In order to assess and understand human behavior, traditional approaches to experimental design incorporate testing tools that are often artificial and devoid of corporeal features. Whilst these offer experimental control in situations in which, methodologically, real behaviors cannot be examined, there is increasing evidence that responses given in these contextually deprived experiments fail to trigger genuine responses. This may result from a lack of consideration regarding the material makeup and associations connected with the fabric of experimental tools. In a two-year (...) collaboration, we began to experiment with the physicality of testing tools using the domain of moral psychology as a case study. This collaboration involved thinkering and prototyping methods that included direct contact and consideration of the materials involved in experimentation. Having explored the embodied nature of morality, we combined approaches from experimental psychology, moral philosophy, design thinking, and computer science to create a new testing tool for simulated moral behavior. Although the testing tool itself generated fruitful results, this paper considers the collaborative methodology through which it was produced as a route to highlight material questions within psychological research. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to highlight the confluence of pastoral power and biopolitical power, as foundations for today’s unholy alliance that undermines the sense of democratic political subjectivity. From that perspective, it explores the connections between the Heideggerian conception of subjectivity and alternative pastoral power and biopolitics that Foucault calls through its ethics focused on self-care.

En la evolución de la nanotecnología encontramos una excelente ilustración de la forma en que se producen, en nuestra época, las interacciones entre lo económico y lo tecnocientífico. Nos ofrece, además, una ejemplificación elocuente de cómo, en esa interacción, tienden a ser escamoteadas cuestiones que poseen una trascendencia ética de primer orden y que deberían situarse en el debate ético y político en un lugar de preponderancia.

This article defends the project of giving a single pleasure-based account of goodness against what may seem a powerful challenge. Aristotle, Peter Geach and Judith Thomson have argued that there is no such thing as simply being good; there is only (for example) being a good knife or a good painting (Geach), being serene or good to eat (Thomson), or being good in essence or in qualities (Aristotle). But I argue that these philosophersgoodgoodknife’.

Built on the foundations laid by Peirce, Schröder, and others in the 19th century, the modern development of relation algebras started with the work of Tarski and his colleagues [21, 22]. They showed that relation algebras can capture strong first‐order theories like ZFC, and so their equational theory is undecidable. The less expressive class WA of weakly associative relation algebras was introduced by Maddux [7]. Németi [16] showed that WA's have a decidable universal theory. There has been extensive research on (...) increasing the expressive power of WA by adding new operations [1, 4, 11, 13, 20]. Extensions of this kind usually also have decidable universal theories. Here we give an example – extending WA's with set‐theoretic projection elements – where this is not the case. These “logical” connectives are set‐theoretic counterparts of the axiomatic quasi‐projections that have been investigated in the representation theory of relation algebras [22, 6, 19]. We prove that the quasi‐equational theory of the extended class PWA is not recursively enumerable. By adding the difference operator D one can turn WA and PWA to discriminator classes where each universal formula is equivalent to some equation. Hence our result implies that the projections turn the decidable equational theory of “WA + D ” to non‐recursively enumerable (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

Next SectionPublic and healthcare professionals differ in their attitudes towards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS), the legal status of which is currently in the spotlight in the UK. In addition to medical training and experience, religiosity, locus of control and patient characteristics (eg, patient age, pain levels, number of euthanasia requests) are known influencing factors. Previous research tends toward basic designs reporting on attitudes in the context of just one or two potentially influencing factors; we aimed to test the comparative (...) importance of a larger range of variables in a sample of nursing trainees and non-nursing controls. One hundred and fifty-one undergraduate students (early-stage nursing training, late-stage nursing training and non-nursing controls) were approached on a UK university campus and asked to complete a self-report questionnaire. Participants were of mixed gender and were on average 25.5 years old. No significant differences in attitude were found between nursing and non-nursing students. There was a significant positive correlation between higher religiosity and positive attitude toward euthanasia (r=0.19, p<0.05) and a significant negative relationship between internal locus of control and positive attitude toward PAS (r=−0.263, p<0.01). Multivariate analyses revealed differing predictor models for attitudes towards euthanasia and PAS, and confirm the importance of individual differences in determining these attitudes. The unexpected direction of association between religiosity and attitudes may reflect a broader cultural shift in attitudes since earlier research in this area. Furthermore, these findings suggest it possible that experience, more than training itself, may be a bigger influence on attitudinal differences in healthcare professionals. (shrink)

The study extends and tests the issue contingent four-component model of ethical decision-making to include moral obligation. A web-based questionnaire was used to gauge the influence of perceived importance of an ethical issue on moral judgment and moral intent. Perceived importance of an ethical issue was found to be a predictor of moral judgment but not of moral intent as predicted. Moral obligation is suggested to be a process that occurs after a moral judgment is made and explained a significant (...) portion of the variance in moral intent. (shrink)

This book traces rabbinic thought on the near-universal phenomenon of legal circumventions, finding licit ways to achieve otherwise illegal outcomes. Rabbinic literature does not fully reject or accept loopholing, but instead determine acceptability based on whether their outcome and their process maintain the values and the integrity of the law.

