The goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) can generally be realized only in stages. Moreover, resource, capacity and political constraints mean governments often face difficult trade-offs on the path to UHC. In a 2014 report, Making fair choices on the path to UHC, the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage articulated principles for making such trade-offs in an equitable manner. We present three case studies which illustrate how these principles can guide practical decision-making. These case studies (...) show how progressive realization of the right to health can be effectively guided by priority-setting principles, including generating the greatest total health gain, priority for the worse off, and financial risk protection. They also demonstrate the value of a fair and accountable process of priority setting. (shrink)

Progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) requires making difficult trade-offs. In this journal, Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, has endorsed the principles for making such decisions put forward by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and UHC. These principles include maximizing population health, priority for the worse off, and shielding people from health-related financial risks. But how should one apply these principles in particular cases and how should one adjudicate between them when their demands conflict? This paper by some (...) members of the Consultative Group and a diverse group of health policy professionals addresses these questions. It considers three stylized versions of actual policy dilemmas. Each of these cases pertains to one of the three principal dimensions of progress towards UHC: which services to cover first, which populations to prioritize for coverage, and how to move from out-of-pocket expenditures to pre-payment with pooling of funds. Our cases are simplified to highlight common trade-offs. While we make specific recommendations, our primary aim is to demonstrate both the form and substance of the reasoning involved in striking a fair balance between competing interests on the road to UHC. (shrink)

The world of synthesizers and synthesists is historically male-dominated. Women in synthesis tend to be obscured by males, and their contribution suffers from erasure. This article considers Suzanne Ciani within the contexts of art, technology, science and culture and her work in composition, performance and media. In particular, her National Endowment for the Arts report of 1976 is a groundbreaking document detailing her composition and performance process using synthesizers. Her composition approach has parallels with techniques drawn from serialism, performed and (...) improvised live using machines. Her performances utilize quadraphonic techniques for spatialized performance as part of the composition and performance. She was the first woman to score a major Hollywood film in 1981. Her work in media and technology highlights a space that women have always worked in but have frequently not been acknowledged as doing so. Ciani’s story reveals tenacity in the face of bias and rejection. It is a tale of someone who always has to claim her credentials, always legitimate her mode of expression, and always counter the assumption that somewhere in her work, there is a man. (shrink)

Danse Macabre and Other Stories: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Global Dynamics examines the world using a systemic and psychoanalytic lens, including concepts of splitting, separation, projection, displacement, and the return of the repressed. They consider what impact the disappearance of some iconic and psychic containers has on individuals' functioning and why we choose populist leaders to shore up our own social defences. They question why the world feels so threatening to the twenty-first-century linked-in citizens when the objective facts suggest that (...) overall much is improving for the global citizen. Building on their previous work, Halina Brunning and Olya Khaleelee have created a coherent framework in order to conceptualise global dynamics within a matrix form. The matrix contains dialectic dynamic forces for both good and evil, love and hate, creation and destruction. They take a closer look at the plethora of phenomena which they see arising therein. Whilst the matrix holds steady, inside it is a world in constant flux, reconfiguring and rearranging itself, as if in a kaleidoscope, with inevitable and unavoidable turbulence, but - Brunning and Khaleelee hypothesise - with an underlying pattern that is available to be discerned and studied. Aware of this turbulence, Brunning and Khaleelee wish to share their view of the world in the hope of offering a containing reflection, capable of calming the nerves of the readers as well as their own. (shrink)

The place of reason in the Islamic tradition has attracted much debate, among both classical scholars and modern researchers. One of the main areas of disagreement is the definition of reason, with scholars from various disciplines oftentimes offering different definitions, which, in turn, undergird their corresponding understanding of rationalism. Starting in the classical period, Muslim scholars have credited al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī with making a particularly powerful contribution to the discussion by defining reason as an “instinct” and elaborating on this definition; many (...) recent scholars concur with this assessment. This article studies al-Muḥāsibī’s theory of reason through his major work on the subject, Māʾiyyat al-ʿaql. More specifically, it examines the concluding, analytical section of this work, titled “Masʾala fī al-ʿaql”, which bears an unusual resemblance to a work by al-Muḥāsibī’s contemporary al-Jāḥiẓ, “Ḥujaj al-nubuwwa”. By analyzing the similarities between these texts through a detailed comparison, the article attempts to verify the authorship of this critical section of al-Muḥāsibī’s work, thereby casting light on other contributions to the study of reason in Islam that were eclipsed by the scholarly concentration on al-Muḥāsibī’s output. For this comparison, the text of “Masʾala fī al-ʿaql” is fully edited and translated. (shrink)

