Individuals of many animal species are said to have a personality. It has been shown that some individuals are bolder than other individuals of the same species, or more sociable or more aggressive. In this paper, we analyse what it means to say that an animal has a personality. We clarify what an animal personality is, that is, its ontology, and how different personality concepts relate to each other, and we examine how personality traits are identified in biological practice. Our (...) analysis shows that biologists often study specific personality traits, such as boldness, sociability or aggressiveness, rather than personalities in general. We claim that personality traits are best understood as dispositions and that they are operationally defined in terms of certain sets of behaviours, which are studied in specific experimental set-ups. Furthermore, we develop an integrative philosophical account that specifies and formalises three criteria for identifying personality traits, which are used in biological practice. For an individual animal to have a personality trait it must, first, behave differently than others. Second, these behavioural differences must be stable over a certain time, and third, they must be consistent in different contexts. (shrink)

There has been increasing debate in recent years about the conceptualization of moral distress. Broadly speaking, two groups of scholars have emerged: those who agree with Jameton’s ‘narrow definition’ that focuses on constraint and those who argue that Jameton’s definition is insufficient and needs to be broadened. Using feminist empirical bioethics, we interviewed critical care nurses in the United Kingdom about their experiences and conceptualizations of moral distress. We provide our broader definition of moral distress and examples of data that (...) both challenge and support our conceptualization. We pre‐empt and overcome three key challenges that could be levelled at our account and argue that there are good reasons to adopt our broader definition of moral distress when exploring prevalence of, and management strategies for, moral distress. (shrink)

We refine the intuitively appealing idea that you are blameworthy for something if it happened because you did not care enough. More formally: you are blameworthy for X (where X may be an action, omission, or outcome) just in case there is the right causal-explanatory relation between your poor quality of will and X. First, we argue that blameworthiness for actions, omissions, and outcomes is concerned with negative differences: you are blameworthy for the fact that X occurred instead of X*, (...) where X is worse than X*. Second, we argue that the way in which your quality of will is poor has to fit what you are blameworthy for. With these refinements, the account already gives intuitively correct verdicts in cases of forgetting, making a negative difference to a nevertheless good result, and doing an action with runaway consequences. We then discuss what the right causal-explanatory relation is and suggest that it is simply causation, understood in the right way. Here, we draw on the account of causation developed in Touborg, The Dual Nature of Causation. According to this account, there are two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for causation. Roughly, C causes E rather than E* iff (a) C is process-connected to E, and (b) C makes E more secure and E* less secure. With this account of causation, our account of blameworthiness now also gives correct verdicts in omission, pre-emption, and switching cases, Frankfurt-style cases, and collective harm cases. (shrink)

Corporations are spending a substantial and increasing amount of money on corporate social responsibility. However, little is known about the effects on key stakeholders of these activities. This study investigates if CSR activities have an effect on employees’ affective commitment. Two models test to what extent employees’ CSR perception, involvement in decision processes, and demographic variables are related to their AC relative to their perception of positive organizational support. The analysis is based on a sample of 512 employees from 4 (...) Scandinavian companies; 3 Norwegian and 1 Swedish, randomly selected from a population of 6,710 mostly Norwegian and Swedish employees in those 2 countries. The results indicate that CSR perception is a significant predictor of AC, although how employees feel that the company cares about them has stronger explanatory power on AC. Contrary to the few other studies addressing AC and CSR, gender was not found to be a significant variable in the model. (shrink)

Some theories of personal identity allow some variation in what it takes for a person to survive from context to context; and sometimes this is determined by the desires of person-stages or the practices of communities.This leads to problems for decision making in contexts where what is chosen will affect personal identity.‘Temporal Phase Pluralism’ solves such problems by allowing that there can be a plurality of persons constituted by a sequence of person stages. This illuminates difficult decision making problems when (...) persons have to choose between different life-altering choices. (shrink)

