Moral Sense Research Articles

Social Cohesivity of The Indonesian Muslim Community During the Ramadan

This study aims to analyze the social cohesiveness of Indonesian Muslim communities during Ramadan. Moral sense, sense of belonging, social har mony, sense of security, and tolerance in this study are used as indicators to understand social cohesiveness. Data were collected through questionnaires with 600 respondents randomly selected in three districts/cities in West Sumatra and Yogyakarta provinces. The study found that two indicators of social cohesion were in the high category, namely a sense of morality (3.39 or 84.75%) and social harmony (3.30 or 82.50%), while three other indicators of social cohesion were in the medium category, namely a sense of belonging (2.34 or 58.50%), a sense of security (2.54 or 63.50%), and tolerance (2.70 or 67.50%). Thus, the social cohesion of the Muslim community during Ramadan is in the moderate category, with an average of 2.85 or equivalent to 71.17 percent. This study concludes that Ramadan has not contributed significantly to building social cohesiveness. The ambiguity of faith, which is ambiguous in understanding reality; sacred and profane, can be identified as one of the reasons why Ramadan has not been able to build social cohesiveness.

Why the learning styles myth appeals and how to persuade believers otherwise

Many teachers and researchers, among others, continue to believe, despite the lack of evidence, that learning will be more effective if educators match their teaching approaches to students’ alleged learning styles. Scholars have called for more research on why the belief in learning styles is so appealing. This conceptual paper suggests four moral intuitions or sensibilities that underlie the appeal: (1) the desire for rational control, (2) our sense of justice, (3) the feeling that everyone is unique, and (4) reverence for the natural. Speaking to these intuitions could strengthen efforts to debunk the myth of learning styles in teacher education.

The Prose of Otherness and Humanity: Representing Partition Violence in Sahni’s “The Train Has Reached Amritsar” and Manto’s “Mozel”

Representation of partition violence of 1947 in the South Asian context has gained a renewed interest of scholars in line of trauma theory in the recent years. As such, partition fiction has contributed to resolving the trauma of the communal cataclysm by capturing the specificity of violence as the fragments of memory. However, writers use different strategies and prose styles to depict the violence. This paper aims to examine the depiction of cultural trauma and the prose of othering in “The Train Has Reached Amritsar” by Bhisam Sahni and, contrastingly, the prose of humanity in “Mozel” by Saadat Ḥasan Manto. It analyzes the stories in light of the cultural trauma theory of Jeffrey C. Alexander and Ron Eyerman, Avishai Margalit’s concept of memory and Gynendra Pandey’s new historiography of revisionist mode. To interpret the texts, the study uses the method of textual analysis. It also brings in the critics’ evaluation of the texts where necessary. The findings of the study emphasize that Sahani’s prose attempts to resolve the problem of trauma by appealing to identity politics grounded on ethical memory and Manto’s narrative, in contrast, employs a formal technique of metairony to evoke the readers’ moral sense and humanity at large.

Personal integrity and faking in the workplace: when competition matters

Despite the fact that employee faking or intentional response distortion is a critical concern in many workplace processes, the antecedents of this behavior are poorly understood. Based on signaling theory describing faking behavior as a strategic adaptation to competitive signals, this study examines the influence of personal integrity and perceived competition on faking. An online between-subjects experiment was carried out on a sample of teachers from elementary schools in selected regions of the Czech Republic (N = 470). The experimental group was subjected to competition-inducing instructions during the administration of the Occupational Integrity Scale (OIS) and the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR-CZ), as an indicator of faking (impression management). Findings provided support for the moderating role of perceived competition on the link between impression management and personal integrity. Those who scored lower in reliability and moral sense (factors of OIS) exposed to competition-inducing instructions scored significantly higher on impression management than respondents in the control group, supporting the critical role of competition manipulation against excessive score inflation. Findings suggested that if organizations are not sure of the level of integrity of employees, they should not utilize competitive cues since individuals with low integrity tend to fake their responses to increase the person-organization fit. The managerial implications of these findings were discussed.

