A flurry of discussions about plagiarism and predatory publications in recent times has brought the issue of scientific misconduct in India to the fore. The debate has framed scientific misconduct in India as a recent phenomenon. This article questions that framing, which rests on the current tendency to define and police scientific misconduct as a matter of individual behavior. Without ignoring the role of individuals, this article contextualizes their actions by calling attention to the conduct of the institutions, as well (...) as social and political structures that are historically responsible for governing the practice of science in India since the colonial period. Scientific (mis)conduct, in other words, is here examined as a historical phenomenon borne of the interaction between individuals’ aspirations and the systems that impose, measure, and reward scientific output in particular ways. Importantly, historicizing scientific misconduct in this way also underscores scientist-driven initiatives and regulatory interventions that have placed India at the leading edge of reform. With the formal establishment of the Society for Scientific Values in 1986, Indian scientists became the first national community worldwide to monitor research integrity in an institutionally organized way. (shrink)

Although scholars have long recognized that classical Stoicism affected Walt Whitman’s work, a full account of the extent of this debt has yet to be produced. Although he drew inspiration from many sources, we argue that Whitman’s “spinal ideas”—the ontological, moral, metaphysical and political threads of order in his thinking—are most consistently Stoic in origin. We do so by examining Whitman’s poetry, prose, correspondence, manuscripts, notebooks, and autobiography in the context of the primary and secondary Stoic material with which he (...) was familiar. We demonstrate that a number of ideas at the heart of Whitman’s literary vision—his pantheism, materialism, cosmopolitanism, reconciliation of evil and death, and conceptions of both providence and virtue—were strongly indebted to Stoic thought. As background to this argument, we first explore the transmission of Stoicism to America and its reception among American readers. We also show how and why Whitman came under the influence of Stoic teachings. (shrink)

The conditional probability interpretation of quantum gravity has been criticized for violating the constraints of the theory and also not giving the correct expression for the propagator. We have shown that following Page’s proposal of constructing an appropriate projector for the stationary state of a closed system, we can arrive at the correct expression for the propagator by using conditional probability rule. Also, it is shown that a unitary evolution of states of a subsystem at local level may be a (...) consequence of non-unitary projection of appropriate states at global level. (shrink)

The ethical problems associated with dementia have been thrown into focus by the ageing population. The elderly form a disadvantaged group in society and the author wonders if it is morally justified to pursue research into ways of arresting pathology without concomitant attention being paid to the quality of life of the surviving elderly. Precise diagnosis of dementia requires invasive, and potentially injurious, brain biopsy. Recent thinking has pointed to some of the advantages of biopsy. The question of consent in (...) a patient with impaired mental function has to be borne in mind. As for the special ethical problems associated with Huntington's chorea, it is argued there is no justification for withholding information from, or for authoritarian direction of, patients and 'at risk' relatives but the importance of full discussion before undertaking predictive procedures is stressed. (shrink)

On the views of Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator on education; a study.

There has recently been a growth in research that examines how corporations respond to allegations of unethical actions. Although scholars have gained much insight about the range of responses available to and used by organizations, there has been almost no study of why firms choose one response over another. In this article, the authors present a framework of likely organizational response choices to allegations of wrongdoing; we propose that response choices are based on the degree of reputational risk from stakeholder (...) withdrawal of support and on perceived threats to the firm’s primary or secondary identity. (shrink)

Believing that p, assuming that p, and imagining that p involve regarding p as true—or, as we shall call it, accepting p. What distinguishes belief from the other modes of acceptance? We claim that conceiving of an attitude as a belief, rather than an assumption or an instance of imagining, entails conceiving of it as an acceptance that is regulated for truth, while also applying to it the standard of being correct if and only if it is true. We argue (...) that the second half of this claim, according to which the concept of belief includes a standard of correctness, is required to explain the fact that the deliberative question whether to believe that p is transparent to the question whether p. This argument raises various questions. Is there such a thing as deliberating whether to believe? Is the transparency of the deliberative question whether to believe that p the same as the transparency of the factual question whether I do believe that p? We will begin by answering these questions and then turn to a series of possible objections to our argument. (shrink)

Why, when asking oneself whether to believe that p, must one immediately recognize that this question is settled by, and only by, answering the question whether p is true? Truth is not an optional end for first-personal doxastic deliberation, providing an instrumental or extrinsic reason that an agent may take or leave at will. Otherwise there would be an inferential step between discovering the truth with respect to p and determining whether to believe that p, involving a bridge premise that (...) it is good (in whichever sense of good one likes, moral, prudential, aesthetic, allthings-considered, etc.) to believe the truth with respect to p. But there is no such gap between the two questions within the first-personal deliberative perspective; the question whether to believe that p seems to collapse into the question whether p is true. (shrink)

This important and comprehensive work of 18th-century Islamic religious thought written in Arabic by a pre-eminent South Asian scholar provides an extensive and detailed picture of Muslim theology and interpretive strategies on the eve of the modern period.

