This paper instigates a discourse on the unplanned effects of intelligent agents in the context of their use on the Internet. By utilizing a social informatics framework as a lens of analysis, the study identifies several unanticipated consequences of using intelligent agents for information- and commerce-based tasks on the Internet. The effects include those that transpire over time at the organizational level, such as e-commerce transformation, operational encumbrance and security overload, as well as those that emerge on a cultural level, (...) such as trust affliction, skills erosion, privacy attrition and social detachment. Furthermore, three types of impacts are identified: economic, policy, and social. The discussion contends that economic impacts occur on the organizational level, social effects transpire on a cultural level, and policy impacts take place on both levels. These effects of the use of intelligent agents have seldom been predicted and discussed by visionaries, researchers, and practitioners in the field. The knowledge of these unplanned outcomes can improve our understanding of the overall impacts that innovative agent technologies may potentially have on organizations and individuals. Subsequently, this may help us develop better agent applications, facilitate the formulation of appropriate contingencies, and provide impetus for future research. (shrink)

This special volume of Public Reason consists of the papers developed out of the delegates` presentations in two subsequent ECPR Summer School on Methods in Normative Political Theory/Philosophy at Keele University organized in 2014 and 2015. They reflect the diversities of the problems and the richness of the discussions concerning the methodologies in contemporary philosophy, as they were discussed deeply in the foregoing events. In other words, they well illustrate the multi-layered and multi-dimensional problems of the contemporary political theory.

With the growing call for private sector actors to address global challenges, it is necessary to first assess whether regions with the greatest needs are accessing corporate philanthropy. In this paper, we ask whether corporate philanthropy is reaching those with the greatest health-care needs. Drawing on economic geography and corporate homophily, we argue that corporate philanthropy tends to exacerbate health inequality as grants are destined for counties with fewer health problems. We test and find support for this hypothesis using data (...) on health grants made by US corporate foundations and county-level health data. Our results that corporate health grants are less likely to go to counties which have a lower proportion of medical service providers and insured citizens suggest that corporate foundations are unwittingly complicit in worsening the resource gap between small, poor, rural counties and large, wealthy, urban counties. From an ethical perspective, we provide some guidance as to how this may be corrected. (shrink)

This article examines the stance held by a Meccan-Indonesian exegete in the 13 AH or 19 AD century, Muḥammad Nawawī al-Bantānī (d. 1230–1314 H/1813–1897 AD), in dealing with Ṣifāt verses in his exegetical work, Marāḥ Labīd li Kashf Ma’nā al-Qur’ān al-Majīd. As an established term, Ṣifāt verses refer to Quranic expressions that ostensibly ascribe anthropomorphic dimensions to God. Interpretation of such ambiguous verses has been bitterly contended since the 2/8th century and remains one of the most debated topics in the (...) pre- and postmodern era. This study applies literature and document analysis focused on many of al-Bantānī’s works. The results show that al-Bantānī actively applied ta’wīl [figurative interpretation] in dealing with Ṣifāt verses without totally discarding amodality position [tafwīḍ].Contribution: Although al-Bantānī never mentioned Wahhabism in any of his works, his interpretation of Ṣifat verses alludes to his indirect response to the Wahhabi’s literalism and anti-ta’wīl approach. In addition, by accepting both of ta’wīl and tafwīḍ solutions, al-Bantānī underpinned the wasaṭī [moderate] stand, which later became the most distinctive tradition in Malay–Islamic discourse. (shrink)

The ongoing coronavirus 2019 pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has resulted in a severe ramification on the global healthcare system, principally because of its easy transmission and the extended period of the virus survival on contaminated surfaces. With the advances in computer-aided diagnosis and artificial intelligence, this paper presents the application of deep learning and adversarial network for the automatic identification of COVID-19 pneumonia in computed tomography scans of the lungs. The complexity and time limitation (...) of the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction swab test makes it disadvantageous to depend solely on as COVID-19’s central diagnostic mechanism. Since CT imaging systems are of low cost and widely available, we demonstrate that the drawback of the RT-PCR can be alleviated with a faster, automated, and reduced contact diagnostic process via the use of a neural network model for the classification of infected and noninfected CT scans. In our proposed model, we explore the benefit of transfer learning as a means of resolving the problem of inadequate dataset and the importance of semisupervised generative adversarial network for the extraction of well-mapped features and generation of image data. Our experimental evaluation indicates that the proposed semisupervised model achieves reliable classification, taking advantage of the reflective loss distance between the real data sample space and the generated data. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kant’s distinction between “civil union” and “ethical community” can be of great value in dealing with a problem that causes considerable trouble in contemporary political and social philosophy, namely the question of the normative significance and role of religion in political and social life. The first part dwells upon the third part of Kant`s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason with the intention of exposing the general features of ethical community. It highlights the fact that (...) Kant considers publicity, and indeed public authority, to be constitutive of the ethical community. The second part discusses his argument that we have a unique ethical duty to enter into an ethical community. This discussion clarifies the constitutive purpose of ethical community and sets forth why Kant thought that the ethical community should have a religious form. The third part presents an account of the constitutive purpose of the state in light of the Doctrine of Right. Throughout these steps, as is concluded, the essentials of a model for the relations between law, ethics, and religion emerge, which shows the way in which both religious and secularist worries can be met on a principled basis. (shrink)

This essay examines two dominant traditions in legal philosophy, the natural law theory and legal positivism, in terms of how they account for the normativity of law. I argue that, although these two traditions generally take the question of the normativity of law seriously and try to account for it, they are not successful in doing so. This failure in the prevailing literature on the philosophy of law, I suggest, nevertheless has an implicit reconstructive impact: the insights into the failure (...) of natural law theory and legal positivism imply an alternative philosophical framework that may provide a positive answer to the question of the normativity of law. (shrink)

