Purposes and duties in scientific modelling

More people than ever are paying attention to philosophical questions about epidemiological models, including their susceptibility to the influence of social and ethical values, sufficiency to inform policy decisions under certain conditions, and even their fundamental nature. One important question pertains to the purposes of epidemiological models, for example, are COVID-19 models for ‘prediction’ or ‘projection’? Are they adequate for making causal inferences? Is one of their goals, or virtues, to change individual responses to the pandemic? In this essay, we offer our perspective on these questions and place them in the context of other recent philosophical arguments about epidemiological models. We argue that clarifying the intended purpose of a model, and assessing its adequacy for that purpose, are moral-epistemic duties, responsibilities which pertain to knowledge but have moral significance nonetheless. This moral significance, we argue, stems from the inherent value-ladenness of models, along with the potential for models to be used in political decision making in ways that conflict with liberal values and which could lead to downstream harms. Increasing conversation about the moral significance of modelling, we argue, could help us to resist further eroding our standards of democratic scrutiny in the COVID-19 era.

Information Ethics in the Context of Current Developments

The emergence of globalization due to information technologies and the changes and/or developments brought about by globalization require organizations to have more knowledge about ethics and therefore to be more interested in this issue. The use of information and communication technologies in organizations in accordance with ethical values is considered important in terms of the integrity, functioning, and efficiency of both employees and organizations. Individuals, managers, organizations, and researchers have important duties in the field of information ethics in order to prevent the making of difficult mistakes that will adversely affect individuals and organizations during the use of information technologies. In this context, information ethics has been examined in this study in the context of recent developments all over the world, especially the developments in the global COVID-19 pandemic process.

Buddhist Pragmatism or Pragmatic Buddhism: What is the relationship between Buddhism and Pragmatism?

With the rise of modernity, the Western world fell into a deep spiritual crisis which forced Comte to Dewey, and Einstein to Whitehead to synthesize a cosmic or humanistic religion. Similarly, the rise of modern science increased western interest in Eastern religions. Because of the ontological resemblance,they further enquired to Buddhism by assuming that would be a religion of their ideal. They began interpreting Buddhism through the lenses of modern philosophies. As a result, Buddhism appeared so diverse that sometimes its positioning is confusing and ambivalent- e.g. 'ethical idealism', 'atheism', 'empiricism', etc. As an attempt of resolving the contradictory positioning, both the original nikayas translated in English by PTS and commentary texts of Buddhism authored by both eastern and western scholars were carefully reviewed. These texts suggested that Buddhism is mostly close to 'ethical pragmatism. To present this closeness, the article at the first describes the cardinal principles of pragmatism, which are- multiple truths, verification of truths, changeability of truth; and then discusses how these principles are embedded in the teaching of Buddha. It also claims that Buddha’s efforts on developing new doctrine, constituting a Sangha, practicing sainthood, and defending against rival doctrines and organizations were just strategies of social reform via cultivating ethics rather than the objectives in themselves. This knowledge contributes to the understanding of both pragmatism and Buddhism from each other's perspectives, and at the same time, draws its educational implication in developing critical thinking, and ethical values.

Ethical Conduct with Invertebrate Animals: Routes for Inclusive, Humanitarian, and Sustainable Education

Perceptions of nature depend on experiences relating to biodiversity, thus this study investigated the representation of invertebrates in different sections of Brazilian society by means of a questionnaire available from March to December 2015 as a resource in terms of the conservation of nature and human health in order to design an ethical values guide for this relationship. This study tested the hypotheses that there are differences in the conception and representation: a) associated with gender, educational level, use of animals in vocational training, tutoring, and housing area; b) according to the role assigned to invertebrates as a resource, including in conservation and health; and c) that the different representations result in different value assignments used to intermediate decisions on how, when, and why to use invertebrates. Thus, through quantitative and cross-sectional research, our objective was to identify the popular representation of invertebrates. The analysis of the results of an online questionnaire with 281 respondents showed definitions and concepts that were predominantly similar to the tested variables, which suggests that the present study provides evidence for the understanding of the ecological importance of the invertebrates, the belief in their sentience, and disagreement with the substitutive use of vertebrates in experimentation. However, the naturalistic and ecological positions regarding nature prevailed, indicating the persistence of utilitarian values. The results cast interpretive clues that the only by cooperation between education and environmental bioethics will possible the confluence of values and interests of animals and human in favor of a critical, ethical, and sustainable society.

