Study on the fundamentals of Vaiśeṣika philosophy as discussed in Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya of Haribhadrasūri, 700-770.

Theories of meaning according to various schools of Indic philosophy.

: The paper argues that care ethics should be subsumed under virtue ethics by construing care as an important virtue. Doing so allows us to achieve two desirable goals. First, we preserve what is important about care ethics (for example, its insistence on particularity, partiality, emotional engagement, and the importance of care to our moral lives). Second, we avoid two important objections to care ethics, namely, that it neglects justice, and that it contains no mechanism by which care can be (...) regulated so as not to be become morally corrupt. (shrink)

This paper is a study of Conspiracy Theory, the theory according to which the causes which explain the occurrence of many events and phenomena are not the officially advertised causes which the public media present us with; rather, the events and phenomena in question should be viewed as the work of agents and agencies that operate in secret in the service of projects that may or not be publicly known. The paper discusses the relation between theory and evidence and compares (...) conspiracy theories to others, especially scientific theories. Two conclusions emerge. Firstly, a theory should not be rejected merely on the ground that it is a conspiracy theory. Secondly, most conspiracy theories do not deserve to be taken seriously because of the consequences which follow from their method of dealing with counter evidence. -/- يناقش هذا البحث نظرية المؤامرة من جوانبها المنطقية والمنهجية والابستمولوجية. ينتهي البحث الى هاتين النتيجتين.أولا، لا ينبغي رفض نظرية ما لمجرد كونها نظرية مؤامرة، فليس هناك من حيث المبدأ ما يمنع ان تكون نظرية ما من نظريات المؤامرة صادقة. ثانيا، ومع ذلك هناك بعض الاعتبارات التي تدعونا للتشكك في مصداقية الاغلبية الساحقة من نظريات المؤامرة المتداولة. تتعلق هذه الاعتبارات بالتبعات التي تترتب على طريقة نظريات المؤامرة في التعامل مع البينات المضادة. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently expressed interest in the question as to whether there is a right to sex, a right whose justification is motivated by the existence of sexually excluded people—people who suffer from involuntary long-term sexual deprivation (owing, say, to a chronic medical condition). This paper, after offering preliminary remarks about what a right to sex and its objects might be and who might have this right, surveys seven justifications for the right: linkage arguments, need, well-being, a minimally decent life, (...) sexual activity being a basic good, injustice, and relationships. The paper argues that a right to sex does not likely exist because none of the justifications is convincing. The paper then argues that despite the lack of justification, and because sexual exclusion is a problem worthy of attention, people’s sexual needs can be addressed through the lens of goals instead of rights. This not only takes sexual exclusion seriously enough, it also avoids the crucial problems associated with rights-talk, especially that of sexual coercion. (shrink)

Comparative study of Nyaya and Vaiśeshika systems of Hindu philosophy.

Study on creation in R̥gveda and Vedic literature and philosophy.

The paper discusses Kant's view of sexual desire in connection with Aristotle's account of sexual temperance, arguing that if the Kantian view is correct, the Aristotelian account is false (or that if the Aristotelian account is true, then the Kantian view is false). One cannot be both an Aristotelian and a Kantian about the ethics of sexual desire.

Biography of Śr̲ī Śaṅkarācārya, a Hindu philosopher.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois. We propose a cooperative approach by students in recording lecture activities such that the classroom becomes more visually accessible for everyone, especially for deaf, hard of hearing and low-vision students. Students utilize their personal camera-equipped smart phones to capture and share their views of a visually inaccessible classroom to students' devices. We show this approach virtually (...) retrofits a classroom to make it a more visually accessible learning environment. This approach can be used in meetings to get and share optimal views of the meeting for all participants. (shrink)

Drawing from research on ethical leadership, psychological capital, and social learning theory, this study investigated the mediating effects of goal congruence and psychological capital in the link between supervisors’ ethical leadership style and followers’ in-role job performance. Data captured from 171 employees and 24 supervisors showed that ethical leadership has a positive effect on followers’ in-role job performance, yet this effect is explained through the role of psychological capital and follower–leader goal congruence, providing evidence of mediation. These findings have significant (...) implications for research and practice. (shrink)

Those considering careers in medicine and other health and humanitarian disciplines as well as those concerned about the growing presence of militarized ...

