Depression is one of the most common psychological disorders and many people in the world suffer from this disorder. Every year, thousands of suicides occur because of depression. Whilst anxiety is considered a common phenomenon of our era, it has existed throughout human history. Nevertheless, there have always been signs of religion and religious beliefs in the study of human communities and the history of civilisations. Despite rapid advancements made in solving the physical problems of human beings, the science of (...) medicine has not taken an effective step toward solving humans' psychological issues, although they play a considerable role in the emergence of physical diseases. Religion can affect the mental health of individuals and society through various mechanisms. In general, the role of religion and religious beliefs on the health of the individual and society is very important. A great deal of peace of mind can be achieved based on faith and moral beliefs and practices. People with religious beliefs have an optimistic viewpoint towards life, and their religious beliefs turn a dark life into a bright one even when all hopes are lost in the battle of life. Given the importance of this issue, the present study aimed to evaluate the role of Islamic religious beliefs of Muslim students on depression during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Malaysia. A field study was performed on 3500 Muslim students of Kuala Lumpur in 2021 by simple random sampling method. Data were collected using standardised questionnaires, and data analysis was performed in SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). According to the results, people with a higher level of religious beliefs suffered less from depression, which confirmed the negative and significant relationship between Islamic religious beliefs and depression. According to the results of multiple regression analysis related to the components of the independent variable in SPSS, all components of Islamic beliefs had a significant role in reducing COVID-19-induced depression. Meanwhile, action required (t-value: 2.30; beta: 0.55) and religious activities (t-value: 2.24; beta: 0.54) had the most effect on reducing depression induced by COVID-19 disease. CONTRIBUTION: The findings of this study could be used to treat people's depression during the COVID-19 pandemic by taking their Islamic religious beliefs into account. (shrink)

In this book William G. Lycan offers an epistemology of philosophy itself, a partial method for philosophical inquiry. The epistemology features three ultimate sources of justified philosophical belief. First, common sense, in a carefully restricted sense of the term-the sorts of contingentpropositions Moore defended against idealists and skeptics. Second, the deliverances of well confirmed science. Third and more fundamentally, intuitions about cases in a carefully specified sense of that term. The first half of On Evidence in Philosophy expounds a version (...) of Moore's method and applies it to each of several issues. This version is shown to resist all the standard objections to Moore; most of them do not even apply. It is argued, in Chapters 5 and 6, that philosophical method is far lesspowerful than most have taken it to be. In particular, deductive argument can accomplish very little, and hardly ever is an opposing position refuted except by common sense or by science. The final two chapters defend the evidential status of intuitions and the Goodmanian method of reflectiveequilibrium; it is argued that philosophy always and everywhere depends on them. The method is then set within a more general explanatory-coherentist epistemology, which is shown to resist standard forms of skepticism.In sum, William G. Lycan advocates a picture of philosophy as a very wide explanatory reflective equilibrium incorporating common sense, science, and our firmest intuitions on any topic-and nothing more, not ever. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

More than twenty-five years after the first signs of potential harm, the US remains locked in the grip of an opioid epidemic, with more Americans dying from overdoses than ever before.1 Diversion of prescription opioids plays an important role in opioid-related harms. Much of the scientific and public health focus on diversion has been on end-users, given how commonly non-medical prescription opioid use occurs, as well as the proportion of individuals who report that their source of non-medical opioids was friends (...) or family. However, diversion of opioids, as well as their rampant oversupply, can be discerned higher up the supply chain, including among wholesalers, pharmacies and rogue prescribers whose behavior may trigger well-described “flags” warranting further evaluation and action. (shrink)

Resumen:Junto con Rebeldes académicos de Iván Jaksić (SUNY 1989; UDP 2013) y Una disciplina de la distancia de Cecilia Sánchez (CESOC 1992), este libro ya forma parte del canon bibliográfico selecto y escaso que propone investigaciones de largo aliento sobre la historia de la filosofía en el Chile republicano. No se trata de una reseña de nombres y obras, ni de una historia interna del desarrollo de problemas puros o escuelas. Más bien, su foco, en afinidad con las obras mencionadas, (...) son “las distintas relaciones históricas entre las fuerzas del poder y las razones de la filosofía […] las distintas inscripciones en los también múltiples quiasmos entre saberes y poderes” (14-15), asumiendo, de modo más sustantivo, que “el bloque histórico dominante en Chile rara vez ha logrado establecer un relato coherente de la dominación, justamente porque es poco lo que le importan las razones en nombre de las cuales ejerce la fuerza” (41). (shrink)

