On Earth and as It Is in Heaven—There Is No Sex Trafficking in Heaven: A Qualitative Study Bringing Christian Church Leaders’ Anti-Trafficking Viewpoints to Trafficking Discourse

There is a lack of contributions in sex trafficking the academic literature from Christian evangelical leaders despite their prominence in global counter-trafficking activism. Given that the academic literature influences professional and pedagogical discourse, the lack of evangelical Christian representation could diminish the complexity of trafficking discourses, limit balanced views of the flaws and strengths of evangelical counter-trafficking, and limit the opportunities for academia to understand and address problematic areas in evangelical counter-trafficking through an emic understanding of evangelical paradigms. Using a phenomenological lens to engage evangelical Christian pastors (n = 17) in the midwestern United States, this study examined the meaning faith leaders attach to counter-trafficking initiatives. Four themes emerged: (1) God cares about survivors of sex trafficking, giving Christians a moral obligation to intervene; (2) God, the Christian, and the survivor all have essential roles in tackling sex trafficking as part of helping humanity; (3) congregations’ faith-inspired but imperfect efforts to help an imperfect and complex world create many complexities; and (4) managing complexity involves applying the truths that underpin the Christian worldview, namely that God is good and people are valuable. These findings underscore the need to create an inclusive knowledge-producing forum that allows for a pragmatic exchange of ideas to expand the discourse between multiple counter trafficking actors.

From the philosophy of corporate social responsibility to the market and political realities of ESG

The theory of corporate social responsibility, ideologically formed in the USA in the second half of the twentieth century, significantly influenced both the practice of international business and the views of scientists in the field of economics and sociology. The moral obligation of corporations to participate in solving social problems, in charity, educational and cultural projects began to be perceived as something ordinary, as a kind of voluntary social tax. At the same time, representatives of a number of economic schools have long criticized this approach, believing, firstly, that the principal goal of big business is the growth of shareholders’ capital, and secondly, such a social obligation looks very amorphous, assuming only reputational costs for an entrepreneur in case of his evasion from the implementation of CSR programs. In our opinion, the situation is currently changing dramatically. This approach is being radically transformed under the influence of ESG ideas and practices, whose standards become structured and mandatory for companies in case of their access to premium markets.

Moral Obligation to Worship God Alone

This article examines how, in his al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) addresses the problem of the obligation to thank the benefactor (wujūb shukr al-munʿim) within the context of the Quranic command to worship God alone. The obligation to thank one’s benefactor was a contentious problem among classical Islamic thinkers before Rāzī, and it was frequently discussed in fiqh and kalām works in the context of the ontology and epistemology of moral values and legal norms. Rāzī’s analysis in the Tafsīr, however, sheds light on another way in which the “thanking one’s benefactor”-problem was of relevance for classical Islamic thinkers: it is used to frame the rationale for monotheism in terms of the gratitude God deserves for being humans’ provider. This aspect of the “thanking one’s benefactor”-problem has not been highlighted in the secondary literature. This article discusses how Rāzī’s analysis of God’s sole deservedness of worship has theological, legal, and ethical/moral implications. The theological implications are found in the questions it raises about the notorious problem of causality. The legal implications become apparent in Rāzī’s interest in the ratio legis of the Quranic command and in establishing that the obligation arises with God’s sovereign decree. The ethical or moral implications, finally, are seen in his concern with how humans come to know of the goodness of monotheism and the repugnancy of polytheism. The article contextualises Rāzī’s position in the Tafsīr against the background of the fiqh and kalām debates about the “thanking one’s benefactor”-problem.

