This twelfth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers comprising 976 pages on Neutrosophics Theory and Applications, published between 2013-2021 in the international journal and book series “Neutrosophic Sets and Systems” by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 112 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 21 countries: Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Muhammad Akram, Bobin Albert, S. A. Alblowi, S. Anitha, Guennoun Asmae, Assia Bakali, Ayman M. Manie, Abdul Sami Awan, Azeddine Elhassouny, Erick González-Caballero, D. Dafik, Mithun Datta, Arindam Dey, (...) Mamouni Dhar, Christopher Dyer, Nur Ain Ebas, Mohamed Eisa, Ahmed K. Essa, Faruk Karaaslan, João Alcione Sganderla Figueiredo, Jorge Fernando Goyes García, N. Ramila Gandhi, Sudipta Gayen, Gustavo Alvarez Gómez, Sharon Dinarza Álvarez Gómez, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Hamiden Abd El-Wahed Khalifa, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ibrahim M. Hezam, German Acurio Hidalgo, Le Hoang Son, R. Jahir Hussain, S. Satham Hussain, Ali Hussein Mahmood Al-Obaidi, Hays Hatem Imran, Nabeela Ishfaq, Saeid Jafari, R. Jansi, V. Jeyanthi, M. Jeyaraman, Sripati Jha, Jun Ye, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Abdullah Kargın, J. Kavikumar, Kawther Fawzi Hamza Alhasan, Huda E. Khalid, Neha Andalleb Khalid, Mohsin Khalid, Madad Khan, D. Koley, Valeri Kroumov, Manoranjan Kumar Singh, Pavan Kumar, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, A.N. Mangayarkkarasi, Carlos Rosero Martínez, Marvelio Alfaro Matos, Mai Mohamed, Nivetha Martin, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, K. Mohana, Muhammad Irfan Ahamad, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Saqlain, Muhammad Shabir, Muhammad Zeeshan, Anjan Mukherjee, Mumtaz Ali, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Iqra Nawaz, Munazza Naz, Roan Thi Ngan, Necati Olgun, Rodolfo González Ortega, P. Pandiammal, I. Pradeepa, R. Princy, Marcos David Oviedo Rodríguez, Jesús Estupiñán Ricardo, A. Rohini, Sabu Sebastian, Abhijit Saha, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, A.A. Salama, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Sajana Shaik, Soufiane Idbrahim, S. Sowndrarajan, Mohamed Talea, Ruipu Tan, Chalapathi Tekuri, Selçuk Topal, S. P. Tiwari, Vakkas Uluçay, Maikel Leyva Vázquez, Chinnadurai Veerappan, M. Venkatachalam, Luige Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Xiao Long Xin.‬‬‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

Moral understanding is a species of knowledge. Understanding why an action is wrong, for example, amounts to knowing why the action is wrong. The claim that moral understanding is immune to luck while moral knowledge is not does not withstand scrutiny; nor does the idea that there is something deep about understanding for there are different degrees of understanding. It is also mistaken to suppose that grasping is a distinct psychological state that accompanies understanding. To understand why something is the (...) case is to grasp or see why something is the case and grasping and seeing are ways of knowing. (shrink)