When we deliberate whether to believe some proposition, we feel immediately compelled to look for evidence of its truth. Philosophers have labelled this feature of doxastic deliberation 'transparency'. I argue that resolving the disagreement in the ethics of belief between evidentialists and pragmatists turns on the correct explanation of transparency. My hypothesis is that it reflects a conceptual truth about belief: a belief that p is correct if and only if p. This normative truth entails that only evidence can be (...) a reason for belief. Although evidentialism does not follow directly from the mere psychological truth that we cannot believe for non-evidential reasons, it does follow directly from the normative conceptual truth about belief which explains why we cannot do so. (shrink)

Maternal morbidity and mortality are high in the Indian context, but the majority of maternal deaths could be avoided by prompt and effective access to intrapartum care (WHO, 1999). Understanding the care seeking responses to intrapartum morbidities is crucial if maternal health is to be effectively improved, and maternal mortality reduced. This paper presents the results of a prospective study of 388 women followed through delivery and traditional postpartum in rural Karnataka in southern India. In this setting, few women use (...) the existing health facilities and most deliveries occur at home. The analysis uses quantitative data, collected via questionnaires administered to women both during pregnancy and immediately after delivery. By virtue of its prospective design, the study gives a unique insight into intentions for intrapartum care during pregnancy as well as events following morbidities during labour. Routine care in the intrapartum period, both within institutions and at home, and impediments to appropriate care are also examined. The study was designed to collect information about health seeking decisions made by women and their families as pregnancies unfolded, rather than trying to capture women’s experience from a retrospective instrument. The data set is therefore a rich source of quantitative information, which incorporates details of event sequences and health service utilization not previously collected in a Safe Motherhood study. Additional qualitative information was also available from concurrent in-depth interviews with pregnant women, their families, health care providers and other key informants in the area. The level of unplanned institutional care seeking during the intrapartum period within the study area was very high, increasing from 11% planning deliveries at a facility to an eventual 35% actually delivering in hospitals. In addition there was a significant move away from planned deliveries with the auxiliary nurse midwive (ANM), to births with a lay attendant or dai. The proportion of women who planned for an ANM to assist was 49%, as compared with the actual occurrence, which was less than half of this proportion. Perceived quality of care was found to be an important factor in health seeking behaviour, as was wealth, caste, education and experience of previous problems in pregnancy. Actual care given by a range of practitioners was found to contain both beneficial and undesirable elements. As a response to serious morbidities experienced within the study period, many women were able to seek care although sometimes after a long delay. Those women who experienced inadequate progression of labour pains were most likely to proceed unexpectedly to a hospital delivery. (shrink)

A first-hand biographical record, written by a disciple, presents the teachings and mystical experiences of Sri Ramakrishna, the 19th century guru who inspired a renewal of Hindu spirituality.

Why can't deliberation conclude in an intention except by considering whether to perform the intended action? I argue that the answer to this question entails that reasons for intention are determined by reasons for action. Understanding this feature of practical deliberation thus allows us to solve the toxin puzzle.

It is common for philosophers to claim that doxastic voluntarism, the view that an agent can form beliefs voluntarily, is false, and therefore that agents do not have the kind of control over their beliefs required for a straightforward application of deontological concepts such as obligation or duty in the domain of epistemology. The role that the denial of doxastic voluntarism plays in an argument to the effect that agents do not have obligations with respect to belief is simply this.

