The three “i”s of workplace accommodation of Muslim religious practices: instrumental,internal, and informal

The accommodation of Muslim religious practices is an increasingly salient political issue across Western Europe. Hitherto, most research has focused on how states accommodate Muslim religious practices, and sociological scholarship on workplace accommodation is still extremely scarce. This article fills the gap in the extant literature by presenting a qualitative analysis of over 300 requests for religious accommodation in the workplace in Belgium. The authors contend that turning the spotlight from state to workplace accommodation of Muslim religious practices allows the discovery of different answers to the “hows” and the “whys” of minority religious accommodation. Different than state accommodation, workplace accommodation is characterized by three “i”s: it is granted or refused on the basis of instrumental argumentations; it is regulated informally and resolved internally. This article proposes an institutionalist framework adapted to the world of work to explain the specific features of workplace religious accommodation of Muslim religious practices.     

Religious pluralism and the ethics of healthcare

Democratic societies that separate church and state face major challenges in accommodating religious convictions. This applies especially to determining healthcare policies. Building on our prior work on the demands and limits of religious accommodation in democratic societies, we propose a set of ethical standards that can guide societies in meeting this challenge. In applying and defending these standards, we explore three topics: vaccine resistance, abortion, and concerns about rights to healthcare. We clarify these and other issues of religious accommodation and propose ethical standards for approaching these and other problems.     

Spirometra species from Asia: Genetic diversity and taxonomic challenges

Despite considerable controversy concerning the taxonomy of species within the genus Spirometra, human sparganosis and spirometrosis mainly in Asia and Europe has long been confidently ascribed to Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. Recently, the mitochondrial genomes of purported “S. erinaceieuropaei”, “Spirometra decipiens” and “Spirometra ranarum” from Asia have been determined. However, it has been pointed out that the morphological criteria used for identifying these species are unsuitable and thus these identifications are questionable. In the present study, therefore, Spirometra samples from Asia were re-examined based on mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene sequences and the identification of these species was discussed. Haplotype network and phylogenetic analyses revealed that: i) two distinct Spirometra species, Type I and Type II, are present in Asia and neither of which is close to likely European “S. erinaceieuropaei”; ii) Type I is genetically diverse and widely distributed, however Type II is known so far from Japan and Korea; iii) “S. decipiens” and “S. ranarum” reported from Asia are conspecific with Type I; iv) Type I is probably conspecific with Spirometra mansoni, and Type II may represent an undescribed species.     

Ome sweet ome: what can the genome tell us about the connectome?

Some neuroscientists argue that detailed maps of synaptic connectivity--wiring diagrams--will be needed if we are to understand how the brain underlies behavior and how brain malfunctions underlie behavioral disorders. Such large-scale circuit reconstruction, which has been called connectomics, may soon be possible, owing to numerous advances in technologies for image acquisition and processing. Yet, the community is divided on the feasibility and value of the enterprise. Remarkably similar objections were voiced when the Human Genome Project, now widely viewed as a success, was first proposed. We revisit that controversy to ask if it holds any lessons for proposals to map the connectome.     

Heterogeneous assemblages of bioethics and science: the “pre-embryo” debate in America

This paper explores the “pre-embryo” debate in America to analyze the relationship between scientific uncertainty and moral decision-making. This paper explores how an ethical debate among bioethicists around the term “pre-embryo” has been transformed into a scientific “fact” debate between developmental biology and embryology. This transformation is driven by the scientism of ethical reasoning that stresses scientific claims to increase the credibility of ethical claims. This paper concludes that the “pre-embryo” debate is not an ethical controversy over a unified science but rather credibility struggles between two heterogeneous assemblages of science and bioethics.     

