The decision to procreate—to have, raise, and nurture biological children—is almost never subject to moral scrutiny. In fact, most societies implicitly embrace and advance procreation, a view known as pronatalism: procreation is morally desirable, psychologically “normal,” and generally seen as a laudable life choice. Those who cannot procreate are understood to have suffered a severe loss, and having or desiring to have children is considered an important developmental marker of increasing maturity and progression toward adulthood.However, we argue that prospective parents (...) have a defeasible moral obligation to prioritize adoption over procreation as a means of satisfying their desire to become parents. This.. (shrink)

Background The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in (...) biomedical research. Methods This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 to 5. Results Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be ‘moderately important’ to ‘very important’ for their decision making. Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF. Conclusions Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF. (shrink)

Philosophy of history; the idea of the not-being and the history, by K. M. Jamil.--Philosophy of history, by Khwaja Ashkar Husain.--Philosophy of history, by A. H. Kamali.--Philosophy of history, by B. H. Siddiqi.--Philosophy of history: explanation in history, by Kazi A. Kadir.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 277-278 [Access article in PDF] John Hedley Brooke, Margaret J. Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, editors. Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Journals Division, 2001. Pp. xiii + 376. Cloth, $39.00. Paper, $25.00. Some twenty years ago, when I submitted a dissertation proposal to explore connections between theologies of creation and views of scientific (...) knowledge in the seventeenth century, my doctoral committee was not initially enthusiastic—my idea might make a good dissertation in religion, but was it really history of science? I doubt I would have a similar experience today. Not only has the "warfare" thesis of science and religion been laid permanently to rest, historians have begun seriously to question whether it makes sense even to treat "religion" and "science" in an essentialist manner as separate ways of thinking that do not ordinarily interact. Many detailed case studies demonstrating a variety of fascinating, often important connections between science and religion have appeared from leading scholars in the past two decades. This trend continues in the latest volume of Osiris, which contains sixteen essays documenting various ways in which religious beliefs have influenced the actual content and presentation of science.The volume opens with two companion essays laying out the terrain. First, Brooke engages the new methodological and conceptual problems that confront historians following the demise of the "warfare" thesis. Then Stephen Wykstra offers criteria for sorting out the various roles for metaphysical and religious beliefs (which he distinguishes) in shaping scientific knowledge. The case studies begin with E. Jamil Ragep's essay on medieval Islamic astronomy, arguing that religion sometimes had a constructive role—a rather novel claim for Islamic science, he points out. Noah J. Efron and Menachem Fisch show how early modern Jewish exegetical practices influenced David b. Solomon Gans's interpretations of astronomical texts, and quite possibly his interpretation of nature also. A Christian astronomer is next, as Peter Barker and Bernard R. Goldstein detail how Johannes Kepler's theology contributed directly to the discovery of scientific laws. Maurice A. Finnocchiaro then reviews various accounts of the Galileo affair, finding far more conflict in the subsequent historiography of the events than in the trial itself.Moving from astronomy to natural philosophy, Margaret G. Cook's essay on Robert Boyle examines the web of connections between theology, the mechanical philosophy, and [End Page 277] "the Aristotelian philosophy that he sought to replace." She demonstrates that Boyle used the classical art/nature distinction "to interpret the biblical account of the Creation and to argue that chemical techniques offered experimental confirmation that the world, created by art, worked by the same mechanical principles as artificial objects, not by the inherent agency of Aristotelian nature" (136). Margaret J. Osler also writes about Boyle. Contrary to the traditional view that final causes were expunged from science by the mechanical philosophy—a view that originated in the "positivism and scientific optimism" of the postwar period (168)—she proves that final causality remained central to the thought of Boyle and Pierre Gassendi. The essay by Stephen D. Snobelen presents substantial evidence that the famous General Scholium, appended to the second edition of Isaac Newton's Principia, was a carefully worded declaration of Newton's heterodox theology. "A Trinitarian," Snobelen concludes, "could not have written the General Scholium" (186). He also shows the degree to which Newton's theology shaped his overall natural philosophy, decisively debunking the late Richard S. Westfall's view that such influences could not be found.The final seven essays are mainly devoted to nineteenth-century science. Michael J. Crowe documents several ways in which Christian beliefs about divine goodness and the Incarnation affected astronomy. Martin Fichman shows how Alfred Russel Wallace's theism—not merely a vague spiritualism, as traditional accounts claim—"shaped the cognitive content of his mature evolutionary synthesis, which included a theoretical reconceptualization of the scope of natural selection" (227). In a revisionist account of Charles Darwin's philosophy of "nature," Phillip R. Sloan challenges the received view that... (shrink)

No presente artigo, o itinerário filosófico de Anselmo de Cantuária é descrito em quatro tópicos: o primeiro, sobre a sua vida de monge, suas obras e a sua habilidade dialéctica; o segundo, sobre a Ontologia e a teoria dos universais; o terceiro, sobre a teoria da verdade e da significação; o quarto, sobre a Ética ou a fundamentação do agir humano. Além desses quatro tópicos, o seu itinerário filosófico também é descrito levando-se em conta: a) os autores dos quais (...) se serviu (particularmente Platão e Aristóteles); b) a sua mestria na Escolástica (sobretudo por ter indicado as estratégias dialéctica e retórica adequadas ao exercício da racionalidade cristã). /// The present article attempts to describe Anselm of Canterbury's philosophical itinerary in accordance with the following four points: 1) his life as a monk, his works and his dialectical skills; 2) his ontology and theory of universais; 3) his theory of truth and of meaning; 4) his ethical theory and foundation of human action. The article also pays attention to the authors used by Anselm, especially Plato and Aristotle, as well as to his mastery of the scholastic method, whereby special attention is given to the dialectic and rhetoric strategy he found most suitable to the practice of Christian rationality. (shrink)

