Approximately a quarter of a billion people around the world suffer from malaria each year. Most cases are located in sub-Saharan Africa where Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes are the principal vectors of this public health problem. With the use of CRISPR-based gene drives, the population of mosquitoes can be modified, eventually causing their extinction. First, we discuss the moral status of the organism and argue that using genetically modified mosquitoes to combat malaria should not be abandoned based on some moral value (...) of A. gambiae. Secondly, we argue that environmental impact studies should be performed to obtain an accurate account of the possible effects of a potential eradication of the organism. However, the risks from the purposeful extinction of A. gambiae should not overtake the benefits of eradicating malaria and risk assessments should be used to determine acceptable risks. Thirdly, we argue that the eventual release of the genetically modified mosquitoes will depend on transparency, community involvement, and cooperation between different nations. (shrink)

Over the past decade, non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) has been adopted into routine obstetric care to screen for fetal sex, trisomies 21, 18 and 13, sex chromosome aneuploidies and fetal sex determination. It is predicted that the scope of NIPT will be expanded in the future, including screening for adult-onset conditions (AOCs). Some ethicists have proposed that using NIPT to detect severe autosomal AOCs that cannot be prevented or treated, such as Huntington’s disease, should only be offered to prospective parents (...) who intend to terminate a pregnancy in the case of a positive result. We refer to this as the ‘conditional access model’ (CAM) for NIPT. We argue against CAM for NIPT to screen for Huntington’s disease or any other AOC. Next, we present results from a study we conducted in Australia that explored NIPT users’ attitudes regarding CAM in the context of NIPT for AOCs. We found that, despite overall support for NIPT for AOCs, most participants were not in favour of CAM for both preventable and non-preventable AOCs. Our findings are discussed in relation to our initial theoretical ethical theory and with other comparable empirical studies. We conclude that an ‘unconditional access model’ (UAM), which provides unrestricted access to NIPT for AOCs, is a morally preferable alternative that avoids both CAM’s fundamental practical limitations and the limitations it places on parents’ reproductive autonomy. (shrink)

Metaphors can provide a conceptual framework for understanding complex topics and as such, they have frequently been used in COVID-19 discourse. As previous research indicates that conceptual metaphors can influence how people reason about complex topics, the metaphors used to communicate about the pandemic can influence how it is understood and how people respond. This paper investigates the influence of metaphorical framing on emotions and reasoning. An experimental study compares BATTLE and JOURNEY metaphor frames in a hypothetical text (adapted from (...) previous studies) about the pandemic. Our aim is to examine the influence of these frames on readers’ affective state, inferences about the attitudes of others and suggestions to stop the virus from spreading. The results suggest that compared to JOURNEY metaphors, BATTLE metaphors can negatively influence affective state and may influence people to suggest more restrictive solutions to reduce the spread of the virus. Yet, metaphors were not found to influence reasoning about the attitudes of others. We interpret these results in relation to previous studies, suggesting that metaphors may influence emotions and reasoning in some ways only. The results have implications for public communication surrounding the pandemic. Limitations and avenues for future research are discussed. (shrink)

We report on a study of the religious correlates of generalized trust. Our critical frame leads us to explore novel questions about how nonreligion may encourage social trust. We find that those who believe the bible to be a book of fables are more trusting than those with other beliefs about the text, and that nontheists report a greater willingness to trust. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research about religious belief and generalized trust.

Preston and Hofelich’s (2012) conceptualization of self–other overlap includes both neural and subjective levels, but neural overlap is given a central and necessary role in their model. The model’s broad scope includes many types of empathy phenomena and points to stable patterns and relationships among them. A self–other overlap idea that can cover such a range of phenomena makes gains in explanatory cohesiveness. This may come at the expense of specificity and predictive power in investigating particular neural systems implicated in (...) empathy. The neural overlap concept is broadly useful, but putting it to work in neuroimaging experiments reveals operational ambiguities. Investigating the details of specific systems might suggest further refinements in how we identify meaningful neural self–other overlap. (shrink)

In the United States, healthcare providers, institutions, and society have failed to ensure the conditions necessary for racial and ethnic minority communities to be in good health. Many scholars and federal government officials consider racial and ethnic disparities in health to be an injustice and have called for national attention and strategies to eliminate them. Several of these strategies, including cultural competency, focus on addressing deficiencies within the health care system. Cultural competency is the ability of a healthcare provider to (...) function effectively in the context of cultural differences with the clients they serve. Increasing cultural competency among healthcare providers has been shown to improve the quality of healthcare received by racial and ethnic minorities, which contributes to reducing health disparities. Achieving equity in the quality of healthcare received is a necessary strategy, but is insufficient for eliminating disparities in the health status of racial and ethnic minority populations. A growing body of literature reveals that health disparities are determined, not only by inequities in health care, but by social factors. The implication is that strategies that focus solely on healthcare perpetuate the misconception that health status is determined by access to or quality of healthcare. To eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health status, the fundamental conditions for good health, which include but are not limited to healthcare equity, must be acknowledged and ensured for all people. (shrink)

