a smoother transition from academic integrity to research integrity by incorporating academic integrity training as an ongoing part of the curriculum. To this end, this paper presents three (...) checklists developed as part of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project _Bridging Integrity in Higher Education, Business and Society_ (BRIDGE, 2020-1-SE01-KA203-077973). The aim of the checklists is to help students and their supervisors to bridge academic integrity and research integrity in research training. The checklists target master students, doctoral students, and their supervisors. This paper presents the theoretical background of the checklists, how they were developed, their content, and how they may be used in supervising thesis/dissertation work to promote a transition from academic integrity to research integrity. (shrink)

In this paper we want to briefly illustrate the ways in which technical, ethical and political judgements of various kinds are interwoven in the processes of healthcare decision-making in the UK. Drawing upon the research for the “Choices in Health Care” project we will borrow the notion of the hidden curriculum from education to illuminate the nature of resource allocation decision processes. In particular we will indicate some of the fundamental but largely hidden political factors in play in these processes (...) and the importance of the inchoate and implicit notion of “NHS values” in shaping UK resource allocation policies. We suggest that these more diffuse, holistic and system level value judgements are both central to understanding priority setting and at the same time difficult to reduce or abstract out into lists of single values/principles. (shrink)

Balancing speed and quality during crises pose challenges for ensuring the value and utility of data in social science research. The COVID-19 pandemic in particular underscores the need for high-quality data and rapid dissemination. Given the importance of behavioural measures and compliance with measures to contain the pandemic, social science research has played a key role in policymaking during this global crisis. This study addresses two key research questions: How FAIR ( findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) are social science data (...) on the COVID-19 pandemic? Which study features are related to the level of FAIRness scores of datasets? We assess the FAIRness of n = 1131 articles, retrieved through a keyword search in the Web of Science database, employing both automated and manual coding methods. Our study inclusion criteria encompass empirical studies on the COVID-19 pandemic published between 2019 and 2023 with a social science focus and explicit reference to the underlying dataset(s). Our analysis of n = 45 datasets reveals substantial differences in FAIRness for different types of research on the COVID-19 pandemic. The overall FAIRness of data is acceptable, although particularly Reusability scores fall short, in both the manual and the automatic assessment. Further, articles explicitly linked to the Social Science concept in the OpenAlex database exhibit a higher mean overall FAIRness value. Based on these results, we derive recommendations for balancing ethical obligations and the potential tradeoff between speed and data (sharing) quality in social-scientific crisis research. (shrink)

From a religious-historical perspective this work investigates the message and theology of the so-called Book of the Watchers as a separate book of early Judaism of the third century BC. Starting with the literary profile of the text, the study goes on to illuminate its importance in the context of the Ptolemaic supremacy over Palestine. From this perspective the Book of the Watchers appears as a powerful appeal addressed to a broad Jewish audience to recognize the relevance of its religion (...) and of the traditional way of life. (shrink)

In this article I analyse prominent textbooks, encyclopedias and journals in the field of women’s and gender studies and ask where the authors and concepts presented in these texts and sites of publication come from in terms of geographic location. This is inspired by the question: to what extent can gender studies be described as a ‘multi-centered’ field (Connell, 2011) and can gender studies take into account feminist concepts of knowledge production which favour the involvement of the greatest possible diversity (...) of authors (Longino, 1990; Harding, 1991)? The analyses presented here show that being located at a North American or Western European institution still seems to be a crucial factor in authors being published and referred to – both in Western academic centres and in other regions. It seems that there is still a long way to go before various local gender studies communities can communicate on a more egalitarian footing. (shrink)

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

Vitalism has been given different definitions and diverse figures have been labelled as vitalists throughout the history of ideas. Concentrating on the seventeenth century, we find that scholars identify as vitalists authors who endorse notions that are in diametrical opposition with each other. I briefly present the ideas of dualist vitalists and monist vitalists and the philosophical and theological considerations informing their thought. In all these varied forms of vitalism the identifiable common motives are the essential irreducibility of life and (...) the universality of life. (shrink)