New Perspectives on Ethics in Islam [whole issue]

Complete volume, containing all articles CONTENTS Introduction: Feriel Bouhafa, Towards New Perspectives on Ethics in Islam: Casuistry, Contingency, and Ambiguity I. Islamic Philosophy and Theology Feriel Bouhafa, The Dialectics of Ethics: Moral Ontology and Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy Frank Griffel, The Place of Virtue Ethics within the Post-Classical Discourse on ḥikma: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s al-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ wa-sharḥ quwāhumā Ayman Shihadeh, Psychology and Ethical Epistemology: An Ashʿarī Debate with Muʿtazilī Ethical Realism, 11th-12th C. Hannah C. Erlwein, The Moral Obligation to Worship God Alone: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Analysis in the Tafsīr Anna Ayse Akasoy, Philosophy in the Narrative Mode: Alexander the Great as an Ethical Character from Roman to Medieval Islamicate Literature II. Islamic Jurisprudence Ziad Bou Akl, From Norm Evaluation to Norm Construction: The Metaethical Origin of al-Ghazālī’s Radical Infallibilism Felicitas Opwis, The Ethical Turn in Legal Analogy: Imbuing the Ratio Legis with Maṣlaḥa Robert Gleave, Moral Assessments and Legal Categories: The Relationship between Rational Ethics and Revealed Law in Post-Classical Imāmī Shīʿī Legal Theory Omar Farahat, Moral Value and Commercial Gain: Three Classical Islamic Approaches III Hadith, Quran, and Adab Mutaz al-Khatib, Consult Your Heart: The Self as a Source of Moral Judgment Tareq Moqbel, “As Time Grows Older, the Qurʾān Grows Younger”: The Ethical Function of Ambiguity in Qurʾānic Narratives Enass Khansa, Can Reading Animate Justice? A Conversation from Alf Layla wa-Layla (The Thousand and One Nights) Nuha AlShaar, The Interplay of Religion and Philosophy in al-Tawḥīdī’s Political Thought and Practical Ethics William Ryle Hodges, Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s Notion of Political Adab: Ethics as a Virtue of Modern Citizenship in Late 19th Century Khedival Egypt

Sijaisvanhemmuus nyky-Venäjällä - työtä vai rakkautta?

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan hoivan käsitteen kautta sijaisvanhemmuuden ammatillistumista Venäjällä meneillään olevan lastensuojelun sijaishuollon uudistamisen kontekstissa. Analysoimme, kuinka lapsikylässä asuvat sijaisvanhemmat näkevät ja määrittelevät oman roolinsa ja toimintansa tarkoituksen pohjaten viidessä eri venäläisessä lapsikylässä sijaisvanhempien parissa toteutettuihin fokusryhmäkeskusteluihin ja teemahaastatteluihin. Sijaisvanhemmuus ymmärretään dikotomisesti joko rakkautena tai työnä. Käsitys hoivasta rakkautena ymmärretään moraalisena velvollisuutena ja eettisenä arvona. Tällöin kiistetään mahdollisuus hoivan virallistamiseen ja sen alistamiseen säännöille ja byrokratian ja markkinavoimien sanelulle. Hoivan määritteleminen työnä puolestaan tekee sijaisvanhemmille mahdolliseksi rationalisoida omaa toimintaansa ja problematisoida sijaisvanhemmuuden statusta yhteiskunnassa. Tällöin sijaisvanhemmuuden ammatillistuminen nähdään ratkaisuna lukuisille ongelmille, joihin sijaisvanhemmat törmäävät, ja sijaisperheissä tapahtuvan hoivan aseman parantamisena. Foster parenting in contemporary Russia - work or love? The article explores the professionalisation of foster parenting in the context of the ongoing child welfare and so-called alternative care reforms in Russia through the concept of ‘care’. We analyse how foster parents who live in children’s villages see and define their role and the meaning of their activity based on focus group and thematic interviews with foster parents in five children’s villages in Russia. Foster parenting is understood through a dichotomy of ‘love’ and ‘work’. Seeing foster parenting as love is based on an understanding of it as a moral obligation and ethical value. In such a case, it becomes impossible to consider care as something official that exists under regulation and is led by bureaucratic and market principles. Understanding care as work, in turn, makes it possible for foster parents to rationalise their own activity and problematise their status in Russian society. In this case, the professionalisation of foster parenting is seen as a solution to multiple problems that foster parents face, and to the improvement of the status of this type of care more generally.