How is love different from lust or infatuation? Do love and marriage really go together “like a horse and carriage”? Does sex have any necessary connection to either? And how important are love, sex, and marriage to a well-lived life? In this lively, lucid, and comprehensive textbook, Raja Halwani pursues the philosophical questions inherent in these three important aspects of human relationships, exploring the nature, uses, and ethics of romantic love, sexuality, and marriage. The book is structured in three parts: (...) _Love_ begins by examining how romantic love differs from other types of love, such as friendship and parental love. It asks which properties of love are essential, whether people have a choice in whom they love, and whether lovers have moral obligations to one another that differ from those they owe to others _Sex_ demonstrates the difficulty in defining sex and the sexual, and examines what constitutes good and bad sex in terms of pleasure, 'naturalness', and moral permissibility. It offers theoretical and applied ethical approaches to a wide range of sexual phenomena _Marriage_ traces the history of the institution, and describes the various forms in which marriage exists and the reasons why people marry. It also surveys accounts of why people should or should not marry, and introduces the main arguments for and against gay marriage. Features include: suggestions for further reading online eResource site with dowloadable discussion questions a clear, jargon-free writing style. (shrink)

Recent scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing have put the ethical spotlight on corporate malfeasance as never before. However, these are the situations in which management knew that they made the wrong choice. As professor Joseph Badaracco of Harvard Business School points out, the real ethical dilemmas arise when people must choose between right and right — where both choices can be justified, yet one must be chosen over the other. Whether or not to reprice stock options represents one (...) such ethical dilemma. Repricing can help exodus of talented employees and motivate them to improve firm performance. However, it alienates shareholders and other workers of the company who are left unprotected from the adverse economic consequences of a stock price decline.In this paper we examine the ethics and the economics of stock option repricing. We find that repricing runs counter to two key tenets of business ethics — distributive justice and ordinary decency. To examine the economics of repricing, we draw upon agency theory to identify situations where repricing has the potential to benefit shareholders. However, a survey of empirical research reveals that these benefits do not translate into reality. Repricing does not improve employee retention or firm performance. In addition, managers benefit by opportunistically timing the repricing. Due to weaknesses in corporate governance such as lack of independence and conflicts of interest, the current repricing practice seems to be at odds with the objective of shareholder wealth maximization, and at a more fundamental level, a violation of board's fiduciary duty to shareholders. We offer suggestions that mitigate the ethically undesirable effects of repricing in the wider context of prevailing corporate governance and regulatory environment. We believe that these suggestions, if properly implemented, can transform repricing from a greed-inspired evil to a valuable compensation tool to retain employees, boost their morale, and enhance stockholder wealth. (shrink)

Firms and industries increasingly subscribe to voluntary codes of conduct. These self-regulatory governance systems can be effective in establishing a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. However, these codes can also be largely symbolic, reactive measures to quell public criticism. Cross-sector alliances (between for-profit and nonprofit actors) present a learning platform for infusing participants with greater incentives to be socially responsible. They can provide multinationals new capabilities that allow them to more closely ally social responsibility with economic performance. This paper (...) examines learning facilitators in cross-sector alliances that enrich corporate understanding of stakeholder concerns. It suggests that these organizational learning experiments can translate into globally responsible practices and processes that improve the content and effectiveness of voluntary corporate codes. (shrink)

The paper argues that care ethics should be subsumed under virtue ethics by construing care as an important virtue. Doing so allows us to achieve two desirable goals. First, we preserve what is important about care ethics. Second, we avoid two important objections to care ethics, namely, that it neglects justice, and that it contains no mechanism by which care can be regulated so as not to be become morally corrupt.

