Search Results (3,522)

This study explores the poetic formulation of justice and retribution in the Aqhat Epic. ˀIlu, the supreme god of Ugarit, designates the goddess ˁAnatu “impious in heart,” yet he neither prevents her murder of ˀAqhatu nor punishes her overtly. The narrative contains no judicial scene and no central governing deity who assumes the role of explicit divine adjudicator. Nevertheless, one may ask whether the story is shaped by a guiding mechanism of justice, comparable to certain biblical models of retribution, and what conception of retribution emerges from it, illuminating the relationship between gods and humans. The article highlights multiple instances showing that the narrative weaves a complex web linking transgression and consequence, in which acts of violence, desire, and rebellion give rise to corresponding consequences. These consequences manifest not only as visible punishments—such as the loss of the bow, the breaking of wings, and the curses upon implicated agents—but also in subtle reversals and ironic patterns accessible primarily to the audience. The moral order is neither absent nor declarative; rather, it is mediated through poetic formulations. Retribution unfolds on two interrelated levels: through overt narrative events and through a covert rhetorical structure that forges connections by means of repetition, key words, wordplay, and thematic symmetry. The study employs contextual close reading, supplemented by comments on the character roles. The conclusion reached is that the mechanism of measure-for-measure functions in the Aqhat Epic as a structuring narrative device, and that a sense of justice emerges through the convergence of human and divine agency. Full article

Promoting morality among youth is an important educational priority in Thailand’s Southern Border Provinces. However, few culturally grounded learning interventions based on the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy have been systematically developed and evaluated. This study aimed to develop and preliminarily evaluate the Digital Learning Innovation for Strengthening Society (DLISS), a culturally grounded learning intervention designed to promote self-reported morality among youth. A four-phase research and development design was employed, including needs assessment, intervention and instrument development, preliminary field implementation, and post-implementation expert appraisal. Self-reported morality was assessed using the Sufficiency Economy Moral Scale (SEMS), which underwent psychometric evaluation with 1640 youth. Preliminary implementation involved 22 youth leaders assessed at pretest, immediate posttest, and post-reinforcement assessment. The SEMS demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties. Participants showed statistically significant within-participant changes in the five measured dimensions of self-reported morality across the three assessment occasions. Experts rated the DLISS model favorably for its appropriateness, feasibility, utility, and contextual relevance. The DLISS model represents a promising culturally grounded learning intervention for promoting self-reported morality among youth. The findings provide preliminary evidence supporting further evaluation using larger samples and controlled research designs. Full article

This study employs a qualitative research design to examine cultural values concerning marriage and family through Turkish proverbs and to analyze how these values intersect with theological meanings. Situated at the intersection of folklore and Islamic ethics, it explores how oral tradition articulates, transmits, and regulates the values, norms, and moral boundaries associated with marriage and family life. According to the findings, proverbs portray the family as a foundational institution imbued with sacred significance, while marriage is construed as a normative form of life that protects the individual from moral, social, and emotional fragmentation. This discourse accords with Qur’anic and Prophetic principles that encourage marriage and associate family life with a consciousness of servitude to God. The study further indicates that, in Turkish proverbs, women are imagined as central figures who sustain domestic harmony, contribute to family well-being, and shape the moral fabric of the household. One of the study’s most significant findings is that polygyny, although recognized in Islamic law as a conditional legal dispensation, is treated in Turkish proverbs through a reserved and often critical cultural discourse. Recent empirical findings indicate that traditional attitudes retain a notable degree of continuity under modern social conditions. Within this framework, the study examines cultural understandings of marriage and family reflected in Turkish proverbs in relation to religious norms and Islamic family ethics, with particular attention to the relationship between oral culture and religious and moral frameworks of meaning. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into healthcare education, clinical decision-making, and future practice. For medical students, AI literacy entails technical understanding, practical competence, ethical awareness, value-based judgment, and responsible engagement. This study examines how culturally embedded value orientations are associated with Chinese medical students’ perceived AI literacy, as assessed using a self-report instrument. In a cross-sectional sample of 1500 medical students enrolled at a comprehensive university in Henan Province, China, AI literacy was assessed using the 12-item Artificial Intelligence Literacy Scale (AILS), a self-report measure whose scores represented perceived AI literacy. Value orientations were measured using the 32-item Chinese Values Questionnaire (CVQ), comprising eight value dimensions. NCA and fsQCA were conducted to examine necessary conditions and configurational associations with membership in the high perceived AI literacy set. No single value dimension met the criterion for set-theoretic necessity with respect to membership in the high self-reported AI literacy set, and no individual condition met the fsQCA necessity consistency threshold of 0.90. Four sufficient configurations associated with high perceived AI literacy were identified, with an overall solution consistency of 0.867 and coverage of 0.383. Moral Self-Discipline and Public Interest repeatedly appeared as core or peripheral conditions. These results suggest that high perceived AI literacy was associated with multiple combinations of value orientations rather than with a single value dimension. High perceived AI literacy was associated with multiple value configurations rather than one dominant value orientation. Empirically, this study applies configurational analysis to understand how value orientations are associated with AI literacy, complementing existing research on knowledge, attitudes, and readiness. These context-bound associations may inform future research on whether medical AI curricula can integrate technical training with ethical reflection and public-oriented professional values. Full article

