Freedom Of Action Research Articles

Neurobiology and Free Will in Criminal Law

The paper deals with the problem of the relationship between free will and guilt of a person through the prism of recent research in neuroscience. The key aspects of understanding guilt in criminal law and its relationship with free will are identified. Deterministic and indeterministic approaches to the definition of the essence of free will in the doctrine of foreign criminal law are revealed. The purpose of the study is to determine the essence and meaning of free will in understanding the institution of guilt and to correlate free will with the basis of criminal liability. The author applied traditional methods of socio-legal and formal dogmatic analysis: documentary, comparative legal, analytical, systemic, and logical. Based on the results of the study, it is proposed to preserve the existing concept of free will and indeterminism as the basis for criminal liability. It is proposed to distinguish between the concepts of «free will» and «freedom of action». The author believes that the denial of free will eliminates the criminal law itself and the principle of fault-based individual responsibility principle. Criminal liability cannot exist without fault and should include only the principles of prevention and proportionality, where the center of gravity is shifted towards preventive measures. In such a plane, when ascertaining a crime, not only the actions committed by the person, but also the actions expected from him are taken into account. The proposed paradigm fundamentally changes the criminal law itself, which will be based on the principle of objective rather than subjective imputation.

Freedom of treaty and its limits: compliance of Ukrainian civil legislation with European approaches

The article presents the results of the analysis of the compliance of the civil legislation of Ukraine with the European approaches to guaranteeing the freedom of contract and its restrictions. The normative consolidation of freedom of contract in European countries (France, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania) has been studied. It was found that in European countries the freedom of contract is limited in order to maintain public order, good morals, protection of certain categories of contractors (consumers). In France, the current version of Article 1102 of the Civil Code stipulates that everyone is free to conclude a contract, choose contractors, determine the content and form of the contract, but within the limits established by law. It is established that in Germany the freedom of contract is limited by the requirements of the law, the prohibition of illegality, immorality, as well as the need to protect consumer rights.
 An analysis of Slovakia's civil law found that the expansion of the substantive content of the principle of freedom of contract was influenced by the case law of the Constitutional Court. In Romania, as in Ukraine, a separate article is devoted to the freedom of contract and the disclosure of its content in the Civil Code. The compliance of the Ukrainian legislation on freedom of contract with the DCFR is analyzed.
 The position of European scholars on the impact of the principle in dubio pro libertate on contractual freedom and its restrictions, as well as the views of domestic scholars on the principle of freedom of contract.
 It is substantiated that in general both scientific positions and legislative provisions of the Central Committee of Ukraine on the formulation of freedom of contract correspond to the European approach to maximum freedom and application of only lawful and proportionate restrictions guaranteeing fairness and non-discrimination, protection of weaker counterparties (consumers) interests. It is proposed to understand the limits of freedom of contract provided by the CC or other act of civil legislation of Ukraine legal, reasonable, fair and proportionate framework that restricts the freedom of action of the parties to the contract to ensure the balance of public and private interests.

Assessment of the Quality of Life of HIV Positive Individuals in Tertiary Care Hospitals using Whoqol-Bref Questionnaire

Background: Harmonious balance in health depends upon the quality of life (QOL). QOL is the condition of life resulting from the combination of the effects of the complete range of factors such as those determining health, happiness, education, social and intellectual attainments, freedom of action, justice and freedom of expression. Aim: To assess the QOL of people affected with HIV/AIDS, which is pertinent in countries like Pakistan, as it is on the rise and one of the leading causes of stigmatization in our society as far as disease is concerned. Methods: This exploratory study by non-probability, convenient sampling was conducted on 139 selected HIV/AIDS positive and registered cases at the Voluntary Counseling Testing Centers (VCT centers) at Services and Jinnah hospitals Lahore, within 6 months in 2019. Data was collected using WHOQOL BREF Questionnaire. The SPSS software was used for data compilation and analysis. The investigator herself took the interviews, after an informed consent. Results: A total of 139cases of HIV/AIDS positive registered individuals were taken. The mean age was 32.12 ± 8.54, with 78.4% males and 21.6% females. Quality of life (QOL) tables with domains were calculated; in the WHOQOL-BREF; higher score in the domains refers to good QOL. Results of the study depicted that the highest mean score was in Social relationships domain (64.75± 16.89) and lowest mean score in quality of life & general health (41.37± 30.28). Conclusion: The study results demonstrated the dire need to explore the QOL in HIV/AIDS patients in Pakistan. There is an urge for measures to be taken, in regards to enhance the QOL. These results conclude that it is imperative to conduct health and vocational education, counseling sessions to augment awareness of the masses regarding QOL. Keywords: Quality of life, HIV/AIDS cases, Lahore, Voluntary Counseling Testing Centers, People Living with HIV/AID’s