This paper presents a blueprint for an ecological cognitive architecture. Ecological psychology, I contend, must be complemented with a story about the role of the CNS in perception, action, and cognition. To arrive at such a story while staying true to the tenets of ecological psychology, it will be necessary to flesh out the central metaphor according to which the animal perceives its environment by ‘resonating’ to information in energy patterns: what is needed is a theory of resonance. I offer (...) here the two main elements of such a theory: a framework and a methodology. (shrink)

Highly mobile computing devices promise to improve quality of life, productivity, and performance. Increased situation awareness and reduced mental workload are two potential means by which this can be accomplished. However, it is difficult to measure these concepts in the ‘wild’. We employed an ultra-portable battery operated and wireless functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to non-invasively measure hemodynamic changes in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Measurements were taken during navigation of a college campus with either a hand-held display, or an augmented (...) reality wearable display. Hemodynamic measures were also paired with secondary tasks of visual perception and auditory working memory to provide behavioral assessment of situation awareness and mental workload. Navigating with an augmented reality wearable display produced the least workload during both secondary tasks. The hemodynamics associated with errors were also different between the two devices. Errors with an augmented reality wearable display were associated with increased prefrontal activity and the opposite was observed for the hand-held display. This suggests that the cognitive mechanisms underlying errors between the two devices differ. These findings show fNIRS is a valuable tool for assessing new technology in ecologically valid settings and that head-mounted displays offer benefits with regards to mental workload while navigating, and potentially superior situation awareness with improved display design. (shrink)

La autora estudia el problema del amor entendido como reunión de las dos partes de un alma-esfera, mito griego que ha tenido una larga tradición en la literatura amorosa árabe y se centre especialmente en Ibn Hazm de Córdoba.

The author gives a critical and comprehensive study of the fundamental problem of universals in Indian Philosophy. The centre of the study is the controversy between the Nyaya-Vaisesika and the Mimamsa realists on the one hand and the Buddhist nominalists on the other. The author discusses not only the epistemological and metaphysical approach to the problem of universals but also the semantic approach made by the various systems of Indian Philosophy. In this context the view of the Grammarions with special (...) reference to Bhartrhari has been discussed in some detail. A brief but critical analysis of some of the main trends of thought on universals in Western Philosophy--beginning from Pluto to the contemporary philosophers--has also been given. Besides his scholarly and eminently readable treatment of fundamental problem of universals, the author has attempted to give his own solution of the problem. It is based on the recurrent identities and similarities which are the principles of grouping and which form the foundation of our thought and speech. (shrink)

In 2014, Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B site-specific installation created a media storm and protests throughout Europe. One such protest was in London, leading to the cancellation of his show at the Barbican. Consternation caused by art work is not a new phenomenon, and indeed one of the enduring purposes of art is to push the boundaries of acceptability and to show sights that are normally kept hidden from the public gaze. From some of the Impressionists’ exhibits to twentieth century art (...) works such as Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in 1987 and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary 1996, art has caused offence in a variety of ways. This article examines Exhibit B to identify the reasons for its reception. In broad outline, as a white artist his presentation of black oppression was regarded at best as naïve and at worse as culturally inappropriate. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that al Ash'ari was a Theological Determinist whose position on free will and human responsibility was marred by his failure to distinguish between two senses of the word 'can' (yastati'u ). I also compare al Ash'ari's position with that of the Mu'tazilite thinker al Qadi 'Abd al Jabbar. I conclude that their positions may not have been so much opposed to each other as merely different. This, I suggest, should invite us to re evaluate the (...) nature and extent of the disagreement between the Ash'arites and the Mu'tazilites on the free will question. (shrink)

A common belief is that, among our sexual dispositions, sexual orientations are important and deep features of who someone is. This distinguishes them from other sexual dispositions—“mere” preferences—that are thought to be trivial in comparison. Is there a way to adequately account for this distinction? What is a plausible explanation for the belief that sexual orientation is a deep and important feature of who one is? This paper defends one necessary condition for a sexual disposition to be an orientation, the (...) well-being condition: if a sexual disposition is an orientation, then the inability to act on it lowers one’s well-being by rendering one’s life sexually deprived. The paper argues that the well-being condition better explains than other criteria the belief that orientations are important features of who one is. The paper concludes by tracing the implications of this view to the common understanding of sexual orientation. (shrink)

Heras-Escribano argues against the normative character of affordances from a framework that relies on a Wittgensteinian notion of normativity and the incompatibility of direct perception, ….