This study assesses the retractions of scientific articles in engineering journals indexed on the Web of Science from 1945 to 2015. The data set was built based on documents containing the keywords retracted, retraction, withdrawal, or redress. We used database exploration techniques, including Structured Query Language and analysis of variance, for data analysis. We analyzed 238 retractions published by 117 journals. The most common reason for retraction was unethical research, and higher impact factors journals tended to publish more retractions. In (...) conclusion, most of the analyzed retractions were the result of unethical research and were retracted by editors. (shrink)

The term “race,” and the concept it refers to, namely genetically different human populations in the world, is one of the most intellectually and emotionally charged in society, and in science as well. This article focuses on how human beings recognize individual faces of their own versus another “racial group,” and the term “face race” is used in the context of visual recognition, as traditionally done in the scientific literature. The article reviews the well-known phenomenon that people have greater difficulty (...) distinguishing and recognizing individual faces from a different human population, or “race,” than their own. Experience-based holistic accounts encompass and extend most other proposals, such as a more densely clustered organization of other-race faces in an internal face-space centered on a “norm,” and it leads to a number of interesting predictions about the processing of same race and other-race faces. (shrink)

In recent years, several countries have enacted guidelines and/or mandatory laws to increase the presence of women on the boards of companies. Through these regulatory interventions, the aim is to eradicate the social and labor grievances that women have traditionally experienced and which has relegated them to smaller-scale jobs. Nevertheless, and despite the advances achieved, the female representation in the boardroom remains far from the desired levels. In this context, it is now necessary to enhance the advantages of board gender (...) diversity from both ethical and economic points of view. This article examines the relation between board gender diversity and economic results in Spain: the second country in the world to legally require gender quotas in boardrooms and historically characterized by a minimal female participation in the workforce. Based on a sample of 125 non-financial firms listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009, our findings show that in the period analyzed the increase of the number of women on boards was over 98 %. This suggests that compulsory legislation offers an efficient framework to execute the recommendation of Spanish codes of good governance by means of the increase in the number of women in the boards of firms. Furthermore, we find that the increase in the number of women on the boards is positively related to higher economic results. Therefore, both results suggest that gender diversity in boardrooms should be incremented, mandatory laws being a key factor to do so. (shrink)

A growing body of research reveals that abusive supervision may have negative impacts in organizations. The purpose of the present study is to expand the knowledge regarding the impacts of this dysfunctional leadership behavior by examining its relationship with innovation in work teams. Specifically, we investigate the process through which abusive supervision may undermine team innovation by taking into account the mediating role of team proactive behavior. Moreover, we propose a boundary condition of the negative effect of abusive supervision by (...) considering leader–members interdependence as a moderator. Using a multisource approach, data were gathered from 394 members and 82 immediate supervisors in a public safety organization. Results of path analyses reveal that the relationship between abusive supervision and team innovation is mediated by team proactive behavior. Furthermore, we found that the relationship between abusive supervision and team proactive behavior is moderated by leader–members interdependence, such that this relationship is stronger when the level of interdependence is high. Taken together, the findings of this study improve the understanding of why and under what circumstances abusive supervision may impair team innovation. (shrink)

IntroductionConcussion is a growing public health concern. No uniformly established therapy exists; neurofeedback studies report treatment value. We use infralow frequency neuromodulation to remediate disabling neurological symptoms caused by traumatic brain injury and noted improved outcomes with a novel concussion protocol. Postconcussion symptoms and persistent postconcussion symptoms are designated timelines for protracted neurological complaints following TBI. We performed a retrospective study to explore effectiveness of ILF in PCS/PPCS and investigated the value of using this concussion protocol.MethodPatients with PCS/PPCS seen for (...) their first neurology office visit or received their first neurofeedback session between 1 August 2018 and 31 January 2021 were entered. Outcomes were compared following treatment as usual vs. TAU with ILF neurotherapy. The study cohort was limited to PPCS patients; the TAU+ILF group was restricted further to PPCS patients receiving at least 10 neurotherapy sessions. Within the TAU+ILF group, comparisons were made between those who trained at least 10 sessions using concussion protocol and those who trained for at least 10 sessions of ILF regardless of protocol.ResultsAmong our resultant PPCS cohort leading persistent neurological complaints were headache, memory impairment, and brain fog. PPCS patients in TAU+ILF+CP demonstrated greater net and percent improvement of symptoms compared to PPCS subjects in TAU. PPCS patients in TAU+ILF-CP trended toward significant symptom improvements compared to TAU, and TAU+ILF+CP trended toward greater efficacy than TAU+ILF-CP.ConclusionPPCS patients who received TAU+ILF+CP demonstrated significantly greater improvement as a group when compared to TAU. When used as an integrative modality to treatment as usual in managing patients with PPCS, ILF neuromodulation with use of concussion protocol provided significant symptom improvements. (shrink)