The Philosophy Outreach Project gets high school students across Indiana thinking. POP creates alternative spaces for learning in classrooms, clubs, online, and conference settings. By curating philosophical content and fostering philosophical discussion, POP provides high school students with tools and a platform to engage with each other and the world. POP is run by three teams of Ball State students with a variety of different interests and backgrounds. POP's team includes students studying philosophy, psychology, English, communications, criminal justice, and more. (...) This diversity of interests and knowledge allows for an impressive level of collaboration, which is ultimately what makes POP successful in promoting and facilitating pre-college philosophy. (shrink)

An activity called Purple Dragons and Yellow Toadstools, originally reported in 1987 as a training activity for jurors, was adapted as a priming exercise for a unit on teaching research ethics with undergraduate students. In this activity, learners develop skills for building negotiated consensus. The procedure involves individuals’ ranking 10–15 moral transgressions and/or legal violations followed by a small group discussion in order to arrive at an agreed-upon ranking by the team. The framework has proved to be quite flexible, adaptable (...) to different subject areas and with different populations of students. (shrink)

How do we thrive in our behaviors and experiences? Positive neuroscience research illuminates the brain mechanisms that enable human flourishing. Supported by the John Templeton Foundation's Positive Neuroscience Project, which Martin E. P. Seligman established in 2008, Positive Neuroscience provides an intersection between neuroscience and positive psychology.In this edited volume, leading researchers describe the neuroscience of social bonding, altruism, and the capacities for resilience and creativity. Part I describes the mechanisms that enable humans to connect with one another. Part II (...) focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying the human ability and willingness to confer costly benefits on others. Part III examines the mechanisms by which human brains overcome adversity, create, and discover. Specific topics include: a newly discovered nerve type that appears to be specialized for emotional communication; the effects of parenting on the male brain; how human altruism differs from that of other primates; the neural features of extraordinary altruists who have donated kidneys to strangers; and distinctive patterns of brain wiring that endow some people with exceptional musical abilities. Accessible to a broad academic audience, from advanced undergraduates to senior scholars, these subjects have generated a fascinating and highly convergent set of ideas and results, shaping our understanding of human nature. (shrink)

This book presents a radical analysis of postcolonial studies as a discipline and modern India as a domain of study. It discusses wide variety of issues such as different definitions of culture, colonialism, secularism, and orientalist discourse.

This book explores the intellectual encounter of India and the West from pre-Alexandrian antiquity until the present. It examines India’s role in European philosophical thought, as well as the reception of European philosophy in Indian thought. Halbfass also considers the tension in India between a traditional and modern understanding of itself. Halbfass covers a wide variety of epochs and “cultures” in this study without oversimplification and without distracting shifts of tone. The volume’s methodological unity is reflected in (...) Halbfass’ reliance on the German hermeneutical tradition and his root characterization of the encounter between Indian and the West as dynamic. It is a contribution rooted in the interpretive tradition typified by the work of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Habermas. This edition is much more than a mere translation. Halbfass has not only translated, but has also revised, updated, and added much new material. (shrink)

This paper asks about the climate damages that Indian policymakers can expect. What is the likely magnitude of climate damages, and how sensitive are they to the level of warming? How much worse would climate damages be for Indians under, say, 5° of warming rather than 3°? Understanding the magnitude of climate damages and how rapidly they increase as temperature change increases is critical for finding the right climate mitigation policy. This paper provides projections of India’s climate vulnerability on (...) the basis of new microeconomic and macroeconomic evidence. The authors’ quantifications show that India is highly vulnerable to climate damage. Their baseline macroeconomic approach suggests that climate change peaking at 5°C, rather than 3°C, would be as detrimental to Indian well-being as a reduction in GDP by about 18 percent for each of the years from 2020 to 2040. Such an equivalent threat to near-term economic outcomes would be an overriding policy priority if political leaders anticipated it. The authors’ microeconomic results suggest that this may be an underestimate, because it ignores humidity. Emerging evidence suggests that humans are especially vulnerable to exposure to high temperatures in contexts of high humidity; humidity is a previously underappreciated and unquantified reason way in which India may be more climate-vulnerable even than some hotter developing and middle-income countries. (shrink)

The relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India has traditionally been seen in terms of the interaction of two different trends—cooperation and competition. At the same time, the positive or negative dynamics of China–Indian contacts have mostly been shaped by the extent to which the political leadership of China and India have been prepared at various times to be guided by pragmatic interests and the desire to overcome the legacy of the past. This (...) set of problems includes long-standing territorial disputes, New Delhi’s suspicions of the “all-weather strategic partnership” between Beijing and Islamabad, as well as the sensitive issues of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Although the idea of ChIndia, as a condominium of the global interests of the two Asian giants and a manifestation of their growing interdependence, is no longer relevant, this article argues that cooperation or confrontation between China and India should not be linked solely to historical matters, but should be viewed from a broader regional and international perspective. (shrink)

The advent of techniques of sex selection that rely on assisted reproduction led to a questioning of whether sex selection should be deemed always and everywhere unethical. While China and India are normally associated with condemned practices, they are also implicated in processes that constitute globally stratified sex selection inclusive of its more valued form, often referred to as family balancing. Through an application of Ong and Collier’s concept of global assemblage, I demonstrate how family balancing, which has taken (...) on a “global form,” is tied to an “assemblage” of factors related to the anti-natal, population control contexts that have been pervasive in Asia. Three simultaneously occurring processes since the mid-1990s constituted stratified sex selection: the surfacing of China and India as figurative counter examples in deliberations of ethics on new techniques; active national surveillance of sex ratios as well as denunciation and criminalization of sex selective abortion in China and India; and the role of China and India in neoliberalizing population control and developing globalized markets in reproduction. Accounting for globally stratified sex selection requires a more robust interpretation of ethics that rethinks disciplinary approaches just as much as relativist ones in which respect for individual autonomy tends to overtake all other concerns. (shrink)

Transcript of papers presented in a seminar and meetings.

This book gives a descriptive analysis of specific Madhyamika texts. It compares the ideology of Kumarajiva (a translator of the four Madhyamika treatises 400 A.D.) with the ideologies of the three Chinese contemporaries - HuiYuan, Seng-Jui and Seng-Chao. It envisages an intercultural transmission of religious and philosophical ideas from India to China.

India's IT industry sudden rise from a minuscule level in the 1990's to the present dominance in the emerging world knowledge economy with annual exports exceeding US $45bn surprised many. This article examines the series of historical events and government policy action that led to its emergence, the social implications of this growth and the challenges that India's education system faces in providing the manpower the IT industry needs to address the immense opportunities that lie ahead.

Can mandated adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) improve firm value? Most CSR adoption is purely voluntary. However, governments regularly encourage CSR adoption with soft regulations that vary from simply endorsing and symbolically supporting CSR to requiring the adoption of specific practices. Governments have resisted fully mandating CSR because there is some concern universally that mandated CSR may reduce firm value. There is, however, no empirical clarity as to whether mandated CSR impedes or improves firm value. We address this uncertainty (...) by analyzing the effects of the mandated adoption of CSR that the government of India legislated in 2014. Drawing on a sample of 1,526 publicly traded firms and deploying a combinative analytical framework comprising an event study, regression discontinuity design, and a difference-in-differences technique, we conclude that India’s CSR mandate did, in fact, increase value for all firms bound by the mandate. This value-enhancing effect was greater for foreign firms relative to domestic firms. Our results refute previous research showing that India’s CSR mandate diminished firm value. (shrink)

Integrar o estudo de um jornal como o Índia Nova: jornal de expansão da cultura indiana numa publicação dedicada a estudos sobre revistas justifica-se por estarmos perante um projecto cultural, com inevitáveis ressonâncias políticas. Órgão dos estudantes goeses nas Universidades portuguesas, a sua criação deveu-se à iniciativa de um grupo de jovens intelectuais goeses, criados sob os auspícios da República, que, sob o signo da ruptura, vinham chamar a si a responsabilidade de intervenção na cidade. A publicação, se buscava atingir (...) o público europeu metropolitano, sensibilizando-o para a magnitude da civilização indiana, visava essencialmente os goeses na Metrópole e em Goa, assumindo o objectivo de recuperar uma identidade goesa formatada na tradição civilizacional indiana e de promover uma actividade cultural e científica centrada em temas e referências indianos. Através desta proposta, associava-se ao movimento político-cultural nacionalista que atingia a “Grande Índia” e, mais globalmente, aos diversos nacionalismos que despontavam por todo o continente asiático nas primeiras décadas do século XX. Finalmente, o grupo de estudantes goeses e os seus colaboradores goeses e metropolitanos, efectuando o percurso da particularidade goesa para a reflexão sobre os destinos da humanidade, integravam, por essa via, a corrente que a Ocidente e Oriente se batia por um novo humanismo, assentando a universalidade na harmonização da diversidade e tornando todos os indivíduos e povos coniventes na construção do futuro da humanidade. (shrink)

India and the Heartlands: An Eighteenth-Century World of Circulation and Exchange. By Gagan D. S. Sood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xvii + 338. $99.99, £64.99.