In March 2016, DeepMind's computer programme AlphaGo surprised the world by defeating the world‐champion Go player, Lee Sedol. AlphaGo exhibits a novel, surprising and valuable style of play and has been recognised as “creative” by the artificial intelligence (AI) and Go communities. This article examines whether AlphaGo engages in creative problem solving according to the standards of comparative psychology. I argue that AlphaGo displays one important aspect of creative problem solving (namely mental scenario building in the form of Monte Carlo (...) tree search), while lacking another (domain generality). This analysis has consequences for how we think about creativity in humans and AI. (shrink)

This paper examines the transformation of environmental regulatory system in Poland during the 1990s. It is a case of institutional transplantation from the past into the present: the place remained constant but the economic and political context rapidly changed over time. Drawing on five case studies of privatized firms, a mailed questionnaire, and policy and institutional analysis, it investigates how Poland developed an effective system for managing industrial pollution while also achieving considerable socioeconomic progress. One key lesson is that considerable (...) and effective evolution of policies can take place during radical shifts in the political-economic context, as long as certain conditions are fulfilled. These include a good “fit” between the approaches taken and the existing modes of conducting societal transactions; wide sharing of certain values among the key societal actors; and continuity in policies and institutions. It also appears that a broad support for the rule of law and due process are crucial. The case of Poland also suggests that, while the developing countries do not necessarily need to reenact the evolution that has taken place among the developed countries during the past three decades, neither can they expect to leapfrog from a highly polluting “dirty” economy to a sustainable economy. The study also suggests that success in the first phase of regulatory system’s transformation—centered around reducing pollution from the energy and manufacturing sectors—is not a predictor of its success in next phase, centered around sustainability issues. The types of institutions, political circumstances, and national capabilities are different for each phase. (shrink)

Animal minds are complex and diverse, making them difficult to study. This Element focuses on a question that has received much attention in the field of comparative cognition: 'Do animals reason about unobservable variables like force and mental states?' The Element shows how researchers design studies and gather evidence to address this question. Despite the many virtues of current methods, hypotheses in comparative cognition are often underdetermined by the empirical evidence. Given this, philosophers and scientists have recently called for additional (...) behavioral constraints on theorizing in the field. The Element endorses this proposal (known as 'signature testing'), while also arguing that studies on animal minds would benefit from drawing more heavily on neuroscience and biology. (shrink)

Despite the intention for precision and accuracy, legal discourse is oftentimes complex, archaic and ambiguous - which gives rise to contentious interpretation. Moreover, little or no attention is paid to the cultural dimension of legal discourse, which plays a critical role in the translation and interpretation of legal texts, as well as in the application of law. This paper endeavours to illustrate the impact the culture, or, more precisely, legal culture has on the way legal texts are construed or translated (...) and to present problems which arise in the interpretation, translation and application of law as a result of cultural diversities. (shrink)

There is currently a consensus among comparative psychologists that nonhuman animals are capable of some forms of mindreading. Several philosophers and psychologists have criticized this consensus, however, arguing that there is a “logical problem” with the experimental approach used to test for mindreading in nonhuman animals. I argue that the logical problem is no more than a version of the general skeptical problem known as the theoretician’s dilemma. As such, it is not a problem that comparative psychologists must solve before (...) providing evidence for mindreading. (shrink)

We evaluate a common reasoning strategy used in community ecology and comparative psychology for selecting between competing hypotheses. This strategy labels one hypothesis as a “null” on the grounds of its simplicity and epistemically privileges it as accepted until rejected. We argue that this strategy is unjustified. The asymmetrical treatment of statistical null hypotheses is justified through the experimental and mathematical contexts in which they are used, but these contexts are missing in the case of the “pseudo-null hypotheses” found in (...) our case studies. Moreover, statistical nulls are often not epistemically privileged in practice over their alternatives because failing to reject the null is usually a negative result about the alternative, experimental hypothesis. Scientists should eschew the appeal to pseudo-nulls. It is a rhetorical strategy that glosses over a commitment to valuing simplicity over other epistemic virtues in the name of good scientific and statistical methodology. (shrink)

