An archaeology of borders: qualitative political theory as a tool in addressing moral distance

Interviews, field observations and other qualitative methods are being increasingly used to inform the construction of arguments in normative political theory. This article works to demonstrate the strong salience of some kinds of qualitative material for cosmopolitan arguments to extend distributive boundaries. The incorporation of interviews and related qualitative material can make the moral claims of excluded others more vivid and possibly more difficult to dismiss by advocates of strong priority to compatriots in distributions. Further, it may help to promote the kind of perspective taking that has been associated with actually motivating a willingness to provide aid by individuals. Illustrative findings are presented from field work conducted for a normative project on global citizenship, including interviews with unauthorized immigrants and the analysis of artefacts left behind on heavily used migrant trails.     

Mindfulness-based stress reduction effects on moral reasoning and decision making

Previous research has demonstrated that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) improves psychological functioning in multiple domains. However, to date, no studies have examined the effects of MBSR on moral reasoning and decision making. This single group design study examined the effect of MBSR on moral reasoning and ethical decision making, mindfulness, emotion, and well-being. Additionally, we investigated whether there was an association between the amount of meditation practice during MBSR and changes in moral reasoning and ethical decision making, emotions, mindfulness, and well-being. Results indicated that MBSR was associated with improvements in mindful attention, emotion and well-being. Further, amount of meditation practice was associated with greater improvement in mindful attention. Two-month follow-up results showed that, MBSR resulted in improvements in moral reasoning and ethical decision making, mindful attention, emotion, and well-being. This study provides preliminary evidence that MBSR may potentially facilitate moral reasoning and decision making in adults.     

The Virtues of a Good Fight: Assessing the Ethics of Fighting in the National Hockey League

Violence in sports is under intense public scrutiny. One hotly disputed issue concerns the acceptability of violent retaliation in sports, particular in the form of fighting in the National Hockey League (NHL). The question posed here is: Can fighting in the NHL be virtuous? Some think not, maintaining that fighting is undisciplined and ostensibly at odds with the virtues of good temper and justice. Contrary to this conclusion, this paper presents arguments that support the view that fighting in the NHL can be virtuous and clearly and consistently action guiding if certain conditions are met. These conditions require that fighting as a practice helps to provide an education in the virtues, is reasonably safe, is good for the community of participants, and is part of a morally sensitive and progressive tradition and organizational structure. Yet in the end, while fighting in the NHL can be morally justified, recognizing and instilling the virtues of a good fight would require some rather significant formal and informal changes to the game.     

Meaning-creation,selfhood, and religion: From religious metanarratives to spiritual self-narratives

Abstract

This paper attempts to support the idea that the psychology of religion might be developed as an applied branch of cultural psychology. The scope of the argument is both theoretical and empirical. On the one hand, it is argued that religion functions as the most powerful semiotic system which provides subjects with metaphors, narrative frameworks, rituals and other cultural resources for personalised meaning-construction and life-designing. On the other hand, it is illustrated with an exploratory qualitative study how a specific type of community, a Catholic Seminary, produces a particular set of religious symbols and how their members write their narrative identities in multiple and unstable ways through dialectical tensions and creative self-invention. Thus, the psychology of religion becomes a fruitful laboratory to further investigate the mutually generative interplay between culture and self in order to better understand the plastic process of continuous self-identity formation and transformation.     

Interaction,information and meaning

The possibility of a “unified theory of information” which avoids reifying information or attributing agency to it is explored using the patterned processes characteristic of self‐organization. Interactions are shown to create information from the level of quantum physics to human societies. The difference between meaningless and meaningful information is explained through the contextualizing role of systems.     

Women,Depression and the Global Folie

No abstract available for this article.     

COLLECTIVE RELIGIO‐SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSIONS ON ISLAM AND HIV/AIDS: I. BIOMEDICAL SCIENTISTS

During the 1990s, biomedical scientists and Muslim religious scholars collaborated to construe Islamic responses for the ethical questions raised by the AIDS pandemic. This is the first of a two‐part study examining this collective legal reasoning (ijtihād jamā‘ī). The main thesis is that the role of the biomedical scientists is not limited to presenting scientific information. They engaged in the human rights discourse pertinent to people living with HIV/AIDS, gave an account of the preventive strategy adopted by the World Health Organization, and offered an (Islamic) virtue‐based preventive model. Finally, these scientists tried to draft a number of Islamic legal rulings (a?kām), usually seen in Islamic jurisprudence as the exclusive business of Muslim religious scholars. This multilayered role played by the scientists reflects intriguing developments in the Islamic religio‐ethical discourse in general and in the field of Islamic jurisprudence in particular.     

ISLAMIC VERDICTS IN HEALTH POLICY DISCOURSE: PORCINE‐BASED VACCINES AS A CASE STUDY

In this article, I apply a policy‐oriented applied Islamic bioethics lens to two verdicts on the permissibility of using vaccines with porcine components. I begin by reviewing the decrees and then proceed to describe how they were used by health policy stakeholders. Subsequently, My analysis will highlight aspects of the verdict's ethico‐legal arguments in order to illustrate salient legal concepts that must be accounted for when using Islamic verdicts as the basis for health policy. I will conclude with several suggestions for facilitating a more judicious use of verdicts in policy‐relevant discourse. My analysis is meant to contribute to the dialogue between science and religion, and aims to further efforts at developing health policies that value health while accommodating religious values. In the encounter between the Islamic tradition and global public health, a multidisciplinary dialogue, where Islamic legists become aware of the health policy implications of their ethico‐legal pronouncements, and where health policy actors gain a literate understanding of Islamic ethico‐legal theory, will lead to verdicts that better meet the needs of patients, health workers, and religious leaders.     

The Impact of CACREP Accreditation: A Multiway Frequency Analysis of Ethics Violations and Sanctions

The impact of CACREP accreditation on counselor competency has received little empirical investigation. Differences in the frequency and type of ethical misconduct between graduates of CACREP‐accredited and non‐CACREP‐accredited counselor education programs were investigated. Results of a multiway frequency analysis indicated that fully licensed graduates of CACREP‐accredited programs were sanctioned for ethical misconduct significantly less frequently than were graduates of non‐CACREP‐accredited programs. Additionally, the accreditation factor was among the highest‐ranking parameter estimates of expected cell frequencies.     

The role of moral identity in the aftermath of dishonesty

People lie on a regular basis. However, lying can pose a threat to the self-view of being an honest and moral person. How do people respond to their previous dishonest acts? A way to deal with psychological discomfort arisen for previous lying is reconfirming oneself to be an honest and moral person, for example, by showing subsequent moral behavior. We hypothesize that people engage in this reconfirmation depending on whether their moral identity is central to their self-concept. This was supported in three studies in which, compared to low moral identifiers, high moral identifiers engaged in more efforts to uphold a moral self-image and were more likely to show a compensatory reaction rather than a consistency reaction to their previous dishonesty. Implications for the topics of moral self-regulation and compensatory ethics and for the concept of moral identity are discussed.