As Medicine shifts from a paternalistic practice to a patient-centered approach, the concept of medical informed consent (IC) has evolved to safeguard patient autonomy. However, its current implementation still presents many challenges in clinical practice. We assessed the knowledge and attitudes of the general Lebanese population regarding the IC process as well as their sociodemographic and medical correlates. An anonymous online survey was distributed to the Lebanese population using social media channels. A sample of 500 adults with an average age (...) of 36.2 ± 13.5 years, including 319 females and 181 males, was recruited. Most of the respondents had a university degree (85.8%), reported previous hospital admissions (75.9%) and had signed an IC for surgical procedures (40.7%). Few participants were knowledgeable about IC Lebanese law. Variability in knowledge level was significantly related to gender and a previous hospitalization history. Positive attitudes toward patient autonomy (53.1%) and shared decision-making (57.5%) correlated with older age, female gender, graduate education, and a previous history of signing an IC document. Males were more likely to believe that IC has positive effects on health than females. This is the first study that provides novel findings regarding Lebanese peoples’ awareness of the ethico-legal components of medical IC. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking work, French legal scholar Alain Supiot examines the relationship of society to legal discourse. He argues that the law is how justice is implmented in secular society, but it is not simply a technique to be manipulated at will: it is also an expression of the core beliefs of the West. We must recognize its universalizing, dogmatic nature and become receptive to other interpretations from non-Western cultures to help us avoid the clash of civilizations. In Homo (...) Juridicus, Supiot deconstructs the illusion of a world that has become flat and undifferentiated, regulated only by supposed "laws" of science and the economy, and peopled by contract-makers driven only by the calculation of their individual interests. Such a liberal perspective is nothing but the flipside of the notion of the withering away of law and the state, promoted this time not under the banner of the struggle between classes, but rather in the name of the free competition between sovereign individuals. Supiot's exploration of the development of the legal subject-the individual as formed through a dense web of contracts and laws-is set to become a classic work of social theory. (shrink)

Knowledge is inextricably bound to power in the context of settler colonialism where apprehension of the Other is a tool of domination. Tracing the development of the “settler colonial” paradigm, this article deconstructs Zionist and Israeli dispossession of Palestinian land and sovereignty, applying the sociology of knowledge production to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian case. The settler colonial paradigm, linked to Israeli critical sociology, post-Zionism, and postcolonialism, reemerged following changes in the political landscape from the mid-1990s that reframed the history (...) of the Nakba as enduring, challenged the Jewish definition of the state, and legitimated Palestinians as agents of history. Palestinian scholars in Israel lead the paradigm’s reformulation. This article offers a phenomenology of Palestinian positionality, a critical potential for decolonizing the settler colonial structure and exclusive Jewish sovereignty, to consolidate a field of study that shapes not only research into the Israeli-Palestinian case but approaches to decolonization and liberation. (shrink)

"On se prend à rêver la situation de Nietzsche faisant retour sur sa vie pour écrire lui-même l'origine de sa pensée dans un livre qui montre qu'il se crée lui-même en tant que dieu-philosophe de l'écriture dionysiaque." (Sarah Kofman) Jugnon le sait de longue date qui s'en est fait tôt une méthode, ou un moyen, ou une liberté supplémentaires, dont chacun des livres tient à la fois de l'installation, du montage, du collage. Il en a l'art. l'Ivre Nietzsche n'y déroge (...) pas. Installation, montage, collage, pas pour que joue ensemble ce qui n'aurait rien à voir, mais pour que fasse "ensemble" ce qu'on n'a jamais fait jouer. Nul mieux que lui ne lit sans doute ; nul mieux que lui ne lie, surtout, lisant, écrivant, qui lit pour lier, c'est-à-dire qui lit doublement, amenant au jour, montrant des formes (d'écriture, de pensée) inaperçues jusqu'alors, qu'il mélange dans un shaker, qu'il agite ensuite. Agitation iconoclaste : le cocktail est raide, fait pour l'ivresse, fait pour danser & penser, comme on danse & pense (denser/panser) sous un volcan, comme danse & pense l'ivre vice-consul d'Au-dessous du volcan — lui aussi pris dans l'effroi de son éternel retour propre. Michel Surya. (shrink)

