In recent years, the genetic testing and selection of IVF embryos, known as preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), has gained much traction in clinical assisted reproduction for preventing transmission of genetic defects. However, a more recent ethically and morally controversial development in PGT is its possible use in selecting IVF embryos for optimal intelligence quotient (IQ) and other non–disease-related socially desirable traits, such as tallness, fair complexion, athletic ability, and eye and hair colour, based on polygenic risk scores (PRS), in what (...) is referred to as PGT-P. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning–based analysis of big data sets collated from genome sequencing of specific human ethnic populations can be used to estimate an individual embryo’s likelihood of developing such multifactorial traits by analysing the combination of specific genetic variants within its genome. Superficially, this technique appears compliant with Islamic principles and ethics. Because there is no modification of the human genome, there is no tampering with Allah’s creation (_taghyīr khalq Allah_). Nevertheless, a more critical analysis based on the five maxims of Islamic jurisprudence (_qawa'id fiqhiyyah_) that are often utilized in discourses on Islamic bioethics, namely _qaṣd_ (intention), _yaqın̄_ (certainty), _ḍarar_ (injury), _ḍarūra_ (necessity), and _`urf_ (custom), would instead reveal some major ethical and moral flaws of this new medical technology in the selection of non–disease-related socially desirable traits, and its non-compliance with the spirit and essence of Islamic law (shariah). Muslim scholars, jurists, doctors, and biomedical scientists should debate this further and issue a fatwa on this new medical technology platform. (shrink)

“Reading Anew” was originally presented as a speech at the awards ceremony for the Warburg Prize in Hamburg, 26 October 2021.

One seldom-noted consequence of most recent arguments for “animal rights” or against “speciesism” is their inability to provide a justification for differential treatment on the basis of species membership, even in cases of rare or endangered species. I defend the claim that arguments about the moral status of individual animals inadequately deal with this issue, and go on, with the help of several test cases, to reject three traditional analyses of our alleged obligation to protect endangered species. I conclude (a) (...) that these traditional analyses fail, (b) that there is an important conceptual confusion in any attempt to ascribe value to a species, and (c) that our obligation must ultimately rest on the value---often aesthetic-of individual members of certain species. (shrink)

Selected b the late Reiner Schurmann from the Hannah Arendt Memorial Symposia held at the New School for Social research, the nineteen essays collected in this volume record some of the most significant and intense discussions of political philosophy by prominent contemporary philosophers. The framework is the famous seventeenth-and eighteenth-century debated between those who stood for the ancient and medieval traditions and those who advocated a new beginning under the title of modernity.

In this piece, we articulate the "collaborative autoethnographic practice" we utilized to illustrate the complexities of mothering that involved: (a) individually writing autoethnographic narratives on mothering, (b) sharing these autoethnographic narratives in a public forum, (c) publicly discussing the heuristic commonalities across these autoethnographic narratives, (d) tying those commonalities back to the literature, and (e) revisiting the autoethnographic narratives for aspects of social critique where our autoethnographic narratives (intentionally or unintentionally) hegemonicaly reproduced cultural scripts. We argue that presenting knowledge of (...) mothering in this way, through collaborative autoethnographic practice, creates a myriad of opportunities for growth and self-reflexivity, and our stories illuminate a part of our existence that often remains unexamined in other methodologies. (shrink)

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by formation of neuritic plaque primarily composed of a small filamentous protein called amyloid-beta peptide . The rate-limiting step in the production of Abeta is the processing of Abeta precursor protein by beta-site APP-cleaving enzyme . Hence, BACE1 activity plausibly plays a rate-limiting role in the generation of potentially toxic Abeta within brain and the development of AD, thereby making it an interesting drug target. A phase II trial of the promising LY2886721 inhibitor of BACE1 was (...) suspended in June 2013 by Eli Lilly and Co., due to possible liver toxicity. This outcome was apparently a surprise to the study's team, particularly since BACE1 knockout mice and mice treated with the drug did not show such liver toxicity. Lilly proposed that the problem was not due to LY2886721 anti-BACE1 activity. We offer an alternative hypothesis, whereby anti-BACE1 activity may induce apparent hepatotoxicity through inhibiting BACE1's processing of beta-galactoside alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase I . In knockout mice, paralogues, such as BACE2 or cathepsin D, could partially compensate. Furthermore, the short duration of animal studies and short lifespan of study animals could mask effects that would require several decades to accumulate in humans. Inhibition of hepatic BACE1 activity in middle-aged humans would produce effects not detectable in mice. We present a testable model to explain the off-target effects of LY2886721 and highlight more broadly that so-called off-target drug effects might actually represent off-site effects that are not necessarily off-target. Consideration of this concept in forthcoming drug design, screening, and testing programs may prevent such failures in the future. (shrink)

