We respond to a Letter to the Editor regarding "Principlism and contemporary ethical considerations for providers of transgender health care." We address criticisms by Castle & Klein (2024) of blatant fatphobia related to the ethical elements concerning BMI restrictions for gender-affirming surgery. Our response corrects several mischaracterizations of the article and clarifies our position. My co-authors and I remain focused on advocating for patient-centered, ethically sound, evidence-based, and equitable healthcare policies.

Background: Transgender health care is a subject of much debate among clinicians, political commentators, and policy-makers. While the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (SOC) establish clinical standards, these standards contain implied ethics but lack explicit focused discussion of ethical considerations in providing care. An ethics chapter in the SOC would enhance clinical guidelines. Aims: We aim to provide a valuable guide for healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in the ethical aspects of clinical support for gender (...) diverse and transgender people of all ages. Recognizing that the WPATH is a global association, we address broad challenges. We offer a reflection on general ethical principles, providing conceptual tools for healthcare providers, patients, and families to navigate the specific challenges they might encounter in transgender health care, in line with WPATH’s worldwide mission and scope. Method: This article employs a descriptive analysis, and our framework of reference is the four principles of biomedical ethics: respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Results: The article presents a discussion on the four ethical principles as applied to transgender health care. We address issues such as respect for patient autonomy in decision-making, the role of beneficence and nonmaleficence in clinical interventions, and the importance of justice in equitable treatment and access to care. Some of the ethical concerns we address in this article pertain to the current sociopolitical climate, where there has been increasing legal interference, internationally, for transgender and nonbinary people, particularly youth, seeking medical care. Discussion: We highlight the interplay between ethical principles and clinical practice, underscoring the need for ethical guidance in addressing the diverse challenges faced by healthcare providers and patients in transgender health care. We advocate for continuous refinement of ethical thinking to ensure that transgender health care is not only medically effective but also ethically sound. (shrink)

This article establishes a dialogue between the philosopher Axel Honneth and the feminist scholars Silvia Federici and Nancy Fraser. The aim is to emphasize the limits of Honneth’s philosophical reflections on the normative dimension of the family developed in Freedom’s Right. First, I present his ideas on how a normative expectation of social freedom permeates familial relations. According to him, after women entered the labour market, a normative notion of symmetrical participation in the family was produced. I aim to (...) defend here that, whether normative or not, this idea of family is not only limited but also false, since it does not consider the dilemmas of social reproduction whose consequences contradict social freedom. Next, I develop Federici’s and Fraser’s analyses of how families have always faced conflicts concerning the requirements of social reproduction and have produced diverse forms of subjugation that go against the very idea of the family as an unquestioned sphere of freedom. It is necessary to analyse how families produce new forms of subjugation to transform familial relations into truly possible ways of being socially free – and this requires making visible some figures who structure the family, such as nannies, friends and grandparents. (shrink)

Humility, in a variety of forms, has been examined in educational contexts in recent years. However, its association with a particular pedagogical method remains an unexplored area of inquiry. Likewise, social justice and student voice are a concern in international education arenas, including in higher education, but are not usually connected to virtue acquisition or demonstration. The student voice for social justice (SVSJ) pedagogical method, based on the framework of Nancy Fraser, seeks to aid practitioners in higher education to (...) ensure that social justice and student voice, mediated by notions of humility, are at the forefront of higher education practices across disciplines. This is accomplished by creating spaces for students’ active participation and voice in course content development and classroom learning. In this paper, we expand philosophical explorations of intellectual humility (IH) and cultural humility (CH) as virtues that mediate teaching and learning practices and interactions in classrooms during SVSJ implementation. This ensures that each student is recognised as an important knowledge holder and that diverse ways of knowing, knowledge systems and cultural traditions are valued in higher education teaching and learning spaces. (shrink)