The author has found in Sri Aurobindo a unique synthesis of the Eastern Wisdom and Western Rationalism, and a perfect reconciliation of ancient spirituality and modern thought. This work is essentially a collection of essays on Sri Aurobindo's thought and Yoga, based upon his major works. Brief life-sketches of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are included to give a sense of fullness to it. A sampling of the contents exemplifies the wide sweep covered by the essays: The Philosophy of Life (...) Divine, All Life is Yoga, The Ideal of Human Unity, Education, and Future Poetry and 'Savitri'. (shrink)

This paper is a historically based approach to the topic of contemporary political and religious status of Nigeria. Recently, the secular administration by Islamists has generated violence between Muslims and Christians. The latter view Islamism as a gradual Islamisation of the country. Modern Islamists plead for a re-introduction of shari’a and OIC membership. They reject the secular status of Nigeria, the Islamic banking and educational system, etc. The meaning and purpose of these are not different from hijrah, and mahdism of (...) early 20th century. The is- sue is about restoring the ousted Caliphal system, and about rejecting the Western system and secularism, which were introduced by imperialists. The spirit of Islamism is increasing, especially among the grass-roots, elite, and politicians. In these circumstances, the phe- nomenon has to be assessed in an interdisciplinary way. (shrink)

This paper claims that a particular interpretation of Kant`s legal-political philosophy, as it is presented in his Doctrine of Right, provides us with the much needed resolution to the question of the normativity of law, precisely because it brings in a perspective that avoids both positivism and ethicism. This particular interpretation follows a strategy of argumentation that I call the “argument for the intrinsic normativity of law”, i.e., the argument that law is defined and justified on its own grounds, without (...) any need to refer to ethics, or rational/enlightened self-interest. This argument highlights the concept of legal person with the innate right to freedom as the necessary presupposition of legal practices, and sets forth a fundamental sense of justice inherent to the concept of law that consists in the reciprocal recognition of legal personality. In the end, I come up with a distinctive conception of law that I formulate as a last resort of normativity in the face of a conflict wherein an ethical solution does not appeal to all parties. (shrink)

On countering slander, religious hate speech, and blasphemy from Islamic perspectives to build religious harmony in Indonesia.

International Institute of Islamic Thought; Islam; essence, genius, nature; history.

Background Research ethics is intertwined with and depends on building robust and responsive research governance systems alongside researchers. Globally there has been substantial investment in agriculture, nutrition, and health (ANH) research motivated by the need to improve health outcomes, such as micronutrient deficiencies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although there has been a notable focus on ethical issues inherent in ANH studies, there has been scanty research examining researchers’ attitudes related to ANH research. This study was conducted to explore the perspectives of (...) researchers who conducted an agronomic biofortification study in Malawi. Methodology In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of ten ANH researchers. Interviews were conducted online via Zoom, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analysed using the Leadership, Ethics, Governance and Systems Framework. Results Four core aspects emerged: Leadership: The relevance of building ethics leadership and ethical competence among researchers. Ethics: There is a need to develop a framework that operationalises core ethical values that can guide the implementation of ANH research. Governance: Research guidelines were perceived to be too generic to guide ANH research. Systems: Researchers’ recommended the establishment of a specialised ANH research ethics committee. Conclusions The findings highlight the significance of building ethics leadership and supporting ethical competency amongst researchers. Researchers recommended the development of tailored approaches rather than utilising generic governance systems and frameworks that are drawn from medical research and thus not fit for purpose in this field. In Malawi, specialised ethics review committees are needed to guide ANH research. (shrink)

Human rights are conceived moral response of humanity to the experiences of gross violations of human rights. Yet, almost in every case we come across with such violations, we also witness a common and disturbing tendency to overshadow the arguments from human rights. Hence, human rights are not able to fulfill the very function we expect of them in the most pertinent cases. In our view, this is because of the mindset of the “political” that competes with the mindset of (...) human rights for guiding human practices. This paper evaluates these two mindsets so as to show how spoiling impacts the mindset of the “political” has against the standpoint of human rights. We will then conclude that, if we are to hold out on the triumph of “the political” over human rights in the very cases, whereby we need appealing to human rights at most, we should renounce the main vestige of “the political” within international and national legal-normative frameworks. This vestige is principally the idea of “sovereignty”, which is the arch and peak concept of the mainstream political imaginary. (shrink)

It is a mark of our age that the long-standing relations between politics and religion founded long ago along the axis of liberal-democratic principles have turned out to appear problematical. Recently raised religious demands and movements put on the agenda a common question: to what extent are such demands and movements compatible with the principle of the peaceful co-existence of diverse cultural forms, which is the essential reference point of any democratic imagination? It a cliché that fundamentalism understood as the (...) opposite of temperateness in holding and practically following up religious convictions constitutes the limit for tolerating religious demands and movements within liberal-democratic regimes. Such a quantitative distinction between fundamentalism and “moderate” forms of religiosity paradoxically work out for the increase of tension between religiosity and democratic political life, because it implies that non-fundamentalist forms of religiosities are indeed “diluted” forms, while fundamentalist forms represent genuine and uncompromising loyalty to the religious creed. This paper investigates the possibility of making a qualitative distinction between fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist forms of religiosity by employing the categorical duality between zealotry and piety, which can then serve as the criterion for the acceptability of religious demands and movements within democratic political spheres. (shrink)