Statutory requirements for compulsory Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in the UK is generating concern among many religious communities and reigniting debates about the purpose of School Based Sexuality Education (SBSE). Among the communities voicing their dissent are members of the British Islamic community. Quranic scripture deems obligatory the teaching and learning about all aspects relevant to human sexuality, however, religion, and in particular Islam, is widely viewed as hostile to sexuality education. Whilst Muslim objection to ‘progressive’ agendas in SBSE (...) (i.e., same-sex relations, gender fluidity, pleasure and desire) is generating much attention, equal attention to understanding the Islamic theological, philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of these views, is less frequently sought. The purpose of this paper is to foreground Islamic responses to some of the ‘progressive’ topics featuring in RSE and SBSE more broadly. Using British printed media sources and Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper aims to make sense of British Muslim parents’ objections to ‘progressive’ sexuality education. A more concerted focus on Islamic underpinnings of these views is imperative to alleviate negative responses to Muslim positions on this subject as well as inform the ongoing dilemma of finding ways in which religious diversity be addressed in SBSE. (shrink)

The literature has suggested that to understand the diffusion of unethical conduct in the workplace, it is important to investigate the underlying processes sustaining engagement in misbehaviour and to study what occurs during vocational education. Drawing on social-cognitive theory, in this study, we longitudinally examined the role of two opposite dimensions of the self-regulatory moral system, regulatory self-efficacy and moral disengagement, in influencing academic cheating behaviour. In addition, in line with the theories highlighting the bidirectional relationship between cognitive processes and (...) behaviour, we aimed to also examine the reciprocal influence of behaviour on these dimensions over time. Overall, no previous studies have examined the longitudinal interplay between these variables. The sample included 866 nursing students who were assessed three times annually from the beginning of their vocational education. The findings from a cross-lagged model confirmed that regulatory self-efficacy and moral disengagement have opposite influences on cheating behaviour, that regulatory self-efficacy negatively influences not only the engagement in misconduct but also the justification mechanisms that allow the divorce between moral standards and action, and that moral disengagement and cheating behaviour reciprocally support each other over time. Specifically, not only did moral disengagement influence cheating behaviour even when controlling for its prior levels, but also cheating behaviour affected moral disengagement one year later, controlling for its prior levels. These findings suggest that recourse to wrongdoing could gradually lead to further normalising this kind of behaviour and morally desensitising individuals to misconduct. (shrink)

Several scholars have highlighted the importance of examining moral disengagement in understanding aggression and deviant conduct across different contexts. The present study investigates the role of MD as a specific social-cognitive construct that, in the organizational context, may intervene in the process leading from stressors to counterproductive work behavior. Assuming the theoretical framework of the stressor-emotion model of CWB, we hypothesized that MD mediates, at least partially, the relation between negative emotions in reaction to perceived stressors and CWB by promoting (...) or justifying aggressive responses to frustrating situations or events. In a sample of 1,147 Italian workers, we tested a structural equations model. The results support our hypothesis: the more workers experienced negative emotions in response to stressors, the more they morally disengaged and, in turn, enacted CWB. (shrink)

Background:Ethics is a founding component of the nursing profession; however, nurses sometimes find it difficult to constantly adhere to the required ethical standards. There is limited knowledge about the factors that cause a committed nurse to violate standards; moral disengagement, originally developed by Bandura, is an essential variable to consider.Research objectives:This study aimed at developing and validating a nursing moral disengagement scale and investigated how moral disengagement is associated with counterproductive and citizenship behaviour at work.Research design:The research comprised a qualitative (...) study and a quantitative study, combining a cross-validation approach and a structural equation model.Participants and research context:A total of 60 Italian nurses involved in clinical work and enrolled as students in a postgraduate master’s programme took part in the qualitative study. In 2012, the researchers recruited 434 nurses from different Italian hospitals using a convenience sampling method to take part in the quantitative study.Ethical considerations:All the organisations involved and the university gave ethical approval; all respondents participated on a voluntary basis and did not receive any form of compensation.Findings:The nursing moral disengagement scale comprised a total of 22 items. Results attested the mono-dimensionality of the scale and its good psychometric properties. In addition, results highlighted a significant association between moral disengagement and both counterproductive and citizenship behaviours.Discussion:Results showed that nurses sometimes resort to moral disengagement in their daily practice, bypassing moral and ethical codes that would normally prevent them from enacting behaviours that violate their norms and protocols.Conclusion:The nursing moral disengagement scale can complement personnel monitoring and assessment procedures already in place and provide additional information to nursing management for designing interventions aimed at increasing compliance with ethical codes by improving the quality of the nurses’ work environment. (shrink)