Religious and secular death: a parting of the ways

Most organized religions have indicated a level of support for organ donation including the diagnosis of death by the brain criterion. Organ donation is seen as a gift of love and fits within a communitarian ethos that most religions embrace. The acceptance of the determination of death by the brain criterion, where it has been explained, is reconciled with religious views of soul and body by using a notion of integration. Because the soul may be seen as that which integrates the human body, in the absence of any other signs of human functioning, loss of integration is considered to be an indication that soul and body have separated. To some extent this view would seem to be informed by an Aristotelian notion of the soul, but it fits well enough with religious notions of the person continuing after death. There have been several developments internationally that indicate that the acceptance of so-called 'brain death' by organized religions has been challenged by new developments including the acceptance of a lesser standard than loss of all brain function and a rejection by the US President's Council on Bioethics of the notion of loss of integration as an explanation of death by the brain criterion.     

Cardiac response of domestic chickens to hawk and goose models

The response of precocial birds to configurational stimuli has been a source of controversy for decades. In this experiment we measured cardiac response of domestic chicks to “hawk” and “goose” silhouettes. The chicks' heart rates varied more in response to the hawk model than to the goose model, suggesting that the hawk silhouette is a more fearful stimulus than that of the goose. Our data document the recognition of a configurational stimulus without prior, pertinent experience.     

Fisheries-Led Development in the South Pacific: Charting a “Pacific Way” to a Sustainable Future

Considerable debate surrounds the appropriate mix of policies to drive fishing-led development among the developing nations in the South Pacific. Since the 1970s, South Pacific small island states have committed themselves to policies of tuna industry domestication, but serious doubts have emerged as to whether these can deliver improvements to the well-being of Pacific peoples. An alternative policy approach has been suggested by development economists that would see Pacific Island nations largely abandon direct involvement in the industry and return to collective efforts to secure reasonable access fees from distant water fishing nations that take the majority of the region's tuna catches. This article argues that one reason that this policy shift has not been taken is that tuna industry domestication policies remain bound up within the influential discourse of “resource nationalism.” It is contended that any movement toward a more environmentally and developmentally sustainable ocean fisheries policy will require close engagement and transformation of this sovereignty-focused narrative.     

The interrelations between malfunctioning DNA damage response (DDR) and the functionality of the neuro-glio-vascular unit

A hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases is impairment of certain aspects of “brain functionality”. Brain functionality is defined as the total input and output of the brain's neural circuits and networks. A given brain degenerative disorder does not deregulate total brain functionality but rather the activity of specific circuits in a given network, affecting their organization and topology, their cell numbers, their cellular functionality, and the interactions between neural circuits. Similarly, our concept of neurodegenerative diseases, which for many years revolved around neural survival or death, has now been extended to emphasize the role of glia. In particular, the role of glial cells in neuro-vascular communication is now known to be central to the effect of insults to the nervous system. In addition, a malfunctioning vascular system likely plays a role in the etiology of certain neurodegenerative diseases. Thus, the symptoms of neurodegenerative or more correctly brain degenerative disease are, to a very large extent, a result of impairment in glial cells that lead to pathological neuro-vascular interactions that, in turn, generate a rather “hostile” environment in which the neurons fail to function. These events lead to systematic neural cell death on a scale that appears to be proportional to the severity of the neurological deficit.     

Jules Cotard: sa vie, son œuvre

Jules Cotard was a psychiatrist at the Vanves asylum. Described as a sharp observer and clinician, he also had a passion for clinical research. Jules Cotard was always ready to modify, question, or even abandon a hypothesis if clinical facts and scientific analysis made him deem it necessary to do so. He devoted most of his writing to “negation delirium”, (also known as “nihilistic delusion”): “Du délire hypochondriaque dans une forme grave de mélancolie (“Concerning hypochondriac delusion in serious melancholy”)” in 1880, “Du délire des négations (“Concerning negation delirium”)” in 1882, “Perte de la vision mentale dans une mélancolie anxieuse (“Loss of mental vision in anxious melancholy”)” in 1884 and “Du délire d’énormité (“Concerning delusions of enormity”)” in 1888. Long after his death, there was much controversy and debate about the existence of negation delirium. J. Séglas and J. Régis were the main contributors to the development and clarification of his work. Thus it is this most unusual of syndromes, Cotard’s syndrome, that has caused Jules Cotard to be part of the history of French psychiatry since the end of the 19th century.     

