Background: COVID-19 has taken many lives worldwide and due to this, millions of persons are in grief. When the grief process lasts longer than 6 months, the person is in risk of developing Complicated Grief Disorder. The CGD is related to serious health consequences. To reduce the probability of developing CGD a preventive intervention could be applied. In developing countries like Mexico, the psychological services are scarce, self-applied interventions could provide support to solve this problem and reduce the health impact (...) even after the pandemic has already finished.Aims: To design and implement a self-applied intervention composed of 12 modules focused on the decrease of the risk of developing CGD, and increasing the life quality, and as a secondary objective to reduce the symptomatology of anxiety, depression, and increase of sleep quality. The Intervention Duelo COVID follows the principles of User Experience and is designed according to the needs and desires of a sample of the objective participants, to increase the adherence to the self-applied intervention, considered one of the main weaknesses of online interventions.Methods: A Randomized Controlled Trial will be conducted from the 22nd of December of 2020 to the first of June 2021. The participants will be assigned to an intervention with elements of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness and Positive Psychology. The control group will be a wait-list condition, that will receive the intervention 1.5–2 months after the pre-measurement were taken. The Power Size Calculation conducted through G*Power indicated the need for a total of 42 participants, which will be divided by 21 participants in each group. The platform will be delivered through responsive design assuring with this that the intervention will adapt to the screen size of cellphones, tablets, and computers.Ethics and Dissemination: The study counts with the approval of the Research Ethics Committee of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, México, and it is registered in Clinical Trials. The article is sent and registered in clinical trials before the recruitment started. The results will be reported in future conferences, scientific publications, and media. (shrink)

Cattle fair arenas are panopticon-like spaces that are instrumental in dissecting the cow's body into functional parts or traits. The arena aestheticizes a partitioning gaze that is codified in a marking system: the "linear evaluation protocol" for milk cows. The positioning of the nonhuman animal body into a highly artificial context allows one to view the cow as a self-standing object, ready to be partitioned. The exhibition space of the cattle fair and the surveying eye of the cattle fair (...) judge aim to recreate a laboratory space within the relatively "artisanal" and approximate context of the breeding practice. However, there are several limitations, down sides, and contingencies that contrast the project of standardization of the skilled practice of breeding. (shrink)

Neurosteroid 17 beta-estradiol (E2) is a steroid synthesized de novo in the nervous system that might influence neuronal activity and behavior. Nevertheless, the impact of E2 on the functioning of those neural systems in which it is slightly synthesized is less questioned. The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) adaptation, may provide an ideal arena for investigating this issue. Indeed, E2 modulates cerebellar parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synaptic plasticity that underlies encoding of VOR adaptation. Moreover, aromatase expression in the cerebellum of adult rodents is (...) maintained at very low levels and localized to Purkinje cells. The significance of age-related maintenance of low levels of aromatase expression in the cerebellum on behavior, however, has yet to be explored. Our aim in this study was to determine whether E2 synthesis exerts an effective and persistent modulation of VOR adaptation in adult male rats. To answer this question, we investigated the acute effect of blocking E2 synthesis on gain increases and decreases in VOR adaptation using an oral dose (2.5 mg/kg) of the aromatase inhibitor Letrozole in peri-pubertal and post-pubertal male rats. We found that Letrozole acutely impaired gain increases and decreases in VOR adaptation without altering basal ocular-motor performance and that these effects were similar in peri-pubertal and post-pubertal rats. Thus, in adult male rats neurosteroid E2 effectively modulates VOR adaptation in both of the periods studied. These findings imply that the adult cerebellum uses E2 synthesis for modulating motor memory formation and suggest that low and extremely localized E2 production may play a role in adaptive phenomena. (shrink)

Dada la polaridad entre las teorías "legitimistas" (Weber) e "ilegitimistas" (Arendt) respecto de la violencia en la arena política, en este artículo se explora el aporte de Paul Ricoeur en torno al tema. Puesto que para este autor lo político es la realización de la intención ética, primero se abordará la dimensión ética y moral de la violencia. Después se ingresará en el dominio propiamente político donde Ricoeur defiende una dialéctica "asimétrica" entre los argumentos "ilegitimistas" y "legitimistas" en la cual (...) los primeros adquieren razonabilidad dentro de un concepto "amplio" de violencia próximo al de Arendt. Por último, se abordará la dimensión temporal de la violencia presente en la memoria colectiva y en la historia. Se concluirá con un balance de los méritos y de las cuestiones parcialmente irresueltas en la obra de Ricoeur. Given the polarity between the "legitimist" (Weber) and the "illegitimist" (Arendt) theories of violence in the political field, I will explore the philosophical contributions of Paul Ricoeur to this issue. Since the political field is for the author the accomplishment of the ethical intention, I will first explore the ethical and moral dimension of violence. Secondly, I will enter in the proper political field where we will see Ricoeur defends an "asymmetrical" dialectic between the "legitimist" and "illegitimist" arguments in which the former acquire reasonability within a "broad" concept of violence akin to Arendt's. Thirdly, I will approach the temporal dimension of violence as it appears in collective memory and in history. I will conclude with an account of the merits and partially unresolved questions within Ricoeur's work. (shrink)