Topics covered in Discrete Mathematics have become essential tools in many areas of studies in recent years. This is primarily due to the revolution in technology, communications, and cyber security. The book treats major themes in a typical introductory modern Discrete Mathematics course: Propositional and predicate logic, proof techniques, set theory (including Boolean algebra, functions and relations), introduction to number theory, combinatorics and graph theory. An accessible, precise, and comprehensive approach is adopted in the treatment of each topic. The ability (...) of abstract thinking and the art of writing valid arguments are emphasized through detailed proof of (almost) every result. Developing the ability to think abstractly and roguishly is key in any areas of science, information technology and engineering. Every result presented in the book is followed by examples and applications to consolidate its comprehension. The hope is that the reader ends up developing both the abstract reasoning as well as acquiring practical skills. All efforts are made to write the book at a level accessible to first-year students and to present each topic in a way that facilitates self-directed learning. Each chapter starts with basic concepts of the subject at hand and progresses gradually to cover more ground on the subject. Chapters are divided into sections and subsections to facilitate readings. Each section ends with its own carefully chosen set of practice exercises to reenforce comprehension and to challenge and stimulate readers. As an introduction to Discrete Mathematics, the book is written with the smallest set of prerequisites possible. Familiarity with basic mathematical concepts (usually acquired in high school) is sufficient for most chapters. However, some mathematical maturity comes in handy to grasp some harder concepts presented in the book. (shrink)

A passionate critique of Enlightenment--both in its contemporary invocation and its historical and cultural use--and a call to arms to rethink human equality and liberty without the sacrifice of individual rights and ethnicities.

This article articulates a sociological conception of settler colonial remembering as a tool of legitimation. Theories of memory in the context of settler colonialism generally center counter-memories by the subaltern or colonized, or official hegemonizing representations at the level of state institutions. Underexamined is the dialectical nature of memory and discursive representations that help reproduce settler colonial processes of accumulation and displacement at the micro-level. The article draws on archival data from avowedly socialist-leftist Zionist colonies to explicate patterned representations of (...) Palestinian villages that Zionist forces gradually displaced prior to and during the 1948 War/Nakba. I demonstrate how the colonial settlers attributed political meaning through five representational modes: contrasting the indigenous as backward and primitive and settlers as progressive and developed; denying an indigenous connection to the land; emphasizing amiable relations through the promotion of cultural progress and settler superiority; asymmetrically assessing settler and indigenous belongings to national collectives; and legitimizing land purchases that dispossessed indigenous cultivators, despite the settlers’ socialist ideology, while reducing conflict to the issue of economic compensation. I theorize a form of settler colonial memory based not merely on erasure, but on recognition and disavowal. Finally, I argue that local memory is a significant site of production in which the conceptual tools to both trace the historical processes of supremacy and subvert asymmetrical sociality lie. (shrink)

L'art pour éduquer, à l'âge des sciences et des techniques ?

This article extends critical trends of citizenship studies and the theory of accumulation by dispossession to articulate how settler colonial citizenship is instantiated through the active accrual of land and resources and how the emerging settler colonial citizenship entrenches both structural subjugation and resistance. The article then examines the reformation of the boundaries of citizenship through indigenous agency. I do so through examining the Palestinian citizens in Israel, specifically centering the Internally Displaced Persons—Palestinians who received Israeli citizenship even as they (...) were displaced from their places of origin. I conclude by asserting citizenship’s double paradox in settler colonial contexts: It regulates certain rights and mobilities but simultaneously entraps the indigenous in a structure in which recursive accumulation is constitutive, thus entrenching dispossession and the further loss of collective rights and other claims. (shrink)

Plato's _Republic_ is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark text and revives its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times. In this innovative reimagining of Plato's work, Badiou has (...) removed all references specific to ancient Greek society--from lengthy exchanges about moral courage in archaic poetry to political considerations mainly of interest to the aristocratic elite--and has expanded the range of cultural references. Here, philosophy is firing on all cylinders: Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others. Together these thinkers demonstrate that true philosophy endures, ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Moreover, Badiou--who is also a dramatist--has transformed the Socratic dialogue into a genuine oratorial contest. In his version of the _Republic_, the interlocutors do much more than simply agree with Socrates. They argue, stand up to him, put him on the spot, and show thought in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own world. (shrink)