Advances in life-saving technologies in the past few decades have challenged our traditional understandings of death. Traditionally, death was understood to occur when a person stops breathing, their heart stops beating and they are cold to the touch. Today, physicians determine death by relying on a diagnosis of ‘total brain failure’ or by waiting a short while after circulation stops. Evidence has emerged, however, that the conceptual bases for these approaches to determining death are fundamentally flawed and depart substantially from (...) the established biological conception of death. We argue that the current approach to determining death consists of two different types of unacknowledged legal fictions. These legal fictions were developed for practices that are largely ethically legitimate but need to be reconciled with the law. The considerable debate over the determination of death in the medical and scientific literature has not informed the public that vital organs are being procured from still-living donors and it seems unlikely that this information can remain hidden for long. Given the instability of the status quo and the difficulty of making the substantial legal changes required by complete transparency, we argue for a second-best policy solution: acknowledging the legal fictions involved in determining death to move in the direction of greater transparency. This may someday result in more substantial legal change to directly confront the challenges raised by life-sustaining and life-preserving technologies without the need for fictions. (shrink)

Based on the social exchange theory, the aim of this study is to identify the association between job stress state anger, emotional exhaustion and job turnover intention. This study postulates that job related stress and state anger among nurses during COVID-19 subsequently leads to their job turnover intentions. In addition, the study also aims to see the mediating role of emotional exhaustion between COVID-19-related job stress, state anger, and turnover intentions. The sample of this study is gathered from 335 registered (...) nurses working in Pakistani hospitals dealing with COVID-19-related patients. The interrelationships between variables are checked by using structural equation modeling through AMOS. Key findings confirm that COVID-19-related job stress and state anger had a significant effect on nurses’ turnover intentions. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between COVID-19-related job stress, state anger, and turnover intentions. There is a lack of research which has assessed the impact of Novel COVID-19-related job stress and state anger on nurses’ turnover intentions in hospitals, providing empirical evidence from a developing country-Pakistan. This study offers managerial implications for hospital management and health policymakers. Moreover, nursing managers need to pay attention to nurses’ turnover intentions who are facing the issue at the front line as patients receive their initial treatment from nurses in the COVID-19 outbreak. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder has recently presented apparent counterexamples to the standard account of the distinction between the right and the wrong kinds of reasons. We argue that these examples appear to refute the standard account only because they blur the distinction between two kinds of reasoning: reasoning about whether to intend or believe that p and reasoning about whether to take up the question of whether to intend or believe that p.

Two prejudices have hampered our understanding of John Stuart Mill’s central argument for free speech. One prejudice is that arguments for free speech can only be made in terms of values or rights. This prejudice causes us to miss the depth of Mill’s argument. He does not argue that silencing speech is harmful or violates rights, but instead that silencing speech is a uniquely self-undermining act; it undermines the ground upon which it is based. But even if we overcome this (...) prejudice and appreciate the self-undermining character of Mill’s argument, the prejudice that epistemic justification is a completable task blinds us to the role of open-mindedness in his argument; and failing to see this leads us to wrongly conclude that his argument is invalid. It is only once we have overcome both prejudices that we can appreciate the depth and power of Mill’s argument for free speech. (shrink)

Medical student and resident participation in global health experiences (GHEs) has significantly increased over the last decade. In response to growing student interest and the proven impact of such experiences on the education and career decisions of resident physicians, many medical schools have begun to establish programmes dedicated to global health education. For the innumerable benefits of GHEs, it is important to note that medical students have the potential to do more harm than good in these settings when they exceed (...) their actual capabilities as physicians-in-training. While medical training programmes are beginning to provide students with the knowledge to put their GHEs in context, they must remember that they also bear the responsibility of training their students in a framework to approach these experiences in a principled and professional way. It is necessary that these institutions provide adequate and formalised preparation for both clinical and ethical challenges of working in resource-poor settings. This paper outlines potential benefits and risks of GHEs and delineates recommendations to some of the current issues. (shrink)

Brain death, or the determination of death by neurological criteria, has been described as a legal fiction. Legal fictions are devices by which the law treats two analogous things (in this case, biological death and brain death) in the same way so that the law developed for one can also cover the other. Some scholars argue that brain death should be understood as a fiction for two reasons: the way brain death is determined does not actually satisfy legal criteria requiring (...) the permanent cessation of all brain function, and brain death is not consistent with the biological conception of death as involving the irreversible cessation of the functioning of an organism as a whole. Critics counter that the idea that brain death is a legal fiction is deceptive and undemocratic. I will argue that diagnosing brain death as a hidden legal fiction is a helpful way to understand its historical development and current status. For the legal‐fictions approach to be ethically justifiable, however, the fact that brain death is a legal fiction not aligned with the standard biological conception of death must be acknowledged and made transparent. (shrink)