An iterative learning robust fault-tolerant control algorithm is proposed for a class of uncertain discrete systems with repeated action with nonlinear and actuator faults. First, by defining an actuator fault coefficient matrix, we convert the iterative learning control system into an equivalent unknown nonlinear repetitive process model. Then, based on the mixed Lyapunov function approach, we describe the stability of the nonlinear repetitive mechanism on time and trial indices and have appropriate conditions for the repeated control system’s stability in terms (...) of linear matrix inequality theory. Through LMI techniques, we have obtained satisfactory results and controller stability, and robustness against fault tolerance is also discussed in detail. Finally, the simulation results of the output tracking control of the two exemplary models verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that we can identify, e.g., a weather expert by checking if she has a track record of making accurate weather predictions but that there isn’t an analogous way for laypeople to verify the judgement of a putative moral expert. The weather is an independent check for weather expertise but there is no independent check for moral expertise, and the only way for laypeople to identify moral experts is to engage in first-order moral reasoning of one’s own. But (...) if one can do that, one would not need to rely on a moral expert in the first place. This paper provides an account of Feedback as an independent check for moral expertise in the form of certain positive and negative changes in the lives of advisees after they started acting in accordance with an advisor’s advice whilst nothing else of significance changed in their lives in that period. Given our folk background theories, and some specific information about the advisee’s situation, Feedback suggests that the advisor’s advice was correct. Laypeople would identify moral experts by inferring that the best explanation of the correctness of the advisor’s advice in a high proportion of cases in which she dispensed advice is that the advisor had moral knowledge. Identifying moral experts in this way involves the use of some moral reasoning of one’s own but it is too elementary to make moral experts redundant. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Medicine is no stranger to patience. In fact, the word ‘patient’ has an etymology stemming from the Latin word ‘patiens’, describing the one who tolerates suffering.1 In this sense, the cornerstone of medicine, the patient–physician relationship, reflects passive language, ‘to suffer’. This suffering must be understood, and should be most intimately understood by those who provide care that is beyond a patient’s reach. The case of patients and their loved ones requesting medically futile care at the end of life is (...) one where further treatment is replaced by patience and, more rarely, the patience of medical teams is replaced by futile treatment. At the heart of this debate is not only the denial of futile care but also the need for understanding the extent of patience that must be endured as a result of it. Burns and Truog2 remark on this ethical dilemma: > The best solution – although perhaps also the most difficult – is…tolerating the demands for care that we believe to be futile, and finding ways to better support the emotional needs of each other in those rare cases where we are called on to provide this care. The concept of futility in care represents medical intervention with limited, or no, chance of resulting in what is regarded as a clinically successful outcome. Since the American Medical Association’s endorsement of the lack of consensus on futile care in 1999, this integral conflict remains.3 This is a conflict of understanding. I believe this understanding can be strengthened by acknowledging the Arabic word for patience, ‘ sabr ’, along …. (shrink)

Are the employees working in different countries and enjoying healthy compensation truly loyal to their organization? Our study attempts to answer this question by examining the role of perception of politics on the affective commitment of expatriates in the Sultanate of Oman. Following the axiom of equity theory, the relationships between the perception of politics (POP) to affective commitment (AC) and Islamic work ethics (IWE) to affective commitment (AC) was tested. The moderating role of Islamic work ethics was also examined (...) in the POP-AC relationship. Responses from 146 employees were collected following a simple random sampling technique. Employees working in different organizations at various managerial levels were approached for data collection. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression tests were applied to test hypotheses using SPSS-22.0 and SmartPLS-4. Results confirmed the positive relationship between Islamic work ethics to affective commitment and the negative relationship between perception of politics to affective commitment. Moreover, the negative relationship between the perception of politics with affective commitment was weaker when Islamic work ethics were high. Practical implications of the study are presented based on the results. (shrink)

_In 1497, Syed Muhammad Jaunpuri of India claimed to be a reformer with the mission to purify Islam by justifying his claim according to the teachings and sayings of the Prophet of Islam. He started by curbing the innovations, focusing on belief in Allah, offering prayers, search for God and the truth, and also challenging the religious scholars of his time. Thus, he was criticized by religious scholars by refuting Jaunpuri’s claim of being a reformer, interestingly, academicians have also ignored (...) Jaunpuri’s role as a reformer, but this paper discusses the life of Jaunpuri by focusing on his role as a reformer in India, moreover, this paper limits its scope with the life of Jaunpuri as a reformer. The research used a descriptive cum analytical approach which was aimed at making the research a qualitative one and for that various libraries of Pakistan and personal collections of followers of Jaunpuri were accessed, and at the same time, various websites were also surveyed. So, the research resolved that Jaunpuri was a reformer of the 15 th century India who did his best to reform the people and society of his time by bringing them closer to their Creator._. (shrink)

This research study was aimed to examine the cross-national coverage and framing patterns about Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in international media through focusing on newspapers. Khashoggi; an internationally acclaimed US based Saudi journalist was brutally assassinated at Kingdom’s consulate in Turkey which created the global outcry. As this issue made headlines worldwide for several months, the media from USA, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Turkey; the most substantially and politically involved countries presumably used certain framing patterns in their coverage. To find (...) out the difference in coverage intensity and media frames, a content analysis based comparative study of US, Saudi and Turkish newspapers was conducted which is guided by the framing theory of Mass Communication. The results showed that the media from three selected countries dealt the same issue with significant differences in coverage and framing patterns. We concluded based on our findings that such differences in cross-national coverage patterns were influenced by the respective state’s ideology, interests, governance system, public narrative, or media settings. This study also explored some facts regarding freedom of expression and about journalists who have been targeted in reprisal of their professional work all over the world. The findings of the study elaborate that most of the newspapers used anti-Saudi frames in their coverage. So far as overall coverage is concerned Turkish and US papers provided a significant coverage to the issue while newspapers from Saudi Arabia provided least coverage to the issue as their media are highly state bound. (shrink)