BRAIN DEATH IN ISLAMIC ETHICO‐LEGAL DELIBERATION: CHALLENGES FOR APPLIED ISLAMIC BIOETHICS

Since the 1980s, Islamic scholars and medical experts have used the tools of Islamic law to formulate ethico‐legal opinions on brain death. These assessments have varied in their determinations and remain controversial. Some juridical councils such as the Organization of Islamic Conferences' Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC‐IFA) equate brain death with cardiopulmonary death, while others such as the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences (IOMS) analogize brain death to an intermediate state between life and death. Still other councils have repudiated the notion entirely. Similarly, the ethico‐legal assessments are not uniform in their acceptance of brain‐stem or whole‐brain criteria for death, and consequently their conceptualizations of, brain death. Within the medical literature, and in the statements of Muslim medical professional societies, brain death has been viewed as sanctioned by Islamic law with experts citing the aforementioned rulings. Furthermore, health policies around organ transplantation and end‐of‐life care within the Muslim world have been crafted with consideration of these representative religious determinations made by transnational, legally‐inclusive, and multidisciplinary councils. The determinations of these councils also have bearing upon Muslim clinicians and patients who encounter the challenges of brain death at the bedside. For those searching for ‘Islamically‐sanctioned’ responses that can inform their practice, both the OIC‐IFA and IOMS verdicts have palpable gaps in their assessments and remain clinically ambiguous. In this paper we analyze these verdicts from the perspective of applied Islamic bioethics and raise several questions that, if answered by future juridical councils, will better meet the needs of clinicians and bioethicists.     

Total brain death: a reply to Alan Shewmon

D. Alan Shewmon has advanced a well-documented challenge to the widely accepted total brain death criterion for death of the human being. We show that Shewmon’s argument against this criterion is unsound, though he does refute the standard argument for that criterion. We advance a distinct argument for the total brain death criterion and answer likely objections. Since human beings are rational animals--sentient organisms of a specific type--the loss of the radical capacity for sentience (the capacity to sense or to develop the capacity to sense) involves a substantial change, the passing away of the human organism. In human beings total brain death involves the complete loss of the radical capacity for sentience, and so in human beings total brain death is death.     

“We are not simply ‘multicultural’”: intersecting ethnic and religious identities of Japanese-Korean young adults in South Korea

The present study explores the ethnic and religious identities of 21 multicultural young adults with a Japanese mother and a Korean father, all residing in South Korea where the “myth” of a mono-ethnic nation still lingers. In the study, one is considered multicultural provided they are born to both one foreign-born parent and one Korean-born parent. All interviewees are members of the Family Federation for World Peace Unification religion established in South Korea in the 1950s. Interviews with these young adults showed (a) that there was an intersectionality between their ethnic identity and religious identity; (b) that the influence of the interaction between the Church and the mother on the ethnic and religious identities of the interviewees was substantial; and (c) that they distinguished themselves from other multicultural individuals and even from non-multicultural individuals concerning their socio-economic background and transcending religious mission.     

Reviving Brain Death: A Functionalist View

Recently both whole brain death (WBD) and higher brain death (HBD) have come under attack. These attacks, we argue, are successful, leaving supporters of both views without a firm foundation. This state of affairs has been described as “the death of brain death.” Returning to a cardiopulmonary definition presents problems we also find unacceptable. Instead, we attempt to revive brain death by offering a novel and more coherent standard of death based on the permanent cessation of mental processing. This approach works, we claim, by being functionalist instead of being based in biology, consciousness, or personhood. We begin by explaining why an objective biological determination of death fails. We continue by similarly rejecting current arguments offered in support of HBD, which rely on consciousness and/or personhood. In the final section, we explain and defend our functionalist view of death. Our definition centers on mental processing, both conscious and preconscious or unconscious. This view provides the philosophical basis of a functional definition that most accurately reflects the original spirit of brain death when first proposed in the Harvard criteria of 1968.     