PHENOMENOLOGY OF POLITICAL ACTION

The article focuses on a phenomenological study of political action. The analysis includes three directions: the concept of action, paradigms that determine political actions, and the purpose of action. In the analysis of action, I first use the distinction between the concepts of “act” and “operate.” “To act” means a conscious, deliberate, rational action. In contrast, “operate” means to behave unconsciously, mechanically or automatically, passively or instinctively. The political implications of the distinction between an “acting” and “operating” person can be formulated in the terms “freedom of action” and “coercion to operate,” and the latter can be used as a criterion for determining the type of social system, as well as for evaluating the correlated psychological state of society. As the next step, I analyse the action as a process and a result. I argue that in the social sphere, action appears as the sum of these moments, and the social sphere is a derivate of action. The last aspect of the analysis of action is responsibility. I claim that responsibility can be interpreted as the awareness and recognition by the individual of her role in history. The second part of the work is the study of paradigms and rules of political action in so-called open and closed societies. I claim that political action within the framework of an open society is limited only by legislation. In a closed society, political action is practically impossible: citizens do not act, but “operate” since there are no conditions for actions. After that, I analyse the role of social myths as a factor affecting people’s political activities. In the last part, I analyse the ultimate goal of political action. Traditionally, political philosophy assumes that the goals of politics are exhausted by the problems of relationship between the state and the individual. However, based on the theory of Hannah Arendt, it is possible to formulate the task of political action as the achievement of humanism in a human being, taken not in her relation to the state but in relation to herself. I argue that the minimal political action that can be qualified as humanism consists of the ability and courage to use one’s own mind.

"THE EFFECTS OF SELF-VALORISATION CULTURE ON Z GENERATION’ SELF-ESTEEM"

Z generation is so influenced not only by virtual world / communication, by advanced sophisticated and networks, by COVID-19 pandemic, but also by self-valorisation culture. Although they prefer online education because of its freedom for action, Z generation is in risk for an independent self-construction that lead to a devastating individualism for their own life. Our study aims to describe the influence of self-valorisation culture on our candidates’ self-esteem (from Z generation) for Pedagogy and Primary and Preschool Pedagogy. For this purpose, we have analysed the content of their motivational essays – part of their admission file. The results indicate that Z generation candidates’ self-esteem is higher than Y generation candidates’ self-esteem.

Ukraine in Modern Globalization Processes: Challenges to the National State

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the world has faced the acceleration of transnationalization, the strengthening of interdependence and the establishment of an international order with the help of the UN and other international organizations, as well as the phenomenon of “erosion” of state sovereignty. The information revolution and the interaction of cultures and values have intensified the trend towards building a democratic society and fighting for human rights and freedoms. The globalization undermines an ability of the state to maintain borders and exercise sovereignty. States today can be legally sovereign, but in practice they are forced to negotiate with all the actors on the world stage, as a result of which their freedom of action is significantly limited. The development of the modern world is characterized by the processes of globalization, enhances the universalization of all spheres of social life and certainly cannot but influence the functioning of national states. Globalization forces us to revise the traditional principles of sovereignty in connection with changes in ideas about the difference between internal and external, state and international, territorial and non-territorial politics. Ukraine's accession of independence provides for the formation of the integral socio-political, self-identified community, capable of withstanding internal and external challenges. In Ukraine, the process of becoming the full-fledged nation-state with its own interests continues. This problem is also actualized by the ambitious goal that has been set, about Ukraine's entry into forty developed countries of the world.