In this article codes over lattice valued intuitionistic fuzzy set type-3 are defined. Binary block codes and linear codes are constructed over LIFS-3. Hamming distance and related properties of these newly established codes are examined. The research findings are applied to genetic codes. The set L of sixty-four codons is converted into a lattice and then codes are created over the set S of twenty amino acids by defining membership and nonmembership functions from the set of twenty amino acids to (...) the sixty-four codon set. Comparison of codes over L -fuzzy set and LIFS-3 conducted in terms of hamming distance for codon system that ensures the efficiency of newly established codes. (shrink)

The research paper addresses the unresolved linguistic vacuum that accounts for the authorial and fictional abrogation and appropriation of language in Lessing’s works. This research paper attempts to take a holistic view of these implications. Lessing has used a number of methods to overcome this inadequacy and the abrogation and appropriation of language thus seen is clearly evident in her novel The Grass is Singing. The concepts of hegemony of language by the colonizers and their control over the means of (...) communications as well as the attempts to liberate the language by the blacks were seen in the novel. In order to analyze the post-colonial aspects of the novel, one has to keep in mind the colonial features that were seen in The Grass is Singing. Thus, the process of abrogation and appropriation will be seen through the fictional characters of Mary and Moses. With these characters Lessing highlights the larger reality of the center-margin, colonizer-colonized relation in the novel. Natives on acquiring control over the Language and the ability to control the means of communication then reveal the hollowness of the colonial ideas based on oppression and exploitation of the indigenous people. (shrink)

What remains invisible in the discourse, contributes to perpetuating multilayered inequalities through discourse. Stereotypical representations, under-representations, hyper-representations, or misrepresentations regulate rape myths, and consequently, particular ways of seeing and behaving of those inside or outside the cultural boundaries. It has, therefore, been studied if and how rape victims and perpetrators have been visually represented and framed in the digital illustrations on rape in Pakistan. Discrepancies concerning identity construction of the rape victims and rapists as well as the depiction of multifarious (...) socio-semiotic dimensions of rape have been analyzed. Thirty-five digital illustrations appearing in 32 blogs and news articles published on rape cases in Pakistan have been purposively selected and studied based on ideational metafunction suggested by Kress and van Leeuwen. Results reveal under-representation of rapists and perpetrators, law enforcement, survivors, and existing myths regarding revenge rape, child abuse, gang rape, marital rape, and gender-based victimhood. The study has implications for semiotics, rape studies, gender studies, and digital discourse. (shrink)

The present research paper aims to find out the life patterns of urban beggars' demographic characteristics, socio-economic status and their involvement in criminal activities in Karachi city. A descriptive research design was employed and face to face interviews were conducted in this study. A sample of 140 street beggars, were selected from different public places using a convenience sampling technique. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized for data collection. The key findings of the study show that criminal beggars are (...) organized and have the well-kept house and work in routine as front-line professionals in the city. This study recommends that a comprehensive policy should be implemented to control the begging practice in the city. In this regards a proper advocacy campaign is needed for social mobilization at mass the level. (shrink)

In 1979, following a military coup, President Zia-ul-Haq sought to foment his power by ‘Islamizing’ Pakistan. Among other policies, he enacted the Hudood Ordinances to codify classical Islamic fiqh on criminal law, including the controversial Zina Ordinance (“Ordinance”) which criminalizes sex outside of marriage. Shortly after its passing, the Ordinance led to the unjust incarceration of thousands of low-income women across the country. Decrying the law as violence against women, human rights supporters around the world demanded reform. Finally, in 2006, (...) Pakistan passed the Protection of Women Act (PWA) that amended the Ordinance, rendering the law procedurally toothless. Still, reforms left the substance of the Ordinance intact, giving men license to take the law into their own hands with effective impunity, leading to a rise in honor killings. Given the need for repeal of the Ordinance, this paper looks to lessons learned from the successes and failures of the 2006 reform to propose a strategy for the future. The 2006 reform adopted an apologetic ‘pragmatic reformist’ approach, building a coalition of conservative Islamists and secularists behind an incremental policy shift. This paper proposes that for a more substantive change that is still effective, the women’s rights movement should shift away from the purely secular or purely Islamic approach to espouse secularism and human rights but using an Islamic rationale, shifting societal attitudes from within the tradition. Doing this, I echo arguments made by reformist-activists Abdullahi An’Naim and Ziba Mir-Hosseini among others as well as adopt the approach of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the High Courts, and the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) themselves in their attempts to reconcile Pakistan’s constitutional commitments to both human rights and Islamic law. Such a strategy, I posit, is slow but both effective and long-lasting. (shrink)

