Metabolism is a set of chemical reactions, used by living organisms to process chemical compounds in order to take energy and eliminate toxic compounds, for example. Its processes are referred as metabolic pathways. Understanding metabolism is imperative to biology, toxicology and medicine, but the number and complexity of metabolic pathways makes this a difficult task. In our paper, we investigate the use of causal Bayesian networks to model the pathways of yeast saccharomyces cerevisiae metabolism: such a network can be used (...) to draw predictions about the levels of metabolites and enzymes in a particular specimen. We propose a two-stage methodology for causal networks, as follows. First construct a causal network from the network of metabolic pathways. The viability of this causal network depends on the validity of the causal Markov condition. If this condition fails, however, the principle of the common cause motivates the addition of a new causal arrow or a new `hidden' common cause to the network (stage 2 of the model formation process). Algorithms for adding arrows or hidden nodes have been developed separately in a number of papers, and in this paper we combine them, showing how the resulting procedure can be applied to the metabolic pathway problem. Our general approach was tested on neural cell morphology data and demonstrated noticeable improvements in both prediction and network accuracy. (shrink)

Attempting to determine solutions for unethical practices in the field, this research was designed to assess the effectiveness of public relations firms’ ethics statements in decreasing the incidence of malpractice. This study revealed an encouraging finding that practitioners working in firms with ethical parameters were significantly more likely to engage in ethical practices. Moreover, educating public relations practitioners about the content of ethics statement could positively influence their ethical practices. At the same time, this study’s findings suggest further questions for (...) consideration in future scholarship and in the application of ethics statements to practice within the field. (shrink)

This paper aims to discuss characteristics of Korea’s system responses with a research framework of the structure, conduct and performance theory and explain the role of information, communication technologies (ICT) and Big Data from a technology-mediated control (TMC) perspective.,This study examines the contextual nature of Korea’s diagnostic, preventive and treatment efforts. Particular attention is paid to issues related to the effective use of Big Data analytics and its applications, reporting mechanisms and public safety measures. The research model defines key factors (...) in assessing the effectiveness of Korea’s responses.,Findings of this research suggest: effective strategic planning and operational execution use well-tested and designed crisis-responsive manuals; linkage role of ICT/Big Data is prominent in trace, test and treat and participation (3T + P); and aggressive epidemic investigations require synergistic efforts of national and local government units, broad societal support and participation and contribution of global firms offering their domestic and global supply chain network capabilities.,The Korean Government's effective response experiences suggest the synergy of political, social, cultural and technological factors. Future studies may explore how personal privacy and public safety are both achieved in different social–cultural–political contexts (Ahn et al., 2020; Delgado et al., 2020; Sharma and Bashir, 2020). Other emerging organizational issues and international comparative studies are worth further investigation in future studies.,This case study suggests how to apply ICT capabilities for organizing a national response to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) pandemic. Public and private partnership in the framework of sociotechnological synergy (i.e. integration of ICT and social orchestration) is essential for the 3T process. In support of public policy initiatives, global firms share their IT infrastructure and supply chain integration experiences to accommodate global-level crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.,This study extends the TMC framework to a national level. In the adapted TMC framework, the control source, control target and linkage mechanism are specified. Using TMC, this shows the dynamic roles of ICT/Big Data in Korea’s COVID-19 response experiences.,The impacts of the COVID-19 are rapid and enormous. Despite the controversial early policy decisions and the rapid rise of confirmed patients, the world has recognized Korea’s effective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The great academic disputation of Ho-rak had been made for about 200 years since it began in 1709. An argument that the human nature and the nature of things are same or different was one of the main subjects for the great academic disputation. Gan Lee (李柬, 1677-1727) and Wonjin Han (韓元震, 1682-1751) were leading discussants of the argument. After Lee and Han, Neo-Confucian scholars in Joseon dynasty attempted comprehensively to synthesize their two views. But such Scholars as Seong-ju Lim (...) (任聖周, 1711-1788) and Jeongjin Ki (奇正鎭, 1798-1879) criticized a reformulation of One Principle and Many Differentiations. Lim argued that there was not only One Principle but also one vital breath as well as Many Differentiations of vital breath as well as One Principle. His idea of One Principle is relevant for a similarity between the natures of humans and things, and his idea of Many Differentiations is relevant for a difference between the natures of humans and things. Lim grasped that all the natures of things had two aspects of similarity and difference. But Gi criticized that their discussants were too narrowly specific in arguing this issue. He argued that One principle and Many Differences entailed each other. Like Lim's idea, his idea confirmed the sides of both, too. The nature of original substance is equivalent to the nature of existence. It seems to me that such a fruitful result of Korean philosophy, which an argument between the natures of humans and things had been distinctly made, for the future, will be an area of being made a deeper exploration from various aspects. (shrink)