The AGI alignment problem has a bimodal distribution of outcomes with most outcomes clustering around the poles of total success and existential, catastrophic failure. Consequently, attempts to solve AGI alignment should, all else equal, prefer false negatives (ignoring research programs that would have been successful) to false positives (pursuing research programs that will unexpectedly fail). Thus, we propose adopting a policy of responding to points of philosophical and practical uncertainty associated with the alignment problem by limiting and choosing necessary assumptions (...) to reduce the risk of false positives. Herein we explore in detail two relevant points of uncertainty that AGI alignment research hinges on---meta-ethical uncertainty and uncertainty about mental phenomena---and show how to reduce false positives in response to them. (shrink)

This treatise on aesthetics begins by showing that the word "art" is used as a name not only for "art proper" but also for certain things which are "art falsely so called." These are craft or skill, magic, and amusement, each of which, by confusion with art proper, generates a false aesthetic theory. In the course of attacking these theories the author criticizes various psychological theories of art, offers a new theory of magic, and reinterprets Plato's so-called "attack on art," (...) showing that it has been entirely misunderstood. Finally, he draws important inferences concerning the position of art in human society. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to show that agency-based accounts of moral status are more plausible than many have previously thought. I do this by developing a novel account of moral status that takes agency, understood as the capacity for intentional action, to be the necessary and sufficient condition for the possession of moral status. This account also suggests that the capacities required for sentience entail the possession of agency, and the capacities required for agency, entail the possession of sentience. (...) Thus on this account sentient beings possess agency and agents possess sentience. If this is correct, it will show that an Agency Account of moral status can offer a plausible defence of the moral status of all sentient beings, something that previous Agency Accounts have not succeeded in doing. What is more, this account could establish that all sentient animals are not just moral status holders per se, but that they are owed pro tanto obligations regarding continued existence and liberty, similar in kind, though not always in strength, to those owed to humans. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the use of neurointerventions to reduce the risk that criminal offenders will reoffend. Commentators have raised several ethical concerns regarding this practice. One prominent concern is that, when imposed without the offender’s valid consent, neurointerventions might infringe offenders’ right to bodily integrity. While it is commonly held that we possess a moral right to bodily integrity, the extent to which this right would protect against such neurointerventions is as-yet unclear. In this paper, we will assess (...) whether, why, and how severely three forms of neurointervention might infringe the right to bodily integrity. We show that the severity of the infringement of the right to bodily integrity differs across different forms of neurointervention. Moreover, we argue that mental and behavioral effects of neurointerventions could in some cases be relevant to determining the severity of infringements of the right to bodily integrity. (shrink)

This full-length study of Plato's dialogue Phaedrus, now in paperback, is written in the belief that such concerted scrutiny of a single dialogue is an important part of the project of understanding Plato so far as possible 'from the inside' - of gaining a feel for the man's philosophy. The focus of this account is on how the resources both of persuasive myth and of formal argument, for all that Plato sets them in strong contrast, nevertheless complement and reinforce each (...) other in his philosophy. Not only is the dialogue in its formal structure a dovetail of myth and argument, but the philosophic life that it praises is also shaped by an acknowledgement of the limitations of argument and the importance of mythical understanding. By means of this correlation of form and content Plato invites his readers, through the very act of reading, to take a first step along the path of the philosophical life. (shrink)

