Introduction. In the history of philosophy we find a lot of philosophical practices that can be implemented in the university environment for students and outside the university for a wide audience. The Philosophical Walk is one of such practices. During a walk philosophy can become truly humane, turn to a person, his world, and everyday life. The purpose of the study is to comprehend the potential of a philosophical walk as a way of philosophical practice, a format of a modern (...) person’s self-knowledge and the implementation of self-care, available to a wide range of people without special philosophical education.Methods The research is based on the comparative historical method, the method of interpreting the texts of philosophical primary sources and the systematic approach. The study presents and analyzes an experiment in the context of which residents of a large city go on a philosophical walk in order to take care of themselves. Scientific novelty of the research. In theoretical terms, philosophical walk is conceptualized. In practical terms, the analysis of the effectiveness of a philosophical walk as a way of a large city resident’s self-care is carried out. Results. A philosophical walk is a form of group philosophical practice, in the context of which the participants become guided (literally and figuratively,) by the facilitator. In the summer of 2020, the authors of the article organized a series of walks, each of which was attended by 8 to 12 people who had not have direct contact with philosophy in their everyday life, in the educational and professional spheres. In September 2020, the participants of the walks were offered a questionnaire consisting of closed and open questions. According to the respondents’ answers, a general picture of the effectiveness of a philosophical walk as a form of self-care for a modern metropolis resident was drawn. Conclusions. We understand the philosophical walk as a kind of “place”, a space of calm and harmony for a person of the XXI century. A resident of a big city lives in constant noise. The events of 2020 have increased the noise and accompanying stress. A philosophical walk, in turn, within the boundaries of the same city creates an atmosphere for a person to meet with himself. With the help of an external plan (forest environment, clean air, sounds of nature) and a philosophical plan (concentration over the text, dialogue with a philosopher and a group), the meeting participant can formulate the life-meaning questions that concern him and start looking for answers. (shrink)

Recent arguments claim that behavioral science has focused – to its detriment – on the individual over the system when construing behavioral interventions. In this commentary, we argue that tackling economic inequality using both framings in tandem is invaluable. By studying individuals who have overcome inequality, “positive deviants,” and the system limitations they navigate, we offer potentially greater policy solutions.

The article aims to concretize the phenomenological account concerning the problem of an auditory image. The author considers auditory imagery as a scientific object and compares different treatments of the problem to fix the potential and advantages of its phenomenological interpretation. In the first stage of the study, the author distinguishes the key characteristics of the image by means the lexical analysis. This is the perceptual (predominantly visual) nature of an image, integrality, and essentiality (image as an idea). In the (...) second stage, the understandings of the mental and auditory imagery in physiology, experimental psychology, music psychology, musicology, and interdisciplinary studies are described. In the third stage, the peculiar phenomenological ways of the comprehension of an auditory image are revealed. The phenomenological interest is to pick out consciousness which perceiving of an image equally from the process of perceiving and from entailing in an image. The specific phenomenological stance is placing an auditory image on the bound of transcendent (the process of perceiving) and immanent (an image that is already perceived). The auditory image is conceived as the unity of Modi of its givenness. Most fecks of this Modi are original, they cannot be transferred into other science scopes: they are the interconnection of all moments of the temporal unfolding, self-organization in the time, self-referentiality, non-semanticity, periodicity/randomness, eventuality, quasi-embodiment (physicality). Solely phenomenological problems are problems of the constitution of an auditory image, its life-horizon, intersubjectivity, and regional matching. The author infers that phenomenology does not conceive auditory image as sustained auditory representation, associated with acoustic memory. Its perceptual nature does not play a key role here. Moreover, the perceptual-semantic duality of the image is not fixed by the phenomenological description. The phenomenological approach is unique because it researches auditory data exhaustively but does not use semantic and referential analysis of them. The main feature of phenomenological description is the focus on the unity of auditory image: All the elements of auditory data are interpreted in their synthesis as the different levels of the unity of hearing image. Thus, the phenomenological approach as a whole is the most promising for comprehending such a dominant quality of the auditory image as integrality. (shrink)