Evidence suggests divergent thinking is the cognitive basis of creative thoughts. Neuroimaging literature using resting-state functional connectivity has revealed network reorganizations during divergent thinking. Recent studies have revealed the changes of network organizations when performing creativity tasks, but such brain reconfigurations may be prolonged after task and be modulated by the trait of creativity. To investigate the dynamic reconfiguration, 40 young participants were recruited to perform consecutive Alternative Uses Tasks for divergent thinking and two resting-state scans were used for mapping (...) the brain reorganizations after AUT. We split participants into high- and low-creative groups based on creative achievement questionnaire and targeted on reconfigurations of the two brain networks: default-mode network and the network seeded at the left inferior frontal gyrus because the between-group difference of AUT-induced brain activation located at the left IFG. The changes of post-AUT RSFCs indicated the prolonged effect of divergent thinking. More specifically, the alterations of RSFCIFG−AG and RSFCIFG−IPL in the high-creative group had positive relationship with their AUT performances, but not found in the low-creative group. Furthermore, the RSFC changes of DMN did not present significant relationships with AUT performances. The findings not only confirmed the possibility of brain dynamic reconfiguration following divergent thinking, but also suggested the distinct IFGN reconfiguration between individuals with different creativity levels. (shrink)

Abstract This study was designed to investigate the factors affecting ethical practices of public relations professionals in public relations firms. In particular, the following organizational ethics factors were examined: (1) presence of ethics code, (2) top management support for ethical practice, (3) ethical climate, and (4) perception of the association between career success and ethical practice. Analysis revealed that the presence of an ethics code along with top management support and a non-egoistic ethical climate within public relations firms significantly influenced (...) public relations professionals' ethical practices. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s13520-011-0013-1 Authors Eyun-Jung Ki, Department of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication and Information Sciences, The University of Alabama, Box 870172, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0172, USA Junghyuk Lee, Division of Communication Arts, Kwangwoon University, Seoul, South Korea Hong-Lim Choi, School of Communication, Sun Moon University, 100, Kalsan-ri, Tangjeong-myeon, Asan-si, Chungnam 336-708, South Korea Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

The ease with which genotyping technologies generate tremendous amounts of data on research participants has been well chronicled, a feat that continues to become both faster and cheaper to perform. In parallel to these advances come additional ethical considerations and debates, one of which centers on providing individual research results and incidental findings back to research participants taking part in genetic research efforts. In 2006 the Industry Pharmacogenomics Working Group offered some ‘Points-to-Consider’ on this topic within the context of the (...) drug development process from those who are affiliated to pharmaceutical companies. Today many of these points remain applicable to the discussion but will be expanded upon in this updated viewpoint from the I-PWG. The exploratory nature of pharmacogenomic work in the pharmaceutical industry is discussed to provide context for why these results typically are not best suited for return. Operational challenges unique to this industry which cause barriers to returning this information are also explained. (shrink)

BackgroundAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder is clinically diagnosed; however, quantitative analysis to statistically analyze the symptom severity of children with ADHD via the measurement of head movement is still in progress. Studies focusing on the cues that may influence the attention of children with ADHD in classroom settings, where children spend a considerable amount of time, are relatively scarce. Virtual reality allows real-life simulation of classroom environments and thus provides an opportunity to test a range of theories in a naturalistic and (...) controlled manner. The objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between participants’ head movements and their reports of inattention and hyperactivity, and to investigate how their head movements are affected by different social cues of different sensory modalities.MethodsThirty-seven children and adolescents with and without ADHD were recruited for this study. All participants were assessed for diagnoses, clinical symptoms, and self-reported symptoms. A virtual reality-continuous performance test was conducted under four conditions: control, no-cue, visual cue, and visual/audio cue. A quantitativecomparison of the participants’ head movements was conducted in three dimensions using a head-mounted display in a VR classroom environment. Task-irrelevant head movements were analyzed separately, considering the dimension of movement needed to perform the VR-CPT.ResultsThe magnitude of head movement, especially task-irrelevant head movement, significantly correlated with the current standard of clinical assessment in the ADHD group. Regarding the four conditions, head movement showed changes according to the complexity of social cues in both the ADHD and healthy control groups.ConclusionChildren and adolescents with ADHD showed decreasing task-irrelevant movements in the presence of social stimuli toward the intended orientation. As a proof-of-concept study, this study preliminarily identifies the potential of VR as a tool to understand and investigate the classroom behavior of children with ADHD in a controlled, systematic manner. (shrink)

