The Problem of Explanation and Reason-Giving Account of pro tanto Duties in the Rossian Ethical Framework

Critics often argue that Ross’s metaphysical and epistemological accounts of all-things-considered duties suffer from the problem of explanation. For Ross did not give us any clear explanation of the combination of pro tanto duties, i.e. how principles of pro tanto duties can combine. Following from this, he did not explain how we could arrive at overall justified moral judgements. In this paper, I will argue that the problem of explanation is not compelling. First of all, it is based on the classical account of pro tanto duties. Principles of pro tanto duties can be understood in another way, i.e. in terms of reason-giving account that might be of help to provide a response to the critics. Furthermore, critics fail to see some evidence in Ross about how we can arrive at moral judgements

Fire in the Soul of Zurga: Bizet\u27s The Pearl Fishers and Male Sati

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. Although in recent years Georges Bizet’s “other” opera, Les Pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), has been performed on occasion, scant attention has been paid to it, compared to his world-renowned masterpiece Carmen. Even those who are not avowed opera goers have at least heard of the Habañera (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle) and more so, the ever-popular Toreador Song. Bizet penned The Pearl Fishers at age 25, and enthusiasts of this early work praise the “freshness of inspiration” which contributes to its “perennial success.” (9). The Pearl Fishers takes place on a “wild, arid beach on the island of Ceylon [modern-day Sri Lanka]” (10), where bold divers brave death every year (18). It is a French Orientalist opera, as is Carmen, although there is not yet the mezzo-soprano to embody the “exotic” seductress (in the case of Carmen, the Andalusian Gypsy). We only have the pure coloratura soprano, the opposite end of the narrow spectrum allotted to female characters who do not come from “our” world. The late Dr. Edward Said bases his main argument on the distinction between “our” world and the inaccessible “Orient”: “Indeed, my real argument is that Orientalism is – and does not merely represent – a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world” (12)

The Seeming Account of Self-Evidence: An Alternative to Audian Account

In this paper, I argue against the epistemology of some contemporary moral intuitionists who believe that the notion of self-evidence is more important than that of intuition. Quite the contrary, I think the notion of intuition is more basic if intuitions are construed as intellectual seemings. First, I will start with elaborating Robert Audi’s account of self-evidence. Next, I criticise his account on the basis of the idea of “adequate understanding”. I shall then present my alternative account of self-evidence which is based on the seeming account of intuition. Finally, I show how the seeming account of self-evidence can make the moral intuitionist epistemology more tenable

Iranian Muslim Reformists and Contemporary Ethics; Revival of “Utilitarianism"

This paper raises a moral issue for contemporary post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals in Iran. According to traditional Islamic teachings, ethics enables people to transcend from this mundane world and offers guidance on ways to improve virtues. Most contemporary Iranian Muslim intellectuals have attempted to pave the way for accomplishing this goal. After clarifying the ways in which Iranian Muslim intellectuals have faith in virtue ethics as a best possible moral normative theory, we claim that virtue ethics fails to support some of our modern problems in the realm of politics such as human rights and democracy. Also, we argue that virtue ethics is not a good theory for ordinary average people who have weakness of will. A preliminary conclusion of the paper will be that utilitarianism, generally, and principle of utility, specifically, is a better solution to the modern problems. This, we believe, has been overlooked from the eyes of post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals. Yet, we suggest that among different versions of utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism is more justified to do this job

Playing with the “Playing God”

Some philosophers and theologians have argued against the idea of Human Enhancement, saying that human beings should not play God. A closer look, however, might reveal that the question of who is playing Whom is far from being so clear-cut. This chapter will address the idea of human enhancement from the standpoint of theistic theology, arguing that human enhancement and theistic theology may not be so very incompatible, after all

On the evolution of flow topology in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Copyright 2016 AIP Publishing. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing.Small-scale dynamics is the spirit of turbulence physics. It implicates many attributes of flow topology evolution, coherent structures, hairpin vorticity dynamics, and mechanism of the kinetic energy cascade. In this work, several dynamical aspects of the small-scale motions have been numerically studied in a framework of Rayleigh-Benard convection (RBC). To do so, direct numerical simulations have been carried out at two Rayleigh numbers Ra = 10(8) and 10(10), inside an air-filled rectangular cell of aspect ratio unity and pi span-wise open-ended distance. As a main feature, the average rate of the invariants of the velocity gradient tensor (Q(G), R-G) has displayed the so-calledPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Transfer Learning for Device Fingerprinting with Application to Cognitive Radio Networks