The evidence on gender discrimination in lending remains controversial. To capture gender biases in banks’ loan allocations, we observe the impact on the applicants of a microfinance institution and exploit the natural experiment of a regulatory change imposing a strict EUR 10,000 loan ceiling on microcredit. Descriptive statistics indicate that the presence of the ceiling is associated both with bank-MFI co-financing and with harsher treatment of female borrowers. To investigate causal links, we develop an econometric approach that addresses the concerns (...) of selection biases, multicollinearity, and endogeneity. Our empirical findings suggest that the change in the MFI’s gender-related attitude was triggered by banks through co-financing. Hence, we speculate that co-financing pushes ceiling-constrained MFIs to import whatever biases in loan granting that the banks are prone to. Overall, this paper stresses that apparently benign regulations such as loan ceilings can significantly harm the women’s empowerment efforts made by MFIs. (shrink)

Contemporary debates on God’s emotionality are divided between two extremes. Impassibilists deny God’s emotionality on the basis of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. Passibilists seem to break with tradition by affirming divine emotionality, often focusing on the idea that God suffers with us. Contemporary philosophy of emotion reflects this divide. Some philosophers argue that emotions are voluntary and intelligent mental events, making them potentially compatible with omniscience and omnipotence. Others claim that emotions are involuntary and basically physiological, rendering them inconsistent (...) with traditional divine attributes. Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility creates a three-way conversation between the debate in theology, contemporary philosophy of emotion, and pre-modern (particularly Augustinian and Thomist) conceptions of human affective experience. It also provides an exploration of the intelligence and value of the emotions of compassion, anger and jealousy. (shrink)

This article presents the development, validation and application of an instrument to measure everyday moral distress in different health care settings. The concept of moral distress has been discussed and developed over 20 years. A few instruments have been developed to measure it, predominantly in nursing. The instrument presented here consists of two factors: level of moral distress, and tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas. It was tested in four medical departments and three pharmacies, where 259 staff members completed a questionnaire. The (...) two factors were found to be reliable. Differences in levels of moral distress were found between pharmacies and clinical departments, and between the youngest and oldest age groups; departmental staff and the youngest group experienced higher levels of moral distress. Departments reported less tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas than pharmacies. The instrument needs to be tested further, but its strengths are the focus on everyday ethical dilemmas and its usefulness in different health care settings. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo analizo la distinción entre asuntos públicos y privados en el modelo democrático deliberativo. En primer lugar, explicito los distintos contextos en que es utilizada la distinción público-privado en la teoría democrática de corte deliberativo. Sostengo que, en cada uno de esos contextos, los términos público y privado adquieren sentidos diferentes y que muchos de ellos resultan discutibles. Luego, identifico y desarrollo lo que considero que son cuestiones problemáticas de la distinción entre asuntos públicos y privados como (...) prerrequisito del debate desde tres perspectivas distintas. En primer lugar, porque considero que tiene costos importantes en términos de igualdad en el debate. En segundo lugar, porque debilita el valor epistémico de la deliberación democrática que el modelo dice honrar. Por último, porque se compromete con una concepción de sujeto individualista con fuertes implicancias normativas. (shrink)

Increased work complexity and financial strain in the health care sector have led to higher demands on staff to handle ethical issues. These demands can elicit stress reactions, that is, moral distress. One way to support professionals in handling ethical dilemmas is education and training in ethics. This article reports on a controlled prospective study evaluating a structured education and training program in ethics concerning its effects on moral distress. The results show that the participants were positive about the training (...) program. Moral distress did not change significantly. This could be interpreted as competence development, with no effects on moral distress. Alternatively, the result could be attributed to shortcomings of the training program, or that it was too short, or it could be due to the evaluation instrument used. Organizational factors such as management involvement are also crucial. There is a need to design and evaluate ethics competence programs concerning their efficacy. (shrink)