According to Palazzo and Scherer, the changing role of business corporations in society requires that we take new measures to integrate these organizations into society-wide processes of democratic governance. We argue that their model of integration has a fundamental problem. Instead of treating business corporations as agents that must be held accountable to the democratic reasoning of affected parties, it treats corporations as agents who can hold others accountable. In our terminology, it treats business corporations as “supervising authorities” rather than (...) “functionaries.” The result is that Palazzo and Scherer’s model does not actually address the democratic deficit that it is meant to solve. In order to fix the problem, we advocate removing business corporations from any policymaking role in political CSR and limiting participation to political NGOs and other groups that meet the standards we set out for a politically representative organization (PRO). (shrink)

We investigate the research question: Why are there very few social enterprises in China? Our findings unpack four types of institutional challenges to social entrepreneurship, as perceived by social entrepreneurs: norms of a strong role for government; misunderstood or unknown role for social enterprises; non-supportive rules and regulations; and lack of socio-cultural values and beliefs in support of social goals. We contribute to the literature on social enterprises by showing how an institutional environment may be “non-munificent,” i.e., non-supportive for the (...) existence of social enterprises and their goals, and we thus address the need for more attention to the institutional environment in which social entrepreneurship takes place. Further, by using Q-methodology on 42 social entrepreneurs along with illustrative qualitative data from interviews, we address the need to go beyond anecdotal case studies and introduce methodological plurality in social entrepreneurship research. Finally, our findings on institutional challenges provide us with an opportunity to discuss how social entrepreneurs may engage with purposive activities to overcome such challenges, leading us to initiate a conversation between the social entrepreneurship and institutional work literatures. (shrink)

Markets, just like states, are systems of governance. Their justification must therefore meet similar standards of moral scrutiny, despite the fact that their authority structure is impersonal. In order to argue for the role of markets as systems of governance that raise similar justificatory burdens, this book provides a philosophical account of market institutions. According to this view, shared social institutions define a framework for how members of a political community think and act toward one another, consistent with citizens respecting (...) themselves and one another as free persons, each entitled to guide their activities in light of their own judgments. The market is one of these shared institutions, so its rules must also be consistent with mutual respect as free persons. This perspective represents a fundamentally different way of thinking about economic life, which rejects both the view of economic actors as disconnected individuals in a state of nature and the view of economic actors as mere preference orderings that are inputs to a giant social welfare function. The book formulates a deeper framework for thinking about economic life, which can displace the familiar ideas that underpin contemporary neoliberalism and finance capitalism. In so doing, the book works out the implications of the idea that the burdens of equal citizenship extend to economic life, such that appropriately regulated markets and workplaces elicit and realize a system in which people respect one another as free. The book concludes with a defense of economic democracy, elements of which can be found under German codetermination. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 48, Issue 1, Page 79-113, Winter 2020.

There is a widespread, popular view—and one I basically endorse—that Nietzsche is, in one sense of the word, a nihilist. As Arthur Danto put it some time ago, according to Nietzsche, “there is nothing in [the world] which might sensibly be supposed to have value.” As interpreters of Nietzsche, though, we cannot simply stop here. Nietzsche's higher men, Übermenschen, “genuine philosophers”, free spirits—the types Nietzsche wants to bring forth from the human, all-too-human herds he sees around him with the fish (...) hooks, as he says, of his books—seem to engage in what looks like valuing. These free spirits are supposed to revalue the old values—revaluing, as is clear from the texts, is not simply to remove the old values from circulation (Nietzsche uses “umwerten” and not “entwerten”)—and they are supposed to create new values. And, of course, Nietzsche himself, free spirit that he is, takes on the task of revaluing all values and seems to assert many a strident evaluation. So we need to say more here. What are Nietzsche and his free spirits up to when they engage in what looks, for all the world, like a practice of valuing? What is the practice of valuing Nietzsche is recommending for his free spirits? I argue for two claims: (i) First, we end up facing an interpretive puzzle when we attempt to explain how Nietzsche's free spirits are supposed to engage in a practice of valuing. (ii) Second, we can solve the interpretive puzzle by taking Nietzsche's free spirits to be engaged in a fictionalist simulacrum of valuing. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s favourable comments about science and the senses have recently been taken as evidence of naturalism. Others focus on his falsification thesis: our beliefs are falsifying interpretations of reality. Clark argues that Nietzsche eventually rejects this thesis. This article utilizes the multiple ways of being science friendly in Nietzsche’s context by focussing on Mach’s neutral monism. Mach’s positivism is a natural development of neo-Kantian positions Nietzsche was reacting to. Section 15 of Beyond Good and Evil is crucial to Clark’s interpretation. (...) The presented interpretation makes better sense of this passage and shows that Nietzsche can accept both falsification and empiricism. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 75-77.

