Current organizations are underpinned by utilitarian ethics of Modernity. Pure economic motive driven organizations detach themselves from larger societal interest. Rising number of corporate scandals and intraorganizational income inequalities are breeding similar trends in society at large. Current organizations base their competitive advantage on resources and capabilities which boils down to economic supremacy at all cost whether it is named I/o or RBV of the firm. This theoretical article posits Ethics-based Trust as the main competency and capability for attaining sustained (...) competitive advantage. It in no way condemns utility view of the firms but treats it as a natural yet secondary outcome of genuine ethicality of the firm. Cultivating an ethical culture in the firm through identifying antecedents, organizational practices, and the outcomes where profitability is an automatic but secondary outcome under the supremacy of ethics is detailed in the multilevel model presented in this article. The main call of this article is to posit ethics and morality over and above short-term profits so that organizations fulfill their trustee role for society through enacting socio-humanistic theories within organizations. A brief analysis of the proposed ethical theory of firm is undertaken in light of the “schooling” notion in the contemporary organization theory literature. (shrink)

One of the most popular accounts of the teleological argument for the existence of God is the analogical account that is the center of Hume’s knocker criticisms. Since Hume’s age, many theist scholars have attempted to propose convincing responses. Motahari is one of the rigorous thinkers who tackled the challenges which Hume posed. The purpose of this paper is to address Hume’s criticisms and assess Motahari’s rejoinders to them. It will be argued that Motahari’s responses do not seem successful. Although (...) Motahari has tried to refute Hume’s criticisms in some of his works, he implicitly endorsed Hume’s assessment of the analogical account of the teleological argument in other works, and came ultimately close to the Hume’s view. As Hume believed that the argument from design is not a successful philosophical argument to prove God’s existence that the theist contend, Motahari also admits at the end that this argument alone cannot prove God’s existence and emphasizes that the argument from design cannot prove God of Abraham’s religions, that is a person with necessary being, who is immaterial and eternal, is omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good, and the creator of the universe. Motahari ultimately believed in deficiency of the argument from design too, and assessed it as an argument with limited functions for God’s existence. (shrink)

How does law effect well-being? Can school rules influence the feel-good factor among children? If a self-perception of being ‘good’ improves well-being, people would prefer to be good—even children. But traditional school rules are often contrary to the principles of well-being, and create ‘good criminals’. Starting from the seemingly absurd truth—‘crime is caused by the law’— the paper proposes that children should learn to view law critically and creatively. Then, through a novel application of Occupational Therapy , and using ‘law’ (...) to focus social agency, a case study develops ‘The law of school dress’ as a public good. The result reflects Jeremy Bentham’s Principle of Utility. Philosophy of OT reminds us that the ultimate purpose of education is not just to learn: it is to improve well-being through learning as meaningful ‘occupation’. And ‘law’ has a part to play. (shrink)

In this study, we shall assess the claim concerning the negative effect of sin and positive effect of grace on proper function of reason and cognitive faculties through the lens of the Calvinist tradition and the Reformed Epistemology. Although the noetic effect of sin has already been discussed probably by tracing the role of the non-epistemic factors in acquiring knowledge in general, approaching the issue by focusing on ‘scientific knowledge’ is novel and, to the best of my knowledge, has not (...) been attempted before. This study will be developed by means of an evaluation of Stephen Moroney’s project. Through a critical survey of the views of a number of prominent Christian theologian, he tries to develop a model for the cognitive influence of sin. In our review of his work from the canons of Critical Rationalism, we shall try to show that Moroney's conclusions are inconsistent with his explanation of the effect of sin on the natural sciences. Our main arguments are as follows: what Moroney describes as scientific knowledge from a Christian point of view is more a technological awareness rather than scientific knowledge proper. Furthermore, it is the scientist who is affected by sin and not his scientific claim. (shrink)