Hindutva in the West: mapping the antinomies of diaspora nationalism

This introduction provides a historical background to Hindu nationalism and examines several theoretical and empirical themes that are important for its analysis both in India and the diaspora. It is argued that there has been a relative neglect within the research field of diaspora nationalist movements and the impact they can have on constituting antisecular and absolutist orientations to minorities and majorities both within the diaspora and in the “homeland”. The introduction examines the rise of the Hindutva movement in the 1920s and considers the debates about its relation to ethnic, nationalist, religious, racist and fascist ideologies. We consider how an examination of Hindu nationalism can modify many recent debates on “race” and ethnicity, multiculturalism and “diaspora”. Several themes relating to caste, gender and “Aryanism” are examined. The contents of this Special Issue are contextualized within these debates and a summary of the key themes of the contributions is provided.     

Science and society: death, unconsciousness and the brain

The concept of death has evolved as technology has progressed. This has forced medicine and society to redefine its ancient cardiorespiratory centred diagnosis to a neurocentric diagnosis of death. The apparent consensus about the definition of death has not yet appeased all controversy. Ethical, moral and religious concerns continue to surface and include a prevailing malaise about possible expansions of the definition of death to encompass the vegetative state or about the feared bias of formulating criteria so as to facilitate organ transplantation.     

Cholinergic neuromodulation of inhibitory interneurons facilitates functional integration in whole-brain models

Segregation and integration are two fundamental principles of brain structural and functional organization. Neuroimaging studies have shown that the brain transits between different functionally segregated and integrated states, and neuromodulatory systems have been proposed as key to facilitate these transitions. Although whole-brain computational models have reproduced this neuromodulatory effect, the role of local inhibitory circuits and their cholinergic modulation has not been studied. In this article, we consider a Jansen & Rit whole-brain model in a network interconnected using a human connectome, and study the influence of the cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulatory systems on the segregation/integration balance. In our model, we introduce a local inhibitory feedback as a plausible biophysical mechanism that enables the integration of whole-brain activity, and that interacts with the other neuromodulatory influences to facilitate the transition between different functional segregation/integration regimes in the brain.     

The “ethnic” in Indonesia’s communal conflicts: violence in Ambon,Poso, and Sambas

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the communal violence in Ambon, Poso, and Sambas in post-Suharto Indonesia from a comparative perspective. It explores why Ambon and Poso were seen as religious while Sambas was seen as ethnic despite the fact that in all three conflicts different religions and ethnicities fought each other. Examining the “ethnic” elements, this article advances three arguments: First, that the Poso and Ambon conflicts were no less ethnic than the Sambas conflict as they had similar “ethnic causes”. Second, that the religious narrative dominated in Ambon and Poso because it reflected the Islamic resurgence in Indonesia since the 1990s while the narrative in Sambas reflected that it was the latest round of a pre-existing anti-Madurese conflict which had already been “defined” as “ethnic”. Third, that the narratives were framed strategically, thus influencing the trajectory of the conflict but also responding to it.     

The honey bee "language" controversy

The controversy between the honey bee “language” hypothesis and the olfactory hypothesis, is essentially a controversy between a human-level hypothesis and an insect-level hypothesis, for an insect. A careful analysis of the theoretical process which underlies the design of experiments and interpretation of results, demonstrates that the proof that honey bees can use a “language” of abstract symbols, remains as inconclusive and non-valid as ever.     

Public reason in justifications of conscientious objection in health care

Current mainstream approaches to conscientious objection either uphold the standards of public health care by preventing objections or protect the consciences of health‐care professionals by accommodating objections. Public justification approaches are a compromise position that accommodate conscientious objections only when objectors can publicly justify the grounds of their objections. Public justification approaches require objectors and assessors to speak a common normative language and to this end it has been suggested that objectors should be required to cast their objection in terms of public reason. We provide critical support for such a public reason condition and argue that it would be neither too demanding nor too permissive. We also respond to objections that it unfairly favours secular over religious objectors and that public reasons cannot be held with the kind of sincerity thought to characterize conscientious objections.