This article reviews and develops an epistemological tradition in the philosophy of science, known as convergentism, which holds that inference methods should be assessed based on their ability to converge to the truth across a range of possible scenarios. Emphasis is placed on its historical origins in the work of C. S. Peirce and its recent developments in formal epistemology and data science (including statistics and machine learning). Comparisons are made with three other traditions: (1) explanationism, which holds that theory (...) choice should be guided by a theory's overall balance of explanatory virtues, such as simplicity and fit with data; (2) instrumentalism, which maintains that scientific inference should be driven by the goal of obtaining useful models rather than true theories; and (3) Bayesianism, which shifts the focus from all-or-nothing beliefs to degrees of belief. (shrink)

There has long been an impression that reliabilism implies externalism and that frequentist statistics, due to its reliabilist nature, is inherently externalist. I argue, however, that frequentist statistics can plausibly be understood as a form of internalist reliabilism -- internalist in the conventional sense, yet reliabilist in certain unconventional and intriguing ways. Crucially, in developing the thesis that reliabilism does not imply externalism, my aim is not to stretch the meaning of ‘reliabilism’ merely to sever the implication. Instead, it is (...) to gain a deeper understanding of frequentist statistics, which stands as one of the most sustained attempts by scientists to develop an epistemology for their own use. (shrink)

Otsuka (2023) argues for a correspondence between data science and traditional epistemology: Bayesian statistics is internalist; classical (frequentist) statistics is externalist, owing to its reliabilist nature; model selection is pragmatist; and machine learning is a version of virtue epistemology. Where he sees diversity, I see an opportunity for unity. In this article, I argue that classical statistics, model selection, and machine learning share a foundation that is reliabilist in an unconventional sense that aligns with internalism. Hence a unification under internalist (...) reliabilism. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to distinguish enumerative theories of welfare, which tell us which things are good for us, from explanatory theories, which tell us why the things that are good for us have that status. It has also been claimed that while hedonism and objective list theories are enumerative but not explanatory, desire satisfactionism is explanatory but not enumerative. In this paper, I argue that this is mistaken. When properly understood, every major theory of welfare is both enumerative and (...) explanatory. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the potential of “equitech”—AI technology that improves equity. Recently, interventions have been developed to reduce the harm of implicit bias, the automatic form of stereotype or prejudice that contributes to injustice. However, these interventions—some of which are assisted by AI-related technology—have significant limitations, including unintended negative consequences and general inefficacy. To overcome these limitations, we propose a two-dimensional framework to assess current AI-assisted interventions and explore promising new ones. We begin by using the case of human (...) resource recruitment as a focal point to show that existing approaches have exploited only a subset of the available solution space. We then demonstrate how our framework facilitates the discovery of new approaches. The first dimension of this framework helps us systematically consider the analytic information, intervention implementation, and modes of human-machine interaction made available by advancements in AI-related technology. The second dimension enables the identification and incorporation of insights from recent research on implicit bias intervention. We argue that a design strategy that combines complementary interventions can further enhance the effectiveness of interventions by targeting the various interacting cognitive systems that underlie implicit bias. We end with a discussion of how our cognitive interventions framework can have positive downstream effects for structural problems. (shrink)

In contemporary analytic philosophy of art, the intentionalist debate is about whether the author’s intention is relevant to the interpretation of her work. Various positions have been proposed, and in this paper I defend what I call hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism, the position that interpretation is based on the intention attributed to the author constructed from the work. There are three aims to achieve: (1) to give a general account of hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism; (2) to present a moderate version of hypothetical (...) author-hypothetical intentionalism; (3) to defend the moderate version of hypothetical author-hypothetical intentionalism against actual intentionalism and actual author-hypothetical intentionalism. Against the current trend that focuses on actual authors, I hope to show that the hypothetical author account is still a sustainable contender in the intentionalist debate. (shrink)