National human rights institutions (NHRIs) are key domestic mechanisms for promotion and protection of human rights. The institutions' broad mandate, competencies, and special status between state and nonstate actors on the one hand, and special status between the national and international levels on the other hand enable them to engage effectively in the field of business and human rights. Since 2009, NHRIs have been engaging with the international human rights system in order to increase understanding and raise awareness of their (...) role in addressing business and human rights issues. As a result, they have contributed to the development of the UN “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework and obtained an evolving role within all pillars of the framework and in its implementation. This paper presents how these domestic institutions, bridging the national and international levels, fit into the UN legal regime for corporate responsibility for human rights and what contribution they make to the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles. (shrink)

This article explores the formal and functional characteristics of narratives of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ deaths as they were told by 13 UK-based hospice managers in the course of semi-structured interviews. The interviewees’ responses include a variety of remarkably consistent ‘narratives of successful/frustrated intervention’, which exhibit distinctive formal characteristics in terms of the starting point and core of the action, the choice of personal pronouns and metaphors, and the ways in which positive and negative evaluation is expressed. In functional terms, the (...) hospice managers’ narratives play an important role in representing and constructing their professional views, challenges and identities. Overall, the narratives argue for the role of hospices and professional hospice staff in facilitating a ‘good’ death, and, by presenting a relatively unified view, may potentially preclude alternative perspectives. (shrink)

The XXXI Conference of the Baltic Association of the History and Philosophy of Science (BAHPS) was held on 13–16 June 2024 on the premises of the University of Tartu, Estonia. The conference titled ‘Scientific Instruments in History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine’ celebrated the bicentennial anniversary of the completion and acquisition of the large astronomical instrument. The telescope, called the Great Dorpat Refractor, was made by Joseph Fraunhofer and until now remains housed in the same place—the Old Observatory (...) of the Tartu University. (shrink)

In the article, the author analyzes the conditions for a subject’s existence in the post-informational society, which lead to forming a new style of thinking in the younger generation, functioning outside the textocentric paradigm. The author raises the actual problem of the education system, since it is impossible to build a successful learning process without meeting the demands of the time, without taking into account the peculiarities of perceiving the world by modern people. In the youth environment, the screen (clip) (...) style of thinking has long prevailed, which in the process of cognition is based on visual images. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that, responding to the new style of thinking, it is necessary to strive for a combination of methods of working with linear text and visual sources of information, to which a modern person is so receptive. This harmonious combination is provided by a comic strip with rich didactic potential. The article describes the positive aspects of using comics in the educational process and examines an example of using comics in philosophy classes. (shrink)

Michel Foucault Zrození biopolitiky. Překlad a doslov Petr Horák. 1. vyd. Brno: CDK, 2009, 352 s., ISBN 978-80-7325-181-9.

Mental Images: Towards a Media History of the Psyche around 1900. Presupposing that visual practices are inherent to the social constitution of knowledge, this article suggests juxtaposing photographs and films produced in a psychiatric environment to popular films run in theaters around 1900, thus identifying cinema’s particular “Denkstil” (Fleck). Rejecting science’s dominating paradigm of visual objectivity (Daston/Galison), the visual apparatus [dispositif] of early cinema facilitates subjective experience of unreason and irrationality and thus initiates a different epistemological approach to knowledge as (...) self‐knowledge of a modern, self‐reflexive subject. This is particularly evident in early cinema’s depiction of the psyche, which does not solely focus on the physical manifestation of the ‘mad’, ‘insane’ body, but also visualizes the subject’s inner life: technical means like montage, multiple exposure or stop motion can be employed to illustrate subjective visions, fantasies or dreams. Thus, the invisible mind becomes visible as the “unthinkable within thinking” (Deleuze), while the subject is invited to participate in cinema’s “gay science” (Nietzsche). (shrink)

Rosi Braidotti is one of the most distinctive thinkers of contemporary posthumanism. She approaches this term in an informed manner, at the same time endeavoring to redefine it and make it applicable to contemporary society, primarily through a critique of global capitalism. In the text, I will present this Italian philosopher’s concept of posthumanism, specifically focusing on an analysis of the construction of “posthuman knowledge” and the new methods of knowledge proposed by her.

Images are at the heart of strategies of persuasion. They render certain aspects visible and leave others unrepresented; and they may shape processes of scientific reasoning and imagination. By tracing diagrammatic images in the anthropological sciences throughout the 20th century, the contributions to this special issue highlight some dominant pictorial traditions for rendering human evolution and diversity visible. This article aims to provide an overview of and an introduction to the special issue ‘Visibility Matters’.