The cooperatives combine a pyramidal structure, in which few members concentrate decision-making power, with ownership dispersed among a broad membership base. This configuration favors adverse selection and moral hazard arising from information asymmetry between managers and stakeholders, which legitimacy theory suggests may be reduced through sustainability disclosure. The study advances the literature by combining three elements not yet integrated in research on cooperatives: the cultural pillar as an autonomous dimension of sustainability, disaggregated analysis by pillar, and risk-adjusted financial performance. The level of sustainability disclosure was analyzed from a stakeholder perspective, along with its association with financial performance. Forty-four expert-validated indicators were applied to 39 cooperatives listed in the 2022 World Cooperative Monitor that published complete reports over the 2020–2022 triennium, resulting in 117 observations, estimated by fixed effects with cluster-robust standard errors. Mean disclosure was 0.52, led by the environmental pillar (0.70), followed by the economic (0.62), social (0.47), and cultural (0.33) pillars. The aggregate index showed no statistically significant association with risk-adjusted financial performance, either for ROA or for ROE, whereas the social dimension remained positive and significant regardless of the metric used. This pattern is consistent with the propositions of legitimacy theory regarding the social pillar, although the underlying mechanisms of information asymmetry reduction and legitimacy strengthening were not directly measured in this study. Full article

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) systems, including large language models, are increasingly used in clinical practice, whether consulted informally by clinicians or introduced by employers into decision workflows. It remains unclear how physicians attribute moral responsibility when a decision follows an AI recommendation and whether that attribution varies with the type of decision at stake. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, within-subject vignette survey of physicians in Romania. Each respondent rated the same three scenarios—urgent clinical, elective clinical, and administrative—in which a physician followed an AI recommendation under two extenuating institutional constraints. Five-point Likert items addressed the mitigation of blame by circumstances, physician responsibility despite the AI recommendation, and institutional co-responsibility. Analyses were non-parametric, with corrections for multiple testing. Results: Among 72 physicians from 17 specialties, respondents endorsed full personal responsibility in every scenario, including the administrative one, with no significant difference between scenarios. They rejected extenuating circumstances as mitigating in both clinical scenarios but were divided about them in the administrative scenario, which had the largest effect. Institutional co-responsibility was endorsed alongside personal responsibility rather than in place of it, and the two attributions were largely uncorrelated. No demographic association survived correction, although the study was not powered to detect small-effect sizes. Conclusions: Physicians treated AI as an instrument rather than a bearer of responsibility, which is unsurprising. The substantive findings lie elsewhere: personal responsibility was retained across all decision contexts, while what varied was the admissibility of institutional constraints as excuses and the emphasis placed on the institution’s share. Because respondents did not treat responsibility as a fixed quantity to be divided, the pattern is consistent with distributed-responsibility accounts rather than with a responsibility gap, though attitudinal data cannot adjudicate between normative accounts. The findings are exploratory and require confirmation in larger, more representative samples. Full article

Book 1 of Valerius Maximus’ Facta et Dicta Memorabilia places cult, ritual failure, religious performance, and divine signs at the opening of the collection. This article examines how the book’s received organization guides the evaluation of human action. It argues that Book 1 presents a graded field of religious judgement. Religio and neglecta religio provide the clearest opposition; simulata religio and superstitio are more ambiguous; and auspices, omens, prodigies, dreams, and miracles acquire force through human response, narrative outcome, and public confirmation. The analysis combines structural reading with close examination of key cases. Because 1.2–1.4 survive only in late epitomes, it distinguishes between the explicit evaluation of 1.1, the less secure boundary cases of 1.2–1.4, and the fuller sign narratives of 1.5–1.8. Book 1 thus provides an opening framework in which ritual practice and responses to divine signs become objects of ethical and historical interpretation. Full article