While previous research considering the emergence of strategic alliances has typically viewed their formation through a single theoretical lens, we suggest that multiple theoretical perspectives are needed to understand their complexity. This research conceptually integrates the resource-based view and institutional theory to assess variations in firm-level motivations to form strategic alliances. Applying these ideas to the context of complex environmental problems, we propose that strategic alliances typically are either competency- or legitimacy-oriented, and that four structural dimensions characterize both types of (...) alliances—organization learning, partner diversity, governance structure, and partner relations. We present research propositions that describe how alliances differ along these dimensions, and offer an important broader perspective on alliance formation that is applicable towards understanding their strategic and social outcomes. (shrink)

This article aims to analyze the factors influencing the adoption of green practices in Chinese logistics industry. The determinant factors are composed of technological, organizational, and environmental dimensions. A questionnaire survey on the green practice adoption of Chinese logistics companies was conducted, and 322 samples were analyzed. Research results reveal that relative advantage and compatibility of green practices, organizational support, quality of human resources, regulatory pressure, and governmental support have significantly positive influences on the adoption of green practices for Chinese (...) logistics companies. Environmental uncertainty and green practice's complexity have significantly negative influences on green practice adoption. However, the influence of customer pressure is not significant for Chinese logistics companies. This article also suggests implications and opportunities for future research. (shrink)

This paper redresses the neglect of interregimatic solidarity—solidarity between collective anti-oppressive struggles in purportedly antithetical regimes—in transnational feminist scholarship. I argue that authoritarian and demostatist regimatic contexts of oppression give rise to regimatically distinct oppressive kinds, which track their regimatic subjects of oppression respectively, and that this fact significantly increases the risk of interregimatic missolidarization in lieu of interregimatic solidarity. In response, we need to cultivate antiauthoritarian resilience, which is both an epistemic virtue and a moral virtue. Epistemically, it helps (...) us navigate a world characterized by the dynamics of authoritarian spillover, demostatist sellout, imperial standoff and capitalist scaleup, comprehend how regimatic oppressions are interconnected, and appreciate the practical import of interregimatic solidarity. Morally, antiauthoritarian resilience helps us discern and discard moral parochialism and cynical moralism, both impeding the exercise of interregimatic solidarity. I conclude with tentative thoughts on when, for whom and to what extent interregimatic solidarity is morally obligatory, if its realization depends on cultivating the virtue of antiauthoritarian resilience. (shrink)

The call to make artificial intelligence (AI) more democratic, or to “democratize AI,” is sometimes framed as a promising response for mitigating algorithmic injustice or making AI more aligned with social justice. However, the notion of “democratizing AI” is elusive, as the phrase has been associated with multiple meanings and practices, and the extent to which it may help mitigate algorithmic injustice is still underexplored. In this paper, based on a socio-technical understanding of algorithmic injustice, I examine three notable notions (...) of democratizing AI and their associated measures—democratizing AI use, democratizing AI development, and democratizing AI governance—regarding their respective prospects and limits in response to algorithmic injustice. My examinations reveal that while some versions of democratizing AI bear the prospect of mitigating the concern of algorithmic injustice, others are somewhat limited and might even function to perpetuate unjust power hierarchies. This analysis thus urges a more fine-grained discussion on how to democratize AI and suggests that closer scrutiny of the power dynamics embedded in the socio-technical structure can help guide such explorations. (shrink)

Given the widespread acceptance of computational thinking in educational systems around the world, primary and higher education has begun thinking about how to cultivate students' CT competences. The artificial intelligence of things combines artificial intelligence and the Internet of things and involves integrating sensing technologies at the lowest level with relevant algorithms in order to solve real-world problems. Thus, it has now become a popular technological application for CT training. In this study, a novel AIoT learning with Augmented Reality technology (...) was proposed and explored the effect of CT skills. The students used AR applications to understand AIoT applications in practice, attempted the placement of different AR sensors in actual scenarios, and further generalized and designed algorithms. Based on the results of the experimental course, we explored the influence of prior knowledge and usage intention on students' CT competence training. The results show that proposed AIoT learning can increase students' learning intention and that they had a positive impact on problem solving and comprehension with AR technology, as well as application planning and design. (shrink)