Primary user emulation (PUE) attacks are an emerging threat to cognitive radio (CR) networks in which malicious users imitate the primary users (PUs) signals to limit the access of secondary users (SUs). Ascertaining the identity of the devices is a key technical challenge that must be overcome to thwart the threat of PUE attacks. Typically, detection of PUE attacks is done by inspecting the signals coming from all the devices in the system, and then using these signals to form unique fingerprints for each device. Current detection and fingerprinting approaches require certain conditions to hold in order to effectively detect attackers. Such conditions include the need for a sufficient amount of fingerprint data for users or the existence of both the attacker and the victim PU within the same time frame. These conditions are necessary because current methods lack the ability to learn the behavior of both SUs and PUs with time. In this paper, a novel transfer learning (TL) approach is proposed, in which abstract knowledge about PUs and SUs is transferred from past time frames to improve the detection process at future time frames. The proposed approach extracts a high level representation for the environment at every time frame. This high level information is accumulated to form an abstract knowledge database. The CR system then utilizes this database to accurately detect PUE attacks even if an insufficient amount of fingerprint data is available at the current time frame. The dynamic structure of the proposed approach uses the final detection decisions to update the abstract knowledge database for future runs. Simulation results show that the proposed method can improve the performance with an average of 3.5% for only 10% relevant information between the past knowledge and the current environment signals.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, in Proceedings of IEEE 26th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), Hong Kong, P.R. China, Aug. 201

New subgrid-scale models for large-eddy simulation of Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Published under licence in Journal of Physics: Conference Series by IOP Publishing Ltd. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.At the crossroad between flow topology analysis and the theory of turbulence, a new eddy-viscosity model for Large-eddy simulation has been recently proposed by Trias et al.[PoF, 27, 065103 (2015)]. The S3PQR-model has the proper cubic near-wall behaviour and no intrinsic limitations for statistically inhomogeneous flows. In this work, the new model has been tested for an air turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection in a rectangular cell of aspect ratio unity and n span-wise open-ended distance. To do so, direct numerical simulation has been carried out at two Rayleigh numbers Ra = 108 and 1010, to assess the model performance and investigate a priori the effect of the turbulent Prandtl number. Using an approximate formula based on the Taylor series expansion, the turbulent Prandtl number has been calculated and revealed a constant and Ra-independent value across the bulk region equals to 0.55. It is found that the turbulent components of eddy-viscosity and eddy-diffusivity are positively prevalent to maintain a turbulent wind essentially driven by the mean buoyant force at the sidewalls. On the other hand, the new eddy-viscosity model is preliminary tested for the case of Ra = 108 and showed overestimation of heat flux within the boundary layer but fairly good prediction of turbulent kinetics at this moderate turbulent flow.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Medical Ethics in Qiṣāṣ (Eye-for-an-Eye) Punishment: An Islamic View; an Examination of Acid Throwing

Physicians in Islamic countries might be requested to participate in the Islamic legal code of qiṣāṣ, in which the victim or family has the right to an eye-for-an-eye retaliation. Qiṣāṣ is only used as a punishment in the case of murder or intentional physical injury. In situations such as throwing acid, the national legal system of some Islamic countries asks for assistance from physicians, because the punishment should be identical to the crime. The perpetrator could not be punished without a physician’s participation, because there is no way to guarantee that the sentence would be carried out without inflicting more injury than the initial victim had suffered. By examining two cases of acid throwing, this paper discusses issues related to physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ from the perspective of medical ethics and Islamic Shari’a law. From the standpoint of medical ethics, physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ is not appropriate. First, qiṣāṣ is in sharp contrast to the Hippocratic Oath and other codes of medical ethics. Second, by physicians’ participation in qiṣāṣ, medical practices are being used improperly to carry out government mandates. Third, physician participation in activities that cause intentional harm to people destroys the trust between patients and physicians and may adversely affect the patient–physician relationship more generally. From the standpoint of Shari’a, there is no consensus among Muslim scholars whether qiṣāṣ should be performed on every occasion. We argue that disallowing physician involvement in qiṣāṣ is necessary from the perspectives of both medical ethics and Shari’a law