Victims of our own propaganda: cradle life, mother herd, and the pleasure principle

This article examines the roots of propaganda in social, political, and economic life, and the unconscious. I describe how Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, led international developments in the use of propaganda in peacetime, based on his American experience during World War I. In 1929, his “Torches of Freedom” March, used Freud’s work on unconscious symbolism, to create a practical paradigm that would exploit unconscious associations and establish leadership of a mindless mass following for marketing purposes (Curtis, 2002). I argue that the power of Bernays’ propaganda methods is additionally founded in its exploitation of sensory communications which resonate unconsciously with the protomental roots of early experience which endure into adulthood. I suggest that an easily led, herdlike and infantile mentality results, characterised by blind loyalty and the absence of a moral sense (Bion, 1961; Freud, 1921c; Trotter, 1916). Propaganda techniques are being used successfully today to win the “war of spin” over the status of evidence on the existential threat to planet earth created by the Anthropocene epoch. I argue that the seductive power of such propaganda unconsciously evokes cradle life, with the accompanying survival and dependency needs of belonging to a “mother herd”.

Understanding evolutionary process of public participation leveraging agent-based simulation: The case of waste incineration power projects

Public participation, as a vital way for conflict management, has attracted increasing attention. Although previous studies have examined the determinants of public participation, the evolutionary process of the participatory behavior has seldom been investigated. Based on the motivation-opportunity-ability theory, a concept model was constructed to illustrate individual behavior of participation in waste incineration power (WIP) projects. Data collected from a questionnaire survey was used to examine the important factors involved in the concept model that significantly influence public's willingness to participate in WIP projects. Thereafter, an agent-based simulation within a social network based on the opinion propagation dynamics was developed to simulate the change of the agents and several simulation experiments were implemented. It was found that with the dissemination of information and the interaction of opinions, the whole network tends to converge to a few central nodes, and the difference of degree of each node also increases gradually. The increase of interaction threshold and moral incentive significantly enhance average participation intention and the proportion of participants. The findings advocate for promoting information disclosure, strengthening opinion interaction between individuals, and emphasizing the internalization of moral sense into the individual's own sense of obligation. This study could enhance the understanding of evolutionary process of public participation in WIP projects and provide valuable suggestions for the promotion of sustainable development of environmental projects.

LA SPECIALE NATURA DEI SOGNI E I DIRITTI DEGLI ANIMALI NEI <em>TRÄUME</em> DI JOHANN GOTTLOB KRÜGER (1754)

Without a doubt, the issue of animal rights has now become part of the socio-cultural perspective in a much stronger moral and legal sense than in the past, in the wake of the “animal turn” of the early 90s of the last century. One aspect that has been most debated since ancient times is, however, whether animals have a soul and whether the lack of speech can be considered a symptom of a completely inferior capacity for reasoning. The era of the European Enlightenment certainly showed a peak of interest in this debate, especially on the basis of scientific experiments carried out on animals, but also on the basis of reflections on the natural law of living beings. In Germany, as part of the medical studies in Halle, Johann Gottlob Krüger distinguished himself for having grasped the importance of the considerations - albeit sometimes paradoxical - that had emerged in the context of several interdisciplinary symposiums held in Leipzig at the beginning of the years’ 40 of the eighteenth century on the theme of the soul of animals. The classical philologist Johann Heinrich Winkler had published them later, in 1745, in a volume entitled Philosophische Untersuchungen von dem Seyn und Wesen der Seelen der Thiere […], already preceded by another from 1742, dedicated to a similar topic. The point of interest, however, consists in the particular literary strategy with which Krüger returns these debates of an academic nature, taking advantage of the register of satire to make animals and men and animals of various species interact with each other. In the fictitious dimension of the dream, in which the Hallense physician situates these disputes, it is possible to retrace the various theoretical stages that in the philosophical field accompanied the development of the vexata quaestio relating to the soul of animals, reviewing the positions of Girolamo Rorario (1485-1556), of the surgeon Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533-1619), of Montaigne (1533-1592), of Descartes (1596-1650) and of the iatroteologist Michael Alberti (1682-1757). What matters most, however, are the absurd theoretical justifications that human thought pushes to legitimize its unfair attitude towards the animal world, well highlighted in Krüger’s literary dreams.