An introduction to the philosophy of ʻAzīz al-Dīn ibn Muḥammad Nasafī, 13th cent. and Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, d. 1641 about mysticism and politics in Iran.

Academic cheating has become a pervasive practice from primary schools to university. This study aims at investigating this phenomenon through a nomological network which integrates different theoretical frameworks and models, such as trait and social-cognitive theories and models regarding the approaches to learning and contextual/normative environment. Results on a sample of more than 200 Italian university students show that the Amoral Manipulation facet of Machiavellianism, Academic Moral Disengagement, Deep Approach to Learning and Normative Academic Cheating are significantly associated with Individual (...) Academic Cheating. Moreover, results show a significant latent interaction effect between Normative Academic Cheating and Amoral Manipulation Machiavellianism: "amoral Machiavellians" students are more prone to resort to Academic Cheating in contexts where Academic Cheating is adopted as a practice by their peers, while this effect is not significant in contexts where Academic Cheating is not normative. Results also show that Academic Moral Disengagement and Deep Approach to learning partially mediate the relationship between Amoral Manipulation and Academic Cheating. Practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

La phA(c)nomA(c)nologie post-husserlienne s'est dA(c)tournA(c)e des orientations fondamentales de son pA]re fondateur pour adopter une position ou bien dA(c)constructiviste ou bien thA(c)ologisante sinon ouvertement anti-idA(c)aliste. Restant fidA]le A l'attitude phA(c)nomA(c)nologique qui consiste A mettre hors circuit tout prA(c)supposA(c) mA(c)taphysique (qu'il soit de nature antisubjectiviste ou dogmatique), le prA(c)sent ouvrage met en A(c)vidence des motifs cherchant A mettre en place une phA(c)nomA(c)nologie de la connaissance et de la comprA(c)hension qui A(c)vite A la fois l'A(c)cueil d'un scepticisme radical et celui d'une (...) philosophie de la transcendance. A ce dessein, l'essai se divise en trois parties dans lesquelles sont examinA(c)s et explicitA(c)s conformA(c)ment A une orientation husserlienne, heideggerienne ou encore propre A la phA(c)nomA(c)nologie franAaise contemporaine les concepts fondamentaux d'une phA(c)nomA(c)nologie transcendantale fondA(c)e spA(c)culativement. Dans la mesure oA se profile par lA une position philosophique qui intA]gre, par ailleurs, des comprA(c)hensions et acquis toujours valables de la philosophie classique allemande, se dessinent les lignes fondamentales d'un A transcendantalisme spA(c)culatif A qui essaie de renforcer la phA(c)nomA(c)nologie du XXIe siA]cle naissant au sein du dA(c)bat contemporain (par exemple face au A rA(c)alisme spA(c)culatif A). Il s'agit en particulier de rA(c)pondre, du cAtA(c) de la phA(c)nomA(c)nologie, au rapprochement de la tradition europA(c)enne effectuA(c) actuellement par la gA(c)nA(c)ration la plus jeune des penseurs A analytiques A. Cela rendra peut-Aatre possible d'A(c)lever l'A(c)change entre les deux orientations contemporaines A un niveau qui n'A(c)tait pas accessible au XXe siA]cle en raison de prA(c)jugA(c)s et distorsions idA(c)ologiques. (shrink)