There are two known general results on the finite model property of commutators [L0,L1]. If L is finitely axiomatizable by modal formulas having universal Horn first-order correspondents, then both [L,K] and [L,S5] are determined by classes of frames that admit filtration, and so they have the fmp. On the negative side, if both L0 and L1 are determined by transitive frames and have frames of arbitrarily large depth, then [L0,L1] does not have the fmp. In this paper we show that (...) commutators with a “weakly connected” component often lack the fmp. Our results imply that the above positive result does not generalize to universally axiomatizable component logics, and even commutators without “transitive” components such as [K3,K] can lack the fmp. We also generalize the above negative result to cases where one of the component logics has frames of depth one only, such as [S4.3,S5] and the decidable product logic S4.3×S5. We also show cases when already half of commutativity is enough to force infinite frames. (shrink)

The family, like so many other modern institutions, often looks more like an arena of competing wills than an ordered life in common. If we hope, therefore, to protect the special role that parents should have in relation to their children, and that the family in general should have in relation to its members, we will need a much more developed account of the goods that are at stake and why we think they are important enough to require authority, even (...) when members of the family oppose the decisions of that authority. This essay develops an older account of authority, one rooted in the thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, and applies this account to our present difficulties concerning the authority of the family over its members in health care decision making. (shrink)

Alzheimer disease is a huge and growing societal problem with upwards of 35% of the population over the age of 80 developing the disease. AD results in a loss of memory, the ability to make reasoned and sound decisions, and ultimately the inability to take care of oneself. AD has an impact not only on the sufferer, but their caretakers and loved ones, who must take on a costly and time-consuming burden of care. AD is found in virtually all racial (...) and ethnic groups. Genetic influences on AD are substantial, and there has been a 30 year history of both success and failure. Mutations for rare early onset forms of the disease have been identified, but this information has not yet led to an effective treatment. Multiple common genetic variations have also been identified, and have led to new insights into the potential role of microglia cells in addition to neuronal cells in the brain. Despite intensive efforts, a significant portion of the genetic etiology of AD remains unknown and must be identified. (shrink)

During the debates about the legalization of Voluntary Assisted Dying in Victoria, Australia, the presence of anti-VAD health professionals in the medical community and reported high rates of conscientious objection to VAD suggested access may be limited. Most empirical research on CO has been conducted in the sexual and reproductive health context. However, given the fundamental differences in the nature of such procedures and the legislation governing it, these findings may not be directly transferable to VAD. Accordingly, we sought to (...) understand how CO operates in the context of VAD. Prior to the implementation of the VAD legislation in June 2019, we conducted semi-structured interviews with seventeen health professionals with a self-declared CO to VAD, to explore what motivated their CO. Participants identified multiple motivations, which can be broadly categorized as: concerns for oneself; concerns for patients; concerns about the current Victorian legislation; and concerns for the medical profession. Participants’ moral commitments included personal, professional, and political commitments. In some cases, one’s CO was specific to Victoria’s current legislation rather than VAD more broadly. Our findings suggest CO motivations extend beyond those traditionally cited and suggest a need to better understand and manage CO in the healthcare context. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to raise some issues that relate to disciplinary status of bioethics. I am particularly interested in entering to consider here its relation to philosophy and the role it should play in different areas of research and medical practice. The question is whether bioethics can be understood and practiced as part of an action protocol or requires a philosophical foundation that will provide strength and consistency.

En este trabajo abordamos la interrelación entre tiempo, política y hospitalidad, tomando como base interpretativa el tratamiento que tales conceptos reciben en el pensamiento de Derrida y Lévinas. El planteamiento central puede expresarse diciendo que, tal como nos dice Derrida, una interpretación correcta de la posición de Lévinas nos lleva a reconocer que la hospitalidad es la eticidad misma. Se considera, a partir de este presupuesto, que la apertura al otro que hace posible la hospitalidad impide que la subjetividad quede (...) atrapada en una empobrecedora estrategia autorreferencial. (shrink)

La propuesta que nos hace Alfonso López Quintás, catedrático emérito de filosofía de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid y uno de los grandes pensadores españoles, en La ética o es transfiguración o no es nada, es la de emprender un camino de crecimiento personal. Forma parte esencial de nuestra existencia el crecimiento en una doble vertiente: biológica y espiritual. El crecimiento natural impone sus propios límites, a través de unas reglas que limitan nuestra vida. Sin embargo, los límites de nuestro (...) crecimiento personal están íntimamente relacionados con el proceso mismo, que podemos llamar camino de la vida. Los límites de nuestro crecimiento irán apareciendo en el camino, pero el modo en el que recorremos nuestra senda vital es capital a la hora de determinar cómo recorreremos el camino que nos es propio. Esto es lo que nos plantea López Quintás en esta obra, cómo crecer a través del conocimiento de la propia realidad y de nuestra capacidad para transformarla. (shrink)