On what we can call the “folk” conception of sexual orientation, sexual orientation is understood as sex-based attraction, that is, as (partly) attraction on the basis of the perceived sex of the person to whom one is attracted. However, in recent discussions, philosophers have either added gender to sex as the basis of sexual orientation, or have altogether replaced sex with gender. Moreover, this addition or replacement has gone—mostly—unargued for. This paper argues that a sex-based conception of sexual orientation remains (...) plausible because (1) it is compatible with gender-based attraction, which I argue can be understood as a preference; (2) the reasons so far on offer for adding gender to sex (or for replacing sex with gender) are not convincing; (3) we have good evolutionary and non-evolutionary reasons for thinking that sex is the basis of sexual orientation; (4) we have good reasons to not add gender as a basis of sexual orientation; and (5) a sex-based conception of sexual orientation accommodates the various sexual orientations that have recently appeared, orientations in addition to the folk two (or three) of heterosexuality, homosexuality (and bisexuality), such as pansexuality, skoliosexuality, gynsexuality, and androsexuality. What emerges is a conception of sexual orientation based (partly) on the sex of the people to whom we are attracted, but that understands sexual-based attraction in broad enough terms to include surgically altered bodies. (shrink)

One big challenge faced by cognitive science is the development of a unified theory that integrates disparate scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena. In this paper, I offer a unified framework that provides a way to integrate neural and behavioral scales of analysis of cognitive phenomena—typically addressed by neuroscience and experimental psychology, respectively. The framework is based on the concept of resonance originated in ecological psychology and aims to be the foundation for a unified theory for radical embodiment; that is, (...) a unified theory for that dissident part of cognitive science that shares a methodological commitment to dynamic systems theory and remains skeptical about the adequacy of mechanism and representationalism as the guiding ideas in the field. In the course of my presentation, I analyze different issues regarding the requirements and constraints unification poses to radical embodiment. (shrink)

This essay starts by discussing the definitions, and their attendant difficulties, of "casual sex," "promiscuity," and "objectification" (including whether objectification is only about treatment or can be about mere regard), and then continues to discuss the morality of casual sex and promiscuity, especially as to whether they are objectifying. Assuming a pessimist view of sexual desire and activity, the paper argues that it is nearly impossible to defend these sexual practices against the accusation of objectification, because even though casual sex (...) and promiscuity do not necessarily objectify, they likely almost always do. The essay concludes by arguing that the wrongness of objectification in these two kinds of sexual practices might not be serious, so they might be overall morally permissible. (This is a revised version from that in the 7th edition of The Philosophy of Sex.). (shrink)

This is a detailed encyclopedia entry on sex and sexuality, explaining the main issues and debates in philosophy about them.

(This is a revised version of the essay for the 8th edition of The Philosophy of Sex.) Halwani address three main arguments as to why someone with sexual racial preferences (sexual preferences for or against people on the basis of their ethnic of racial belonging) might be thought racist, and argues that they all fail. He then explains the steps that need to be taken before we can conclude that someone is racist from the mere fact that he or she (...) has racial preferences. In an appendix to this revised essay, Halwani explains and criticizes all the recent essays that have been published since 2017 on this subject. (shrink)

Explores what Aristotelian sexual temperance and intemperance are.

The essay explores arguments for and against wit being a virtue, and finds the latter more compelling.