We examine the relationships among religious governance, especially Islamic governance quality (IGQ), national governance quality (NGQ), and risk management and disclosure practices (RDPs), and consequently ascertain whether NGQ has a moderating influence on the IGQ–RDPs nexus. Using one of the largest data sets relating to Islamic banks from 10 Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries from 2006 to 2013, our findings are threefold. First, we find that RDPs are higher in banks with higher IGQ. Second, we find that RDPs (...) are higher in banks from countries with higher NGQ. Finally, we find that NGQ has a moderating effect on the IGQ–RDPs nexus. Our findings are robust to alternative RDP measures and estimation techniques. These results imply that the quality of disclosure depends on the nature of the macro-social-level factors, such as religion that have remained largely unexplored in business and society research, and, therefore, have important implications for policy makers. (shrink)

The main purpose of this book is to look at a range of ubiquitous phenomena that make up our daily life and to ask not so much "whether" but "what" psychoanalytic thinking can add to our current understanding of these phenomena. Could there be another layer, below the obvious surface-layer, that needs to be explored further? And if so, can psychoanalytic light reflect upon and illuminate some of the new contours and shapes perhaps previously not fully seen or appreciated? What (...) interim conclusions can we reach as a result of this reflection upon our modern world? This book is linked to its immediate predecessor Psychoanalytic Perspectives on a Turbulent World but it differs significantly in tone, light and composition. This new book no longer addresses itself to the complex and troubling issues such as war, conflict, the global financial crisis and our struggle with leadership, instead, it tends to focus on the lighter side of life. (shrink)

Legal concepts and notions are deeply affected by religions, ethics, philosophy and the culture of a particular nation. As Friedman Comparing legal cultures, Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1997, p. 34) highlights, understanding legal culture is a crucial factor as it both affects their translation and interpretation and consequently has an impact on the application of law. This increases in importance, for example, in the context of the principle of mutual trust and recognition of judgments assumed by the European Union as the cornerstone (...) of judicial co-operation in the European Union, which would not be possible without the trust in each other’s justice system and the respect for the different legal systems and traditions of the Member States. In that vein, ‘the Third Space’, where legal concepts and notions of multiple origins meet and where their meanings are negotiated, transformed, translated and integrated into various socio-political and cultural contexts has acquired an immense significance. Although there may be natural similarities between legal professions in the European Union, they could differ quite substantially as they are deeply rooted in the history and societal evolution of a country; therefore, they are generally regulated at a national, not a European level. In light of the above, the author intends to perform an in-depth analysis of key terminology in the field of names of legal professions which exist in the Member States of the European Union. The author focuses on the terms which refer to the legal profession of lawyers as they might pose obstacles in translation and interpretation due to different functions and roles these legal professionals play in their legal systems or due to the lack of their equivalents in other legal systems. The terminology is compared to present similarities and differences in their meaning, particularly putting some emphasis on socio-political and cultural contexts. The research methods encompass the analysis of relevant literature and the terminological analysis of the research material, which includes the information on legal professions provided by particular Member States on the European e-Justice portal and relevant national regulations in that respect. Finally, the author draws the conclusion that a thorough analysis of the functions and roles of a particular legal profession in socio-political and cultural contexts is required before the translation and interpretation of the term is provided as it helps to avoid ambiguity and makes legal communication precise. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest pokazanie możliwości zastosowania J.M. Bocheńskiego koncepcji zabobonu filozoficznego (pogląd fałszywy stwarzający pozory prawdziwości) w analizie etycznych ocen i argumentacji. Dla osiągnięcia tego celu koncepcja Bocheńskiego jest najpierw omówiona, następnie wskazane są cechy myślenia etycznego sprzyjające jego podatności na zabobony filozoficzne oraz podjęty jest problem możliwości rozpoznawania i ograniczania zabobonów w refleksji nad moralnością.