The study empirically investigates the relationship between corporate governance and the triple bottom line sustainability performance through the lens of agency theory and stakeholder theory. We claim, in fact, that no single theory fully accounts for all the hypothesised relationships. We measure sustainability performance through manual content analysis on sustainability reports of the US-based companies. The study extends the existing literature by investigating the impact of selected corporate governance mechanisms on each dimension of sustainability performance, as defined by the GRI (...) framework. Our approach allows to identify which governance mechanisms foster triple bottom line performance, also revealing that some mechanisms fit only specific dimension of sustainability. The fact-based findings provide support for a new beginning in the theorising process in which the theories must try not only to provide rationale for the impact of corporate governance on sustainability, but also to explain which dimension of sustainability might be more affected. The most important implication for practitioners is the support for sustainability practices, which may be gained through implementation of particular corporate governance mechanisms. The findings contribute also to the improvement of the ongoing standard setting process, in particular as it concerns the in-depth revision of the economic dimension of sustainability carried out under the new GRI framework. (shrink)

Requirements of rationality, like the following, have recently been the focus of much discussion: (1) Rationality requires of S that, if S intends that e and believes that e will not be so unless S intends that m, then S intends that m. (2) Rationality requires of S that S not both believe p and believe not-p.1 How many requirements there are and how precisely to state them is a matter of controversy, but I will focus on a different kind (...) of controversy, namely, how to conceive of such requirements in general.2 I will start by sketching a picture of their general nature and role that I find compelling and attractive. My picture is not, however, consistent with many of the recent approaches to rational requirements in the literature. 3 As I will try to show, the arguments that are often made about rational requirements assume, mostly implicitly, that my picture is flawed. These arguments do not, however, or so I will claim, actually give us reason to reject my picture of rational requirements. Indeed, many of the puzzles about rational requirements taken up by others turn out not to really be puzzles once we realize that this alternative picture.. (shrink)

This article discusses how a wide range of apparently conflicting metaethical theories have been ascribed to Nietzsche. It reviews the major kinds of contemporary metaethical theories and the initial textual evidence for ascribing some version of each kind to Nietzsche. It then considers the objections to such ascriptions as well as arguments in favor of claims of the relative plausibility of ascribing one metaethical interpretation to Nietzsche over another. The article concludes with a serious consideration of the view that perhaps (...) Nietzsche simply does not have a considered metaethical stance. (shrink)

Fictionalism has recently returned as a standard response to ontologically problematic domains. This article assesses moral fictionalism. It argues (i) that a correct understanding of the dialectical situation in contemporary metaethics shows that fictionalism is only an interesting new alternative if it can provide a new account of normative content: what is it that I am thinking or saying when I think or say that I ought to do something; and (ii) that fictionalism, qua fictionalism, does not provide us with (...) any new resources for providing such an account. (shrink)

We can distinguish between ambitious metanormative constructivism and a variety of other constructivist projects in ethics and metaethics. Ambitious metanormative constructivism is the project of either developing a type of new metanormative theory, worthy of the label “constructivism”, that is distinct from the existing types of metaethical, or metanormative, theories already on the table—various realisms, non-cognitivisms, error-theories and so on—or showing that the questions that lead to these existing types of theories are somehow fundamentally confused. Natural ways of pursuing the (...) project of ambitious metanormative constructivism lead to certain obvious, and related, worries about whether the ambitions are really being achieved—that is whether we really are being given a distinctive theory. I will argue that responding to these initial worries pushes ambitious metanormative constructivism towards adopting a kind of position that I will call “constructivism all the way down”. Such a position does see off most of the above initial worries. Drawing on the work of Ralph Walker and Crispin Wright, I argue, however, that it faces a distinct objection that is a descendent of Bertrand Russell’s Bishop Stubbs objection against coherentist theories of truth. I grant that the constructivist need not be a coherentist about truth. I argue, however, that despite this the constructivist cannot escape my version of the objection. I also distinguish between this objection and various traditional charges of circularity, regress, relativism, or psychologistic reductionism. (shrink)