Recipes for Happiness: a Proposal for Analysing the Moral Orientation of Actions and Emotions

This paper draws up a proposal for analysing discourses on paths to happiness. Recipes promoted by the happiness industry are studied as moral guidelines for social action: imperative messages spread through the Internet seek to guide their recipients in their quest for happiness. In a fielddominated by positive psychology, we approach happiness from a sociological perspective, which is to say as: an institutionalised social discourse; a form of social production; a socially-framed emotion. Research is based on systematic Internet observation and on quantitative and qualitative textual analysis procedures. We show how digital media in the ‘happiness’ field: (a) promotes recipes; (b) provides scientific legitimation for said recipes; (c) focuses on a generic individual as the recipient of the messages and as protagonist. A typology is proposed based on the meaning, nature and object of the actions that lead to happiness. Results show how recipes involve normative and moral orientations of actions and emotions: they indicate what to do and how to think andfeel to be happy. Happiness as a moral obligation involves most concerns shaping the agenda of contemporary societies, with a strong emphasis on individualism and on a utilitarian understanding of social relations and the social environment.

Utrata legitymizacji prawa według koncepcji Ronalda Dworkina

The aim of the paper is to analyse the answer that Dworkin’s philosophy of law provides to the following question: what is the threshold of wickedness of the legal order that excuses citizens from the moral obligation to obey the law? This is not a problem of civil disobedience (which only contests a particular decision of making or applying the law), but a situation in which the whole political-legal system is the object of moral contestation. The task will be carried out in three steps. In the first one, I will outline Dworkin’s theory of political obligation, situating it in the broader framework of the debate on this obligation. In the second step, I will analyse one of the main elements of this theory, namely the legitimacy of the legal order. As a third step, I will draw attention to a rather — as it seems — surprising similarity between Dworkin’s argumentation and Radbruch’s formula.

Epilogue

At the end of the first chapter (1.5), I noted that, since having moved to an African country, I have considered myself to have had a moral obligation to engage with its intellectual traditions when teaching and researching. I would have rightly felt guilt had I taught merely Western ethics to African students and contributed only Euro-American-Australasian perspectives to journals published in the sub-Saharan region. Having been principally trained as an analytic moral and political philosopher, I have been in a good position to articulate normative-theoretic interpretations of African morality, to evaluate these moral theories by appealing to intuitions, and to apply them to a range of practical controversies. Now, it would be welcome if the relational moral theory I have defended in this book could explain why I had a duty to make such a contribution to the field. And indeed it does. I have had an obligation of some weight to teach and research African philosophical ideas as I am particularly able to do so for a reason that is by now familiar to the reader. In the way that a newly trained doctor has an obligation of some weight to give something back to his country before emigrating (...

Patient Counselling and Medicolegal Aspects of Hair Transplant Surgery

Hair transplantation being an elective aesthetic surgery, the importance of informed consent cannot be overstated. Explaining the condition of hair loss, the causes, progress, prognosis, and all available treatment options is a part of this process. Providing conflict-free information, ensuring that the patient comprehends this information, and allowing him/her to make the decision to authorize the surgeon to perform the procedure is the moral obligation of the hair transplant surgeon. The benefits of this approach are noticeable and one of the most effective ways to have a satisfied patient and reduce the possibility of claims.

THE OBLIGATION TO OBEY THE LAW IN THE LIGHT OF THE DEBATE BETWEEN FINNIS AND RAZ

The recent debate between John Finnis and Joseph Raz on the existence of a general prima facie moral obligation to obey positive laws is a major contribution to a classical topic in legal and political philosophy. In this paper, I argue that Raz’s normal justification thesis and Finnis’s doctrine of “determinatio,” inherited from Aquinas, complement each other, shedding light on how norms grounded in social facts can give rise to particular moral obligations independently of their content. However, I argue that this on its own does not explain the possibility of a general moral obligation to obey the law, that is, the notion that everyone has a prima facie moral obligation to obey every law that applies to them.