The effect of intensive care physicians and nurses' inclination to ethical values on the moral sensitivity

This study was conducted to determine the effect of intensive care physicians and nurses' inclination to ethical values on the moral sensitivity.

PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION IN THE EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT

This text is devoted to the protection of personal data in the employment relationship. The starting point for this analysis were the provisions resulting from the Polish Constitution, namely Art. 30. We discussed the conditions of personal data protection in labor law, focusing in particular on Art. 221 of the Labor Code and all related regulations. We have tried to explain what the processing of personal data is, and what are the correlations in employment relationships. In our opinion, the protection of personal data itself is not only the necessity of cooperation between the employee and the employer to the extent specified by law, but also based on ethical values. Hence the employer’s obligation to avoid actions that directly interfere with the employee’s protected personal belongings

Social Dependency: the Values of Collectors, Fishing Logics and the Economics of Gift

The phenomenon of social dependence is considered as a phenomenon that accompanied the life of society at all times. On the basis of analysis of the theoretical resources and empirical studies, a parallelism of dependency strategies is carried out. The evolution of the moral and ethical values of human communities is analyzed through the works of K. Polanya, I. Morris, T. Shanin and others. The convergence of systems of moral and ethical values of prehistoric, non-historical society and modern societies is described. Dependency is considered as fishing, intermediate equipment and gift economics. A unique phenomenon is being studied, which is practically not reflected in the information field, does not find direct accounting in official statistics, however, is well-known in Russian everyday life — «garage-owners». Based on a deep theoretical analysis, it is concluded that the practices of dependency are characterized by a certain form of extremely archaic egalitarianism, and the convergence of the values of collectors and members of post-industrial communities is expressed in fishing, that is, in essence assigning logics to economic practices of our time. The theoretical constructions of the modern topical studies resonate with the empirical studies, both of the garage socio-economic structure and the practices of social dependence. The conceptual approaches discussed in the article have the potential to study various socially negative phenomena of the modern society.

ZAHED, L.-M. (2020). HOMOSEXUALITY, TRANSIDENTITY, AND ISLAM: A STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. CONFRONTING THE POLITICS OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY. AMSTERDAM: AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

The book under review is authored by Ludovic-Mohammed Zahed (b. 1977), a French scholar of social psychology and the founder of Homosexuels musulmans de France, an association for gay and queer Muslims in France. With his work Zahed, who identifies as a feminist, gay Muslim and holds a position of an imam in an inclusive mosque in Paris, seeks to contribute to the expanding body of academic work that engages with issues of gender and sexuality in Islam. As his sources of inspiration, he names Islamic feminist scholars Fatima Mernissi (e.g. 1987; 2003) and Amina Wadud (1999; 2008), as well as a prominent scholar on sexual diversity in Islam, Scott Siraj Kugle (2010; 2013). If Islamic feminist studies have already evolved into an established field that has its roots in the 1980s, topics of homosexuality and non-binary gender identity in Islam have begun attracting scholarly interest only relatively recently. Particularly in the last decade, there has been a visible growth in the number of published works that have engaged with these topics from theological, sociological, and historical perspectives (e.g., Roscoe & Murray, 1997; El-Rouayheb, 2009; Habib, 2010; Shah, 2018). Challenging the premise that homophobia and misogyny are in compliance with Islamic ethical values, Zadeh’s book clearly draws on the arguments developed in these trailblazing works.

Desafios para professores no século 21

Dentro da sociedade, a escola tem desempenhado um papel muito importante, sendo uma instituição que contribui para que os alunos se tornem pessoas que num futuro não muito distante se tornem adultos responsáveis; capaz de contribuir para a construção de um mundo melhor, no qual os direitos humanos sejam respeitados e os valores éticos aplicados para a manutenção de uma sociedade harmoniosa. Within society, the school has played a very important role, being an institution that helps students become people who, in the not-too-distant future, will become responsible adults; capable of contributing to the construction of a better world, in which human rights are respected and ethical values ​​applied to the maintenance of a harmonious society.