薬学部学生に対するドキュメンタリー映像を用いた倫理教育の実践

In today's world, where clinical options are ever increasing and patients' needs are more diverse, it is not possible to conclude that simply practicing medical care based on pathophysiological data and medical evidence is sufficient for patients, particularly in terms of seeing each patient as an individual. Medical professionals must maintain a close relationship with their patients and seek treatment and care methods that reflect the patient's values and views on life and death, based on their own ethics in medical care. Ethics education should be provided on a continuing basis from the beginning of medical/pharmacy school. However, ethics education in pharmacy departments is often delivered in a lecture format attended by many students and/or as group training using case studies and hypothetical situations, i.e., "paper" patients. With these teaching methods, there are limited opportunities for the students to foster a sense of ethics or to think deeply about their values and views on life and death with respect to the patients they care for. Therefore, in this study, we conducted ethics exercises for pharmacy students in a group study format using a documentary film of real patients who were facing death. By retrospectively analyzing the results of the questionnaires collected before and after the assignments and exercises, we verified the educational effects and changes in the students' sense of ethics from participating in the group learning exercise; moreover, our results revealed the insight gained by the students in examining the experiences and challenges faced by terminally ill patients.

The Great Synthesizer: Natural Rights, the Law of Nations, and the Moral Sense in the Philosophical and Constitutional Thought of James Wilson

Abstract This article argues that the key to understanding James Wilson, one of the leading architects of the Constitution and the first Supreme Court Justice to be sworn in, and yet arguably the most neglected and misunderstood figure from the founding generation, is as a “great synthesizer” of seemingly disparate philosophical and constitutional commitments. Drawing upon the natural rights tradition of early classical liberalism as envisioned by John Locke, Wilson insisted that the new federal government be as democratic and broadly reflective of “We the People” as possible. Drawing upon the law of nations tradition as articulated particularly by Cicero, he became one of the nation's leading proponents of a strong, centralized federal government in order to form “a more perfect union.” And inspired by the concept of the moral sense and the innate sociality of the human person as discussed in the Scottish Enlightenment by Thomas Reid and Francis Hutcheson, he made clear that the “blessings of liberty” were contingent upon an active and engaged citizenry on the national level. By understanding this overlooked, synthetic quality of Wilson's thought, we may better understand, in all its richness and complexity, the unique role Wilson played in America's creation story, gain a new perspective on the original Constitution itself, its achievements and flaws, and reconstruct a compelling constitutional theory that cut across the political alignment of the day but perhaps better anticipated subsequent constitutional development than any of the prevailing positions in 1787.

Vlast i autoritet: je li moguća sakralizacija vlasti?

There are significant inconsistencies in the interpretation of the āyah 59, surah 4 (al-Nisā’), as well as in its translation. In that verse, God commands that the faithful obey Allah, His Messenger, and the category of people He calls ‘ūlū al-’amri. Many believe that the category ‘ūlū al-’amri refers to rulers, to power, but the general context of the Qur’an and reality indicate that this category denotes authorities in an ethical and scientific sense and not necessarily only in the sense of ruling. Rulers are neither always ethical nor always learned, so it does not have to be that all rulers have authority. Sometimes they are even tyrants, and, therefore, Allah would not order believers to obey tyrants, i. e. violent rulers. In this paper, the author reinterprets the phrase ‘ūlū al-’amri by critically considering the relatively frequent and incorrect understanding of it as God’s command that believers must obey rulers. Key words: Qur’an, Hadith, ruler, authority, dynasty, position of power.

Are dietary supplement users more likely to dope than non-users?: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