The efficiency argument for profit maximization says that corporations and their managers should maximize profits because this is the course of action that will lead to an ‘economically efficient’ or ‘welfare maximizing’ outcome. In this paper, I argue that the fundamental problem with this argument is not that markets in the real world are less than perfect, but rather that the argument does not properly acknowledge the personal sphere. Morality allows each of us a sphere in which we are free (...) to pursue our personal interests, even if these are not optimal from the social point of view. But the efficiency argument does not come to terms with this feature of social life. (shrink)

The maturing of metaethics has been accompanied by widespread, but relatively unarticulated, discontent that mainstream metaethics is fundamentally on the wrong track. The malcontents we have in mind do not simply champion a competitor to the likes of noncognitivism or realism; they disapprove of the supposed presuppositions of the existing debate. Their aim is not to generate a new theory within metaethics, but to go beyond metaethics and to transcend the distinctions it draws between metaethics and normative ethics and between (...) cognitivism and non-cognitivism. In our experience, the differences with traditional metaethics go deep enough that it can feel as if two different paradigms are talking past each other. We attempt to bring clarity and focus to this rather inchoate debate by simultaneously articulating the general issues involved and engaging in a detailed case study of one of the prominent representatives of this discontent, Christine Korsgaard. We argue that Korsgaard fails to go beyond metaethics–indeed, fails even to provide a theory within metaethics. Our strategy for showing this is to argue that her claims are compatible with both cognitivism and non-cognitivism. We have argued elsewhere that her distinctive claims are compatible with realism. Here we focus on the crucial role that claims about agency and the will seem to play her in work and, according to our interpretation, in her attempts to go beyond mainstream metaethics. We show in detail that these claims are actually compatible with non-cognitivism. Though our discussion often focuses on her work in particular, it has clear implications for other attempts to obviate the debates of traditional metaethics. (shrink)

Though Nietzsche traditionally often used to be interpreted as a nihilist, a range of possible metaethical interpretations, including varieties of realism, subjectivism and fictionalism, have emerged in the secondary literature. Recently the possibility that Nietzsche is a non-cognitivist has been broached. If one sees Hume as a central non-cognitivist figure, as recent non-cognitivists such as Simon Blackburn have, then the similarities between Nietzsche and Hume can make this reading seem plausible. This paper assesses the general plausibility of interpreting Nietzsche as (...) a non-cognitivist. Non-cognitivism can mean various things and so some attempt is made to lay out the various kinds of non-cognitivism one might ascribe to Nietzsche. As part of the overall assessment of the plausibility of a non-cognitivist Nietzsche, the paper considers in detail the arguments of Maudemarie Clark and David Dudrick on behalf of a non-cognitivist reading. It argues, however, that there is insufficient evidence to justify the interpretation and that the analogy to Hume is unhelpful. (shrink)

Social media advertisement is a growing phenomenon designed to reach and engage customers. However, despite their continued adoption, less remains known regarding the effectiveness of social media ads to co-create brand value. In response to this gap, this study aims to deepen the theoretical understanding of consumer value co-creation through social media advertising value. The data were collected using purposive sampling from 286 experienced social-media users, and the model was tested using partial least square -based structural equation modeling. The results (...) indicate that entertainment, aesthetic appeal, interactivity, and trendiness significantly affect the adverting value of social media ads. In turn, ad value affects consumers’ intention for value co-creation. Consequently, our findings suggest the importance of social media advertising value where marketers may enhance consumer-brand engagement by incorporating interesting content, which may encourage the customer’s interaction with the social media ads and strengthen value co-creation behavior. The results further contribute to nascent marketing literature by demonstrating that value co-creation acts as an antecedent to generating positive electronic word-of-mouth on social media platforms to drive consumers’ online brand purchase intention. (shrink)