The military is a major driver of technological, world-changing innovations which, like the Internet, often have unpredictable dual uses and widespread civilian impact (?blowback?). Ethical and policy concerns arising from such technologies, therefore, are not limited to military affairs, but can have great implications for society at large as well. This paper will focus on two technology areas making headlines at present: human enhancement technologies and robotics, representing both biological and technological upgrades to the military. The concerns we will raise (...) are about (1) the unintended effects that these technologies could have on society and (2) the possibly self-defeating nature of these military programs in making war itself more, rather than less likely to occur. Given that society also can influence military programs (e.g., through civil protests) it is important for the military to attend to such concerns. (shrink)

Extant discussions of subjectivism about reasons for action have concentrated on presentist versions of the theory, on which reasons for present actions are grounded in present desires. In this article, I motivate and investigate the prospects of futurist subjectivism, on which reasons for present actions are grounded in present or future desires. Futurist subjectivism promises to answer Parfit's Agony Argument, and it is motivated by natural extensions of some of the considerations that support subjectivism in general. However, it faces a (...) problem: because which desires one will have in the future can depend on what one does now, it must tell us which of one's possible future desires give one reasons to promote their satisfaction. I argue that the most natural solutions to this problem are unsatisfactory: they either fail to answer the Agony Argument or have unacceptable implications elsewhere. Then, I propose a more promising solution. Moreover, I argue that a closely analogous problem arises for an important class of idealizing subjectivist views and that this problem admits of a similar solution. (shrink)

The utterance model is a popular basis for theories of interpretation in the contemporary analytic philosophy of literature. This model suggests that interpretation should be constrained by a work's identity‐relevant factors in its context of production because a work, like an utterance, acquires its identity and content in part from its relations with that context. From a descriptive point of view, I argue that the implied author account of interpretation best describes critical practice following the current positions based on the (...) utterance model. That is, people who interpret in accordance with these positions end up interpreting an implied author. (shrink)

Tacit knowledge sharing discussed in this study is important in the area of business ethics, because an unwillingness to share knowledge that may hurt an organization’s survival is seen as being seriously unethical. In the proposed model of this study, distributive justice, procedural justice, and cooperativeness influence tacit knowledge sharing indirectly via two mediators: organizational commitment and trust in co-workers. Accordingly, instrumental ties and expressive ties influence tacit knowledge sharing indirectly only via the mediation of trust in co-workers. The model (...) is assessed by using data from different companies’ employees, who attend an evening college in Taiwan for advance study. The test results of this study indicate that tacit knowledge sharing is affected by distributive justice, procedural justice, and cooperativeness indirectly via organizational commitment. Additionally, tacit knowledge sharing is also affected by distributive justice, instrumental ties, and expressive ties via trust in co-workers. The paths from procedural justice and cooperativeness to trust in co-workers are shown to be insignificant. Managerial implications of the empirical findings are also provided. (shrink)

Background Ensuring adequate informed consent for surgery in a trauma setting is challenging. We developed and pilot tested an educational video containing information regarding the informed consent process for surgery in trauma patients and a knowledge measure instrument and evaluated whether the audiovisual presentation improved the patients’ knowledge regarding their procedure and aftercare and their satisfaction with the informed consent process. Methods A modified Delphi technique in which a panel of experts participated in successive rounds of shared scoring of items (...) to forecast outcomes was applied to reach a consensus among the experts. The resulting consensus was used to develop the video content and questions for measuring the understanding of the informed consent for debridement surgery in limb trauma patients. The expert panel included experienced patients. The participants in this pilot study were enrolled as a convenience sample of adult trauma patients scheduled to receive surgery. Results The modified Delphi technique comprised three rounds over a 4-month period. The items given higher scores by the experts in several categories were chosen for the subsequent rounds until consensus was reached. The experts reached a consensus on each item after the three-round process. The final knowledge measure comprising 10 questions was developed and validated. Thirty eligible trauma patients presenting to the Emergency Department were approached and completed the questionnaires in this pilot study. The participants exhibited significantly higher mean knowledge and satisfaction scores after watching the educational video than before watching the video. Conclusions Our process is promising for developing procedure-specific informed consent and audiovisual aids in medical and surgical specialties. The educational video was developed using a scientific method that integrated the opinions of different stakeholders, particularly patients. This video is a useful tool for improving the knowledge and satisfaction of trauma patients in the ED. The modified Delphi technique is an effective method for collecting experts’ opinions and reaching a consensus on the content of educational materials for informed consent. Institutions should prioritize patient-centered health care and develop a structured informed consent process to improve the quality of care. Trial registration The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier is NCT01338480. The date of registration was April 18, 2011. (shrink)