This chapter talks about the first season of the TV series Veronica Mars. Additionally, the chapter explores the significance of Veronica Mars's photography. Veronica has found her life irrevocably altered in multiple ways. Her best friend, Lilly Kane, was murdered, her father, Keith Mars, lost his job as sheriff as the result of an apparently bungled investigation into Lilly's death, and Veronica lost her social status and former friends. Subsequently her mother, Lianne Mars, left home, apparently unable to (...) deal with the stress of it all. In addition to all this misfortune, Veronica, had attended a party at which she was drugged and then raped. She states in a voiceover, that she is a marshmallow, ironically though. But at the end of the season she has broken through to a new self‐understanding, which is illustrated in the final scene. (shrink)

Introduction Financial conflicts of interest (fCOI) present well documented risks to the integrity of biomedical research. However, few studies differentiate among fCOI types in their analyses, and those that do tend to use preexisting taxonomies for fCOI identification. Research on fCOI would benefit from an empirically-derived taxonomy of self-reported fCOI and data on fCOI type and payor prevalence.Methods We conducted a content analysis of 6,165 individual self-reported relationships from COI statements distributed across 378 articles indexed with PubMed. Two coders used (...) an iterative coding process to identify and classify individual fCOI types and payors. Inter-rater reliability was κ = 0.935 for fCOI type and κ = 0.884 for payor identification.Results Our analysis identified 21 fCOI types, 9 of which occurred at prevalences greater than 1%. These included research funding (24.8%), speaking fees (20.8%), consulting fees (18.8%), advisory relationships (11%), industry employment (7.6%), unspecified fees (4.8%), travel fees (3.2%), stock holdings (3.1%), and patent ownership (1%). Reported fCOI were held with 1,077 unique payors, 22 of which were present in more than 1% of financial relationships. The ten most common payors included Pfizer (4%), Novartis (3.9%), MSD (3.8%), Bristol Myers Squibb (3.2%), AstraZeneca (3.1%), GSK (3%), Boehringer Ingelheim (2.9%), Roche (2.8%), Eli LIlly (2.5%), and AbbVie (2.4%).Conclusions These results provide novel multi-domain prevalence data on self-reported fCOI and payors in biomedical research. As such, they have the potential to catalyze future research that can assess the differential effects of various types of fCOI. Specifically, the data suggest that comparative analyses of the effects of different fCOI types are needed and that special attention should be paid to the diversity of payor types for research relationships. (shrink)

This article analyzes the position of Ibn Hilāl, who is regarded as nāsıbī and ghālī, in the science of Shia rijāl, his reports and the validity of the accusations against him. It is found that narrators are criticized for various reasons in the science of Shiʻa rijāl. Some of them are the Shiite followers that the imams cursed and wanted to be kept away from their adherence. It is seen that the narrations reported by some of the narrators are included (...) in the main sources of Shiite hadith, albeit these narrators were cursed by the innocent imams. Ahmed Ibn Hilāl (d. 267/880) is one of these narrators cursed by the imams and his name is found in the report (the isnād) of many early narrations. Ibn Hilāl, one of the close companions of Shia's 10th imam Ali b. Muḥammed al-Hādī (d. 254/868) and 11th imam Ḥasan al-ʻAskarī (d. 260/874), was first cursed by the letter of al-Askarī allegedly sent, and the Shiite followers were ordered to move away from him. Ibn Hilāl refused to accept the ambassadoriality of Muḥammed b. Osman (d. 305/918), the ambassador of the 12th Imam. Thus, he was cursed by Muḥammad al-Mahdī as well. In later periods, Ibn Hilāl was accused of being nāsıbī and ghālī. However, there are also some Shiite scholars who supported (tavthîk) Ibn Hilāl. In the Shi'a tradition, Nāsibism indicated the meaning of hating ʻAli and Ahl al-bayt or feeling anger towards them. Later on, this meaning has been changed into a meaning including the haters of ʻAli and then the Shiʻa Nāsibism is regarded as a position towards Shiʻa outside of Shiʻa. Ghulāt is a form of a belief generally found in the Shi'a tradition. In the belief of Ghulāt, holiness is attributed to the imams. When the Shiite sources are examined, it can be seeb that Ibn Hilāl represents neither a ghālī nor a nāsıbī position. In the Shiʻa, when the narrator leaves his sect, his narrations are evaluated differently. Therefore, among Ibn Hilāl's narrations only those which narrated before he left can be accepted. The likely reason for this attitude can be those narrators such as Ibn Hilāl brought in many narrations to the Shiite hadith literature. Ibn Bābeveyh and Sheikh Sadūk reported many narrations that includes Ibn Hilāl in their report chain (the isnad). Among these narrations, they criticized only one. Again, in the 4th century of Hijrī, Numānī, al-Hazzāz, Ibn Qavlaveyh and Mufīd reported many narrations transmitted by Ibn Hilāl. However, none of them mentioned about the negative perception on Ibn Hilāl in any of these narrations. This shows that Ibn Hilāl was not regarded as nāsıbī or ghālī in the eyes of the these scholars. As regards to, Tūsī, in the 5th century after Hijra, claimed that Ibn Hilāl was a ghālī and he was accused of being an adherent to this religion. He narrated in sum fifty narrations that included Ibn Hilāl in the report chain, but Tūsī criticized only three of them because of including Ibn Hilāl. The reason why Ibn Hilāl was accused of being nāsıbī and ghālī, which Shiʻa deemed the worst, was probably related to the political conditions of that period. On the other hand, there is no report that Ibn Hilāl shared a nāsıbī and ghālī thought or had a tendency towards them. It is obvious that if Ibn Hilâl, who has an important place in the eyes of the Shiite community, does not accept the second ambassador of al-Mahdī, and that this would cause discord among the followers. This complex situation was tried to be remedied by letters alleged to have been written by the imams, cursing Ibn Hilâl and ordering them to stay away from him. Later, Ibn Hilāl was accused of being a nāsıbî or ghālī who expressed the attitudes and thoughts that Shiʻa saw the most distant from him. Sadūk first reported the narration that Ibn Hilāl was Nāsıbî. Tūsī, on the other hand, described Ibn Hilāl as ghālī in the 5th century (after hijra). This study tries to reveal that there is no explicit evidence that proves Ibn Hilāl’s nāsıbī or ghālī position. (shrink)