As more young people feel safe to outwardly identify as transgender or gender expansive (TGE), meaning that their gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth, an increasing number of youth who identify as TGE seek gender-affirming medical care (GAMC). GAMC raises a number of ethical questions, such as the capacity of a minor to assent or consent, the role of parents or legal guardians in decisions about treatment, and implications for equitable access to care (...) when differing parental or custodial viewpoints are present. These questions are further complicated by the difficulties in explaining the limits of long-term research in GAMC, with regard to the preservation of fertility, for example. We present two de-identified composite case studies to highlight dilemmas that may arise and offer recommendations to better support patient- and family-centered decision making for GAMC. These include employing a multidisciplinUniverary shared decision-making approach, disentangling informed consent and assent from chronological age, developing a consistent approach to the assessment of decisional capacity, and developing age-appropriate informational materials. (shrink)

In contemporary society, childhood is characterized as mediatized and commercialized. Media consumption worlds (MCWs) are a phenomenon that mirrors both aspects. They are narratives that are presented through various media platforms, games, and merchandising products. In this paper, the concept of children’s MCWs is developed theoretically and investigated empirically using the case of primary school children’s appropriation of MCWs as well as parental mediation and attitude in Austria and Germany. A mixed-methods design was applied, starting with qualitative interviews with children (...) and their parents and followed by an online survey for parents (N=327). The study revealed that children find individual ways to deal with MCWs, some of which foster creativity and self-expression but also consumerism. The parents’ attitude is ambivalent. They view MCWs as beneficial in terms of creativity, positive values, and as peer group experience. However, parents observe critically that MCWs lure children to the media and to consumption. (shrink)

Research using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm (IPLP) has consistently shown that English‐learning children aged 2 can associate transitive argument structure with causal events. However, studies using the same methodology investigating 2‐year‐old children’s knowledge of the conjoined agent intransitive and semantic role assignment have reported inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to establish at what age English‐learning children have verb‐general knowledge of both transitive and intransitive argument structure using a new method: the forced‐choice pointing paradigm. The results (...) suggest that young 2‐year‐olds can associate transitive structures with causal (or externally caused) events and can use transitive structure to assign agent and patient roles correctly. However, the children were unable to associate the conjoined agent intransitive with noncausal events until aged 3;4. The results confirm the pattern from previous IPLP studies and indicate that children may develop the ability to comprehend different aspects of argument structure at different ages. The implications for theories of language acquisition and the nature of the language acquisition mechanism are discussed. (shrink)

Mitochondrial donation poses the latest regulatory challenge for policy-makers in the context of assisted conception. Since 2010 the Human Genetics Commission, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics have all considered the policy implications of permitting use of these techniques in treatment. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reported its recommendations in June 2012 following a consultation on the ethical issues raised by these techniques; and a separate consultation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in (...) conjunction with Sciencewise-ERC followed in September 2012. Matters for consideration included the potential relationships created by the use of three parties’ genetic material and the associated ramifications, eg whether or not there is a need to establish records of such donations and, if so, to whom should information later be provided? Thus, mitochondrial donation poses both novel and familiar questions about the ‘genetic family’, ‘parentage’ and ‘identity’. This article explores some of the ways in which mitochondrial DNA is constructed as relatively significant in recent Parliamentary debates, policy and consultation documents. It reflects on the ways in which the role of some genetic connections, or lack thereof, are mediated in law and policy. (shrink)