The article deals with four original scripts for Munda languages, invented in the 20th century by the native speakers of Munda. These are as follows: Ol Chiki, invented by Raghunath Murmu for Santali language; Sorang Sompeng, invented by Mangei Gomango for Sora; Warang Citi, invented by Lako Bodra for Ho; Bani Hisir, invented by Rohidas Singh for Mundari. The author analyzes the structures of the character sets and makes assumptions regarding the origins of the characters. In some cases, the author (...) proposes alternative versions of the origins of the Warang Citi script, which was widely examined by Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow. Certain characters of Sorang Sompeng might bear resemblance to the Latin script and some Indian scripts, while Bani Hisir seems to have been influenced by Ol Chiki and partly by Warang Citi. (shrink)

It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the “Opacity Thesis,” the claim that we cannot know the ultimate grounds of our actions. Understood in this way, I shall argue, the Opacity Thesis is at odds with Kant's account of practical self-consciousness, according to which I act from the (always potentially conscious) representation of principles of action and that, in particular, in acting from duty I act in consciousness of the moral law's determination of my will. The Opacity Thesis thus (...) threatens to render acting from duty unintelligible. To diffuse the threat, I argue, first, that we need not attribute the Opacity Thesis to Kant. Kant's concern with the ubiquity of moral self-opacity does not imply the strong skeptical conclusion that knowledge of the grounds of one's action is impossible. Second, I show how moral self-opacity in cases of morally bad action emerges from the intrinsic inability of representing oneself, insofar as one is pursuing the indeterminate end of “happiness.” Thus, moral self-opacity does not undermine the will's self-consciousness but is born of it. (shrink)

Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling on the other hand, the subject’s grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the ‘intellectualists’ and ‘affectivists,’ an effect of the determination of the will by the law – whether it be a (...) mere effect or the motivating cause of action – but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant’s general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject’s recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i. e., as a moral agent. Second, respect is a capacity for receptive awareness of particular features of our environment as well as other persons insofar as they benefit and harm us as moral agents. Thereby moral respect affords us awareness in concreto of particular, morally-conditioned ends. In this way moral respect provides the key for a Kantian account of genuinely free practical receptivity. (shrink)

Language mixing is a ubiquitous phenomenon characterizing bilingual speakers. A frequent context where two languages are mixed is the word-internal level, demonstrating how tightly integrated the two grammars are in the mind of a speaker and how they adapt to each other. This raises the question of what the minimal unit of language mixing is, and whether or not this unit differs depending on what the languages are. Some scholars have argued that an uncategorized root serves as a unit, others (...) argue that the unit needs to have been categorized prior to mixing. We will discuss the question of what the relevant unit for language mixing is by studying word-internal mixing in Cypriot Greek-English, English-Norwegian, Greek-English, Greek-German, and Spanish-German varieties that have been reported in the literature based on data from judgment experiments and spoken corpora. By understanding and modeling the units of language mixing across languages, we will gain insight into how languages adapt to each other word-internally, and what some possible outcomes of language contact are in the minds of speakers. (shrink)

Nudging is considered a promising approach for behavioural change. At the same time, nudging has raised ethical concerns, specifically in relation to the impact of nudges on autonomous choice. A complexity is that in this debate authors may appeal to different understandings or dimensions of autonomy. Clarifying the different conceptualisations of autonomy in ethical debates around nudging would help to advance our understanding of the ethics of nudging. A literature review of these considerations was conducted in order to identify and (...) differentiate between the conceptualisations of autonomy. In 33 articles on the ethics of nudging, we identified 280 autonomy considerations, which we labelled with 790 unique autonomy codes and grouped under 61 unique super-codes. Finally, we formulated three general conceptualisations of autonomy. Freedom of choice refers to the availability of options and the environment in which individuals have to make choices. Agency involves an individual's capacity to deliberate and determine what to choose. Self-constitution relates to someone's identity and self-chosen goals. In the debate about the ethics of nudging, authors refer to different senses of autonomy. Clarifying these conceptualisations contributes to a better understanding of how nudges can undermine or, on the other hand, strengthen autonomy. (shrink)

Reseña de "Punto de inflexión: Crisis climática y ecológica” de Pamela Poo.