Is genre film comparable to a thought experiment?Revising concepts of determinism and agency in three film noirs The philosophical approach of film genres, first popularized by authors like Stanley Cavell, allows to consider genre films as narrative variations as pertinent to philosophical discourse as can be a traditional thought experiment, since every question on the essence of a genre and every discussion related to its inner functions, its mechanisms and its themes, generate naturally a philosophical discourse on the way a (...) director uses filmic and narrative tools to transform his intentions into a specific system of meaning. This study adopts formalist and philosophical approaches to connect the narratives of the movies to the discourses it is prone to generate. The corpus draws on the ‘primitive scene' in three films noirs, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai et Criss Cross : the tragic meeting of an anti-hero with the woman who will be responsible of his fall. Indeed, the sequence showing this first meeting becomes an exercise in style where forerunning signs of the two protagonists' fall organize the writing and the mise-en-scene, and explicitly shows how questions of agency and determinism are intimately articulated to the narrative and formal frame of the movies. (shrink)

This essay deals with Nina Bouraoui’s mixed-race identity as presented in her autobiographical novels Garçon manqué and Mes mauvaises pensées. The métis question takes the shape of a representation of an ethnicized, dual and fractured identity. My argument explores a contradiction at work in Bouraoui’s texts: while reclaiming the existence of a Franco-Algerian métis identity, Bouraoui represents the métis as the incarnated perpetuation of the historical tensions that divided France and Algeria. The narratives simultaneously construct and deconstruct Bouraoui’s Franco-Algerian métis (...) identity. I examine how Bouraoui represents her Algerian legacy and appropriates a familial history to construct herself as Algerian. I analyze how traumatic memories of asphyxiation are a metaphor for Bouraoui’s difficult relationship with her French self, symbolized by the motif of white skin. And I consider how the ends of the two novels provide a problematic acceptance and fulfillment of Bouraoui’s métis identity. (shrink)

Alfred Fouillée écrit à une époque marquée par l'affrontement de la France et de l'Allemagne et par la crainte d'une déchirure de la société face à l'emprise croissante des idées révolutionnaires et au déclin irréversible des formes traditionnelles d'autorité. Ses ouvrages consacrés à la "question sociale" ont assuré sa notoriété jusqu'à en faire le "parrain intellectuel" de la Troisième République, ce qui peut aussi expliquer le relatif oubli dont il est l'objet.Pourtant la signification et la portée de l'œuvre d'Alfred Fouillée (...) ne se réduisent pas à cette dimension. Il est aussi l'auteur d'une philosophie évolutionniste de la vie dont l'idée-force est le concept central. La vie est la synthèse de la force et de l'idée, et l'évolution est le processus par lequel l'accent passe de la force à l'idée. Du vivant au social, l'idée-force devient idéal et l'évolution, initialement involontaire, devient réforme volontaire. Si elle commence avec l'égoïsme et la lutte pour la vie, l'évolution ne prend son sens que par sa fin, l'altruisme et la fraternité. C'est pourquoi la démocratie est l'idée-force en politique, même si, du fait que l'évolution requiert maintenant la volonté et la liberté, la crise est le régime normal de la démocratie, si l'ont sait voir en elle l'aiguillon qui l'incite à s'approcher de son idéal. Pages de début Introduction. Philosopher et servir son pays I. Refonder la société II. Une philosophie de l'évolution III. Unesociologie réformiste Conclusion Bibliographie complémentaire Pages de fin. (shrink)

Alain Finkielkraut et Peter Sloterdijk mettent leurs pensées à l'épreuve des événements. Sous un ciel d'étoiles éteintes, les sujets s'imposent d'eux-mêmes : l'utopie qui menace, le culte de l'Autre et la question de l'ennemi, le destin des Juifs à l'heure d'Israël, la démocratisation du luxe, l'écologie de la beauté, la fracture de l'Occident, la critique de la raison extrémiste et la recherche du principe de réalité ; qu'est-ce qu'être adulte? Tout ce qui est sérieux revient et tout ce qui (...) est sérieux s'en va. A partir de ces deux évidences contradictoires surgissent les nouvelles lignes de partage dans la confrontation mondiale invisible dont l'enjeu est le poids des choses : la guerre du léger et du lourd. (shrink)