In the past decade, a body of evidence has reported that dietary supplement use is related to prohibited performance enhancing substance use (i.e., doping). To help international and national sport organisations understand the degree to which dietary supplement use is related to doping, the objectives of this systematic review and meta-analysis were to 1) compare the prevalence of doping between dietary supplement users and non-users and 2) identify whether supplement use is related to doping social cognitive factors. We searched for studies sampling athletes and that measured both dietary supplement use and doping in EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CINAHL and SPORTDiscus from database creation to May 2022. Risk of bias was assessed using JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for cross-sectional studies and the STROBE checklist. Twenty-six cross-sectional studies, involving 13,296 athletes were included. Random-effect models revealed that doping was 2.74 (95% CI=2.10 to 3.57) times more prevalent in dietary supplement users (pooled prevalence = 14.7%) than non-users (6.7%), and that users reported stronger doping intentions (r=0.26, 0.18 to 0.34) and attitudes (r=0.21, 0.13 to 0.28) compared to non-users. Preliminary evidence also suggests that dietary supplement users were less likely to dope if they were more task oriented and had a stronger sense of morality. Results of the review are limited by the cross-sectional design used in all studies and lack of consistency in measurement of dietary supplement use and doping. Data indicate that athletes using dietary supplements are more likely to self-report doping Anti-doping policy should, therefore, target dietary supplement use in anti-doping education programmes by providing alternative strategies for performance enhancement or highlighting the safest ways they can be consumed. Similarly, as a large proportion of athletes use dietary supplements without doping, further research is needed to understand the factors that protect a dietary supplement user from doping. No funding was received for the review. A study protocol can be found here: https://osf.io/xvcaq.

Wisdom of the Established Pattern

Wisdom of the Established Pattern

Good Words, Corrupt Words, and Publishing Etiquette

Adhering to the demands of integrity and having research attitudes rooted in moral sensibilities are of paramount importance for academics, researchers, and writers. Publishing etiquette requires them to invest adequate time and energy in conducting research and writing manuscripts and thus to produce beneficial knowledge. Putting together a document hastily and avoiding the much-needed effort in research and writing lead to negative outcomes. The corrupt practice of plagiarism and the desire for recognition through fraudulent and duplicitous publications are marked by deliberate deceptiveness. It debases the plagiarists, stagnates their intellectual growth, and vitiates the academic environment. Highlighting this observation, in this essay I shall discuss some dimensions and significance of publishing etiquette. I shall argue that attitudes and behaviours of researchers and academic practitioners determine the quality of the words and works that they produce.

For a feminist reading of Julia Ducournau’s Grave

ABSTRACT Before receiving the Palme d’Or for her second long feature film Titane (2021), Fémis-educated, punk-looking, thirty-something director Julia Ducournau disrupted French cinema and the Horror genre with Grave (2016), awarded the Critics prize at Cannes. Grave features high-school graduate Justine as she undergoes hazing at the veterinary school her sister Alex/ia attends. Strict vegetarian Justine’s values and sense of ethics are shattered by the forced ingestion of a raw rabbit kidney. A coming-of-age story, Grave depicts Justine’s struggle with cannibalistic urges and her growth as an individual. This article argues that what makes Justine monstrous is the systemic ‘carno-sexist’ boys club she lives in—representative of our society—and that uses hazing as a form of conditioning to a system that she rebels against. With Grave, Ducournau transgresses and reframes the cannibal cinematic subgenre and advocates a compassionate world that only an active rebellion against alienating categories, practices, rules, and laws can achieve.

Problem-based learning versus reflective practice on nursing students’ moral sensitivity

BackgroundMoral sensitivity is one of the prerequisites for nurses’ professional competency and patient care. It is critical to teach professional ethics in a student-centered manner in order to increase students’ moral sensibility. This study evaluated the effects of professional ethics education via problem-based learning and reflective practice on nursing students’ moral sensitivity.MethodsThis experimental study was performed on 74 nursing students who were randomly divided into three groups of problem-based learning, reflective practice and control. Principles of professional ethics were presented for the two intervention groups in four 2-hour sessions using ethical dilemmas scenarios. Participants completed the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire before, immediately, and three months after the intervention. Data were analyzed using SPSS16.ResultsDemographic characteristics of the three groups were similar (p > 0.05). The total moral sensitivity score significantly differed between the groups immediately and three months after the intervention (p < 0.001). The total mean score for moral sensitivity was significantly different between the two groups of problem-based learning and reflective practice, with the mean scores in the problem-based learning group being higher (p = 0.02). The mean score of moral sensitivity decreased statistically significantly in both experimental groups three months after the intervention as compared to immediately after the intervention (p < 0.001).ConclusionNursing students’ moral sensitivity can be increased through reflective practice and problem-based learning. While the results indicated that problem-based learning was more successful than reflective practice, additional research is recommended to confirm the influence of these two strategies on moral sensitivity.