The paper is an attempt to understand the nature of political religion using Russian Orthodoxy as an example. Political religion is different from the use of religion for political purposes: from "public religions" seeking to be a part of a pluralistic society; from "civic religion" (sacralization of political processes and institutions) and from fundamentalism. Contrary to fundamentalism, political religions aim not at revitalizing the past, but at addressing the most vital issues of modernity. Politicization of Orthodoxy in Russia may seem (...) unlikely due to obvious political passivity of the Russian Orthodox Church and to the fact that people in Russia are rather religiously indifferent and theologically ignorant. But the paper demonstrates that political activity is typical not for the leaders of an institutionalized religion but for a religiously minded intelligentsia. Global experience also shows that politicization is most likely to occur in an area where people have just returned to their semi-forgotten religious beliefs and where the majority of population does not observe the rituals and does not know the fundamentals of religion. Growing number of people who identify themselves as Russian Orthodox, having, at the same time, no sufficient knowledge of this religion provokes the emergence of mediatory ideologies, which are Pan-Slavism (the idea of a union of all Orthodox Slavic nations) and Eurasianism (the idea of a union between the Orthodox and the Islamic world). From the fundamentalist viewpoint both ideologies should be defined as heretic. Pan- Slavism is heretic because it views Orthodoxy as a kind of Slavic tribal religion and strips Orthodoxy from its universalism. Eurasianist vision of Orthodoxy is so broad that any difference between "Orthodoxy" and "non-Orthodoxy" disappears. (shrink)

Limited distribution phenomena related to negation and negative polarity are usually thought of in terms of affectivity where affective is understood as negative or downward entailing. In this paper I propose an analysis of affective contexts as nonveridical and treat negative polarity as a manifestation of the more general phenomenon of sensitivity to (non)veridicality (which is, I argue, what affective dependencies boil down to). Empirical support for this analysis will be provided by a detailed examination of affective dependencies in Greek, (...) but the distribution of any will also be shown to follow from (non)veridicality. (shrink)

While the impassibility debate has traditionally been construed in terms of whether God suffers, recent philosophy of religion has interpreted it in terms of whether God has emotions more generally. This article surveys the philosophical literature on divine im/passibility over the last 25 years, outlining major arguments for and against the idea that God has emotions. It argues that questions about the nature and value of emotions are at the heart of the im/passibility debate. More specifically, it suggests that presuppositions (...) about the dichotomy between emotions and reason (or the ‘heart and the head’) have negatively impacted the debate. It contends that the debate can only move forward in response to serious reflection on our affects as we experience them, aided by historical and anthropological as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

This paper critically examines our relationship with justice in contemporary western liberal settings, with a particular focus on why our pursuit of justice is intimately entangled with punitive logics. It does so by defining this approach to justice as predominantly pathological, in the sense that it follows a logic that is akin to that displayed in our contemporary sensibilities regarding bodily pain. We deploy the concept of ‘dys-appearance’ used by Drew Leder in the context of his theory of embodiment to (...) discuss how, in western liberal societies, justice is primarily experienced and paid attention to when it appears negatively as a phenomenon; that is, we only become conscious of justice in our lived experiences through the painful and episodic experience of injustice. This phenomenological quality of justice, we argue, is intrinsically linked to how the pursuit of justice in these settings predominantly takes a hostile, punitive aspect. (shrink)

The issue of communicated accountability is particularly important in Faith-Based Charity Organisations as the donated funds and use of those funds are often meant to fulfil religious obligations for the well-being of society. Integrating Stewart’s (1984) ladder of accountability with the Statement of Recommended Practice guidance for charities, this paper examines communicated accountability practices of Muslim and Christian Charity Organisations in England and Wales. Our content analysis results indicate communicated accountability to be generally limited, focusing on providing basic descriptive information (...) rather than judgement-based information. Our interviews with trustees and preparers of Trustee Annual Reports in Muslim Charity Organisations identified the reasons being due to high donor trust and consequently weak demand by stakeholders for the latter type of information, as well as internal organisational issues related to the organisational structure and culture, lack of internal professional expertise and high accountability cost. (shrink)