This paper carries out an intensive study of Heidegger's famous reflection on the word dao and of his citations from the Daodejing, with the purpose of elucidating his complex relation with Daoist thinking. First I examine whether dao could be said to be a guideword for Heidegger's path of thinking. Then I discuss Heidegger's citations, in six places of his writings, from five chapters of the Daodejing, by situating them in the immediate textual context as well as against the broad (...) background of the fundamental presuppositions and orientations of Heidegger and Laozi's thinking. My examination of Heidegger's citations from the Daodejing has for the first time gathered together all the relevant materials discovered so far. (shrink)

Impossible worlds have been introduced by many philosophers to model attitudes and propositions. However, the complexities associated with first-person attitudes are often overlooked by advocates of this approach. This paper aims to address this gap by developing a novel impossible-worlds semantics for first-person belief ascriptions and arguing for its superiority over the prominent centred-worlds approach. I begin by presenting a challenge that first-person beliefs pose to traditional possible-worlds semantics. Next, I formulate a semantics for first-person belief ascriptions derived from the (...) centred-worlds approach, demonstrating how it addresses the issues faced by possible-worlds semantics. I then critique the centred-worlds semantics by highlighting several issues it faces. Finally, I propose an impossible-worlds semantics for first- person belief ascriptions and argue that it resolves the problems the centred-worlds semantics aims to address while avoiding the issues inherent in that semantics. (shrink)

Sharing and helping are important issues in ethical research. This study proposes a model based on flow theory by postulating key antecedents as the critical drivers of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. Flow is the holistic sensation that employees feel when they act with total immersion and engagement, facilitating individuals' reciprocal activities such as knowledge sharing and interemployee helping. In the proposed model, knowledge sharing is influenced by flow experience directly and also indirectly via the mediation of interemployee helping. Accordingly, (...) the flow experience is influenced simultaneously by four exogenous factors related to individuals' perception about their work: work skills, self-fulfillment in challenges, perceived control, and vividness. This study contributes to the knowledge management literature by extending flow theory to the area of knowledge sharing and interemployee helping, by validating idiosyncratic antecedent drivers of the flow theory, and by performing a practical operationalization of the flow experience. This research also provides managerial implications for business leaders to boost their employees' ethical behavior in terms of sharing and helping. (shrink)

This essay draws on classical Confucian intellectual resources to argue that the person who emerges from a head transplant would be neither the person who provided the head, nor the person who provided the body, but a new, different person. We construct two types of argument to support this conclusion: one is based on the classical Confucian metaphysics of human life as qi activity; the other is grounded in the Confucian view of personal identity as being inseparable from one’s familial (...) relations. These Confucian ideas provide a reasonable alternative to the currently dominant view that one’s personal identity “follows” one’s head. Together, these arguments imply that head transplantation is ethically inappropriate. (shrink)