We argue that the idea of embodiment and the strategies for carrying out embodied approaches are some of the most prevalent and interdisciplinary legacies of early modern science. The idea of embodiment is simple: to explain the behavior of bodies, we must understand them as unified wholes in their environments. Embodied approaches eschew explanations in terms of qualitative descriptions of the intrinsic properties of bodies and promote explanation in terms of the interaction between bodies. This idea can be found in (...) Kepler's optics, Descartes' physics, and Newton's physico-mathematics. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (Gibson, 1966) is the culmination of this centuries-long embodiment movement which can be traced back to the 17th century. (shrink)

Background Health ministries in Europe are investing increasingly in innovative digital technologies. Older adults, who have not grown up with digital innovation, are expected to keep up with technological shifts as much as other age groups. This is ethically challenging, as it may threaten a sense of dignity and well-being in older adults. Research objective To clarify the phenomenon of sense of dignity experienced in older adults, concerning how their expectations and needs are met within the context of digitally led (...) healthcare in Norway. Research design A Reflective Lifeworld Research design was chosen, and purposive, in-depth interviews were conducted. Participants and research context The participants were 13 adults 75 years and older from Northern Norway, living at home and not receiving consistent assistance. Ethical considerations Followed the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. This study was approved by the Social Science Data Services in Norway (project number 916119). Interviews were conducted carefully within a safe environment chosen by the participants. Findings Older adults experience that using new digital systems in healthcare makes them become dependent with experiences of helplessness. They feel an increased sense of dependency on other people, and that recognition can assail their experience of personal dignity. Older adults not only expect digitally led healthcare to give them a feeling of safety but also experience feeling insecure concerning privacy and loss of possibilities for dialogue with healthcare providers. They are met by demands from society, which they often struggle to achieve. Conclusion The phenomenon of sense of dignity experienced in older adults, concerning how their expectations and needs are met within digitally led healthcare, indicates a sense of feeling lost in the digital world. Further, innovative healthcare lacks focus on ethical performance. This impacts their perception of dignity, as loss of dignity is noticed especially in its rupture. (shrink)

Interwar Japan saw the rise of a generation of intellectuals, bureaucrats, and educators who were uneasy about modern life. One expression of this malaise was the introduction of calligraphy in the 1941 and 1943 school curricula. Calligraphy injected aesthetics into writing education. Yet it also compromised the speed and efficiency of writing, which lay at the core of Japan's system of modern education. The solution was to teach writing twice, once as an art in the `art section' and once as (...) a functional skill in the `language section'. As an art, writing was a means to cultivate the spirit, discipline the body, escape from the calculated logic of linear time and produce an aesthetic epiphany. As a functional tool, it was a skill for keeping pace with the demands of the modern world by communicating meaning quickly and efficiently. Bureaucrats and educators from 1941 were thus simultaneously engaged in the task of overcoming modernity on the one hand and of instilling proficiency in modern life on the other. This duality of the word as a functional code for transmitting meaning and the word as an aesthetic form both echoed and shaped the double nature of Japan's modernity. (shrink)

Interwar Japan saw the rise of a generation of intellectuals, bureaucrats, and educators who were uneasy about modern life. One expression of this malaise was the introduction of calligraphy in the 1941 and 1943 school curricula. Calligraphy injected aesthetics into writing education. Yet it also compromised the speed and efficiency of writing, which lay at the core of Japan's system of modern education. The solution was to teach writing twice, once as an art in the `art section' and once as (...) a functional skill in the `language section'. As an art, writing was a means to cultivate the spirit, discipline the body, escape from the calculated logic of linear time and produce an aesthetic epiphany. As a functional tool, it was a skill for keeping pace with the demands of the modern world by communicating meaning quickly and efficiently. Bureaucrats and educators from 1941 were thus simultaneously engaged in the task of overcoming modernity on the one hand and of instilling proficiency in modern life on the other. This duality of the word as a functional code for transmitting meaning and the word as an aesthetic form both echoed and shaped the double nature of Japan's modernity. (shrink)

This best-selling volume examines the nature, morality, and social meanings of contemporary sexual phenomena. Updated and new discussion questions offer students starting points for debate in both the classroom and the bedroom.