जागतिकीकरणामुळे आपण सारे भारतीय जगाशी पुन्हा नव्या संदर्भात जोडले गेलो आहोत. हा संबंध निखळ आर्थिक स्वरूपाचा असला तरी त्यास सांस्कृतिकदृष्ट्या सुद्धा महत्त्व आहे. भाषा हे संस्कृतीचे महत्वाचे अंग आहे. त्यामुळे जगाशी होणारा संवाद महत्वाचा ठरतो. या भूमिकेतून ‘भारताची ज्ञानभाषा कोणती?’ हा प्रश्न नव्याने उपस्थित करणे उचित ठरते. कारण हा प्रश्न अद्यापिही अनिर्णीत आहे. त्याचे नव्याने आकलन कसे होऊ शकेल, याचा वेध घेण्याचा एक प्रयत्न येथे केला आहे.

A brief account of karma and transmigration is followed by an introduction to Indian ways of assessing arguments. The body of the work canvasses the systems of Nyaya Vaisesika, Buddhism, Jainism, Samkhya and Advaita Vedanta.

This paper serves three specific goals. First, it reports the development of an Indian Asian face set, to serve as a free resource for psychological research. Second, it examines whether the use of pre-tested U.S.-specific norms for stimulus selection or weighting may introduce experimental confounds in studies involving non-U.S. face stimuli and/or non-U.S. participants. Specifically, it examines whether subjective impressions of the face stimuli are culturally dependent, and the extent to which these impressions reflect social stereotypes and ingroup favoritism. Third, (...) the paper investigates whether differences in face familiarity impact accuracy in identifying face ethnicity. To this end, face images drawn from volunteers in India as well as a subset of Caucasian face images from the Chicago Face Database were presented to Indian and U.S. participants, and rated on a range of measures, such as perceived attractiveness, warmth, and social status. Results show significant differences in the overall valence of ratings of ingroup and outgroup faces. In addition, the impression ratings show minor differentiation along two basic stereotype dimensions, competence and trustworthiness, but not warmth. We also find participants to show significantly greater accuracy in correctly identifying the ethnicity of ingroup faces, relative to outgroup faces. This effect is found to be mediated by ingroup-outgroup differences in perceived group typicality of the target faces. Implications for research on intergroup relations in a cross-cultural context are discussed. (shrink)

Originally published in 1962. This book discusses and interprets the main themes of Buddhist thought in India and is divided into three parts: Archaic Buddhism: Tacit assumptions, the problem of "original Buddhism", the three marks and the perverted views, the five cardinal virtues, the cultivation of the social emotions, Dharma and dharmas, Skandhas, sense-fields and elements. The Sthaviras: the eighteen schools, doctrinal disputes, the unconditioned and the process of salvation, some Abhidharma problems. The Mahayana: doctrines common to all Mahayanists, (...) the Madhyamikas, the Yogacarins, Buddhist logic, the Tantras. (shrink)

India in Early Greek Literature. Klaus Karttunen. Studia Orientalia 65, Helsinki 1989. vi, 295 pp. FIM 150. ISBN 951-9380-10-8. India and the Hellenistic World. Klaus Karttunen. Studia Orientalia 83, Helsinki 1997. x, 439 pp. FIM 200. ISBN 951-9380-35-3.