Background: People in both Taiwan and China originally descended from the Han Chinese, but the societies have been separated for approximately 38 years. Due to different political systems, variations exist in healthcare and nursing education systems in Taiwan and China. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the professional values of nursing students in Taiwan and China. Design: A cross-sectional design was applied in this study. The Nursing Professional Value Scale–Revised was used to measure the professional values of (...) the students. The questionnaire was distributed to eligible undergraduate students in a classroom setting. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the first investigator’s university. Participants were informed that completion and return of the questionnaire was voluntary, and confidentiality was ensured by keeping the responses anonymous. Participants: A convenience sample included 292 Taiwanese students and 654 Chinese students. Findings: A total of 11 individual Nursing Professional Value Scale–Revised items showed significant differences between the two groups. These results reflect the differences in the perceived importance of these items between the groups. There was no significant difference between the two groups in the mean overall scores for the Nursing Professional Value Scale–Revised (p =.766) and three subscales (all p >.05). Conclusion: There are some differences in professional values between nursing students in Taiwan and China. Given the increasingly frequent and close interactions between Taiwan and China and the globalization of nursing, understanding these differences may help nursing educators identify students’ perceptions of their professional values and support the development of strategies to improve weaknesses in professional values. (shrink)

In order to facilitate cooperation to solve problems within a nation-state, a new approach which conceptualizes citizenship in terms of shared fate has been promoted to potentially ameliorate the tensions identified between civic liberty and solidarity. Proponents of an emphasis on shared fate frame it not in terms of a particular shared national identity, but in terms of participation in the shared project of the nation-state. The approach of singular shared fate rightly emphasizes the urgency of finding a common ground (...) for people to cultivate obligations to others and achieve sincere cooperation in a society. Unfortunately, in some cases it leaves room for some people to undermine the common ground and its good intention, however, as the promotion of a view of singular shared fate risks producing a hegemonic singular nation building project and predesigning an agreement before a truly inclusive and just dialogue among relevant stakeholders proceeds. To make the good intentions of the notion of shared fate realizable, a modification is explored, in recasting the concept of singular “shared fate” to plural “shared fates”. Given the situation that people in societies have the plural shared fates de facto, the view of plural shared fates recognizes that people will reject any singular substantial nation building project that has a predesigned direction. In current, divided societies, acknowledging multiple fates at the beginning, rather than predesigning a singular fate, can better provide a platform for all stakeholders to discuss their obligations to others toward sincere cooperation through equal co-construction of what is shared and what is not shared. To enhance civic education in a multicultural society, we suggest that complementing the concept of singular “shared fate” with a recognition of the value of plural “shared fates” can provide a context for all people to work together towards a more inclusive and just future. (shrink)

The conception of epistemic injustice as a campaign tool has generated considerable debate. The challenge lies in identifying instances of testimonial injustice within complex real-world situations. Miranda Fricker suggests that credibility deficits and identity prejudice serve as necessary conditions for recognizing testimonial injustice. However, this approach faces conceptual generalisation: certain cases that intuitively seem to fit the definition fail to meet the criteria, while some cases that meet the criteria appear counterintuitive. Addressing this issue by introducing additional conditions alongside the (...) original ones seems ineffective and redundant. Simply reverting to Fricker’s original definition is not a straightforward solution either. Identity prejudice plays a decisive role in Fricker’s establishment of testimonial injustice, but it is itself a broad and vague concept. The blurry boundary between heuristics and prejudices has led to many difficulties. An examination of the nature of prejudice indicates that the initial prejudice condition should be modified. It is epistemic inertia, rooted in our thought processes, that serves as the catalyst rendering heuristics unreliable and triggering various epistemic vices, including identity prejudice. Therefore, the prejudice condition is too narrow, while the superordinate concept of epistemic vice is more fundamental as a necessary condition for testimonial injustice. (shrink)