Reflections on moral discourse and its contexts are provided and the authors discuss the nature and tasks of moral philosophy. The collection creates a dialogue between different philosophical views.

Descartes's concept of the mind, as distinct from the body with which it forms a union, set the agenda for much of Western philosophy's subsequent reflection on human nature and thought. This is the first book to give an analysis of Descartes's pivotal concept that deals with all the functions of the mind, cognitive as well as volitional, theoretical as well as practical and moral. Focusing on Descartes's view of the mind as intimately united to and intermingled with the body, (...) and exploring its implications for his philosophy of mind and moral psychology, Lilli Alanen argues that the epistemological and methodological consequences of this view have been largely misconstrued in the modern debate. Informed by both the French tradition of Descartes scholarship and recent Anglo-American research, Alanen's book combines historical-contextual analysis with a philosophical problem-oriented approach. It seeks to relate Descartes's views on mind and intentionality both to contemporary debates and to the problems Descartes confronted in their historical context. By drawing out the historical antecedents and the intellectual evolution of Descartes's thinking about the mind, the book shows how his emphasis on the embodiment of the mind has implications far more complex and interesting than the usual dualist account suggests. (shrink)

This is the first book to give an analysis of Descartes's pivotal concept that deals with all the functions of the mind, cognitive as well as volitional, ...

Discussions of the account of judgment offered in the Fourth Meditation tend to focus on its role in Descartes' epistemology and his response to skepticism. The main focus of the Fourth Meditation is the true and the false, and it completes the discussion conducted in the Second and Third Meditation about truth and falsity and the proper use of the truth rule. This chapter summarizes Descartes' view of the nature of judgment before examining more closely the account of the will (...) unfolding in the Fourth Meditation, and the kind of indifference Descartes appeals to in defending his controversial doctrine of free choice. Descartes' problematic account of the will and its freedom is developed in an epistemological and theodical context, the aim being to warrant the truth rule and, perhaps even more importantly, to draw a line between God's and our own responsibility for our cognitive errors. (shrink)

Mentoring Away the Glass Ceiling in Academia: A Cultured Critique describes how women of diverse backgrounds perceive their mentoring experiences or the lack of mentoring experiences in the academy. This book provides a space for envisioning strategies and practices to improve mentoring practices and the collegiate environment.