His “practical purpose” was first to express the popular notion of responsibility and then to relate it to the philosophical theories of “freewill and necessity.” For he could not approve the suggestion that to understand popular comments on morality was a worthless occupation; indeed, while he respected the Westminster Reviewers for the blunt declaration that vulgar responsibility was a “horrid figment of the imagination,” he plainly considered it his business as a philosopher to examine ordinary morality and to reconcile it, (...) if possible, with philosophical theory. (shrink)

Frequent and open interaction between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs is necessary for venture capital investments to occur. Increasingly, these investments are made across jurisdictions. The vast majority of these cross-border investments are carried out in a syndicate of two or more VCs, indicating the effects of intra-industry networks needing further analysis. Using China as a model, we provide a novel multidimensional framework to explain cross-border investments in innovative ventures across developed and emerging economies. By analyzing a unique international dataset, we (...) examine worldwide venture capital investment flows from 2000–2012 and consider the effects of geographical, cultural, and institutional proximity as well as institutional and relational trust. We find trust to mitigate the negative effects of geographical and cultural distance, where institutional trust is more relevant for investments in emerging economies, and relational trust is more relevant for investments in developed economies. (shrink)

Partiendo de los trabajos de Denis Diderot y Hervé Guibert, se pretende en este escrito poner de relieve ciertas líneas de aproximación a las relaciones entre racionalidad, emotividad y ética. Se plantea en él una reflexión sobre diversos aspectos relacionados con la experiencia de la discapacidad y se intenta mostrar que la toma en consideración de las vivencias emocionales a las que se enfrentan las personas que padecen tales limitaciones posee una importancia crucial para que se pueda hacer frente de (...) la manera más eficaz a los problemas que de ellas se derivan. A pesar de tomar como punto de partida dos brillantes aproximaciones literarias, todo ello viene a confluir en una perspectiva que, siguiendo a Lisa Feldman, podemos denominar _Realismo Afectivo_. (shrink)

El objetivo primordial de este artículo es poner en valor las contribuciones de Jacques Derrida a la filosofía del derecho. En esa línea, una de las tareas más importantes que se abordan en él es mostrar que la labor de deconstrucción, se refiera ésta a cualquier ámbito filosófico o jurídico, es ante todo poner en evidencia los límites, carencias e incoherencias internas que se dan en dicho ámbito. Además de ello, se expone en este trabajo cómo Jacques Derrida, el creador (...) de este método de análisis, al aclarar el sentido y operatividad de la deconstrucción nos explica que ésta se plantea la tarea de desmontar lo que se presenta como construido con una inconmovible solidez. Se pone asimismo de manifiesto en este artículo que la deconstrucción puede contribuir a la concreción de la justicia, en diversos contextos, que van desde el mismo proceso judicial a la dimensión colectiva de las acciones que conducen a la materialización de un orden justo. (shrink)

Más allá del principio del poder es el título de la contribución de Derrida al homenaje a Foucault, que realizó la Universidad de New York tras la muerte del filósofo. Acerca de su contenido trata este pequeño ensayo. En su intervención, Derrida pone en relación las ideas de Freud y las de Foucault, con las suyas propias, a propósito de la relación entre saber, poder y sexualidad.Su objetivo final es hacer hablar, pero al mismo tiempo acallar la voluntad de destrucción, (...) encontrando la forma de imponer la vida a la muerte, aún en la misma muerte y más allá de la muerte. Este es el imposible que ha de imponerse a la voluntad de destrucción del otro, a la persistente búsqueda de su absoluta sumisión aniquiladora, que conllevaría a su vez el aniquilamiento del verdugo. (shrink)

Earl (2019) argues that the current uniform restriction of innovative practice limits clinicians’ ability to provide optimal treatment and stunts progress in medicine. We agree that it is important...

W. David Solomon sits at the very center of the revival of virtue ethics. Solomon's work extended what began with the publication of G. E. M. Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958) by solidifying virtue ethics as a viable approach within contemporary moral philosophy. Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture comprises twelve chapters: eleven that employ Solomon's work and legacy, followed by a twelfth concluding chapter by Solomon himself. Each chapter deepens and develops virtue ethics as a (...) rich intellectual tradition rooted in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Editor Raymond Hain divides the volume into three sections. The first addresses the historical contexts of happiness, justice, and mercy in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The second turns to recent themes in normative ethics, focusing on topics such as morality, virtue, and egoism. The third discusses broader ethical issues with significant cultural implications, such as human dignity, physician-assisted suicide, and secularization. Beyond the Self uncovers the shortcomings of contemporary moral philosophy and the depth and capacity of the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions, reminding the reader that classical virtue ethics remains the most promising framework for understanding the moral life. Contributors include: Michael Beaty, Kevin L. Flannery, Raymond Hain, John Haldane, Thomas Hibbs, Irfan Khawaja, Alasdair MacIntyre, John O'Callaghan, Bryan C. Pilkington, W. David Solomon, Christopher Toner, and Candace Vogler. (shrink)