Development Aid with Reciprocity: A Response to Imperialism and the Politics of Global Coloniality

This position paper seeks to identify the undermining of freedom and human rights, juxtaposed through the narrative of “so much ill and so little good” (Easterly, 2006) regarding traditional aid and cooperation. The hardships currently constructed by linear frameworks leave no space for countries to define their own developmental pathway. The inherent ideology of current constructs neglects local initiatives and freedom of action and needs to endorse humanistic dialogue or a shift in approach, rather than a radical change of content. This paper proposes a hybridised approach as a means to “restoring culture” in development for Development Aid with Reciprocity ‐the deepening of human rights in every sphere of development and increasing the voice of people. It is contended that development aid for reciprocity in direct relation to the benefit of assistance to the countries in question would provide a most positive approach to development.

Agency, Free Will, Self-Constitution: New Concepts for Historians of German-Jewish History between 1914 and 1938?

Abstract This article discusses recent work on German-Jewish agency between 1914 and 1938. To find out whether ‘agency’ might be a helpful category for examining the crises facing Central European Jewry in this period, the article addresses the subject from the perspectives of individual and collective agency, applying classifications that philosophers have employed to make sense of human conduct. As I hope to show, these delimitations are only a preliminary step in trying to determine the explanatory power of agency. Whether the latter can serve as a tool in future work on modern German-Jewish history depends on the suitability of more specific philosophies of agency. Here the work of Christine Korsgaard and especially Michael Bratman may prove helpful in reflecting both on the self-understanding of German Jews in the first decades of the twentieth century and on their ‘freedom of action’ once this self-understanding was called into question. There is reason to see planning structures—grounded in the diachronic organization of our temporally extended selves—as basic to our individual and collective agency. Without ‘planning agency’, I will argue, ‘agency’ refers to mere action or choice.

Chronotopes, language practices and language shift: an ethnographic study of the Blang community in China

ABSTRACT This study explores language practices of the Blang people and their perceptions of the changes in language ecology through the lens of chronotopes, hoping to better understand patterns of language shift in the Blang community in China. It takes a qualitative approach and draws on semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations conducted in the Blang Mountain Township, Yunnan province, China. The study reveals that the Blang community has been undergoing a gradual shift from Blang to Chinese, and the decline of Blang has been most noticeable amongst the younger generation. This study uses a narrative approach with a focus on chronotopization in narratives to explore language shift. It contributes to our understanding of the way participants position themselves vis-a-vis the decline of their native tongue in the changing language ecology. Their accounts reveal the dynamic dialogic interrelationship between structure (conceptualised as external pressures) and agency (conceptualised as individuals’ freedom of action). The study contributes to the methodology of using chronotopes in sociolinguistic research.

The Role of Artillery in Joint Fire Support

This article discusses the role of artillery in fire systems as a part of Joint Fire Support (JFS). The purpose of this article is to outline the functions, place and role of artillery as a component of JFS during operation and indicate important elements of JFS planning in the context of artillery. The article is mainly based on an analysis of the artillery of NATO and the USA. The author used theoretical research methods such as analysis and synthesis of information comprised in literature and source materials and the inference method to develop this article. The article described the main tasks and function of artillery in FS, the role and place of JFS in operation and selected elements of JFS planning. Artillery will executed fire support to create conditions that provide the supported commander freedom of action. Planning, coordinating and employment of all allocated JFS assets are essential parts of JFS. This is crucial to execute deconflict and avoid fratricide.

Respect for individual autonomy and a collective benefit: Arguments in favor of compulsory SARS-CoV-2 vaccination among health care professionals.

With the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, a new aspect to be taken into consideration in the midst of the pandemic is vaccine refusal. Since vaccination is voluntary, it is necessary to deal with the fact that some health care team members refuse to receive it. Here I put forward different bioethical arguments: Kantian deontology and the principles of universalizability, humanity, and autonomy; Mill's utilitarianism, with selfprotection as the sole end for which humankind is authorized to interfere with its members' freedom of action; Beauchamp and Childress' principlism and the concepts of beneficence and autonomy; Varo Baena's principle of opportunity; and the principle of solidarity resulting from the ethics of human rights. The contributions of contemporary philosophers like Roberto Espósito, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Alberto Giubilini are also included. Two counterarguments are presented: nonmaleficence and counter-production. Lastly, I suggest that, since common good (in this case, public health) is the intimate and final determining factor of individual freedom and is the same for all, it is above any individual benefit.