In THE GENEALOGY OF MORALITY Nietzsche assess the value of the value judgments of morality from the perspective of human flourishing. His positive descriptions of the “higher men” he hopes for and the negative descriptions of the decadent humans he thinks morality unfortunately supports both point to a particular substantive conception of what such flourishing comes to. The Genealogy, however, presents us with a puzzle: why does Nietzsche’s own evaluative standard not receive a genealogical critique? The answer to this puzzle, (...) I argue, lies in recognizing the centrality of the notion of “life”, and its connection to power, in Nietzsche’s overall account. Leiter has argued that his “Millian Model” provides the most charitable reconstruction of appeals to a privileged evaluative standard of power; this model ascribes an inference from a strong doctrine of the will to power according to which only power can be desired. I propose a “Benthamite Model” that ascribes an inference from the inescapability of a tendency towards power, a tendency that is essential to life. I argue that this model avoids the objections Leiter directs at the Millian Model. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Two Forms of Property‐Owning Democracy What Is Stability? Why Does It Matter? The Sense of Justice Participation in Public Life Three Distinctive Features of Rawls's View Democratic Corporatism and Participation Objections Conclusion References.

Consanguineous marriages are strongly preferred in much of West and South Asia. This paper examines the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of consanguineous unions in Pakistan using local and national data. Information from 1011 ever-married women living in four multi-ethnic and multi-lingual squatter settlements of Karachi, the main commercial centre of the country, are compared with data from the national 1990/91 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS), based on information provided by 6611 women. Both sets of results indicate that approximately 60% (...) of marriages were consanguineous, over 80% of which were between first cousins. The mean coefficients of inbreeding (F) in the present generation were 0·0316 and 0·0331 for the Karachi and PDHS data respectively. In both surveys the prevalence of consanguineous unions appeared to be unchanged over the past three to four decades. Consanguineous unions were more common among women who were illiterate or had only primary level education, were first or second generation migrants from rural areas of Pakistan or, in the PDHS, lived in rural areas, and whose parents were also consanguineously married. (shrink)

This paper surveys contemporary accounts of error theory and fictionalism. It introduces these categories to those new to metaethics by beginning with moral nihilism, the view that nothing really is right or wrong. One main motivation is that the scientific worldview seems to have no place for rightness or wrongness. Within contemporary metaethics there is a family of theories that makes similar claims. These are the theories that are usually classified as forms of error theory or fictionalism though there are (...) different ways of accepting some form of the view that nothing is really write or wrong. A range of different ways of going in the light of such a realization is also proposed. The resulting taxonomy of positions is quite complicated and sometimes surprising. One surprise will be that some positions plausibly classified as error theories or forms of fictionalism do not quite seem to be forms of nihilism. (shrink)

This study systematically analyzes the factors that affect consumers’ green purchase intention. Through a comprehensive literature review, the influencing factors of consumers’ green purchase intention are organized into three categories: cognitive factors, consumer individual characteristics, and social factors. Next, a meta-analysis of 54 empirical papers was conducted using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis 3.0 software to quantitatively assess these relationships. The results revealed that green perceived value, attitude, and green trust have a significant positive influence on green purchase intention. Perceived behavior control, perceived (...) consumer effectiveness, and subjective norm also has a strong positive impact on green purchase intention. Collectivism has a positive effect on green purchase intention. Green perceived risk has a significant negative impact on green purchase intention. The study’s findings provide references for enterprises engaged in green product diffusion and organizations responsible for environmental protection. (shrink)

Bernard Reginster, in his book The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism, takes up the challenge of figuring out what Nietzsche might mean by nihilism and the revaluation of values. He argues that there is an alternative, normative subjectivist interpretation of Nietzsche's views on nihilism and revaluation that makes as much sense as—indeed, he often clearly leans toward thinking that it makes more sense than—a fictionalist reading of Nietzsche. I argue that his arguments do not succeed. Once we have (...) looked carefully at the details of the positions and the arguments ascribed to Nietzsche, the fictionalist option is the more charitable interpretation of the texts. I focus on the metaethical issues that play a central role for Reginster in his articulation of Nietzsche's nihilism and Nietzsche's strategy for overcoming nihilism. (shrink)

The losses in the radial distribution system are inevitable which needs to be minimized for the proper transmission of power to the end customers. This problem can be solved by the allocation of capacitor banks at proper locations with appropriate sizing. These allocations need an efficient approach for the performance enhancement of RDS. In this paper, several metaheuristic techniques such as particle swarm optimization, Harmony search, Bat, Cuckoo, and Grey-wolf algorithms are employed to find the size of capacitor banks. Loss (...) sensitivity analysis is considered for the indication of candidate buses where a capacitor has to be installed to reduce the total system losses and ultimately increase efficiency. Cost-effectiveness, power loss minimization, and voltage enhancement can be determined and compared for these 5 techniques and are implemented on the IEEE-34 bus system to illustrate the efficacy of each of them. The results show the advantages and drawbacks of the techniques separately. The simulations are carried out in MATLAB. (shrink)