Alternatives to Christian education. Atheist propaganda in Romanian schools during the communist period (The case of Mureș County)

The communist regime in our country imposed atheism on the masses. In a state where morality and common sense were deeply linked to religion (Christian-Orthodox, Mosaic or Islamic) the concerted attacks by the communist regime, following the Stalinist model in the USSR of the 1920s, emptied people's conscience of any natural value scale. After the Second World War and the establishment of the communist regime in Romania, the influence of churches and religious institutions in public education was significantly reduced, and denominational schools were abolished or transformed into state schools. The education reform of 1948 also had an important impact on confessional education in Mureș County.

Prediction of societal and community resilience among Ukrainian and Polish populations during the Russian war against Ukraine

People affected by wars frequently present distress symptoms and varied fears but may also exhibit resolve and resilience. The study aimed to examine strengths and vulnerability factors that predict resilience during the war in Ukraine, among Ukrainian citizens who directly experience military aggression and Polish citizens, who are exposed to the influx of refugees. Using internet panels, samples of people from Ukraine and Poland (N = 1001 and N = 1078, respectively) completed a structured questionnaire, based on validated scales that measured individual, community, and societal resilience, sense of danger, distress symptoms, hope, morale, well-being, and demographic characteristics. Hope was identified as the best predictor, and well-being was the second-best predictor of community and societal resilience in both countries. While higher percentages of Ukrainian versus Polish respondents displayed high levels of sense of danger (61% vs 15%, respectively) and distress symptoms (27% vs 17%, respectively), they simultaneously presented much higher levels of the community (47% vs 22%, respectively) and societal (66% vs 24%, respectively) resilience. The results suggest that strengths factors are better indicators of resilience than vulnerability factors, in a situation of severe adversity. An existential threat to the independence and sovereignty of Ukrainian society may catalyze a high sense of societal resilience.

중국 엘리트 수영지도자의 윤리의식 연구

This study aims to provide the baseline data that can help create the right Chinese elite sports culture and fairness in Chinese sports and understand unethical issues in Chinese elite swimming coaches to establish the right sense of ethics in Chinese elite swimming coaches and improve the problems and present measures for preventing them. As for research method, in-depth interviews were conducted with study participants, eight Chinese elite swimming coaches in a qualitative research method to draw the conclusions as follows. First, the types of unethical behavior of Chinese elite swimming coaches were identified as doping, violence, and match-fixing. Second, the causes of unethical behavior among Chinese elite swim coaches were identified as bribery and corruption, no-cause, and winner-take-all. Third, the perceptions of Chinese elite swim coaches on sports ethics education were identified as the necessity of sports ethics education, virtues required of swim coaches, and sports ethics leader education, and it was suggested that sports ethics education is essential and that it is desirable to implement sports ethics education from childhood rather than adulthood.

Animal Rights: A New Vista

The debate on animal rights has been influenced by changes in science, philosophy, nature, and social life over the last 40 years. These include (1) increased moral sensibility that gradually embraces creatures which are more and more distant from those closest to us; (2) environmental threats and their connection with people’s attitude towards animals; (3) scientific discoveries in the field of ethology and animal emotionality, which indicate evolutionary roots of morality; (4) new philosophical concepts (embodied, embedded, enactive and extended mind, and posthumanism) and revision of the concept of subjectivity; (5) exposing the vagueness of the notion of rights and how it is related to the concepts of duty and need. These changes suggest that the point of departure in discussions of the relations between humans and non-human animals has shifted from the traditional human perspective to a more inclusive approach that relies on the developments in science and the inclusion of environmental concerns.

ТЕОРЕТИКО-ПРАВОВОЕ ОСМЫСЛЕНИЕ ФЕНОМЕНА ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЙ ВЛАСТИ

Power revealed as a multidimensional phenomenon in the political, sociological, ideological, axiological, legal, ethical sense. Modern State power in a democratic transition of a society acquires conflicting potential for violation, so it requires the cre