The demand for organ transplants, both globally and in South Korea, substantially exceeds the supply, a situation that might have been aggravated by the enactment of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act (LSTDA) in February 2018. This legislation may influence emergency medical procedures and the availability of organs from brain-dead donors. This study aimed to assess LSTDA’s impact, introduced in February 2018, on organ donation status in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients in a metropolitan city and identified related factors. We conducted (...) a retrospective analysis of a regional cardiac arrest registry. This study included patients aged 16 or older with cardiac arrest and a cerebral performance category (CPC) score of 5 from January 2015 to December 2022. The exclusion criteria were CPC scores of 1–4, patients under 16 years, and patients declared dead or transferred from emergency departments. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse factors affecting organ donation. Of the 751 patients included in this study, 47 were organ donors, with a median age of 47 years. Before the LSTDA, there were 30 organ donations, which declined to 17 after its implementation. In the organ donation group, the causes of cardiac arrest included medical (34%), hanging (46.8%), and trauma (19.2%). The adjusted odds ratio for organ donation before the LSTDA implementation was 6.12 (95% CI 3.09–12.12), with non-medical aetiology as associated factors. The enactment of the LSTDA in 2018 in South Korea may be linked to reduced organ donations among patients with OHCA, underscoring the need to re-evaluate the medical and legal aspects of organ donation, especially considering end-of-life care decisions. (shrink)

The current research explored the effect of anger on hypothesis confirmation—the propensity to seek information that confirms rather than disconfirms one's opinion. We argued that the moving against action tendency associated with anger leads angry individuals to seek out more disconfirming information than sad individuals, attenuating the confirmation bias. We tested this hypothesis in two studies of experimentally primed anger and sadness on the selective exposure to hypothesis confirming and disconfirming information. In Study 1, participants in the angry condition were (...) more likely to choose disconfirming information than those in the sad or neutral condition when given the opportunity to read more about a social debate, and reading the disconfirming information affected their subsequent attitude. Study 2 measured participants' opinions and information selection about the 2008 US Presidential Election and their desire to “move against” a person or object. Participants in the angry condition reported a greater tendency to oppose a person or object, which resulted in the attenuation of the confirmation bias. (shrink)

This study analyzes whether academics with advanced degrees from foreign universities are more research productive than their domestic counterparts in the three selected East Asian higher education systems – Korea, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. The three systems have relatively large proportions of foreign degree holders among their professoriates. The data for this study is drawn from the Changing Academic Profession survey. In our negative binominal regression analysis, we found that foreign degree holders are not more research productive than their (...) colleagues with domestic degrees, and even slightly less productive than domestic degree holders in soft disciplines in Korea unless they have further foreign post-doc experience after their PhD. Furthermore, foreign degree holders are less productive in hard disciplines in Malaysia. Finally, we discuss the findings and attribute them to contextual differences between the three localities. (shrink)

Whether due to simplicity or hypocrisy, the question of access to patient data for biomedical research is widely seen in the public discourse only from the angle of patient privacy. At the same time, the desire to live and to live without disability is of much higher value to the patients. This goal can only be achieved by extracting research insight from patient data in addition to working on model organisms, something that is well understood by many patients. Yet, most (...) biomedical researchers working outside of clinics and hospitals are denied access to patient records when, at the same time, clinicians who guard the patient data are not optimally prepared for the data’s analysis. Medical data collection is a time- and cost-intensive process that is most of all tedious, with few elements of intellectual and emotional satisfaction on its own. In this process, clinicians and bioinformaticians, each group with their own interests, have to join forces with the goal to generate medical data sets both from clinical trials and from routinely collected electronic health records that are, as much as possible, free from errors and obvious inconsistencies. The data cleansing effort as we have learned during curation of Singaporean clinical trial data is not a trivial task. The introduction of omics and sophisticated imaging modalities into clinical practice that are only partially interpreted in terms of diagnosis and therapy with today’s level of knowledge warrant the creation of clinical databases with full patient history. This opens up opportunities for re-analyses and cross-trial studies at future time points with more sophisticated analyses of the same data, the collection of which is very expensive. (shrink)