This article featuring India constitutes one of five articles in a collection of essays on local capacity-building in research ethics by graduates from the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics MHSc in Bioethics, International Stream program funded by the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. Research ethics is a growing area of work and interest in India. Ethics review remains the weakest component in the mechanism of good clinical practice, and there is a (...) severe dearth of professionals trained in ethics who can provide leadership. Although the Indian Good Clinical Practice Guidelines, the Indian Medical Council Act, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act require that the Indian Council of Medical Research’s ethical guidelines be followed as a mandatory requirement for physicians who conduct research, there is a pervasive lack of awareness of basic requirements guiding the ethical conduct of research. There is a great need to strengthen India’s research ethics capacity and regulatory framework for research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 67.4 (2006) 713-734 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]India and the Identity of Europe: The Case of Friedrich Schlegel 1Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi University of HeidelbergAbstractThis paper examines Friedrich Schlegel's conception of an Oriental Renaissance through the study of ancient India. In his book Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier Schlegel compared his project of Sanskrit studies to the Humanistic Renaissance, but in (...) practice hoped the study of India would reverse the modernizing effects of the original Renaissance. His study of India was aimed at a redefinition of European and German cultural and national identities rather than broadening the horizons of Europe to a global perspective."If only Indian studies could find such cultivators and patrons as in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries suddenly kindled in Italy and Germany an ardent appreciation of Greek studies, and in so short a time achieved so much that the reawakened knowledge of antiquity changed and rejuvenated wisdom and science, indeed one could even say the world itself. Not less grand and universal, I dare to assert, would be the effect of Indian studies even now, if it were seized with similar force and introduced into the circle of European learning." 2 [End Page 713]These enthusiastic words were used by Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) to recommend the study of Indian literature to the readers of his 1808 Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier. 3 In this book, Schlegel offered the fruits of his studies of Sanskrit and Indian literature, which began in Paris in 1803. Here he introduced to the educated public of Continental Europe the theory about the affinity of Sanskrit to Greek, Latin and German, twenty-two years after this theory, which is now called "the Indo-European relationship," was presented by Sir William Jones to the members of the Asiatick Society in Calcutta. The presentation of this linguistic relationship, together with a call to study languages by a historical-comparative method, comprised the first part of the book. The second part dealt with Indian philosophy, which according to Schlegel, belonged to the tradition of all Oriental philosophy. The third part suggested how the study of Indian literature might benefit the study of history in general. Central to this view was the speculation that Indian civilization had emigrated to Europe, supported by the linguistic affinity between Sanskrit and European languages.The recommendation in the quotation above was well received. The publication of Schlegel's book excited the intellectual community of continental Europe, and, by 1809, large parts of the book had appeared in French translation. 4 The most important outcome of this excitement was the arrival of Franz Bopp and August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich's elder brother, in Paris to study Sanskrit. The excitement stirred by Schlegel's book reflected the growing interest in India and the East among European intellectuals. This was a very complex process that was a product of Europe's growing colonial power in Asia but was also a part of the modernization of European thought. Interest in India swelled during the last third of the eighteenth century, as the British were becoming the dominant power in the subcontinent and began collecting, analyzing, and distributing information on Indian civilization, mainly through the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, which was established by William Jones in 1783 under the patronage of the Governor-General Warren Hastings. 5 [End Page 714]What interested European intellectuals most about the ancient cultures of India and other oriental countries, was what they could learn about the ancient religions of these countries. The region from Egypt to India was thought to be the "cradle of humanity," with various thinkers believing the "Urheimat" to be in another center of oriental civilization, be it Egypt, Mesopotamia or Persia. India became popular with the publication of John Holwell's Interesting Historical Events Relating to Bengal in 1765, 6 which was the main source for Voltaire's ideas on India. 7 Statements concerning the nature of Hinduism became important... (shrink)

After the public announcement of the invention of the camera in 1839, photography spread swiftly round the world, and by the early 1850s the medium had become well-established in the Indian subcontinent. In a land characterised by the variety and splendour of its architecture and landscapes, and the diversity of its peoples and customs, India offered the photographic artist an unsurpassed range of subject matter. In addition to the artistic achievements of international masters of photography like Dr John Murray (...) and Samuel Bourne, official encouragement of the medium as a documentary tool came from the East India Company. By the mid-1850s a remarkable visual 'archive' had been created, which charted the architectural heritage and ethnic composition of the subcontinent. This book, which accompanied a major exhibition of 19th century images from India, traces the development of photography from 1850 to 1900, when the ascendency of the large format camera and print began to crumble in the face of the simplified amateur camera. Drawn from the collections of the British Library, and Howard and Jane Ricketts, the book is illustrated with some of the finest photographs produced in India during the latter half of the nineteenth century, many never previously reproduced. (shrink)

This article extends Georg Lukács’s theorization pertaining to historical fiction by considering a novel written in response to colonial conditions. It treats Abdulhalim Sharar’s Urdu Malik al-‘Aziz and Virginia (1888) as a case where a fictional version of the encounter between Muslims and Christians during the crusades in the twelfth century is used to counter the colonial Indian present in the nineteenth century. I suggest that novels such as Sharar’s exemplify a vein of global thought since the nineteenth century that (...) resisted historicism but without abandoning the notion that the past was real. Deploying a genre that came to the fore in colonial conditions, Sharar imagines an alternative future by narrating the past otherwise via fiction. (shrink)