Today the halls of Technology, Entertainment, and Design and Davos reverberate with optimism that hacking, brainstorming, and crowdsourcing can transform citizenship, development, and education alike. This article examines these claims ethnographically and historically with an eye toward the kinds of social orders such practices produce. This article focuses on a hackathon, one emblematic site of social practice where techniques from information technology production become ways of remaking culture. Hackathons sometimes produce technologies, and they always, however, produce subjects. This article argues (...) that the hackathon rehearses an entrepreneurial citizenship celebrated in transnational cultures that orient toward Silicon Valley for models of social change. Such optimistic, high-velocity practice aligns, in India, with middle-class politics that favor quick and forceful action with socially similar collaborators over the contestations of mass democracy or the slow construction of coalition across difference. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introductory Remarks The Cartesian Background Impressions and Ideas Passions as Reflective Impressions Direct and Indirect Passions Association and the Individuation of Passions Perception and Perceiving Passions and Moral Sentiments Notes References Further reading.

Hume is famous for his criticism of substantial minds, free will, and self-consciousness—central elements in traditional philosophical accounts of persons. His empiricism dissolves self-inspecting minds into heaps of distinct perceptions and turns cognitive faculties into successions of causally related, discrete impressions and ideas. Whatever regularities the complex ideas and their bundles or heaps display are explained by laws of association of ideas, which are supposed to play the same role in the mental world as Newton’s laws of gravitation play in (...) physical nature. This paper explores some strands of the new science of man proposed in Hume’s Treatise, in particular his account of personal identity.. (shrink)

The quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is important for children’s development. One instrument that was developed to assess an aspect of ECEC quality is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System for pre-kindergarten children (CLASS Pre-K). We examined the factorial validity of the instrument using data from 177 German preschool classrooms. The three-factor teaching through interaction model (Hamre et al., 2013) was contrasted to a one-factor, a two-factor, and a bifactor model as proposed by Hamre et al. (2014). Our (...) results indicated that the three-factor structure with the domains of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support fit the data best. The fit of the teaching through interaction model was satisfying after adding a cross-loading of the dimension language modeling on emotional support, and two correlated residuals. Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity are provided. In terms of factor structure and pattern score comparisons, the results were similar to previous U.S. and German studies. The discussion concerns the justifiability of the factor model revisions and draws directions for further research. We concluded that our study offers further evidence of the applicability of the CLASS Pre-K for the assessment of teacher-child interaction quality in the German context. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the status of Descartes' notion of the mind-body union as an object of knowledge in the framework of his new philosophy of nature, and argues that it should be taken seriously as representing a third kind of real thing or reality—that of human nature. Because it does not meet the criteria of distinctness that the two natures composing it—those of thinking minds and extended bodies— meet, the phenomena referred to it, which are objects of psychology as (...) traditionally understood, fall outside the scope of clear and distinct perception required for knowledge. The prospects for rationalist psychology are bleak, since because of the mind-body union so little of the contents of the human mind are accessible to rational inspection or introspection. Mechanistic natural philosophy on the other hand gives us knowledge only of the physiological and corporeal aspects of the phenomena Descartes classifies as mental. What pertains to the mind-body union can only be known through the senses, moreover, we learn to conceive the mind-body union only through daily experience (“usant seulement de la vie et des conversations ordinaries”, AT 3, 695). I discuss the nature of this experience, and the sense in which Cartesian psychology without being part of his philosophy of nature in the strict sense of the term, can still be seen as a naturalist undertaking in a more traditional sense of nature where life, sentience, reasoning and rational action are all seen as natural phenomena. (shrink)

Modern biomedical technologies managed to revolutionise the End-of-Life Care (EoLC) in many aspects. The dying process can now be "engineered" by managing the accompanying physical symptoms or by "prolonging/hastening" death itself. Such interventions questioned and problematised long-established understandings of key moral concepts, such as good life, quality of life, pain, suffering, good death, appropriate death, dying well, etc. This volume examines how multifaceted EoLC moral questions can be addressed from interdisciplinary perspectives within the Islamic tradition. Contributors Amir Abbas Alizamani, Beate (...) Anam, Hamed Arezaei, Asma Asadi, Pieter Coppens, Hans Daiber, Khalid Elzamzamy, Mohammed Ghaly, Hadil Lababidi, Shahaboddin Mahdavi, Aasim Padela, Rafaqat Rashid and Ayman Shabana. (shrink)

This paper explores Spinoza’s therapy of passions and method of salvation through knowledge and love of God. His optimism about this method is perplexing: it is not even clear how his God, who is unlike any traditional notion of divinity, can be loved. Sorting out Spinoza’s view involves distinguishing an ethics of bondage from another of freedom, and two corresponding notions of love of God. The paper argues that the highest kind of love—‘pure intellectual love of God’—should not be understood (...) as an affect at all, but instead as unimpeded intellectual activity. This suggestion requires reconsidering Spinoza’s account of cognition, particularly his use of the Cartesian notions of objective and formal reality which are not only central to his theory of ideas but constitute the foundations of his salvation project. (shrink)