Can we build endogenous expectations about the locus of occurrence of a target without being able to describe them? Participants performed cue–target detection tasks with different proportions of valid and invalid trials, without being informed of these proportions, and demonstrated typical endogenous effects. About half were subsequently able to correctly describe the cue–target relationships . However, even non-verbalizer participants showed endogenous orienting with peripheral cues , not depending solely on practice . Explicit instructions did not bring about dramatic advantages in (...) performance .With central symbolic cues, only verbalizers showed reliable endogenous effects . We concluded that endogenous orienting with peripheral cues can occur independently of participants developing explicit hypotheses about the cue–target relationships. (shrink)

Epigenetics reveals the biological mechanisms underlying the reproduction and even the transmission of social inequalities in health. It also emphasizes the complexity of factors involved in the development of some diseases. This complexity raises new difficulties for theories of justice. Is the equal opportunities theory the most appropriate to solve these difficulties? I demonstrate that epigenetics requires a multifactor model of justice—one that is grounded on principles of fairness, impartiality, and environmental and intergenerational justice. Depending on the point of view (...) assumed (i.e., individual, population-based, or intergenerational), the relevant principle of justice is different. (shrink)

Many philosophers are sympathetic to a perdurantist view of persistence. One challenge facing this view lies in its ability to ground prudential rationality. If, as many have thought, numerical identity over time is required to ground there being sui generis (i.e. non-instrumental) prudential reasons, then perdurantists can appeal only to instrumental reasons. The problem is that it is hard to see how, by appealing only to instrumental reasons, the perdurantist can vindicate the axiom of prudence: the axiom that any person-stage (...) has reason to promote the wellbeing of any other person-stage that is part of the same person as that stage. The claim that perdurantists cannot vindicate the axiom, and hence that the view should be rejected, is what we call the normative argument against perdurantism. In this paper we argue that purely instrumental rationality can ground the truth of this axiom, and hence that the normative argument against perdurantism fails. (shrink)

Leadership takes a central role in the public affairs agenda. This article is a review of published works on leadership focusing on the concept of grace. It discusses the role of compassion and kindness in current leadership theory and practice and whether these attributes have value in sustainable models. Findings indicate that there is conceptual confusion regarding the definition of compassion and its application in leadership practices. Kindness is not discussed within the concept of compassion and kindness itself may be (...) viewed as a weakness in contemporary self-selected leadership characteristics. The conclusions suggest there is disconnect between contemporary models of leadership and calls for sustainable ethical leadership in the spheres of public and business environments. Compassion and kindness remain in the side-lines yet the implications for future trust and commitment are neglected in times where discretionary effort of workers and volunteers is crucial to goal achievement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Since the seventeenth century, scholars have been accusing each other of ‘dogmatism’. But what exactly did this mean? In exploring this question, this article focuses on philosophy and Biblical scholarship in nineteenth-century Germany. Scholars in both of these fields habitually contrasted Dogmatismus with Kritik, to the point of emplotting the history of their field as a gradual triumph of critical thinking over dogmatic belief. The article shows that charges of dogmatism derived much of their rhetorical force from such progressive (...) narratives. Especially neo-Kantian philosophers and Biblical scholars of liberal Protestant persuasion liked to depict their opponents as clinging to long-superseded modes of thought, thereby implying that these colleagues harked back to a past from which modern Wissenschaft had emancipated itself. This ‘denial of coevalness’, as Johannes Fabian calls it, demonstrates to what extent the vice of dogmatism was imbued with normative visions of how the field or, more broadly, German intellectual life should develop. (shrink)

In this article, Peter and Rowland explore the role of implicit statistical learning in syntactic development. It is often accepted that the processes observed in classic implicit learning or statistical learning experiments play an important role in the acquisition of natural language syntax. As Peter and Rowland point out, however, the results from neither research strand can be used to fully explain how children's syntax becomes adult‐like. They propose to address this shortcoming by using the structural priming paradigm.