Few modern artists so consistently embodied a fuzzy logic of their own as did the Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain (1915 – 2011). His critics tried to define him as a reckless defamer of Hindu values, but another way to define him is as a dutiful devotee of a vision that was inclusive, rather than exclusive, and that understood all boundaries and identities as fluid or blurry, rather than as fixed and immutable. Or one might say that Husain strove (...) to project what Ashis Nandy has called “Indian-style secularism,” celebrating creation, humanity, and beauty in the multiple religious forms of the subcontinent. Having lived and painted in India all his life, he was forced into exile in his nineties by right-wing Hindu politicians. In London, he continued to work on a new interpretation of Indian civilization as universally relevant, in a sequence of paintings with themes from the Mahabharata, while, in Doha, a royal patron commissioned him to paint a series relating Islamic and Christian civilization. The two series are shown, in this essay, to best exhibit Husain's view of “all distinctions” as “political, artificial.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hebdomads: Boethius Meets the Neopythagoreans1Sarah Pessin1the thesis of this article is three-fold. First, I suggest, uncontroversially, that Boethius was in many ways influenced by Neopythagorean ideas. Second, I recommend that in light of our appreciation of his Neopythagorean inclinations in at least some of his writings, we understand his esoteric reference to the “hebdomads”—at the outset of his treatise often called by that name—as a reference to something Neopythagorean. (...) This I suggest in light of the fact that, as I will discuss, the “hebdomad” plays an important role within the Neopythagorean literature of Nicomachus of Gerasa, an author with whose writings Boethius was intimately familiar. Lastly, I suggest—following Dillon’s analysis of the Triad and the Hebdomad within Nicomachus’ works—an interpretation of the ‘hebdomad’ within the Neopythagorean corpus which, if correct, would make appropriate Boethius’ reference to it at the outset of a treatise on the nature of God and creation.2In his introductory remarks to the Quomodo Substantiae,2 a short but difficult theological treatise on the nature of goodness and its relation to being (esse), Boethius gives his reader fair warning:... tu ne sis obscuritatibus brevitatis adversus, quae cum sint arcani fida custodia turn id habent commodi, quod cum his solis qui digni sunt conloquuntur. [End Page 29]... do not you take objection to obscurities consequent on brevity, which are the sure treasure-house of secret doctrine and have the advantage that they speak only with those who are worthy.3While itself somewhat obscure, this statement seems to suggest that a clear explication of the treatise would involve the clarification of certain notions which Boethius chooses not to clarify, and hence, the uninitiated reader will be met with obscurity.4 Consider this suggested reading especially in light of what immediately follows: After listing nine brief axioms, we are told that: “These preliminaries are enough then for our purpose. The intelligent interpreter of the discussion will supply the arguments appropriate to each point.”5 What is most important to note in support of the claim that Boethius is intentionally obscuring the content of the work which follows, is that he never refers to these obscure axioms again—not in way of explaining them, or even in way of helping the reader use them to elucidate the subject matter which follows, (which is apparently what they are capable of doing). Furthermore, this lack of explanation and expansion on his part appears—as evidenced in the above quote—to be in line with his intended purposes in this treatise. It seems that the “intelligent interpreter” to whom he refers is the reader who is knowledge-able of certain ideas which Boethius prefers not to elaborate upon in this treatise, and who should at least in theory therefore be able to arrive at a full understanding of the arguments which follow.6The veil of obscurity which we seem to meet in the terse nature of the content of the treatise itself, then, also seems apparent in Boethius’ esoteric reference to the “hebdomads” at the outset of the treatise:You ask me to state and explain somewhat more clearly that obscure question in my Hebdomads concerning the manner in which substances are good in virtue of existence without being substantial goods. You urge that this demonstration is necessary because the method of this kind of treatise is not clear to all... But I think over my Hebdomads with myself, and I keep my speculations in my own memory rather than share them with any of those pert and frivolous persons who will not tolerate an argument unless it [End Page 30] is made amusing.7 Wherefore do not you take objection to obscurities stemming from brevity... 8Boethius’ reference to his “hebdomads” here is perplexing.Looking to the Greek word for ‘seven,’ (‘hepta’), it has been suggested that these ‘hebdomads,’ (lit., ‘groups of seven,’ or simply ‘sevens’), might simply refer to a weekly meeting group (i.e., a ‘seminar’), which Boethius attended, and which provided him the impetus to compose the treatise in question. Others suggest that this ‘group of sevens’ refers to the list of axioms which follows (which some... (shrink)