Creativity as the hidden development factor for organizations and employees

Creativity is a key influential factor contributing to organizations’ development. The contribution of creativity provides many crucial benefits to organizations and employees: high satisfaction, new ideas, strong teams, increasing innovation. To explore creativity as a hidden development factor, a random sample of 212 individuals in the private and public sectors were used to collect primary data. Logit regressions were specified to reveal the role of creativity in organizational development and job satisfaction for employees. We show that creativity is the only such driving factor able to decrease stress and lead to success and development together with high satisfaction levels. Specifically, job initiatives, workload pressure, creative change and overtime are shown to particularly affect stress levels. Job-creativity and use of skills have a higher impact on satisfaction followed by distance from work, freedom of actions and wages and other benefits. Further, job training and changes in management proved to be statistically insignificant.

Lev Vygotsky’s Psychology of Freedom

ABSTRACT The author argues that the idea of freedom guided Vygotsky’s research from his very first steps in psychology, when he was deliberating on the “overman” and on “mastering one’s own behavior” by means of signs. The freedom of actions and intentions, not intellectual superiority, is the most essential distinction of “cultured man” from his kin in the animal kingdom. Man is free as long as he acts as a human—in accordance with culture rather than situationally, under the pressure of external natural forces. In the “height,” or “acmeist,” psychology of his later years, Vygotsky defines freedom as “the affect in the concept,” in the spirit of Spinoza’s Ethics. It is from this angle that the article studies the genesis of “psychological systems”—the age-specific changes and social varieties of affect–concept relationship, as well as the disruption of this relationship typical of schizophrenia.

Designing Affordance-Based Procedures Using Heuristic Cognitive Work Analysis: Application to Triage in an Emergency Department

This study describes the concept of affordance-based procedure and its implementation in a triage station in a hospital emergency department. Rather than seeking to increase operators’ adherence to procedures, an affordance-based procedure (1) aims to induce task steps using affordances that also (2) support degrees of freedom for action. The design of this procedure was guided by the application of an extended version of cognitive work analysis, named “heuristic cognitive work analysis.” This design process produced a new procedural document: a reception card. Ten months after its implementation, a qualitative evaluation with 10 triage nurses shows that the reception card is viewed as supporting coordination between the different nurses’ tasks and providing an external memory to cope with frequent interruptions during high patient inflow, even though the document is used for convenience and with unexpected and partial uses of its items. The document assessed also afforded emerging benefits, that is, acceleration of ambulance release, higher level of confidentiality, assistance for staff hand-overs. Finally, novice triage nurses are particularly sensitive to the benefits brought by this affordance-based procedure.

Keeping China Out, the United States In, and Pakistan Down: India's Strategy for the Indian Ocean Region