On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online and in (...) the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity of uncertainty, scientific attention has focused primarily on probabilistic approaches, which predominantly rely on the assumption that uncertainty can be measured and expressed numerically. At the same time, the increasing amount of research from a range of areas including psychology, economics, and sociology testify that in the real world, people’s understanding of risky and uncertain situations cannot be satisfactorily explained in probabilistic and decision-theoretical terms. In this article, we offer a theoretical overview of an alternative approach to (...) uncertainty developed in the framework of the ecological rationality research program. We first trace the origins of the ecological approach to uncertainty in Simon’s bounded rationality and Brunswik’s lens model framework and then proceed by outlining a theoretical view of uncertainty that ensues from the ecological rationality approach. We argue that the ecological concept of uncertainty relies on a systemic view of uncertainty that features it as a property of the organism–environment system. We also show how simple heuristics can deal with unmeasurable uncertainty and in what cases ignoring probabilities emerges as a proper response to uncertainty. (shrink)

Even a morally good practical agent does not act solely from the recog- nition of the abstract demands of moral duty. Often, she acts to satisfy desires for particular ends that are not intrinsically moral. But if freedom, as Kant claims, consists in acting from universal principles one adopts from respect for the moral law, how can agents freely act to satisfy desires for particular ends? The standard answer to this question, the so-called Incorporation Thesis, is, I argue, unsatisfactory both (...) as an interpretation of Kant and on philosophical grounds. I propose instead that, for Kant, the capacity to act freely for the sake of a particular, non-intrinsically moral end is not exhausted by the ability to step back, reflect and decide whether a desire is or can provide a reason to act. Rather, Kant shows, the place for the pursuit of particular ends is determined by practically rational agents’ spontaneous constitution of their moral character, whereby they subordi- nate the pursuit of material, particular ends to the pursuit of formal, moral ones or vice versa. (shrink)

The book investigates childbearing ambivalence and the philosophical resources available to overcome it by analyzing the nuances of the contemporary anxiety about having children while focusing on the moral and intellectual shifts that have occurred in how we think of the value and goodness of human life. Peeling back the layers of resistance, What Are Children For? argues that when we make the individual decision whether or not to have children we confront a profound philosophical question, that of the goodness (...) of our form life itself. How can we justify perpetuating human life given the catastrophic harm and suffering of which we are always at once both victims and perpetrators? If we wish to meet this challenge without succumbing to naivete about our predicament, we must, it argues, uncover a capacity to grasp the fundamental goodness of human life—not only theoretically but practically in the actual lives we lead today. (shrink)

This article reveals the philosophical value of the Confucian treatise "Kong-zi jia yu," it examines issues of the theoretical importance for the history of world sinology. In the historicо-philosophical tradition, this text has long been attributed to the Confucian scientist Van Su, however, not so long ago the situation changed significantly. In the modern scientific community, disputes around the authorship and time of writing this treatise continue. The content of "Kong-zi jia yu" is composed of stories from the life of (...) Confucius, his conversations with his closest students, as well as prominent political figures of that time. These conversations are philosophical dialogues, they concern the most important ontological, ethical, aesthetic and epistemological issues, such as: harmonization of the Tianxia on the basis of virtuous management, the philosophical need for ritual practice, cosmological device of the Tianxia, issues traditional for early Confucianism of a pedagogical and educational nature, moral self-improvement. The diverse theme of "Kong-zi jia yu" is a valuable source that reveals the essence of the philosophy of early Confucianism. Individual fragments of "Kong-zi jia yu" coincide with the classic Confucian monuments "Shang shu," "Lun yu," "Xiao jing," etc. Although "Kong-zi jia yu" for a number of reasons, is not considered a classic text of Confucianism, but it carries an enduring philosophical value. The study of "Kong-zi jia yu" seems to the author of this work to be an urgent scientific task, the solution of which can expand the arsenal of world philosophical knowledge, as well as contribute to the dialogue of the philosophical cultures of the East and West. (shrink)