It typically taken for granted that agents can be morally responsible for such things as, for example, the death of the victim and the capture of the murderer in the sense that one may be blameworthy or praiseworthy for such things. The primary task of a theory of moral responsibility, it is thought, is to specify the appropriate relationship one must stand to such things in order to be morally responsible for them. I argue that this common approach is problematic (...) because it attempts to explain the way in which an agent can be morally responsible for something that is external to her, the agent. Since, I argue, everything that matters for moral responsibility is internal to the agent, the accounts that emerge from this approach are committed to a particular form of moral luck. Instead, we should reject this form of moral luck, and with it, the possibility of moral responsibility for objects external to the agent. We are, I argue, morally responsible only for our inner willings. Thus, a form of internalism about moral responsibility is defended. (shrink)

Many of those working on moral responsibility assume that "once blameworthy, always blameworthy." They believe that blameworthiness is like diamonds: it is forever. We argue that blameworthiness is not forever; rather, it can diminish through time. We begin by showing that the view that blameworthiness is forever is best understood as the claim that personal identity is sufficient for diachronic blameworthiness. We argue that this view should be rejected because it entails that blameworthiness for past action is completely divorced from (...) the distinctive psychological features of the person at the later time. This is because on none of the leading accounts of personal identity does identity require the preservation of any distinctive psychological features, but merely requires some form of continuity. The claim that blameworthiness is forever should therefore be rejected. We then sketch an account of blameworthiness over time, and consider two objections. (shrink)

Le liberalisme est une pensee de nature philosophique avant d'etre economique ou politique. C'est une philosophie morale de la responsabilite individuelle et des justes droits dans l'egale liberte individuelle de tous - et non pas une plate exaltation de la tolerance molle ou du tout-marche. La disjonction entre liberalisme politique et economique est arbitraire. Ce qu'on appelle neo-liberalisme n'a rien de theoriquement nouveau et le pretendu ultra-liberalisme ne fait qu'appliquer les principes formules par les grandes figures du liberalisme classique... Invalidant (...) caricatures et idees recues, ces assertions procedent d'une reference exhaustive et inedite aux textes fondateurs ou negliges d'une tradition intellectuelle elargie ici a des auteurs peu attendus, comme aux apports contemporains des libertariens ou des liberaux de gauche. Le liberalisme s'en trouve recentre sur un volontarisme juridique servi par l'Etat limite, tandis qu'est renouvelee la conception de ce qui doit etre qualifie de liberal, illiberal ou ultra-liberal.Cette enquete nourrie d'histoire des idees s'engage finalement dans une reflexion critique sur les actuelles pratiques de liberalisation - et l'exploration de ce que pourraient etre un liberalisme... republicain et une vraie societe ouverte.Essayiste, directeur de la collection Iconoclastes aux Belles Lettres, Alain Laurent a enseigne la philosophie pendant plus de trente ans. Il a notamment publie Du bon usage de Descartes, Turgot. Laissez faire, Les Grands Courants du liberalisme et l'anthologie Theories contre l'impot. (shrink)

Le présent ouvrage rassemble les contributions des chercheurs en anthropologie et en sciences de l'éducation qui se sont réunis en septembre 2015 à la Sorbonne lors du colloque international "Anthropologie et éducation". Sur la base de leurs enquêtes de terrain menées principalement en France et au Brésil, mais aussi en Uruguay, en Iran, en Chine, en Mongolie, en Inde, en Indonésie, au Mali, au Sénégal et en Polynésie, quatre thèmes centraux y sont abordés : l'inculcation de l'écriture et la scolarisation (...) des savoirs confrontées aux modalités corporelles de transmission et d'apprentissage ; la violence physique et symbolique en éducation légitimée comme dressage ou comme épreuve initiatique et maintenant contestée au nom des droits de l'enfant ; l'éducation morale comme intégration sociale et environnementale ; et enfin les pratiques scolaires de reconnaissance des minorités culturelles. (shrink)

Embellir le regard et, par lui, la nature, c'est la fonction de l'art. L'histoire du nu est celle du regard que les hommes ont porté sur la nudité, la chronique somptueuse de leur délectation. Mais l'art ne se borne pas à fonder la beauté naturelle. Il modèle les moeurs. Il donne forme et norme aux comportements. La sexualité est soumise à ses modes. Une enquête sur le nu dans les paysages.