Keeping China Out, the United States In, and Pakistan Down:India's Strategy for the Indian Ocean Region Rohan Mukherjee (bio) India is a rising power with significant gaps in the translation of its economic potential into military power—gaps that may considerably widen due to the severe damage being wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic on India's economy and society. At a time when military spending relative to GDP has been declining for over a decade and personnel costs have until recently been rising at the expense of capital expenditures, the three scenarios in this exercise starkly demonstrate some of the external challenges that Indian policymakers might face in coming years. These challenges are all the more dangerous in a period when India, weakened by the pandemic, may be seen as an easier target and may itself respond aggressively to provocations for reasons of domestic or international reputation. Given these parameters, the scenarios highlight three important dimensions in which Indian thinking about the future of the Indian Ocean region will need to be flexible and sometimes run counter to dominant assumptions in New Delhi: capabilities, resolve, and partnerships. If India faced a benign security environment, its domestic weaknesses would be less pernicious and the state would have a longer runway to build itself into a major world power. In fact, the opposite is true. The scenarios highlight two major external trends that must factor into India's strategic calculus: the relative decline in U.S. capabilities and interests in the Indian Ocean, and the relative increase in Chinese capabilities and interests in this region. Both of these factors eliminate the luxury of time and increase the pressure on India to make resource allocations and political choices suited to a range of near-term potential crises and geopolitical ruptures. On the one hand, India will need to enlarge its naval footprint in the Indian Ocean region to make up for a longer-term decline in U.S. presence. On the other hand, India will need to prepare for the full spectrum of challenges from China's expansion into this region, including adventurism along the Sino-Indian border, an increased People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy presence in the Indian Ocean, deepening relationships between [End Page 29] China and Indian Ocean states, and even cyber intrusions and attacks on Indian infrastructure. India's Capabilities First, India's own capabilities will make a crucial difference to regional outcomes. This is not simply a matter of expenditure, which of course will matter, but also one of allocation. It is in China's interest to keep India tied down on its land frontiers and obsessed with the possibility of a two-front war. The working assumption of most Indian policy and defense planners is that India's major military engagements in the coming decades will be along the contested borders with Pakistan and China, respectively—an assumption further validated by the ongoing Sino-Indian standoff in Ladakh. The scenarios suggest, however, that ignoring sea power would be a grave mistake. In the extreme case of India continuing with its current naval strength without augmentation, the best the Indian Navy can do is provide coastal defense. Its existing resources are radically inadequate for sea denial—which the Indian Navy views as "an offensive measure, to reduce the adversary's freedom of action and to degrade his operations"—let alone sea control.1 India has hitherto benefited from the U.S. Navy's command of the seas in the Indian Ocean region. The U.S. Navy's ability to ensure freedom of navigation, protect maritime chokepoints, and slow the pace of China's maritime expansion into the region has allowed India to gradually develop its own naval capabilities and doctrine while devoting sufficient resources to countering land-based threats. A future scenario in which the United States withdraws from Diego Garcia or China takes hostile action against regional countries such as Indonesia would place considerable demands on the Indian Navy to assume a substantial share of the tasks fulfilled by the U.S. Navy today. To plan for such a role, Indian decision-makers will need to rethink the dominance of the army among the...

La sociabilité et l’attrait pour la solitude des adultes à haut potentiel intellectuel (HPI)

There is evidence that gifted children tend to score above average on most measures of social adjustment (Zettergren & Bergman, 2014) of which sociability is a part. They are also considered more independent and autonomous (French et al., 2011). However, few data are available for adults. The goal of this study was therefore to assess the levels of gifted adults’ autonomy and desire for solitude, as well as their levels of sociotropy, defined as the motivation to engage in positive interchange with others. An experimental group of 106 gifted adults [55 women; mage=37.45 (± 8.50) years; mIQ=139.90 (± 6.46)] and as many control adults [52 women; mage=35.88 (± 10.57) years] completed the Sociotropy and Autonomy Scale (Beck, Epstein, Harrison, & Emery, 1983). Results showed that gifted adults score higher on the Sociotropy scale, suggesting that they are more sociable. They would have a greater social sensitivity including a lesser need for social affiliation, a superior fear of criticism and rejection and a greater desire to please others. Compared to the control group, gifted adults depicted themselves as being more autonomous and goal oriented. They also reported a greater need for solitude, associated with a greater appreciation of their freedom of action and movement. This study was the first to investigate both sociability and desire for solitude in gifted adults. It suggests that gifted adults are highly motivated to engage in positive interactions with others, although they do not express the same needs as their peers regarding the frequency, quantity and quality of these interactions.

Legitimacy, autonomy and trust: a recipe for organizations to operate in the public interest

PurposeThis study aims to examine the effect of publics' legitimacy evaluations on Arthur W. Page's conceptualization of “reasonable freedom of action” by breaking it into two parts: (1) perceived organizational autonomy and (2) trust in the organization.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted an online experiment using a 2 (legitimacy: low, high) × 2 (legitimacy type: institutional, actional) between-subjects design. Measured variables included perceived organizational autonomy and trust.FindingsOrganizations acting in their own self-interest while ignoring community norms and expectations were perceived to be exercising higher levels of organizational autonomy and have lower levels of trust. The interaction between legitimacy type and level had an effect on perceived organizational autonomy and trust.Research limitations/implicationsPublic's view their relationships with organizations from a perspective that prioritizes responsibility and conformity to community norms and expectations. Also, organizations have more to lose by acting in their own self-interest to resolve institutional legitimacy concerns and more to gain by handling them in a way that includes the public interest than when they are managing an actional legitimacy situation.Practical implicationsSocietal norms, values and beliefs, which may have accommodated, or even supported, an organization's approach to doing business in the past, can change over time, calling into question an organization's legitimacy and its ability to operate in the public interest. As a result, organizational leaders need the Chief Communication Officer to help them understand current societal norms, values and beliefs.Originality/valueThis study addresses a core assumption of the organization–public relationship paradigm that has not yet been studied empirically. It also expands the understanding of organizational autonomy from a public perspective and examines the effect of legitimacy on organizational autonomy and trust.