In his contribution to this special issue, Hindriks considers the Security Principle, an account of pro tanto obligations based on our account of reasons (Gunnemyr and Touborg 2023a). According to the Security Principle, you have a pro tanto obligation not to perform an action that makes a harm more secure. Hindriks raises two objections to this account. First, that it is too flexible; second, that it gives wrong verdicts when agents are robustly unwilling to act in a certain way. Here, (...) we respond to Hindriks’ objections and argue that Hindriks’ account, the Threshold Principle, gives counterintuitive verdicts in preemption and low-probability cases. (shrink)

The mechanical properties of vertebrate cells are largely defined by the system of intermediate filaments (IF). As part of a dense network, IF polymers are constantly rearranged and relocalized in the cell to fulfill their duty as cells change shape, migrate, or divide. With the development of new imaging technologies, such as photoconvertible proteins and super‐resolution microscopy, a new appreciation for the complexity of IF dynamics has emerged. This review highlights new findings about the transport of IF, the remodeling of (...) filaments by a process of severing and re‐annealing, and the subunit exchange that occurs between filament precursors and a soluble pool of IF. We will also discuss the unique dynamic features of the keratin IF network. Finally, we will speculate about how the dynamic properties of IF are related to their functions. (shrink)

Lorsque la philosophie a voulu penser la propriété et son origine, elle a fait de la nature le cadre approprié pour l’appréhender, y compris à des époques où la propriété, aussi bien privée que commune, était déjà régulée par un système de juridictions préexistant. La propriété et la question de sa légitimité ont alors été interrogées aux confins de l’articulation entre l’ordre du fait (s’incarnant notamment dans l’appropriation) et celui du droit. Néanmoins la mise au premier plan d’une nécessité naturelle (...) ainsi que l’inscription de l’appropriation dans un registre naturaliste ont pour vocation de soustraire la propriété à la problématique de la justice distributive. L’approche naturaliste de l’appropriation privative implique en outre un usage pragmatique de la norme juridique, renversant par là la « loi de Hume », alors même que cette norme pourrait être tout aussi légitimement mobilisée pour instaurer un devoir-être plutôt que pour instituer juridiquement un état de fait. Classification JEL : B12, P14. (shrink)

This study aimed to outline the profile of retractions of scientific articles on COVID-19 published in journals indexed in the Scopus database between 2020 and 2021. To analyze the data, we used a bibliometric technique, with the Bibliometrix package in the R-Studio software, and descriptive statistics. Twenty-nine retractions were analyzed, and we found that the most common reasons for retraction were related to ethical issues and that 68.97% of authors have previously retracted articles. We concluded that there appears to have (...) been a change in the publication policies of journals, which resulted in an increase in scientific retractions related to COVID-19 during the study period. (shrink)

Filosofi med børn har siden 80’erne været kendt i Danmark som en stærkt dialogisk undervisningsform med fokus på elevernes evne til at reflektere sammen og argumentere selvstændigt. Feltets idealer kan dog være vanskelige at leve op til i praksis. Denne caseanalyse undersøger en rapport, hvor de dialogiske idealer for Filosofi med børn beskrives sammen med praksiseksempler, og analysen viser, at den faktiske undervisning ikke lever op til idealerne. Casen illustrerer dermed nogle af udfordringerne ved at bryde med en klassisk lærercentreret (...) undervisningsform, samt nødvendigheden af didaktiske værktøjer og strategier for at lykkes med den dialogiske tilgang i Filosofi med børn. (shrink)