The rapid development of CRISPR-based gene editing has been accompanied by a polarized governance debate about the status of CRISPR-edited crops as genetically modified organisms. This article argues that the polarization around the governance of gene editing partly reflects a failure of public engagement with the current state of research in genomics and postgenomics. CRISPR-based gene-editing technology has become embedded in a narrow narrative about the ease and precision of the technique that presents the gene as a stable object under (...) technological control. By tracing the considerably destabilized scientific understanding of the gene in genomics and postgenomics, this article highlights that this publicly mediated ontology strategically avoids positioning the “ease of CRISPR-based editing” in the wider context of the “complexity of the gene.” While this strategic narrowness of CRISPR narratives aims to create public support for gene-editing technologies, we argue that it stands in the way of socially desirable anticipatory governance and open public dialogue about societal promises and the unintended consequences of gene editing. In addressing the polarization surrounding CRISPR-based editing technology, the article emphasizes the need for engagement with the complex state of postgenomic science that avoids strategic simplifications of the scientific literature in promoting or opposing the commercial use of the gene-editing technology. (shrink)

Workers can be fired from jobs, citizens sent to jail, and adolescents more likely to experience depression, all because of algorithms. Algorithms have considerable impacts on our lives. To increase user satisfaction and trust, the most common proposal from academics and developers is to increase the transparency of algorithmic design. While there is a large body of literature on algorithmic transparency, the impact of unethical data collection practices is less well understood. Currently, there is limited research on the factors that (...) affect users’ trust in data collection practices and algorithmic transparency. In this research, we explore the relative impact of both factors as they relate to important outcome measures such as user’s trust, comfort level, and moral acceptability. We conducted two pilot studies to learn what real users consider to be ethical and unethical data collection practices, as well as high and low transparency for algorithms. We then used these findings in a 2 × 2 design to examine how transparency and the acceptability of data collection practices impact users’ acceptance, comfort, and trust in algorithms. Our results suggest that the singular emphasis on algorithmic transparency may be misplaced. Given the difference in their impact to increase acceptance, trust, and user satisfaction, a more effective strategy would be to also understand and abide by users’ views of ethical data collection practices. (shrink)

The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa began in the spring of 2014 and has since caused the deaths of over 6,000 people. Since there are no approved treatments or prevention modalities specifically targeted at Ebola Virus Disease , debate has focused on whether unproven interventions should be offered to Ebola patients outside of clinical trials. Those engaged in the debate have responded rapidly to a complex and evolving crisis, however, and this debate has not provided much opportunity for in-depth (...) analysis. Additionally, the existing literature on access to unproven therapies has focused on contexts like HIV/AIDS and oncology, which are very different than the Ebola epidemic. In this paper, we examine the ethical issues surrounding access to unproven therapies in the context of the recent Ebola outbreak to yield new insights about this controversial and unsettled issue. We argue first that, in this context, the interests of patients in obtaining access to unproven therapies are not fully aligned.. (shrink)

This experiment investigated the effect of format (line vs. bar), viewers’ familiarity with variables, and viewers’ graphicacy (graphical literacy) skills on the comprehension of multivariate (three variable) data presented in graphs. Fifty-five undergraduates provided written descriptions of data for a set of 14 line or bar graphs, half of which depicted variables familiar to the population and half of which depicted variables unfamiliar to the population. Participants then took a test of graphicacy skills. As predicted, the format influenced viewers’ interpretations (...) of data. Specifically, viewers were more likely to describe x–y interactions when viewing line graphs than when viewing bar graphs, and they were more likely to describe main effects and “z–y” (the variable in the legend) interactions when viewing bar graphs than when viewing line graphs. Familiarity of data presented and individuals’ graphicacy skills interacted with the influence of graph format. Specifically, viewers were most likely to generate inferences only when they had high graphicacy skills, the data were familiar and thus the information inferred was expected, and the format supported those inferences. Implications for multivariate data display are discussed. (shrink)

Current formal dialectical models postulate normative rules that enable discussants to conduct dialogical interactions without committing fallacies. Though the rules for conducting a dialogue are supposed to apply to interactions between actual arguers, they are without exception theoretically motivated. This creates a gap between model and reality, because dialogue participants typically leave important content-related elements implicit. Therefore, analysts cannot readily relate normative rules to actual debates in ways that will be empirically confirmable. This paper details a new, data-driven method for (...) describing discussants’ actual reply structures, wherein corpus studies serve to acknowledge the complexity of natural argumentation. Rather than refer exclusively to propositional content as an indicator of arguing pro/contra a given claim, the proposed approach to dialogue structure tracks the sequence of dialogical moves itself. This arguably improves the applicability of theoretical dialectical models to empirical data, and thus advances the study of dialogue systems. (shrink)