This work presents a distributed generation system that combines system of a wind turbine and photovoltaic using a unified power quality conditioner. Along with providing active power to the utility grid, Wind-PV-UPQC improves PQ indicators, for example, voltage drops/surges, harmonics of grid voltages, and PF. Since Wind-PV-UPQC depends on dual compensation scheme, the parallel converter works as a sinusoidal voltage source, while the series converter works as a sinusoidal current source. In this way, a smooth transition from grid operation to (...) island operation and vice versa can be achieved without load voltage transitions. In addition, in order to overcome the problems through abrupt solar radiation or wind speed variations, a faster power balance is achieved between the wind turbines, the PV array, and the grid, as FFCL pursue the production of the current references of series converter. Consequently, the dynamic reactions of the converter currents and the voltage of dc bus are enhanced. A comprehensive analysis of flow of the AP through the converters is done to ensure a proper understanding of how Wind-PV-UPQC works. Finally, the simulation results are shown to estimate the dynamic and static performance of Wind-PV-UPQC in conjunction with the power distribution system. (shrink)

This study aimed to provide practical implications for South Korean corporations seeking to enter the Chinese market. It explored the influences of brand image and favorability toward citizens in a product’s country of origin on consumers’ product evaluation and repurchase intention, in addition to examining the moderating effects of procedural switching costs, financial switching costs, and relational switching costs on the aforementioned influences. Although previous studies have established the relationships between some of the aforementioned variables, further research is required to (...) determine the moderating effects of switching costs in various dimensions. Studies on the relationships of a product’s country of origin with product evaluation and repurchase intention have rarely explored FCPCO. Through a questionnaire survey, this study obtained effective data from 302 respondents. Constituted of an exploratory research design, this study adopted PLS-SEM method for empirical analysis. IPMA analysis results indicated that brand image had a stronger influence on product evaluation than FCPCO did and that FCPCO had a stronger influence on repurchase intention than brand image did. Overall, the performance of FCPCO was higher than that of brand image. Moreover, economic risk costs and brand relationship loss costs positively moderated the relationship between brand image and product evaluation; monetary loss costs and brand relationship loss costs negatively moderated the relationship between FCPCO and product evaluation. These study results could help corporations gain competitive edge. (shrink)

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in (...) recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greater capacity take greater responsibility but remain inclusive and cognizant of different voices and experiences. Focussing on business ethics in connection to the grand challenge of environmental emergencies, Steffen Böhm introduces the deceptively simple yet radical position that business is nature, and nature is business. His quick but profound side-step from arguments against human–nature dualism to an ontological undoing of the business–nature dichotomy should have all business ethics scholars rethinking their “business and society” assumptions. Also, singularly concerned with the climate emergency, Boudewijn de Bruin posits a scenario where, 40 years from now, our field will be evaluated by its ability to have helped humanity emerge from this emergency. He contends that Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell illustrates how human rights take centre stage in climate change litigation, and how business ethics enters the courtroom. From a consumer ethics perspective, Deirdre Shaw, Michal Carrington and Louise Hassan argue that ecologically sustainable and socially just marketplace systems demand cultural change, a reconsideration of future interpretations of “consumer society”, a challenge to the dominant “growth logic” and stimulation of alternative ways to address our consumption needs. Still concerned with global issues, but turning attention to social inequalities, Nelarine Cornelius links the capability approach to global and corporate governance, arguing that CA will continue to lie at the foundation of human development policy, and, increasingly, CSR and corporate governance. Continuing debate on the grand challenges associated with justice and equality, Laurence Romani identifies a significant shift in the centrality of business ethics in debates on managing differences, positing that dialogue between diversity management and international management can ground future debate in business ethics. Finally, the essay concludes with a commentary by Charlotte Karam and Michelle Greenwood on the possibilities of feminist-inspired theories, methods, and positionality for many spheres of business ethics, not least stakeholder theory, to broaden and deepen its capacity for nuance, responsiveness, and transformation. In the words of our commentators, grand challenges must be addressed urgently, and the Journal of Business Ethics should be at the forefront of tackling them. (shrink)

This is a pioneering study of how multiculturalism interacts with multinationalism. Focusing specifically on post-devolution Scotland, and based on statistical analysis of over 1500 interviews, Hussain and Miller critically examine the challenges of Scotland's largest visible and invisible minorities: ethnic Pakistanis and English immigrants.