Does, or should, social uprising lead to new legal form? Ukraine’s current situation following the Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014, with continuing violent conflict in Donbas and Crimea, suggests that not only is it unclear how a ‘new’ form is assessed, but existing transitional policies and frameworks are unlikely to be clearly implemented and enforced. An alternative analysis of transformation is necessary to address the conflicting aftermath of uprising within a particular historical and cultural context. The transformation that is happening (...) in Ukraine is a continuum that is intellectual and psychological as much as reforming judicial systems and governance. Thinking transformation differently opens onto narratives, complexity of causes and a plurality of ideas of future, resolutions and justice. Such a shift in thought and analysis, informed by narratives and grounded research, is necessary in order to try to understand the current pursuit of justice in Ukraine. (shrink)

Going beyond ordinary readings of Aquinas and building a foundation for further insights into the works of both theologians, this book draws out the implications of the thought of Eckhart and Aquinas for contemporary issues, including ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, liturgy and prayer, and religious inclusivity. Reading Aquinas and Eckhart in light of each other reveals the profound depth and orthodoxy of both of these scholars and provides a novel approach to many theological and practical religious issues.

Glazed pottery from Nauplion and Argos (AD 12th-13th centuries): preliminary observations The regions of Argos and Nauplion were indissolubly connected in the Byzantine period and afterwards. This study attempts to examine, through the study of the glazed wares, whether the close ties between the two cities during the 12th and 13th centuries are also reflected in the pottery. Many categories of glazed wares (pottery with incised decoration, "Measles Ware", "Zeuxippus Ware", slip-painted ware, Brown and Green painted Ware, Glaze Painted Ware, (...) "Proto-Maiolica", Italian polychrome ware of the RMR type, "Archaic Maiolica") are presented, comparing the evidence of Argos and Akronauplia. These comparisons lead to comments indicating that whereas, during the 12th century, the two sites had contacts with other regions of the Peloponnese and the eastern Mediterranean, due to historical changes during the 13th century there developped the importation of pottery from various regions of Italy. (shrink)

This article discusses the main trends of Georgian philosophy: its basic principles and perspectives, the importance of the Western, especially the European cultural heritage, and the Georgian contribution to the history of ideas in a global perspective. Metaphysical questions of cognition, truth, identity, virtue and value, wisdom and power, as well as issues of ethical, social, political and aesthetic values, phenomenological, philosophical-theological and linguistic research are central to Georgian philosophy and exemplify its continuing relevance vis-à-vis the Western tradition in its (...) broadest sense. Although philosophical ideas in Georgia rarely matured into a well-balanced, selfsufficient system, one may distinguish as original conceptions some ideas of Christian Neo-Platonism and Aletheological Realism. (shrink)

We offer an analysis of future morphemes as epistemic operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings—not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and English will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predictive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between the two is determined compositionally by the lower tense. (...) Our account thus acknowledges a systematic interaction between modality and tense—but the future itself is a pure modal, not a mixed temporal/modal operator. We show that the modal base of the future is nonveridical, i.e. it includes p and ¬p worlds, parallel to epistemic modals such as must, and present arguments that future morphemes are a category that stands in between epistemic modals and predicates of personal taste. We identify, finally, a subclass of epistemic futures which are ratificational, and argue that will is a member of this class. (shrink)

There are many Christian theologies of depression. Depression is spoken of variously as the result of personal or original sin, as a kind of sin, as a sign of demonic possession or as involving demons, as a test of faith, as a sign of holiness, or as an occasion for spiritual transformation. Although it is difficult to draw any absolute distinctions, we might helpfully split them into the following three categories for the sake of discussion:Spiritual illness SI), in which depression (...) and other forms of mental illness are believed to be a kind of SI. This includes the ideas that depression is caused by sin or demons or both);Spiritual health SH), where depression is viewed as an indication of and... (shrink)

Moralising accounts of depression include the idea that depression is a sin or the result of sin, and/or that it is the result of demonic possession which has occurred because of moral or spiritual failure. Increasingly some Christian communities, understandably concerned about the debilitating effects these views have on people with depression, have adopted secular folk psychiatry’s ‘medicalising’ campaign, emphasising that depression is an illness for which, like (so-called) physical illnesses, experients should not be held responsible. This paper argues that (...) both moralising and medicalising models of depression are intellectually and practically (pastorally and therapeutically) problematic, gesturing towards more promising emphases. (shrink)