George, feeling stressed and anxious about the criminal investigation into his firm’s accounting practices, decides that it would do him good to get away and take a long, relaxing vacation in Bermuda. According to popular informed-desire accounts of a person’s good, if George would desire to take a vacation to Bermuda upon being made fully aware of what his experience of the vacation would be like and of all the consequences therein, then this course of action would benefit him. This (...) does not mean that George must actually be privy to whether his fully informed self would desire to travel to Bermuda, but whether he would, according to such an account, determines whether going to Bermuda would benefit George, whether he or anyone else is capable of knowing it. (shrink)

The “dead-donor rule” states that, in any case of vital organ donation, the potential donor should be determined to be dead before transplantation occurs. In many countries around the world, neurological criteria can be used to legally determine death (also referred to as brain death). Nevertheless, there is considerable controversy in the bioethics literature over whether brain death is the equivalent of biological death. This international legal review demonstrates that there is considerable variability in how different jurisdictions have evolved to (...) justify the legal status of brain death and its relationship to the dead-donor rule.In this article, we chose to review approaches that are representative of many different jurisdictions—the United States takes an approach similar to that of many European countries; the United Kingdom’s approach is followed by Canada, India, and influences many other Commonwealth countries; Islamic jurisprudence is applicable to several different national laws; the Israeli approach is similar to many Western countries, but incorporates noteworthy modifications; and Japan’s relatively idiosyncratic approach has received some attention in the literature. Illuminating these different justifications may help develop respectful policies regarding organ donation within countries with diverse populations and allow for more informed debate about brain death and the deaddonor rule. (shrink)

Many guidelines for international research require that studies be responsive to host community health needs or health priorities. Although responsiveness possesses great intuitive and rhetorical appeal, existing conceptions are confusing and difficult to apply. Not only are there few examples of what research the responsiveness requirement permits and what it rejects, but its application can lead to contradictory results. Because of the practical difficulties in applying responsiveness and the danger that misapplying responsiveness could harm the interests of developing countries, we (...) argue that responsiveness should be refocused in three ways: in terms of (1) who enforces it, (2) under what standard, and (3) in what cases. We conclude that responsiveness should be applied by host country officials at the policy level with the exercise of judgment when externally funded research threatens to displace scarce local resources. (shrink)

Imagine a study in which HIV-infected pregnant women are given antiretroviral treatment to determine how effectively it will prevent HIV transmission during childbirth. Each mother’s involvement in this study ends with the birth of her child, at which time her access to antiretrovirals provided by the study also ceases. At the outset of the study, the investigator and sponsor agree that after the child’s birth, they will refer mothers who require treatment for their HIV to a national program that provides (...) antiretroviral treatment and care. Assuming the Institutional Review Board raises no objections to this plan, should the research team consider their ethical obligations to participants fulfilled? If the investigator and sponsor were to consult the Common Rule, they would find little to suggest that there are any further ethical issues to address. (shrink)

Response to Floridi et al, 2008/2009. Based on insufficient evidence, and inadequate research, Floridi and his students report inaccuracies and draw false conclusions in their Minds and Machines evaluation, which this paper aims to clarify. Acting as invited judges, Floridi et al. participated in nine, of the ninety-six, Turing tests staged in the finals of the 18th Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence in October 2008. From the transcripts it appears that they used power over solidarity as an interrogation technique. As (...) a result, they were fooled on several occasions into believing that a machine was a human and that a human was a machine. Worse still, they did not realise their mistake. This resulted in a combined correct identification rate of less than 56%. In their paper they assumed that they had made correct identifications when they in fact had been incorrect. (shrink)

Ethical consumerism has been dramatically increasing in recent decades, but in service sector, fewer research has been conducted especially in the fast-food industry. In this paper, we determined empirically the consumer perceived ethicality effects on repurchase intentions as well as on word of mouth through brand image partial mediation and customer expertise moderation in fast-food sector. The data were collected from 307 consumers of the fast-food restaurants through self-administered questionnaires. Common method variance and social desirability bias were measured before testing (...) hypotheses, and the data were investigated by SPSS and AMOS 21st version. The empirical results demonstrated that consumer perceived ethicality effects on repurchase intentions directly and through brand image partial mediation indirectly. Moreover, the direct and positive effects of repurchase intentions on word of mouth were experienced. This study generalized the results of previous studies of consumer perceived ethicality conducted in western culture in Pakistani fast-food sector. This study also proposed that firms should tackle ethical concerns at corporate and operational strategy levels to improve consumers’ behavioral intentions. (shrink)