Scholars who have attempted to explain Iris Murdoch’s moral realism have done so in widely divergent ways, some characterizing her as a classical moral realist, others as a pragmatic moral realist, and still others as a “reflexive realist.”See, e.g., respectively, Fergus Kerr, “Back to Plato with Iris Murdoch,” in Immortal Longings: Versions of Transcending Humanity (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1997), 68–88; Sami Pihlstrom, Pragmatic Moral Realism: A Transcendental Defence (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005); and Maria Antonaccio, Picturing the Human: The (...) Moral Thought of Iris Murdoch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). For the purpose of this article, I follow Maria Antonaccio’s characterization of these realisms. See pages 3–4. None of these attempts, however, capture adequately Murdoch’s distinctive position. In an effort to improve upon these accounts, this article argues that a proper characterization of Murdoch’s view must regard her as developing a version of m. (shrink)

A central theme in the scholarly literature on Enlightenment Europe concerns the increased focus on the role of reason in the development of European thought, especially in the development of the new science by the natural philosophers. As a consequence, there is a tendency in both philosophical scholarship and teaching to bind philosophy and science tightly together. While there is certainly much that is correct in this approach, one motivation for pluralizing philosophy’s past is that this story leaves out a (...) great deal that is important in Enlightenment views of reason. We argue, using as an example the work of figures like Margaret Cavendish, that reason was significantly broader in scope—and that developments in science were paralleled by equally important advances in music, art, literature, medicine, philosophy, and other areas. In recognizing the lack of a sharp boundary between these areas, an inclusive canon of Enlightenment philosophy gives us this richer notion of reason. Integrating figures such as Cavendish into the canon helps us to see that the narrow focus on the scientific version of reason within Enlightenment scholarship creates a false distinction between science and the humanities and misses out on the humanistic ends for which we engage in philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII Coda Appendix Acknowledgements.

It has recently been argued that reproductive genetic manipulation technologies like mitochondrial replacement and germline CRISPR modifications cannot be said to save anyone’s life because, counterfactually, no one would suffer more or die sooner absent the intervention. The present article argues that, on the contrary, reproductive genetic manipulations may be life-saving (and, from this, have therapeutic value) under an appropriate population health perspective. As such, popular reports of reproductive genetic manipulations potentially saving lives or preventing disease are not necessarily mistaken, (...) though such terminology still requires further empirical validation. (shrink)

To incorporate medical ethics into clinical practice, it must first be understood and valued by health care professionals. The recognition of this principle led to an expanding and continuing educational effort by the ethics committee of the Vancouver General Hospital. This paper reviews this venture, including some pitfalls and failures, as well as successes. Although we began with consultants, it quickly became apparent that education in medical ethics must reach all health care professionals—and medical students as well. Our greatest successes (...) came in the formative years of a medical career (ie, in medical school and residency training programmes), but other efforts were not wasted, particularly among nurses and other health care professionals.Although this is a personal review of the experience in one institution, the lessons learnt in Vancouver are applicable to the further development of medical ethics in the UK. (shrink)

Disjunctivism about perceptual appearances, as I conceive of it, is a theory which seeks to preserve a na.

The principles of the 3Rs—replacement, refinement, and reduction—strongly shape discussion of methods for performing more humane animal research and the regulation of this contested area of technoscience. This special issue looks back to the origins of the 3Rs principles through five papers that explore how it is enacted and challenged in practice and that develop critical considerations about its future. Three themes connect the papers in this special issue. These are the multiplicity of roles enacted by those who use and (...) care for animals in research, the distribution of “feelings that matter” across species and spaces of laboratory animal practice, and the growing importance of “cultures of care” in animal research. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Jonathan Schaffer presents a novel framework for understanding grounding. Metaphysical laws play a central role. In addition, Schaffer argues that, contrary to what many have thought, there is no special 'explanatory gap' between consciousness and the physical world. Instead, explanatory gaps are everywhere. I draw out and criticize the methodology for metaphysics implicit in Schaffer's presentation. In addition, I argue that even if we accept Schaffer's picture, there remains a residual explanatory gap between consciousness (...) and the physical. The residual gap does most of the same philosophical work as the original. Schaffer has introduced a troublesome metaphysical methodology that fails to follow through on its biggest promise: to deflate the explanatory gap. (shrink)