La quatrième de couverture indique : Deleuze et Guattari étaient des lecteurs sans pareils. C'est la raison pour laquelle Alain Jugnon les lit dans ce livre ; plus précisément, il lit avec eux Artaud et Kafka, Lacan et Klossowski, Büchner et Nietzsche. N'ont-ils pas assez lu Lautréamont ; il les lit pour eux, comme eux l'auraient lu, l'ajoutant à leurs lectures, avec les outils qu'ils ont créés pour lire. Nul mieux qu'Alain Jugnon n'articule les lectures nécessaires à la (...) défaite de ce monde-ci et au surgissement d'un monde transformé : "Deleuze et Guattari ont commencé à dire dans leur livre premier, L'Anti-Oedipe : il n'y a plus de dialectique à penser ou bien d'histoires à raconter, mais il y aura des machines capitalistes et des machines désirantes, des guerres des sexes et des guerres des races, des combats de rue et des révolutions de palais, il y aura tout ça et plus encore, qui fera une bible humaine à revendre ou bien une philosophie populaire à inventer pour demain." (A.J.). (shrink)

La culture moderne n'en a jamais fini de dissiper le mystère qu'elle constitue pour elle-même. Deux schémas principaux inspirent aujourd'hui cette autoréflexion de la modernité. Dans la mouvance de Heidegger, les Temps modernes assurent le règne sans partage du sujet au sein d'un univers réduit à être objet de maîtrise et de possession. Selon une inspiration tocquevillienne comme celle, en particulier, de Louis Dumont, c'est l'individualisme qui, rompant avec la domination traditionnelle du collectif, sert de fil conducteur omni-interprétatif. Ces lectures (...) ont pour point commun de rendre la modernité homogène, assimilée au 'tout-sujet' ou au 'tout-individu'. Et surtout, elles occultent la césure qui brise l'histoire du sujet moderne en infléchissant l'humanisme vers l'une de ses figures possible, problématique et évanouissante - l'individualisme. L'archéologie de cet énigmatique déplacement conduit Alain Renaut jusqu'à Leibniz. Là s'est décidée une profonde mutation - l'affirmation de l'individualité devient soudain compatible, au prix d'un dispositif intellectuel inédit, avec celle d'une rationalité du réel. Une culture de l'indépendance où chaque être, ne se souciant que d'accomplir sa nature, contribue à manifester l'ordre du monde, se greffe sur la valorisation de la raison. Ainsi débarrassée des fausses linéarités, la logique de la modernité apparaît sous un jour neuf - loin d'avoir sans cesse consolidé le pouvoir de la subjectivité, elle a été aussi le lieu de son éclipse... (shrink)

La solidarité n'est ni assurance ni assistance. Elle ne divise pas le monde entre ceux qui donneraient sans recevoir et ceux qui recevraient sans avoir rien à donner : tous contribuent selon leurs capacités et reçoivent selon leurs besoins. Le droit européen a récemment hissé la solidarité au rang de principe fondamental, à l'instar de la liberté, de l'égalité et de la justice. Dans le même temps, l'idéologie libérale en promeut le démantèlement méthodique, considérant qu'une «grande société» fondée sur l'ordre (...) du Marché «n'a que faire de la «solidarit黫 (F Hayek). La question se pose donc de savoir si la solidarité est le témoin provisoire d'un ordre juridique condamné à disparaître ou bien l'un des ferments de sa recomposition. L'enquête conduite dans ce livre vise à y répondre. Elle commence par retracer l'histoire du concept de «solidarité», depuis son apparition en droit romain jusqu'à sa moderne diffusion en biologie, en sociologie et en droit social. Elle se poursuit en examinant cette notion d'origine européenne au prisme d'autres civilisations. Explorant les évolutions politiques et législatives les plus récentes, elle met enfin en évidence l'extrême actualité du principe de solidarité dans toutes les grandes régions du monde. (shrink)