The question of when human life begins is one of the fundamental issues at the intersection of religious ethics, law, and bioethics. This article examines the legal status of the embryo and abortion in Islamic and Jewish legal traditions through a comparative approach. The study analyzes primary religious sources, including the Qur’an and Hadith in Islam and the Torah and Talmud in Judaism, together with classical legal interpretations and contemporary scholarly debates. Using a comparative legal and textual methodology, it explores key concepts such as the gradual status of the fetus and ensoulment in Islamic law, as well as the position and legal status of the fetus in Jewish law. The findings indicate that both traditions regard the embryo as a developing form of human life worthy of protection, yet they differ regarding the stage at which full legal and moral status is attained. In Islamic law, fetal protection acquires greater significance following ensoulment, while contemporary discussions increasingly emphasize the importance of fertilization. In Jewish law, full legal personhood is generally associated with birth, and the fetus is understood primarily in relation to the mother. These differing approaches lead to distinct legal outcomes in matters such as maternal health and fetal abnormalities. The study concludes that, despite their differences, both traditions seek to balance the protection of fetal life with the preservation of the mother’s life and well-being. Full article

Britain’s historical spectacles of animal performance, from Victorian circuses and travelling menageries to early visual media, did more than entertain, they shaped how humans imagined, controlled, and valued nonhuman life. Animals were transformed into objects of fascination and domination, while hunting and poaching practices reinforced imperial authority over wildlife. These performances codified visual and moral frameworks that positioned Britain as arbiter of “wildness,” embedding hierarchies of power and ethical order into the cultural imagination. This paper draws on performance studies, postcolonial ecocriticism, and visual anthropology to trace how circus rings, menageries, and early animal films laid aesthetic and ideological foundations that resonate in contemporary British environmental art and regeneration discourse. By historicising these visual legacies, it reveals how dominion, spectacle, and exploitation persist as underlying structures in Britain’s engagement with nature. Yet contemporary environmental arts are not merely reactive, they reinterpret these histories, transforming frameworks of control into imaginative possibilities for ethical, regenerative, and multispecies representation. By linking past and present, this study demonstrates that understanding the visual politics of historical animal performance is essential to imagining sustainable and inclusive futures for human and nonhuman life in Britain. Full article

This cross-sectional study examined how children integrated social strategy and initial resource endowment when responding to others as third-party observers in a cooperative context. Using an age-appropriate collective dilemma game, 141 Chinese children observed fictional peers choosing among cooperation, self-reliance, and free-riding strategies under conditions of high or low resource endowment, yielding a 3 (strategy) × 2 (resource endowment) experimental design. Children responded to each target through punishment, social evaluation, and partner choice. Results showed a strong preference for high-resource individuals among younger children (ages 5–6), which diminished with age, suggesting a developmental shift away from reliance on external cues such as resource. Across all age groups, children consistently responded most negatively to free riders, regardless of resource endowment, indicating their moral sensitivity to exploitative intent and fairness violations. Importantly, self-reliant individuals with high resources were viewed more favorably than those with low resources, indicating that children adjust their responses based on social strategy and resource endowment. These findings suggest two key developmental patterns: (1) an age-related decline in resource-based preferences and (2) early-emerging ability that enables children to weigh contextual cues when responding to non-cooperative behaviors. The study highlights age-related patterns in children’s third-party responses, reflecting their sensitivity to both social strategy and situational information in cooperative contexts. Full article

This article examines Slavoj Žižek’s critique of ecocentrism through the lens of Lacanian ideology theory, asking how the ecological crisis is symbolically organized in contemporary discourse. Rather than treating ecocentrism as a coherent ecological doctrine, it approaches it as an ideological formation that shapes how environmental breakdown is interpreted, moralized, and acted upon. The article argues that appeals to “nature” often construct it as a normative horizon of balance, limit, or lost order through which crisis becomes intelligible in specific ways. It then traces the conceptual, subjective, and social operations through which ecocentrism acquires force: ecological disruption is narrated through images of harmony and violation, responsibility is individualized through guilt and obligation, and ecological concern is absorbed into green capitalist practices such as ethical consumption and managed environmental responsibility. In this way, ecocentrism can function not only as a language of ecological critique but also as a framework that obscures the historically specific political–economic processes driving environmental destruction. The article does not deny the urgency of the ecological crisis. Rather, it argues for a more materially mediated account of ecological politics, one that is more attentive to capitalist accumulation, infrastructural systems, and unequal social relations in producing socioecological harm. Full article