The role and place of artillery in combating “Anti-Access/Area Denial” A2/AD systems

The modern “Anti-Access/Area Denial” A2/AD systems are defined as a combination of all possible measures that can limit the ability of a potential opponent to enter and occupy a given area (operational theatre). Their action relies, among others, on radio-electronic disruption of digital guidance systems, communication, command and control systems, shooting down long-range maneuvering missiles, drones, and aircraft. The primary assumption of the anti-access concept is to deprive the enemy of the possibility of entering a given operational area (A2 – Anti-Access) through long-range destruction and depriving them of freedom of action in that theatre (AD – Area-Denial) by medium and short-range weapons. The Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM), Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM), and Anti-Ship Manoeuvring Cruise Missile (ASCM) are used to carry out A2/AD tasks. Field artillery has also been used recently, particularly the Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF). The purpose of the article is to determine the chance of using field artillery against the A2/AD systems. According to the authors, the NATO forces will lose control in the air in the first period of the conventional conflict with an equivalent opponent, and its rapid recovery will be a priority. Field artillery, as a weapon with ever greater possibilities of precise and deep destruction, can become a decisive factor, allowing dominance of A2/AD systems and enabling the implementation of tasks of its air-force and army aviation, as well as ground forces.

Pelaksanaan Diskresi Pada Penanganan Pandemi Covid 19 DiIndonesia

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the harmonization of the principle of discretion in government over thepolicies of the central government with local governments in handling the Covid 19 pandemic in Indonesia. Theresearch method used in this research is to use normative legal research methods, with the result that the spreadof the Corona Virus in Indonesia has made the government, local governments, and the Indonesian peoplecontinue to be alert and alert. Vigilance and preparedness are important so that prevention and control of thecorona virus pandemic in Indonesia can be done as well as possible. The form of handling the Covid 19 pandemic,both the central and local governments, both provincial and district / city, have implemented existing legalinstruments and issued approaches both social approaches and legal instruments issued by authorizedgovernment officials through freedom of action or discretion as an effort to harmonize central governmentpolicies with local governments.

Threat Asymmetry and Transition in Deterrence: Technical Assessment of India’s Ballistic Missile Defense Shield

The global change in perception following the Cold War from deterrence by punishment in the form of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to deterrence by denial has multiplied the utility of the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). India’s willingness to acquire and develop the advanced BMD shield is inspired, especially by Reagan’s Star Wars and the global shift in using it as an instrument of deterrence by denial. But as the application of its offensive-defensive paradox, India is raising a multi-layer air defense system to enhance its freedom of action and to acquire impunity in carrying out what New Delhi believes as its ‘limited war’ strategy against Pakistan. However, despite having a number of air defense systems in place including the recently acquired advanced S-400 air defense system, India is unable to shield itself completely from the counter-force or counter-value strikes by Pakistan as evident by the Balakot debacle. This is not only because India lags behind in BMD technology but also because of its inability to afford a comprehensive pan-national BMD shield. Therefore, the paper argues that, India’s attempt to build a multi-layer air defense system, rather than ensuring balance of power, destabilizes it and the delicate deterrence in place. This is because the threat asymmetry allows Pakistan to develop advanced nuclear capabilities including BMD evading delivery vehicles like MIRV as the offensive firepower to communicate the threat as an effective deterrence. Resultantly, the employment of BMD in South Asia disturbs strategic parity, fractures deterrence, drags down nuclear threshold and hence raises the cost of conflict between Pakistan and India with an elevated threat of annihilation.