La question cosmopolitique est restée en marge de l'intérêt qui a été porté à la pensée juridico-politique de Kant. Mais l'intérêt philosophique de la question cosmopolitique dépasse très largement ce cadre. Elle atteste d'abord que la théorie politique de Kant ne se limite pas une théorie de l'Etat. Il doit y avoir un en deçà et un au-delà de l'Etat, où la politique dépasse l'idée de peuple pour atteindre celle d'humanité. En ce sens, Kant est l'antidote de Carl Schmitt, qui (...) portait en lui la haine de l'idée cosmopolitique. Cet antagonisme théorique entre Schmitt et Kant, entre le poison et le remède, est largement attesté dans ce volume. Ce qui montre à quel point nous avons besoin aujourd'hui du cosmopolitisme de Kant, pour penser le passage de la guerre à la paix, la place de l'hôte étranger dans nos sociétés complexes et la nouvelle configuration d'un monde globalisé. (shrink)

The preferred tool for conceptualizing, determining, and claiming relations of kinship, ancestry, and descent among humans are diagrams. For this reason, and at the same time to avoid a reduction to biology as transported by terms such as kinship, ancestry, and descent, we introduce the expression diagrammatics of relatedness. We seek to understand the enormous influence that especially tree diagrams have had as a way to express and engage with human relatedness, but hold that this success can only be adequately (...) understood by attending to what in fact are broader diagrammatic practices. These practices bring to light that diagrams of relatedness do not simply make visible natural connections, but create or deny relations in particular ways and for particular reasons. In this special section, contributors investigate diagrams of relatedness in genealogy, heredity, as well as biological and social anthropology. Conceiving of diagrams as techniques that transcend such binaries as ‘thought and action’ and ‘image and text’, we aim at an understanding of how they were constructed and how they functioned in particular epistemic, cultural, and political contexts. (shrink)

Liberals agree that free speech should be protected, where speech is understood broadly to include all forms of intentional communication, including actions and pictures, not merely the spoken or written word. A surprising view about free speech in some liberal and legal circles is that communications should be protected on free-speech grounds only if the communications are mentally mediated. By “mentally mediated communication” we mean speech which communicates its message in such a way that the message can be rationally evaluated (...) by hearers, and causes the hearers to believe it, when it does, through the mechanism of those hearers employing their rational capacity to judge that it is correct. The mental-mediation or persuasion principle, as it is sometimes called, has some important legal and public policy implications. It has been applied to argue that certain forms of expression, despite being forms of speech or expression, lack even a prima facie claim to protection on free speech grounds. -/- Our central aim is to show why the mental mediation principle is mistaken. Liberals should think that some speech which is not mentally mediated deserves protection for the very same reasons that speech which is mentally mediated is often thought to deserve protection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Vagaries of Exemplarity: Distortion or Dismissal?Michel JeanneretExample is an uncertain looking-glass, all embracing, turning all ways.Montaigne 1Ancients and Moderns: Negotiating CoexistenceDo the Ancients provide the Renaissance with a repertoire of infallible examples? Do they have such absolute authority that their models, whether ethical or aesthetic, retain their relevance in every circumstance? The question is part and parcel of that thinking, which is fundamental to the sixteenth century, on (...) the status of Greco-Roman paradigms in the management of public and private life, or in the methods of science and the arts. Before analyzing two particular responses to classical exemplarity—by Erasmus and Montaigne—we shall set the problem in its general context.Whether lobbying for intense faithfulness to the models or recognizing the need for divergence, whether insisting on continuity or the need for change, on the possibility or impossibility of equaling the masters, everyone in the sixteenth century measured art, knowledge, and moral reflection according to the Greek and Roman norm. Scholars and artists together entered into this exchange on a daily basis and everybody, whatever the extent of their dependence, knew that their work could not be conceived or perceived as anything other than the more or less free modification of a particular vestige of classical heritage. To escape tradition was unthinkable, but to accept it resignedly was absurd. All room for maneuver was therefore in the shifting difference between [End Page 565] old and new, and in the extent of its transformation. 2 It is then predictable, given these conditions, that the transmission of classical examples should be subject to turbulence without, however, undergoing any violent break.The question was even more relevant given that the sense of history, the consciousness of time past being irrevocably lost took on a new resonance now. Recognizing and acknowledging the phenomenon of irreversible development—whether good or bad—counts as one of the most important intellectual acquisitions of the Renaissance. 3 The Middle Ages had been able to maintain the illusion of continuity and, by dressing Antiquity up in the manners and colors of feudal chivalry, had seen itself reflected in it as in a mirror. With the influx of new documents and the perfecting of more rigorous methods of interpretation—the techniques of philology—intellectuals had to acknowledge evident change. The past could no longer be modeled on the present; all imitation would henceforth be witness to the impossibility of any perfect match. At the same time as the classical world was coming to light, it was also getting further away, getting lost. This bereavement sometimes sparked off enough regressive nostalgia to provide matter for many an antiquarian project. In reaction to this loss, most humanists were motivated into salvaging the salvageable by injecting a dose of novelty into the rift created by their awareness of history. The intellectuals of the Renaissance would often have felt as if they were reenacting the famous encounter of the Romans and the Greeks; like the Romans they wanted to be both conquering and conquered, free and faithful, differing and deferring. For them also the antique model will be an ideal simultaneously present and lost, necessary and foreign.Two opposing solutions to this dilemma seemed to offer themselves: on the one hand an unconditional return to the sources minimizing the effects of history, and on the other an exploitation of the eclipses of the past, giving the present a chance to fight it out with the Ancients. We shall sketch out each of these two strategies: both the methods of respectful transmission and those of transformative intervention.Fine-tuned by the humanists, philology was closely linked to the advent of historical consciousness. Since classical civilization had definitively come to an end, the philologist devoted himself to reconstituting and preserving it, in all its original specificity. He removed the layers of interference accumulated over the centuries, reestablished the texts in their authentic versions, maybe even providing commentary on the meaning of the work within its context. Theoretically his intervention stopped there. Acknowledging the difference and [End Page 566] superiority of past authors, he did not touch their works except to restore them to their pristine selves. Soon... (shrink)