What I most appreciate about H. Theixos and S. B. Jamil’s article, “The Bad Habit of Bearing Children,” is their basic scrutiny of unreflective procreation. Bearing biological children is not a bad habit in the way that smoking is a bad habit. There is nothing intrinsically harmful to a parent’s health in bearing a biological child.Nor is bearing biological children a bad habit in the way that biting one’s nails is a bad habit. There is nothing socially unacceptable in (...) bearing biological children; on the contrary, for married couples at least, it is largely a social expectation. Bearing biological children is a bad habit precisely because it is often done out of habit, rather than as the result of conscious and .. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: I have great respect for efforts by Francisco Varela, Jonathan Shear and company to create a systematic phenomenology. In support of their efforts it should be noted that there is no need to start from scratch. We already have a systematic study of human conscious experience, and it is called ‘psychology'. True, many academic psychologists deny this rather obvious fact, but if we look at what they do rather than what they say, we find that they are always (...) studying the things people can report with accuracy. But the things we humans can report accurately are the same things we experience as conscious! Reportability is the generally accepted index of consciousness. In point of fact, therefore, psychologists are always asking people about their conscious experiences. (shrink)

In this concise yet powerful book, one of the twentieth century's most respected political philosophers presents a controversial reassessment of the political ideas and intellectual legacy of Edmund Burke. A practicing politician and powerful writer, full of ideas, Burke was intent on getting those ideas translated into government policies. But he was too much the impatient practitioner to set out his principles in a single book in the manner of Locke or Hume, leaving both admirers and opponents ample scope to (...) reinterpret his work in different ways. Macpherson, however, finds Burke's views on political economy to be the one consistent factor in his thinking. Today Burke is often viewed as one of modern conservatism's founding lights, and in an era of global capitalism unfettered by national borders, Macpherson's reassessment of Burke's ideas is perhaps more timely than ever. (shrink)

According to tranditional philosophical terminology and to most interpretations of Cartesianism, Descartes is a dualist. This dualism is expressed in his fundamental distinction between two substances—mind and matter—and, though admitted to be full of difficulties and by many to be untenable, it has very generally been regarded as at least a clearly intelligible doctrine, consistently held by Descartes. That this is not so has been shown by Professor Boyce Gibson in his able and careful analysis of Cartesianism. The aim of (...) the present essay is to draw attention to another difficulty that has not been sufficiently noticed; whether it is an actual one or only an apparent one due to a misunderstanding of Descartes is a question that may be left to those who read him differently and who may be able to remove one more charge of inconsistency. The general contention is that Descartes—and this point is conceded in expositions of Descartes—seeks to prove that there are material bodies, that material bodies are necessary for his own account of the physical universe, and that yet his own theory of matter as extension, even combined with motion, makes the existence of bodies impossible and hence any proof of such existence impossible. In fact, the employment of the idea of motion only serves to emphasize the difficulty and inconsistency of the theory. (shrink)

In the mid-decade, researchers have been researching large scale scientific studies on major archival documents. Certain things could be said about the emergence of trends that produce books of historical and religious personnel in the format of published archival files, which first appear when introduced: the opening of an archive, the preservation of the regime of inaccessible funds that allow scientists to access primary sources. In connection with this topic, this study is relevant and relevant.

This article examines the impact that the interplay between workplace, the welfare state and global working life has on female workers when they become pregnant. By focusing on two highly educated Norwegian female workers, it explores how this change process takes place in two companies operating in the global market located in different countries: Norway and the US. Pregnancy contributes to transforming the neutralized bodiless female worker into an embodied worker with gender. The female workers' experiences and negotiations represent forms (...) of global action on local stages. This is illustrated by four processes: `married to work', `pregnant and still married to work', `negotiating separation from work' and `excluding mothering'. The findings indicate the significance of taking welfare state and workplace policy approaches into consideration in studies of global effects on employees. (shrink)

Social standards have become important tools in corporate governance. They are often presented as voluntary initiatives in CSR and are generally based on the principle of multi-stakeholder collaboration as a means to gain legitimacy. Yet, based on a case study of a company in the textile industry, the paper shows that not all CSR standards are equally valued and that the adoption of particular CSR standards can be the result of external constraints on managerial discretion, e.g. emerging from business partners (...) and activist groups. (shrink)

At the threshold of the Twenty-First Century, Humankind is facing a new Era. After 6 million years of genomic independent existence and after 2 million years of increased capacity in learning and transmitting information among the members of the group and from one generation to the next which supported an enduring technological tradition, we are now facing the effects of a dramatic and accelerated population growth. In the last two centuries human population size increased from one billion in 1835, to (...) 2.5 billion by 1950. This number then doubled in only 45 years to almost 6 billion. This unprecedented increase in numbers, affecting specific geographical areas, has accentuated the deterioration of the natural environment caused by the misuse of natural resources and the depletion of fertile soils due to the clearance of forests, climatic changes and pollution. (shrink)