In the Freedom essay, Schelling charges that (1) idealism fails to grasp human freedom’s distinctiveness and that (2) this failure undermines idealism's attempt to refute pantheism, as exemplified by Spinoza. This raises two questions, which I will answer in turn: what, for Schelling, is distinctive of human freedom; and how does the idealists’ failure to grasp it render them unable to refute pantheism? To answer these questions, I will reconstruct Schelling’s argument that freedom has the distinctness of being the unconditioned (...) condition of the world’s intelligibility. My reconstruction will illustrate how Schelling’s notion of freedom as primal will grounds the alleged primacy of practical reason as Kant and Fichte conceive it. I will then consider three objections to Schelling’s argument. Throughout, I will develop the Schellingian idea that freedom is enacted in an unprethinkable decision that cannot be anticipated by any law or principle. (shrink)

G. E. R. Lloyd explores the amazing diversity of views that humans have held on being, humanity, and understanding. In a cross-cultural study that ranges from ancient to modern times, he asks how far we are bound by the conceptual systems to which we belong, and explores topics such as ontology, morality, philosophy of language, and communication.

This article explores children’s narrative identity formation and the impact of adult–child relationships on shaping a child’s narrative. The formation of identity in all children is vulnerable to a culture of ‘adultism’, wherein the authority wielded by adults can potentially subject children to abuse and neglect. Consequently, adultism has the aptitude to hinder the constructive development of a life-affirming identity in children. The primary objective of this article is to develop a childist narrative theology of praxis methodology, aimed at raising (...) consciousness and educating adults on both life-denying and life-giving ways of engaging in the process of children’s narrative identity formation.To achieve this goal, the methodology is developed by adapting Denise Ackermann’s ‘feminist theology of praxis’ to focus specifically on children. The application of feminist theory principles is deemed relevant to the social standing of children as it aligns with the broader goal of liberating oppressed groups, whether women or children. Additionally, John Wall’s work is employed to elucidate the terms ‘childist’ and ‘childism’ as interpretive frameworks. Positioned within the scientific domain of Practical Theology, this study seeks to transform conditions that impede human flourishing into opportunities for positive change.The research objectives determine that a literature review will be suitable to gather essential information for the formulation of a childist narrative theology of praxis. This review, characterised as explorative and descriptive, is conducted within the field of Practical Theology.Contribution: The significance of this study is underscored by its exploration and description of the pastoral functions of consciousness, awareness-raising, and education concerning adult–child relations. By scrutinising these pastoral functions, the emphasis is placed on the proactive, preventive, and universal aspects of pastoral care in the context of children, thereby contributing valuable insights to the discourse. (shrink)

This study presents an empirical investigation of the ethical perceptions of the future managers - Turkish university students majoring in the Business Administration and Industrial Engineering departments of selected public and private Turkish universities - with a special emphasis on gender. The perceptions of the university students pertaining to the business world, the behaviors of employees, and the factors leading to unethical behavior are analyzed. The statistically significant differences reveal that female students have more ethical perceptions about the Turkish business (...) climate, behavior of employees, and the ethicalness of the behavior of the employees in comparison with their male counterparts. (shrink)

When seeing a jaguar, we can see all the spots on its mantle without seeing a determinate number, N, of spots on the mantle. How is this visual phenomenon possible? Philosophers have tried to provide a reliable answer to this question, by recruiting evidence from vision science about the way attention works. Here we push this idea forward, by suggesting that an alternative and less complex solution, with respect to the one proposed in the literature, is possible. In particular, we (...) argue that the puzzling visual phenomenon of 'seeing entities without seeing N-entities' strictly depends on the specific number of entities we are simultaneously attending to: a problematic scenario concerning this visual process arises only when the number of entities in the visual field exceeds a specific quantity. This depends, as we argue, on the fact that the nature of our visual content is modulated, in this perceptual scenario, by the limited way we can exercise visual attention on the properties of the objects of our perception. Differently from other accounts, our proposal allows us to properly define when and why such a problem arises, and explains why such a situation has traditionally been found to be so puzzling. Our idea is also well motivated by experimental results that so far have not been taken into account in the debate. (shrink)