The thesis attempts to provide a real definition of religion and argues that this is less problematic than is often assumed. It begins with a brief introduction which outlines why it is attractive to subject the attempt to define religion to a philosophical investigation. It is argued that defining religion is interesting because it is something which appears difficult to do, which scholars of religion often oppose, and which has practical implications. In addition, defining religion provides an opportunity to address (...) fundamental philosophical issues (such as defining, social kinds, and theories of concepts) and theoretical questions concerning the study of religion. The introduction also mentions the difficulties these kinds of interdisciplinary enterprises are bound to meet because of differences in terminology and academic traditions. Part I is concerned with the philosophical, historical, and methodological issues in discussions necessary to pave the way for the attempt to provide a definition of religion. The first chapter addresses some fundamental philosophical issues concerning defining as a philosophical activity. It is argued that the traditional focus on natural kind concepts in discussions about defining needs to be supplemented with considerations about domain specificity and differences between social kinds. It is also argued that empirical findings from cognitive psychology are relevant to conceptual analysis and that two-dimensional semantics provides a productive approach to an analysis of the concept of religion. The chapter concludes with describing an approach to defining religion. The second chapter is also concerned with methodological questions and considers the potential contributions empirical studies of the concept of religion could make to the study. Some outlines of potentially useful studies are suggested, and pros and cons for including them in the present study are weighed up. The chapter concludes with drawing a distinction between essential and non-essential elements and assessing their relative importance in a definition. The third chapter offers, first, an overview of historical issues: the history of the term ‘religion’, the problem of determining the content of historical philosophical concepts of religion, and the history of the discussion about defining religion within the study of religion. The major conclusions of these sections are that the term ‘religion’ is likely to be a homonym and that several theoretical discussions have been intertwined in the historical debates about definitions of religion. The second part of the chapter discusses traditional fundamental issues in the study of religion in order to disentangle the discussion about definition from related discussions (about e.g. methods and religious (anti-)realism). It is concluded that an essentialist view on defining religion is not necessarily a return to apologetic approaches to religion. The fourth chapter offers an overview of positions for and against realism concerning religion and the possibility of providing a definition of religion. Important distinctions are drawn between two kinds of conceptual essentialism (related to definition) and two kinds of ontological essentialism (related to theories). A discussion of the various forms of essentialism concludes that a ‘soft essentialist’ approach to defining religion is preferable. It is also concluded that constructivist and other anti-realist objections to providing a real definition of religion are less obvious than is often assumed because they fail to offer a detailed account of the supposed ‘construction’ that is free of realist assumptions. They also appear to rely on controversial philosophical assumptions. The second part of the thesis is concerned with providing a definition of religion. It begins in chapter five with an overview of some multifactorial, or ‘soft essentialist’, approaches to defining religion. The purpose of this is to prepare the ground for the conceptual analysis, which opens with a discussion of various aspects of religion. Ten possible candidates for necessary and/or sufficient conditions for religion are discussed in order to determine their importance in a definition of religion. It is concluded that although many aspects are typical and/or relevant, only certain cognitive, normative, and practical aspects are necessary conditions for religion. It is also concluded that the necessary conditions for a religious cognitive aspect is supernatural and normative content of a certain scope combined with a certain attitudinal character. The chapter ends with a model of the working definition based on these intermediate conclusions. Chapter six contains the second step in the conceptual analysis. It confronts the working definition with various cases of more or less contested examples of religion or other systems of beliefs and practices in order to assess whether the definition needs revisions. The following discussions of special cases of beginning and ceasing of religious traditions, persons, and objects serve the same purpose. It is concluded that a revision of the working definition is unnecessary. Chapter seven concludes part II by tying up a few loose ends concerning the definition, some methodological aspects, and theories of concepts. The third and last part of the thesis contains, first, a brief discussion of practical implications of definitions of religion. Chapter eight illustrates the practical importance of a definition of religion by addressing the issue of the so-called ‘politics of defining religion’. It argues that scholars of religion as such are not unjustified in entering the debate about definitions, and it recommends efforts are made to separate discussions about defining religion from discussions about using definitions of religion as political tools. The final chapter of the thesis sums up important findings and insights of the study and points to some natural limitations. I warn that this study is only a rough outline of how a definition can be provided and which theoretical discussions lie behind such an attempt. Yet I also conclude that defining religion is a rewarding case study because it offers an opportunity to discuss fundamental questions in both philosophy and the study of religion while at the same addressing an interesting issue with immediate practical implications. (shrink)