An advertiser develops visual associations of signs and symbols to create a product image that motivates consumers. Today is characterized by a solid consumer culture based on visual identity consumption that articulates and interacts with each consumer's daily actions, words, and visual perceptions. The frequent use of female role portrayals and physical attractiveness in advertising contributes to an increase in society's awareness of women. Some scholars have developed an ethical discussion out of the phenomenon of female role portrayals not matching (...) the public expectations because the portrayals are too narrowly defined and women are unfavorably depicted. But another group has studied the product-type match-up hypothesis, which emphasizes effectively employing attractive female endorsers that closely match the product type. The shift in female social status in Taiwan contributes to the importation of foreign ideas such as feminine values, rituals, and esthetics. Women in Taiwan have been introduced to a new feminism, a modified perception of appropriate personal appearance and behavior. This current research utilizes content analysis and in-depth interviews to explore contemporary female role portrayals in advertising. In addition, this article examines the relationship between the formation of contemporary physical attractiveness and visual consumption in advertising. The results reveal that most endorsers were celebrities, with fit bodies and pleasant expressions, portrayed as product users who offer personal experiences to deliver product knowledge. Conservation classical beauty was the most common depiction, while sexual expression was the least common. Finally, this article recommends that different types of beauty, posture, and appeal should be carefully selected to match domestic and foreign magazines' readers. (shrink)

With the naturalist worldview having become widely accepted, the trend of naturalistic Buddhism has likewise become popular in both academic and religious circles. In this article, I preliminarily reflect on this naturalized approach to Buddhism in two main sections. In section 1, I point out that the Buddha rejects theistic beliefs that claim absolute power over our destiny, opting instead to encourage us to inquire intellectually and behave morally. The distinguishing characteristics of naturalism such as a humanistic approach, rational enquiry, (...) empirical observation, as well as a pragmatic and realistic outlook can all be seen in the Buddha’s teachings. In section 2, however, I advance arguments to show that while the Buddha is opposed to theistic doctrines, his views are not entirely in accordance with the presuppositions of naturalism. Firstly, the Buddha’s foremost concern is not purely intellectual in nature—the purpose of his teachings is to realize a soteriological goal through spiritual practice. Secondly, naturalism tends to subscribe to ‘self-being,’ while the Buddha holds all things to exist conditionally and impermanently. Because of the dependent nature of all things, it is not possible to discover their essence through reduction. Thirdly, naturalized philosophy would be a kind of belief-habit that follows from certain preconditioned assumptions. But the Buddha encourages us to re-examine our conceptual proliferation leading to biased views, as that ultimately leads to suffering. I conclude by proposing a broader naturalist outlook that would allow for a more inclusive conception of the natural world that would take the axiological dimension of human transcendence into account and increase an overall understanding of human potentiality. (shrink)

The language of Belnap–Dunn modal logic \ expands the language of Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic with the modal operator \. We introduce the polarity semantics for \ and its two expansions \ and \ with value operators. The local finitary consequence relation \ in the language \ with respect to the class of all frames is axiomatized by a sequent system \ where \. We prove by using translations between sequents and formulas that these languages under the polarity semantics have the (...) same expressive power on the level of frames with the language \ under the relational semantics for classical modal logic. (shrink)

This paper attempts to revive interest in the speech act theory of literature by looking into Monroe C. Beardsley's account in particular. Beardsley's view in this respect has received, surprisingly, less attention than deserved. I first offer a reconstruction of Beardsley's account and then use it to correct some notable misconceptions. Next, I show that the reformulation reveals a hitherto unnoticed discrepancy in Beardsley's position and that this can be explained away by a weak version of intentionalism that Beardsley himself (...) actually tolerates. Finally, I assess the real difficulty of Beardsley's theory and its relevance today. (shrink)

This paper argues that superiority comparatives in Mandarin Chinese are all phrasal comparatives that can be directly interpreted, and makes a new suggestion of taking the bǐ-phrase (‘compare-phrase’) to be an adjunct and one constituent, but with bǐ-shells. This syntactic analysis allows one to combine into one phrase various compared constituents that would otherwise not be analyzed as forming a phrase by themselves. Semantically, in extension of work by Heim as well as Bhatt and Takahashi, bǐ is taken to compare (...) two sequences of arguments of a gradable predicate along the dimension given by that predicate. It is also suggested that comparatives across languages may be subject to three parameters: (i) argument-dependent comparison vs. non-argument dependent comparison, (ii) phrasal comparison vs. clausal comparison, and (iii) monoadic comparison vs. dyadic comparison. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, EarlyView.