This study investigated the usefulness of the six-item Stress and Anxiety to Viral Epidemics scale and the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale as tools to assess anxiety related to coronavirus disease in cancer patients. A total of 221 patients with cancer responded to an anonymous online questionnaire between 15 July and 15 August 2020. The functional impairment of the patients was assessed using the Work and Social Adjustment Scale, and the SAVE-6 and CAS were also applied. Among these 221 cancer patients, 110 (...) had SAVE-6 scores ≥ 15 and 21 had CAS scores ≥ 5. Within the study population, 104 and 29 patients had WSAS scores ≥ 11 and ≥ 21, respectively. The correlations between the SAVE-6 and WSAS and CAS scores were statistically significant. The cut-off for the SAVE-6 was 15 points, while that for the WSAS was 11. Our results suggested that the SAVE-6 and CAS could be used to evaluate moderate and severe degrees of functional impairment related to mental health, respectively, in cancer patients during viral epidemics. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the role of culture on early adolescents’ social reasoning about peer exclusion. A total of 80 U.S. and 149 Taiwanese early adolescents independently completed a social reasoning essay about peer exclusion. Analyses of the essays based on social-moral theories showed that U.S. students tended to reason about peer exclusion based on social conventional thinking whereas Taiwanese students were more attentive to personal and moral issues. Despite this difference, both groups of students referred to some common (...) social-moral concepts while reasoning about peer exclusion, including consideration of personal benefit, harming others’ welfare, personal concern, and punishment. The use of social reasoning strategies was similar across the two groups of students except that Taiwanese students relied more on judgment whereas U.S. students generated more alternative hypotheses. (shrink)

"Over many centuries, philosophers, theologians, and poets have been fascinated by the interplay of will and desire in the human psyche. Does will follow or precede desire? How can we bond them and thus unite body, soul, and spirit in harmonic concord? For fresh insights to these age-old questions, Dr. Joanne Stroud enlists the tools of modern psychology. Her eclectic probe of basic human drives moves from the awesome power of Eros, the great liberator of antiquity, through the impact (...) of the monotheistic faiths on will and desire, and finally to the discordant views of the great philosophers and psychologists of the modern era, among them Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and the little known but magnetic Frenchman, Gaston Bachelard." "Love and will, human aspirations and desires, are caught - the author concludes - in a whirlwind of change, with impersonal scientific data supplanting the myths, the ancient lore, the stories rich in imagery, that previously contoured human behavior. As a result we live, in W.B. Yeat's famous phrase, in "the age of disordered will."" "In the twentieth century will became recognized only in its more conscious applications, as almost synonymous with ego. With this increasing reverence for the strong ego, will was elevated (by psychologists, among many others) to new egotistical summits as a potent tool of power. The more subtle aspects of will, such as the way it delineates identity, have been neglected, the author contends, and can only be recaptured by an understanding of how will becomes bonded to desire."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of embodiment/disembodiment discussed by Hwa Yol Jung mainly in his recent work, Rethinking Political Theory (1993a) in tandem with an examination of some recent developments in Korean scholarship on the same subject. To sum up, the following three points are emphasized. First, this living body does not exist except in specific modalities. In this sense, Gabriel Marcel''s paradigmatic affirmation that I am my body requires an elaboration of the specific modalities of the living body (...) as a being in the world. Second, the way a living body exists is not exclusively mental or physical, but both. In short, it is phenomenal. Third, the point of the whole argument can be summed up as follows: to conceal one''s own body is natural, but to forget it is dangerous. The primary task of phenomenology is not to denude human beings, but to reawaken ourselves to the idea that we are beings who live with and through bodies. (shrink)