The notion that all the world's peoples constitute a "brotherhood of man" is not a given among all human beings--it is rather the product of history. So suggests acclaimed philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in _In the Name of Humanity,_ an unsettling reflection on the twentieth century in its twilight hours in which he asks us to rethink our assumptions about universalism and humanism. While many people look to humanist ideals as a deterrent to nationalist chauvinism, Finkielkraut challenges the abstract idea (...) of universalism by describing the terrible crimes "civilized" Europe has committed in its name. At the same time as it challenges the inhumanity of our century's great universalistic solutions, _In the Name of Humanity_ also confronts the more onerous elements of unreflective nationalism--clearly condemning the dangerous use of claims for ethnic purity. However, the book does not put forth a standard-issue polemic against the multitude of nationalistic currents that continue to plague the international arena. Indeed, even as he deplores the violence that seems to go hand in hand with nationalism, Finkielkraut defends its underlying cause--the need to belong. Eloquently quoting the experiences of refugees from Hitler's Germany, he shows the reader why we must heed the call of this irreducible need. Finkielkraut reminds us that the concept of cultural relativism--indeed, the very idea of tolerating other cultures--is a relatively recent development in Western history. As he looks for answers he interrogates the differences between historical racism and the racism embedded in the philosophies of this century's genocidal movements, showing how modern racist ideologies like National Socialism look not to sin within the self as the stumbling block of human advancement but to a clandestine conspiracy by a particular, identifiable element of human society. What this form of radical racist thought eliminates is the notion of personal responsibility--instead of finding the answers to misfortune within the self, modern racism suggests that evil can be identified in others and summarily eliminated. Lucidly connected to the ideas of past thinkers, from Plato to Levinas to Hannah Arendt, Finkielkraut's latest work is a troubling indictment of our century that refuses to back away from the "messiness" of human life and culture. In his willingness to abjure simple solutions, he offers a glimmer of hope. (shrink)

Pour donner une nouvelle crédibilité philosophique aux concepts de Dieu et de Royaume de Dieu, la démarche qui est proposée ici prend appui sur la manière dont la mathématique définit les notions d'infini, d'ensemble et de limite. En effet, la mathématique du XXe siècle (celle de Cantor et de Gödel en particulier) donne des outils qui permettent de renouveler la métaphysique, l'apologétique et même la théologie. Alain Houziaux tente donc de montrer non seulement la légitimité mais aussi la nécessité (...) du discours théologique pour rendre compte de la vérité de notre monde. Puis il développe une théologie cohérente de Dieu et de son Royaume après en avoir légitimé les concepts. Cette recherche nouvelle démontre sa fécondité en recoupant la perspective kantienne d'une science qui, limitée, fait place à la foi en correspondant à la revendication réformée d'une théologie de la Croix. Une ample préface de Jean Ladrière, qui a écrit l'ouvrage faisant autorité sur les théorèmes d'incomplétude de Gödel, situe bien la légitimité de cette approche dans une authentique démarche théologique. " La perspective originale d'Alain Houziaux " écrit-il, " est sans doute de nature à mettre en évidence certains aspects devenus implicites dans les épistémologies mises en œuvre par les différents courants " classiques " de la théologie fondamentale. ". (shrink)

Some accounts of moral responsibility hold that an agent's responsibility is completely determined by some aspect of the agent's mental life at the time of action. For example, some hold that an agent is responsible if and only if there is an appropriate mesh among the agent's particular psychological elements. It is often objected that the particular features of the agent's mental life to which these theorists appeal (such as a particular structure or mesh) are not necessary for responsibility. This (...) is because there appear to be cases in which an agent acts at an earlier time which causes her to lack the appropriate psychological features at some later time and yet, intuitively, she is responsible at that later .. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between synchronic responsibility (SR) and diachronic responsibility (DR). SR concerns an agent’s responsibility for an act at the time of the action, while DR concerns an agent’s responsibility for an act at some later time. While most theorists implicitly assume that DR is a straightforward matter of personal identity, I argue instead that it is grounded in psychological connectedness. I discuss the implications this distinction has for the concepts of apology, forgiveness, and punishment as well as the (...) way in which this distinction can be used to defend quality of will accounts of responsibility against objections involving psychological manipulation. I argue that the intuition that a manipulated agent is not responsible can be explained by appeal to the conditions of DR and, as such, does not unproblematically shed light on the conditions of SR. (shrink)

Toutes les democraties egalitaires, detribalisees et secularisees d'Occident sont confrontees aux memes defis du communautarisme et de la reislamisation d'une partie de l'immigration - accrus par un continuel afflux de clandestins : le probleme de l'integration se pose donc moins en termes franco-francais de Republique que plus globalement de societe ouverte. Dans la perspective de Karl Popper et en usant de la liberte d'esprit et de parole chere a Jean-Francois Revel, il s'agit ici, a partir des faits, de montrer que (...) cette situation critique resulte d'abord de la forfaiture morale et parfois juridique de politiques qui n'ont pas voulu faire respecter ledroit commun democratique. Mais, surtout et en amont, de l'emprise d'une ideologie pretendument antiraciste, sans-frontieriste et acquise au relativisme multiculturel qui a perverti les valeurs de tolerance et d'ouverture: en elle se retrouvent les veritables et paradoxaux nouveaux ennemis de la societe ouverte. Faisant grand cas de l'emergence d'une resistance intellectuelle de tradition anti-totalitaire a cette bien-pensance et du combat emancipateur des musulmans libres, cette reflexion pointe le pathos masochiste qui fait oeuvrer les societes ouvertes contre elles-memes. Sans oublier d'explorer les conditions d'une ouverture raisonnee a l'alterite. (shrink)