BackgroundBioethics as a field related to the health system and health service delivery has grown in the second half of the 20th century, mainly in North America. This is attributed, the author argues, to mainly three kinds of development that took place in the developed countries at a pace different than the developing countries. They are namely: development of the health system; moral development; and political development.DiscussionThis article discusses the factors that impede the development of the field of bioethics from (...) an academic activity to a living field that is known and practiced by the people in the developing countries. They are quite many; however, the emphasis here is on role of the political structure in the developing countries and how it negatively affects the development of bioethics. It presents an argument that if bioethics is to grow within the system of health service, it should be accompanied by a parallel changes in the political mindsets in these countries.SummaryFor bioethics to flourish in developing countries, it needs an atmosphere of freedom where people can practice free moral reasoning and have full potential to take their life decisions by themselves. Moreover, bioethics could be a tool for political change through the empowerment of people, especially the vulnerable.To achieve that, the article is proposing a practical framework for facilitating the development of the field of bioethics in the developing countries. (shrink)

本书分为七篇,即:传统的中道和两极矛盾观、辩证法的“中介”观、辩证法的“两极”观、二类范畴与三大规律的说明和发挥、时空观和意识观的再发挥、认识论和思想方法的“两极与中介”、若干具体关系的“两极与中介” 。.

Name der Zeitschrift: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 225-251.

Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie i analiza poglądów F.A. von Hayeka na temat moralności (zebranych z różnych jego dzieł) oraz wskazanie na ich znaczenie dla współczesnych dyskusji w filozofii politycznej, jak również w etyce. Warto podjąć ten temat z uwagi na potrzebę opracowania myśli aksjologicznej Hayeka, wybitnego myśliciela o poglądach mocno skrystalizowanych, spójnych i oryginalnych. Jego refleksje mają potencjał, aby wiele wnieść w debaty na temat wartości, są one jednak mało znane lub niesłusznie pomijane. W pierwszej części rozważań wyjaśniam, w jaki (...) sposób według Hayeka moralność wspiera wolność indywidualną, a więc wartość centralną w jego aksjologii: społeczeństwo jest wyposażone w moralność (obok prawa stanowionego) w celu zachowania porządku przy minimum stosowania przymusu (istota ładu wolnościowego). Rozdział drugi poświęcam omówieniu wyróżnionych przez Hayeka rodzajów moralności, wskazuję, w jaki sposób, wzajemnie się uzupełniając, konstytuują one tradycję moralną. Chodzi o zespoły zasad fundujących z jednej strony ład naturalny (jego normy odpowiadają instynktownym postawom słusznie dochodzącym do głosu w małych wspólnotach), z drugiej strony – tzw. ład rozszerzony (związane z nim normy nie są zgodne z instynktami, regulują współistnienie obcych sobie ludzi wchodzących w anonimowe relacje w obrębie dużych społeczności ludzkich). W rozdziale trzecim przedstawiam Hayeka poglądy w kwestii możliwości uzasadnienia norm tradycyjnej moralności. Chodzi zwłaszcza o rozwinięcie poglądu, że uznawanie zasad moralności jest kluczowe dla społeczeństwa wolnościowego, i to niezależnie od tego, czy mamy dla nich zadowalające racjonalne uzasadnienie. W końcowej części rozważań zasygnalizowane jest znaczenie Hayeka koncepcji moralności w zakresie nurtów myśli politycznej, z którymi Hayek jest wiązany (indywidualizm, liberalizm, konserwatyzm), jak również dla metaetyki (próba odtworzenia zasad konstytutywnych dla cywilizacji; głos w dyskusji między perspektywą bezstronną i stronniczą w etyce). (shrink)

This essay opens the Special Issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law entitled “Legal Languages and Legal Communication” devoted to issues in translating, interpreting and teaching legal languages and legal communication. This volume of the International Journal of the Semiotics of Law comprises twelve articles which might be grouped into three categories of problems i.e. culture in legal translation and interpretation, legal discourse and/in legal communication and teaching legal languages and legal communication. The first section refers to (...) issues connected with legal terminology and the impact legal culture has on the quality of translation and interpretation (Kordić in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Janigova in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Matulewska and Oh in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4)). The second part focuses on the question of legal discourse with a special emphasis on its role in legal communication (Więcławska in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Alwazna in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Hadryan and Rutecka-Góra in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Orts in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Cudowska in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Górska and Juzaszek in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4) and Grieshofer in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4)). The third and last section of the special issue is dedicated to question of instructing legal languages and legal communication and, mainly tackles the problem of designing curricula of English for Legal Purposes in such a way so as to equip legal professionals with such linguistic competences, knowledge and skills that are most valuable for their work (Bhatia in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4); Chiknaverova in Int J Semiot of Law 36 (4)). (shrink)

Strnad, Halina The death penalty for homosexual acts between men was imposed in ancient Jewish sex codes. The rationale for these biblical injunctions was to prohibit sexual acts that did not produce offspring. In ancient tribal groups survival depended on population supply and growth.