First published in 1848, Christian Discourses is a quartet of pieces written and arranged in contrasting styles. Parts One and Three, "The Cares of the Pagans" and "Thoughts That Wound from Behind--for Upbuilding," serve as a polemical overture to Kierkegaard's collision with the established order of Christendom. Yet Parts Two and Four, "Joyful Notes in the Strife of Suffering" and "Discourses at the Communion on Fridays," are reassuring affirmations of the joy and blessedness of Christian life in a world of (...) adversity and suffering. Written in ordinary language, the work combines simplicity and inwardness with reflection and presents crucial Christian concepts and presuppositions with unusual clarity. Kierkegaard continued in the pattern that he began with his first pseudonymous esthetic work, Either/Or, by pairing Christian Discourses with The Crisis, an unsigned esthetic essay on contemporary Danish actress Joanne Luise Heiberg. (shrink)

In this era of intense migration, the topic of the foreigner is of paramount importance. Joanne Wieland-Burston examines the question of the 'foreign' and 'foreigner' from multiple perspectives and explores how Jung and Freud were more interested in the wide phenomenon of the foreign in the unconscious rather than in their own personal lives. She analyses cultural approaches to the archetype of the foreigner throughout history using literary, cultural (as seen in mythological texts and fairy tales) and psychological (...) references and interprets the scapegoating of foreign minorities as a projection of the monster onto the foreigner. The book includes contemporary perspectives on immigration and displacement throughout, from analysing patient case material, the archetypal needs of people who join terrorist groups, feelings of alienation, and the work of Palestinian-German psychologist Ahmad Mansour. Throughout this personal and highly topical study, Wieland questions and studies C. G. Jung's own reflections on himself as a foreigner and her own personal experiences. (shrink)

Epistemic justifications for democracy have been offered in terms of two different aspects of decision-making: voting and deliberation, or ‘votes’ and ‘talk.’ The Condorcet Jury Theorem is appealed to as a justification in terms votes, and the Hong-Page “Diversity Trumps Ability” result is appealed to as a justification in terms of deliberation. Both of these, however, are most plausibly construed as models of direct democracy, with full and direct participation across the population. In this paper, we explore how these (...) results hold up if we vary the model so as to reflect the more familiar democratic structure of a representative hierarchy. We first recount extant analytic work that shows that representation inevitably weakens the voting results of the Condorcet Jury Theorem, but we question the ability of that result to shine light on real representative systems. We then show that, when we move from votes to talk, as modeled in Hong-Page, representation holds its own and even has a slight edge. (shrink)

Epistemic justifications for democracy have been offered in terms of two different aspects of decision-making: voting and deliberation, or 'votes' and 'talk.' The Condorcet Jury Theorem is appealed to as a justification in terms of votes, and the Hong-Page "Diversity Trumps Ability" result is appealed to as a justification in terms of deliberation. Both of these, however, are most plausibly construed as models of direct democracy, with full and direct participation across the population. In this paper, we explore how (...) these results hold up if we vary the model so as to reflect the more familiar democratic structure of a representative hierarchy. We first recount extant analytic work that shows that representation inevitably weakens the voting results of the Condorcet Jury Theorem, but we question the ability of the result to shine light on real representative systems. We then show that, when we move from votes to talk, as modeled in Hong-Page, representation holds its own and even has a slight edge. (shrink)

A TrajectoryIn an essay that is now a classic piece in understanding post-modern culture, Jean-François Lyotard wrote, “[e]clecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and ‘retro’ clothes in Hong Kong” (Lyotard 1989: 76). The boundaries have become blurred in both positive and negative senses. Geographical borders have loosened through ever-increasing mobility as cultural exchanges become more (...) accessible and are rapidly flowing through electronic exchanges in the cyberspace arena. Almost a quarter century after Lyotard described the present era as the time of eclecticism, the world has become more global, and the demand for cross-, inter-, and multi-cultural knowledge has become stronger than ever. In this context, globalization, cosmopolitanism, and world-citizenship have become some of the expressions with which the present time is defi. (shrink)