Un ouvrage qui rassemble les contributions des meilleurs spécialistes de la pensée de Ronald Dworkin sur des questions cruciales pour nos démocraties comme la discrimination positive, la neutralité de l'Etat, la liberté religieuse ou encore l'avortement et l'euthanasie.

Many theorists have found the notion of forgiveness to be paradoxical, for it is thought that only the blameworthy can be appropriately forgiven but that the blameworthy are appropriately blamed not forgiven. Some have appealed to the notion of repentance to resolve this tension. But others have objected that such a response is explanatorily inadequate in the sense that it merely stipulates and names a solution leaving the transformative power of repentance unexplained. Worse still, others have objected that such a (...) response cannot succeed because no amount of repentance can render the blameworthy not blameworthy. I argue that this latter objection is based on a mistaken assumption, the acknowledgement of which has the power to resolve the paradox in a way that meets the explanatory adequacy challenge, and, more generally, has significant implications with which any full theory of forgiveness must engage. (shrink)

This article takes a look at our responses to the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon from the “micro” – or grassroots – level. Specifically, it examines how our attitudes and approaches, as responders, affect the lived experience of others during this extraordinarily sensitive time of displacement. Three areas of reflection are discussed: the reductionist approach to identity, the pathologizing of those who go through suffering, and finally the exploration of a biblical understanding of integration, by looking at the parable of (...) the workers in the vineyard. In such a dynamic, restorative, and Christ-like community, both those “workers” who arrived early and those who arrived late are equally valued. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to examine the mediation effects of resilience and stress, two perceived opposite constructs, in the relationship between mindfulness and happiness. Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, Subjective Happiness Scale, Depression Anxiety Stress Scales short version-21 were administered to 523 undergraduate university students in India. Structural Equation Modeling with bootstrapping was applied to test the mediating effects of resilience and stress. Results showed that resilience and stress partially mediated the mindfulness-happiness relationship. In addition, (...) resilience partially mediated the relationship of mindfulness to stress. Findings suggest that mindfulness may play an influential role in enhancing happiness through the mediating effects of resilience and stress. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to propose a theoretical arrangement for the study of applied computer and information ethics carried out in an interdisciplinary and a democratic manner by which the information and communications technologies are seen as an ethical environment, and human-computer couplings are seen as hybrid moral agents. Design/methodology/approach New ethical issues emerge dynamically in such environment which must be interpreted according to human sentience and computer ontology. To attribute moral meaning to acts perpetrated by human-computer hybrids, a hybrid (...) of two semiotics must be likely used that bridge the gap between signs and things from opposite directions. Findings The author argues that ecosocial dynamics and material semiotics can be harnessed together as in a theoretical mashup for that purpose, and that such harnessing will allow us to engage with a posthumanist/post-social ethics here and now. Originality/value The originality of the proposal resides in bringing hybridity to the center of the picture, forcing interdisciplinary teams to engage with one unified, even if hybrid, agency regardless of conflicting ontologies and epistemologies. (shrink)

Enhancer elements are short stretches of nucleotides operationally defined by their cis‐acting ability to increase the transcription of nearby genes. They function relatively independently of position, orientation, and distance. Some show narrow tissue specificity while others permit constitutive expression in many different cell types. Although the first enhancer was described for simian virus 40 (SV40) more than five years ago, its mechanism of action has remained unclear. This review describes some of the models proposed to explain the physical role of (...) enhancers in eukaryotic transcription. (shrink)

This article examines problems that may arise when addressing liability resulting from the genetic modification of microbes, animals, and plants. More specifically, it evaluates how uncertainties relating to the outcomes of these biotechnological innovations affect—or may affect—the courts' application of the reasonable foreseeability requirement and, hence, liability under the tort of negligence. The article also examines how concern expressed by society about injuries feared to result from these genetically modified products could have an impact on the way the courts assess (...) reasonable foreseeability in this area. (shrink)