An exciting development in the field of assisted reproductive technologies is In Vitro Gametogenesis (IVG) that enables production of functional gametes from stem cells in the laboratory. Currently, development of this technology is still at an early stage and has demonstrated to work only in rodents. Upon critically examining the ethical dimensions of various possible IVG applications in human fertility treatment from a Sunni Islamic perspective, together with benefit-harm (maslahah-mafsadah) assessment; it is concluded that utilization of IVG, once its efficacy (...) and safety are guaranteed, could be permissible by strictly adhering to Islamic ethical principles related to marriage, biological/genetic relatedness, sexual intercourse, and moral status of the embryo/fetus versus that of the gamete. As a result, IVG will be acceptable for treating primary infertility, age-related infertility, and preventing genetic diseases. However, it will be unacceptable for application in posthumous reproduction, donor gametes, genetic enhancement, and procreation in same-sex couples. (shrink)

This paper examines Descartes's third primary notion and the distinction between different kinds of knowledge based on different and mutually irreducible primary notions. It discusses the application of the notions of clearness and distinctness to the domain of knowledge based on that of mind-body union. It argues that the consequences of the distinctions Descartes is making with regard to our knowledge of the human mind and nature are rather different from those that have been attributed to Descartes due to the (...) influential Rylean picture of Cartesian mind-body dualism. (shrink)

There are two main strands in the afterlife of Descartes’s famous redefinition of mind in terms of thinking likely to color one’s reading of his notion of mind or self. The one stressed most by his posterity and developed from early on in the empiricist tradition sees consciousness as its main characteristic. The other focuses on reason and rationality. This paper discusses the textual support for the first reading promoted by Ryle and his followers and aligns itself with the second (...) arguing that it is the exercise of its rational, cognitive capacities that are essential to the Cartesian mind and not consciousness, which is merely a presupposition for its rational activity. It examines the interrelation and respective roles of awareness on the one hand, and reason on the other in Descartes’s account of mind or self. But it also suggests that the role given by Descartes to the will in judgment and his separation of will and intellect into two distinct powers may be seen as contributing to a transformation of the very notion of reason and of self as a cognitive and moral agent. (shrink)

In many areas, technology has facilitated many things, diagnosing diseases, regulating traffic and teaching students in schools rely on Intelligent systems to name a few. At present, traditional classroom-based education is no longer the most appropriate in schools. From here, the idea of intelligent e-learning for students to increase their culture and keep them updated in life began. E-learning has become an ideal solution, relying on artificial intelligence, which has a footprint in this through the development of systems based on (...) education without a teacher taking into account the individual differences of students. This study describes intelligent tutoring system for teaching the Data Manipulation Language (DML) Commands Using SQLite to non IT students to overcome the difficulties they face. The System was built as education system by using the researcher own authoring tool that based on mobile and web App. The basic idea of this system is a systematic introduction into the concept of Database and its DML query. The system presents the topic of DML Commands, help student to execute what they are learn from the system content using the practical part of the system and administers automatically adapted at run time to the student’s individual growth. The system was assessed by a group of teachers and students and the outcome showed as 91% from the database specialists, 94% from Diploma students group and 89% from the secondary school students group. (shrink)

This paper discusses the interrelations between three aspects of human emotions: their intentionality, their expressivity and their moral significance. It distinguishes three kinds of philosophical views of emotions: the cognitivist (classically held by the Stoics), the emotivist which reduces emotions to non-intentional bodily sensations and physiological states, and the moral phenomenologist, the latter being held by Annette Baier, whose work is the focus of the discussion. Her view, which represents an original development of ideas found in Descartes and Hume, avoids (...) the reductionism of congitivist and emotivist accounts. The paper gives special attention to her notion of 'deep' objects of emotions and to her account of the expressivity of emotions, arguing that while the first is problematic, the second is a significant contribution to our understanding of the role of emotions in our moral lives. (shrink)

Descartes's conception of matter changed the account of physical nature in terms of extension and related quantitative terms. Plants and animals were turned into species of machines, whose natural functions can be explained mechanistically. This article reflects on the consequences of this transformation for the psychology of human soul. In so far the soul is rational it lacks extension, yet it is also united with the body and affected by it, and so it is able to act on extended matter. (...) The article examines Descartes's concept of scientia and his different uses of nature, and argues that there is much more continuity between Aristotelian and Cartesian psychology than is usually recognized when it comes to an explanation of the functions of the embodied human soul. If this makes psychology unfit for inclusion in the new science of nature, its object is still a natural phenomenon and has an important place within scientia as Descartes conceived of it. (shrink)