Driven by the use cases of PubChemRDF and SCAIView, we have developed a first community-based clinical trial ontology (CTO) by following the OBO Foundry principles. CTO uses the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as the top level ontology and reuses many terms from existing ontologies. CTO has also defined many clinical trial-specific terms. The general CTO design pattern is based on the PICO framework together with two applications. First, the PubChemRDF use case demonstrates how a drug Gleevec is linked to multiple (...) clinical trials investigating Gleevec’s related chemical compounds. Second, the SCAIView text mining engine shows how the use of CTO terms in its search algorithm can identify publications referring to COVID-19-related clinical trials. Future opportunities and challenges are discussed. (shrink)

Enumeration and explanation in theories of welfare, Analysis, doi.org/10.1093/analys/anx035, published 13 April 2017.

Taiwan has a complete semiconductor industry chain and is important in global semiconductor manufacturing. In addition to considering operational conditions, companies have also attached importance to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in recent years. This research thus takes 60 integrated circuit (IC) companies in Taiwan as a research sample and adopts the Meta Two-stage dynamic RDM DDF (range directional model directional distance function) under an exogenous CSR model to explore their market stage efficiency and production stage efficiency. This study aimed to (...) analyze whether incorporating a company's CSR performance into performance evaluations affects the production and profitability efficiency of Taiwanese IC companies. The findings are as follows: Most IC companies practice CSR and demonstrate good CSR performance. The market stage efficiency and production stage efficiency of the IC packaging and testing group are better than those of other groups. (shrink)

Resumo: Como uma heresia confucionista, Mozi inicialmente chamou a atenção do missionário inglês Joseph Edkins, em 1858. Posteriormente, o missionário holandês Johann Jakob Maria de Groot traduziu a Doutrina Funerária de Mozi, que tem fortes tonalidades religiosas. Joseph e Groot, que representavam os missionários do protestantismo, interpretaram Mozi em uma variedade de narrativas teológicas. Os dois missionários, que procuravam conexões entre Mozi e o cristianismo, consideravam Mozi um cânone teológico, contendo doutrina cristã. Eles também atacaram o confucionismo, a antítese do (...) cristianismo, apontando que Mozi era um herege, na tradição confuciana. Através dessa imaginação religiosa sobre Mozi, mais missionários e sinologistas se juntaram à tradução de Mozi, e a jornada da transmissão do cânone para o Ocidente começou. (shrink)

For a long time, female endorsers in advertising have been doing product information promotion in the market. However, with more and more highly educated women participating in the labor force, the conception of feminist depictions in advertising have become a perplexing issue. The traditional female role portrayals or stereotypes of the past are not able to totally reflect the expectations, behavior, attitudes, and beliefs of contemporary women. The author collected print ads as data from three types of the highest circulation (...) magazines: foreign women’s magazines, domestic women’s magazines, and domestic management magazines subscribed to in Taiwan to investigate what were the favorite feminine patterns and feminist depictions in a traditionally masculine society. The results showed classical beauty and girl-next-door images were “acceptable” gender-role behavior exposed highly in domestic magazines, which might contribute to conservative Confucian beliefs. On the other hand, being trendy was a significantly high preference for contemporary feminist depictions in foreign women's magazines; it might be considered as being due to the increased educational level of women and female labor participation rate in the work place as well as upgrading of social status. (shrink)

In the context of digital monetary market integration, the importance of cross-border digital currency research is receiving prominent attention. This study integrated Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) and initial trust factors (ITM) into an integrative framework, which synthetically complemented the objective measures and subjective insights of digital currencies. The results indicated the integrated framework, which verified its robustness predicting the acceptance and recommendation intention of digital currency. By analyzing the two different features of digital currencies, (...) this research puts forward a set of targeted solutions to ensure that users of Chinese and Korean digital currencies make a long-term policy for the sustainability, eventually benefitting the cross-border digital monetary transactions and economic cooperation in Asia, which leads the world to the sustainable development in the digital currencies field. (shrink)