One of the most fundamental and debated issues in the history of Sufism concerns not only the nature of mystical experience but also its epistemic value, its authority-generating capacity, and its normative legitimacy. Experiences expressed through kashf (unveiling), ilhām (inspiration), presence, witnessing, and annihilation have never been entirely rejected within Islamic thought, yet they have never been considered an unlimited or uncontrolled source of truth. This dual stance has shaped both internal Sufi debates and external critiques. Classical kalām and legal traditions approached mystical experience cautiously, emphasizing its subjectivity, fallibility, and non-generalizability. In contrast, the Sufi tradition defended unveiling and inspiration as integral to religious life. Modern scholarship, however, has often examined Sufism through universal theories of mystical experience or metaphysical and institutional frameworks, leaving its epistemological limits underexplored. The Naqshbandī tradition is notable for framing mystical experience within a tawḥīd-centered ontology, a cautious epistemology, and disciplined adherence to the Sharīʿa. This framework also allows reconsideration of the relationship between Sufism and ethics, presenting mystical experience as a bridge between transcendence and practical action. This article examines early modern Naqshbandī-Mujaddidī thought through Khwāja Bāqī Billāh (d. 1603). Drawing on his own writings, it analyzes the onto-epistemological structure of mystical experience, arguing that Bāqī Billāh grounds it in a tawḥīd-centered ontology, treats it as fallible and non-binding knowledge, and preserves the Sharīʿa as an indispensable normative criterion. Thus, Sufism emerges as a disciplined ethical horizon connecting transcendence and moral action. Full article

As green consumption becomes mainstream, deceptive marketing in the food industry poses a significant threat to the sustainability of food systems. This study aimed to investigate how consumers’ psychological decision-making mechanisms and food choices are influenced by corporate greenwashing. This study utilized a quantitative cross-sectional design, integrating environmental cognition, greenwashing perception, and brand trust into an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. Survey data collected from 445 respondents in Taiwan, using a fictional plant-based food (oat milk) brand as a scenario stimulus, were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings reveal that environmental knowledge and awareness significantly enhance greenwashing perception, which significantly diminishes brand trust, thereby diminishing positive sustainable food choices. Notably, environmental awareness positively moderated the relationship between greenwashing perception and brand trust. Furthermore, the interaction between perceived behavioral control and attitude toward food choices was not significant, demonstrating that emotional rejection substantially outweighs rational evaluation when faced with food-related deception. This study re-examines the rational assumptions of the traditional TPB, revealing that moral defense mechanisms play a central role in consumer food choices. From a practical perspective, the findings urge food enterprises to shift from symbolic green marketing to high transparency, which is essential for restoring brand trust and avoiding consumer boycotts. Full article

Social movements increasingly rely on digital platforms to mobilize support, raise awareness, and coordinate collective action. At the same time, however, the rise of online activism has intensified concerns regarding “slacktivism”, namely forms of symbolic and low-effort engagement that fail to translate into consequential social action. Existing theoretical accounts have explained this phenomenon in terms of impression management, in-group enhancing, or moral licensing, but have paid little attention to how publicly expressing support for a social cause through online behaviors should undermine actual action, while overlooking the role of audiences in such a process. Drawing on symbolic self-completion theory (SCT), the present paper proposes a complementary motivational perspective. Specifically, we argue that publicly displaying identity-relevant symbols (e.g., posts supporting social causes) within like-minded online networks may generate a premature sense of completeness regarding an aspired-to identity (e.g., being a gender equality advocate), thereby reducing motivation to pursue difficult, high-effort behaviors required for genuine social change. Furthermore, we conceptualize social media echo chambers not merely as informationally homogeneous environments, but as non-dissenting validators of one’s identity goal symbols. By prioritizing symbolic recognition over cross-group dialogue and intervention, social media echo chambers may inadvertently undermine the social progress they purport to promote. Full article