Values ​​predispose people to make the right and especially ethical decisions, and are important for good performance in medical sciences. Students’ lived experiences and the value-rich exposures during their education are some effective means of achieving professional values that help them build their own value frameworks. In this phenomenology of practice study, we aimed to explore and describe the lived experiences of a sample of medical students in Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences regarding their value-rich exposures. In-depth interviews, students’ (...) written stories, recorded video interviews related to past trips and photographs were used to collect data. The data was analyzed based on Van Manen’s thematic analysis method. Five themes emerged from the data: “in the shadow of a supportive mentor”, “a well-orchestrated, value-rich program”, “human interactions in a value system”, “acquiring values in a real-life environment”, “and seeking values in oneself”. Our study identified different dimensions of value-rich exposure based on the lived experiences of medical students and pointed out some issues that medical education planners can consider to improve the quality of value-based education for medical students. (shrink)

Metaphysics of Gender is a branch of Feminist Philosophy in which the metaphysical issues about "Gender" are discussed. Charlotte Witt is a feminist philosopher, who analyzes gender from a particular point of view. Witt names her theory "Uni-Essentialism" which is an essentialist theory of gender, while differing deeply from customary essentialist theories. She avoids the current framework of debate between Realists and Nominalists, because her main question is about the role of gender in one's identity. She says that there are (...) always some conflicts between norms of various social roles one occupies, and for this reason we all need a unifying normative principle. According to Witt, gender is that normative principle, which unifies and organizes all other roles. So, gender is essential for everyone, in an Aristotalian sense. In this paper the Uni-Essentialism thesis of Witt is analyzed and its weaknesses are discussed. Finally we will suggest some points for improvement and modification of the theory. (shrink)

Metaphors are cognitive and linguistic tools that allow reasoning. They enable the understanding of abstract domains via elements borrowed from concrete ones. The underlying mechanism in metaphorical mapping is the manipulation of concepts. This article proposes another view on what concepts are and their role in metaphor and reasoning. That is, based on current neuroscientific and behavioural evidence, it is argued that concepts are grounded in perceptual and motor experience with physical and social environments. This definition of concepts is then (...) embedded in the Structure-Mapping Theory, a model for metaphorical processing and reasoning. The blended view of structure-mapping and embodied cognition offers an insight into the processes through which the target domain of a metaphor is embodied or realised in terms of its base domain. The implications of the proposed embodied SMT model are then discussed and future topics of investigation are outlined. (shrink)

Overtreatment is when medical or dental services are provided with a higher volume or cost than is appropriate. This study aimed to investigate how a group of dentists in Switzerland, a wealthy country known to have high standards of healthcare including dentistry, evaluated the meaning of unnecessary treatments from an ethical perspective and, assessed the expected frequency of different possible behaviors among their peers.

In this article, a poetical and performative narrative is shared to examine how the use of stories to critically self‐reflect on oppression facilitates an understanding of critical social theory in nursing education and impacts social justice. A fusion of prose with a poetical narrative is employed; the latter is reserved to capture the immediacy of personal, emotive, and embodied storied experiences. This deeply intimate and dialogical story begins with a pedagogical experiment created to facilitate nursing students' understanding of critical social (...) theory. Drawing upon Paulo Freire's work, the nursing teacher in a professional development course attempted to deconstruct power relations and cultivate an open and safe learning environment by sharing a poem that depicts her oppression. Students then anonymously wrote a word/statement about their oppression. The teacher created a composite poem from students' words and shared it with the class; it was a powerful moment that highlighted their shared humanity. As a way to further explore stories and consider how to preserve these words, a small group of students and the teacher formed the ‘the oppression group’. Towards the end, we conclude an unfinished story by realizing that the chains of oppression are loosening and humanity is surfacing. There is still a camouflaging of an authentic self. There are still stories to be told. The group is not yet certain if a social representation of an authentic self is possible and if all stories can be told. It has become apparent that the personal can play out in social justice as enacted in the classroom between teacher and students and provides an entry point into the development of the capacity to be social agents in nursing. The group simultaneously concludes the story with both an ending and a threshold of social justice. (shrink)