Background Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) sparks debate in several countries, some of which allow or plan to allow MAiD where a mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition (MAiD-MD). Since MAiD-MD is becoming permissible in a growing number of jurisdictions, there is a need to better understand the moral concerns related to this option. Gaining a better understanding of the moral concerns at stake is a first step towards identifying ways of addressing them so that MAiD-MD can be (...) successfully introduced and implemented, where legislations allow it. Methods Thus, this article aims (1) to better understand the moral concerns regarding MAiD-MD, and (2) to identify potential solutions to promote stakeholders’ well-being. A qualitative thematic review was undertaken, which used systematic keyword-driven search and thematic analysis of content. Seventy-four publications met the inclusion criteria. Results Various moral concerns and proposed solutions were identified and are related to how MAiD-MD is introduced in 5 contexts: (1) Societal context, (2) Healthcare system, (3) Continuum of care, (4) Discussions on the option of MAiD-MD, (5) MAiD-MD practices. We propose this classification of the identified moral concerns because it helps to better understand the various facets of discomfort experienced with MAiD-MD. In so doing, it also directs the various actions to be taken to alleviate these discomforts and promote the well-being of stakeholders. Conclusion The assessment of MAiD-MD applications, which is part of the context of MAiD-MD practices, emerges as the most widespread source of concern. Addressing the moral concerns arising in the five contexts identified could help ease concerns regarding the assessment of MAiD-MD. (shrink)