In the 21st century, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) remains one of the key figures in the field of analytical psychology - and Psychological Types, or The Psychology of Individuation, published in 1921, is one of his most influential works. It was written during the decade after the publication of Psychology of the Unconscious (1912), which effectively ended his friendship and collaboration with Sigmund Freud. Whereas the earlier work had clearly marked Jung's psychoanalytical divergence from Freud it is the (...) Psychology of Types that fully clarifies and presents the nature, quality and characteristics of his analytical psychology. The work, which was in part a consequence of his need to reconcile the competing theories of Freud, whom he regarded as extraverted, and Alfred Adler, whom he saw as introverted, develops his concept of descriptive categories for understanding the human mind in terms of the two essential attitude types: introversion and extraversion. These basic attitudes operate in tandem with four principal interacting functions of consciousness which Jung identifies as sensation and intuition, which are functions of perception, and thinking and feeling, which are functions of judgment. The eight resulting psychological types are then explored, described, identified, characterised and explained in considerable detail, with a soaring range of examples drawn from the whole of human history, culture and experience. In his efforts to explore and illuminate the nature of the unconscious mind and indeed the collective unconscious, he investigates the problems posed by the differing psychological types and how these have manifested from classical and medieval times to the 20th century. His observations range from Aristotle, Socrates and Plato to Tertullian and Origen, and from Abélard and Master Eckhart to Martin Luther and the problem of transubstantiation. Jung takes the listener on an odyssey of human thinking. He considers the problem of types in the works of Schiller and Goethe, and Spitteler and his treatment of the Prometheus myth. He contrasts idealism and realism, the Apollonian and the Dionysian in Nietzsche, and explores a host of philosophical and religious sources from the Bible to Taoism to Brahminism. He considers the nature of the reconciling symbol in Spitteler before analysing the nature of types in modern philosophy, aesthetics and biography, giving detailed consideration to William James' characteristic pairs of opposites and Furneaux Jordan's 'character sketch of the emotional types'. Jung goes on to fully identify and describe the characteristic differences between the extraverted and introverted types and provides an extensive chapter on definitions to fully clarify the meaning of the language he employs and make his meaning more accessible. Authoritatively read by Martyn Swain for Ukemi Audiobooks, Psychological Types is an inexhaustible treasure chest of ideas and creative inspiration worth listening to time and time again. (shrink)

This study examines how authentic leadership influences team performance via the mediating mechanism of team reflexivity. Adopting a self-regulatory perspective, we propose that authentic leadership will predict the specific team regulatory process of reflexivity, which in turn will be associated with two outcomes of team performance, effectiveness and productivity. Using survey data from 53 teams in three organizations in the United Kingdom and Greece and controlling for collective trust, we found support for our stated hypotheses with the results indicating a (...) significant fully mediated relationship. As predicted the self-regulatory behaviors inherent in the process of authentic leadership served to collectively shape team behavior, manifesting in the process of team reflexivity, which, in turn, positively predicted team performance. We conclude with a discussion of how this study extends theoretical understanding of authentic leadership in relation to teamwork and delineate several practical implications for leaders and organizations. (shrink)

In the human quest for orientation vis-à-vis personal life and comprehensive reality the worldviews of religionists and humanists offer different answers, and science also plays a crucial role. Yet it is the ordinary, embodied experience of meaningful engagement with reality in which all these cultural activities are rooted. Human beings have to relate themselves to the entirety of their lives to achieve orientation. This relation involves a non-methodical, meaningful experience that exhibits the crucial features for understanding worldviews: it comprises cognition, (...) volition, and emotion, is embodied, action-oriented, and expressive. From this starting-point, religious and secular worldviews articulate what is experienced as ultimately meaningful. Yet the plurality and one-sidedness of these life stances necessitates critical engagement for which philosophy provides indispensable means. In the end, some worldviews can be ruled out, but we are still left with a plurality of genuine options for orientation. (shrink)

This essay seeks to clarify the meaning and nature of normativity in metaethics and offers reasons why comparative religious ethics (CRE) must properly address questions about normativity. Though many comparative religious ethicists take CRE to be a normative discipline, what they say about normativity is often unclear and confusing. I argue that the third‐wave scholars face serious questions with respect to not only the justification of moral belief but also the rationality of moral belief and action. These scholars tend to (...) view the justification of moral belief to be a matter of process (that is, discursive social practice) rather than evidence‐possession, thus overlooking crucial differences between the two. They also run the risk of confusing motivating and explanatory reasons with normative reasons for moral belief and action. Consequently, their account of normativity would be insufficient for determining the rationality of moral beliefs and actions as well as for justifying moral beliefs. (shrink)