Philosophy for children is an educational movement that includes diverse goals that are not always clearly articulated by theorists and practitioners. In order to navigate the multitude of aims found in the philosophy for children literature I propose distinguishing between the following categories of goals: aims of education; educational goals of philosophy for children ; goals of a community of philosophical inquiry ; goals of the facilitator; and goals of the children. The definitions of these various types are given along (...) with some examples of how the distinctions between them can be of aid in understanding the approaches, criticisms, and practice of philosophy for children. (shrink)

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, (...) -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike. (shrink)

Background In this qualitative analysis we aimed to explore addiction physicians’ perspectives on safer injection education for people who inject drugs, especially: (1) on possible means of introducing safer injection education in the medical environment, (2) on the compatibility of safer injection education with each physician’s core values and goals, and (3) on possible reasons for the ethical dilemma in safer injection education. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven physicians practicing addiction medicine in France in clinical and harm reduction (...) settings. Results All participants were in favor of educational interventions for people who inject drugs. Nonetheless, these interventions varied from simple advice to injection supervision and they were seen as less acceptable when they concerned the practical and material aspects of injection. Some participants found that physicians practicing in clinical settings, where patients consult mostly to stop their drug use, should not practice safer injection education. On the contrary, other participants claimed that safer injection education was essential in all settings and was not a choice but rather a duty for addiction physicians. The ethical dilemma of such intervention when delivered by medical staff was viewed as a complex phenomenon, related to the representations of intravenous drug use and to societal expectations from physicians. Conclusion Physicians’ views on safer injection education for people who inject drugs reveal an emotionally charged subject related to the structural organization of addiction management in France. Such education is marked by an arduous history of harm reduction policies in France. IRB registration: #00011928. (shrink)

Some ideas expressed in the collective monograph Universality in Morality (2020), edited by Ruben Apressyan, are here critically examined. The book is based on the results of a large-scale study by professional ethical philosophers devoted to the question of the nature of universality in morality and the mechanisms of universalisation of individual maxims and norms from antiquity to modern ethical theories, represented above all by the analytical tradition in philosophy. Of great interest is the analysis of related phenomena in morality, (...) which makes it possible to determine the causes and nature of the transformation of morality in different eras and the accompanying change in the terminological apparatus of absolute ethical universalism, considered to be the starting point in the analysis of key modern concepts of moral universality. The article also suggests possible avenues for continued research in this area which could prompt modifications not only to the history of the concept of universality in morality, but also to our assessment of the contribution of individual authors and entire eras to the progress of human civilisation. This concerns above all the moral theory of contractarianism and the Enlightenment. Focus on their ideas goes a long way to determining the direction of current historical-philosophical research that reconstructs the history of ethical teachings and individual concepts. The importance attached today to a new view of the theory of the social contract, considered not only from socio-political but also from moral positions, forces us to approach in a new way the question concerning the universality of the key philosophical categories developed within this theory throughout its history. Elaborating the ideas set forth in the monograph, the author also stresses the relevance of the problem of justifying the thesis about the moral law as an analogue of the universal law of nature in the modern context. (shrink)

Roma communities across Europe still remain a neglected population group by way of the social and economic disadvantage that largely characterizes their lives. Roma communities continue to experience structural socioeconomic health inequalities on the grounds of their ethnic origin, alarmingly unveiling a pattern of systematic discrimination and ethnic marginalization. Without any doubt, such a highly worrying situation calls for States to incorporate Roma health rights within their law and policy agendas in a manner consistent with right to health requirements. Against (...) this background, this paper seeks to identify an operational human rights framework for States as a driver for better informed policies and implementation as well as for Roma engagement in the deliberations about their life prospects. The paper argues that continuing, concerted, and proactive State engagement is required for effectively addressing the structural obstacles impeding Roma socioeconomic health rights realization and maximizing Roma opportunities for well-being. (shrink)