Este texto reflete sobre possibilidades de educação estética na universidade como necessidade premente à formação inicial de docentes, mais especificamente de pedagogos, no sentido da ampliação e do aperfeiçoamento de sua percepção estética, aliadas ao desenvolvimento de uma postura atenta aos contextos sócio-históricos vivenciados. Nessa direção, problematiza sobre quais dispositivos pedagógicos podem ser acionadores de impulsos lúdicos na formação de docentes, sob a luz das concepções de Schiller. Dentre outras contribuições teóricas, o texto cita ainda Freire, que tece importantes considerações (...) sobre as relações entre estética e ética na formação de professores, e que, a nosso ver, o aproxima das ideias de Schiller; Snyders, que trata do espaço universitário como locus privilegiado para se gerar a alegria cultural, energia necessária à aprendizagem diversificada e enriquecedora do repertório científico-cultural dos estudantes; Moraes e Therrien que refletem sobre a necessidade de ampliação do repertório cultural dos docentes; e Moura que aponta à maleabilidade pedagógica do professor como exigência de um perfil flexível e complexo. O trabalho constitui um estudo bibliográfico imerso no campo da filosofia da educação, guiado, entretanto, por reflexões amparadas em experimentações estético-pedagógicas vivenciadas, em processos de formação inicial docente, no âmbito de uma universidade pública estadual brasileira. Com o estudo, infere-se que à universidade cabe o papel decisivo de garantir e estimular o acesso a experiências estéticas que tanto ampliem o repertório artístico-cultural de estudantes como também neles favoreça a criação de impulsos lúdicos, tornando-os mais perceptivos e criativos, sendo que isso se materializará por meio de proposições curriculares de cada curso, aliadas às condições estruturais concretas dessa universidade. Palavras-chave: Educação estética. Impulsos lúdicos. Universidade. Formação de docentes. Pedagogia. (shrink)

A atual dinâmica da sociedade, principalmente por meio do desenvolvimento da tecnologia, fez pensar uma mudança no modelo de Estado, ou de outra maneira, uma nova forma de governança. Assim sobrepõe a importância da função regulatória como essencial ao desenvolvimento da sociedade. Neste sentido, fala-se de uma mudança de paradigma do estado positivo ao estado regulador, dentro do surgimento deste Estado regulador, acende-se o debate se algumas matérias seriam exclusivas do agente regulador com modelo de governança regulatória. O presente estudo (...) científico faz-se necessário ao trazer à arena o debate sobre a possibilidade de se falar ou não de reserva de regulação no âmbito das terapias gênicas, já que a matéria que seriam submetidas a essa reserva técnica não seriam taxativamente delimitadas pela Constituição, devendo ser discutida caso a caso, dentro deste novo ramo do direito chamado direito da regulação. Para consecução e atingimento do objetivo desejado, a metodologia de pesquisa utilizada foi a de revisão da bibliografia sobre a matéria, bem como da legislação correlata. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly viewed as a strategic management tool for companies to draw in candidates. In this arena, international responsible rankings such as ‘The Great Place to Work’, ‘Family Responsible Employer Index (FREE)’ or ‘The Best Companies for Working Mothers’ put emphasis on the value of responsible behaviours, not only for surviving in the market, but also to ‘win the war for talent’. Using a sample of Spanish University students, this research aims to analyse the process of (...) selecting responsible organizations to work and whether there is a possible future conflict of interest by students between their own and organizational values. Surprisingly, the university students assessed two opposing situations with the highest values: of looking to change employer and of letting time pass in order to ignore the conflict. The implications of the students’ assessments and the related factors which affect their decision-making criteria are explored in this article. (shrink)

Economics has developed into one of the most specialised social sciences. Yet at the same time, it shares its subject matter with other social sciences and humanities and its method of analysis has developed in close correspondence with the natural and life sciences. This book offers an up to date assessment of economics in relation to other disciplines. -/- This edited collection explores fields as diverse as mathematics, physics, biology, medicine, sociology, architecture, and literature, drawing from selected contributions to the (...) 2005 Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET). There is currently much discussion at the leading edges of modern economics about openness to other disciplines, such as psychology and sociology. But what we see here is that economics has drawn on (as well as contributed to) other disciplines throughout its history. In this sense, in spite of the increasing specialisation within all disciplines, economics has always been an open discipline and the chapters in this volume provide a vivid illustration for this. -/- Open Economics is a testament to the intellectual vibrancy of historical research in economics. It presents the reader with a historical introduction to the disciplinary context of economics that is the first of its kind, and will appeal to practising economists and students of the discipline alike, as well as to anybody interested in economics and its position in the scientific and social scientific landscape. -/- Table of Contents -/- Introduction: Economics in relation to other disciplines Richard Arena, Sheila Dow and Matthias Klaes Part I. Economics in relation to the humanities and social sciences 1. The social science of economics Brian J. Loasby 2. Economics and literature Bruna Ingrao 3. Happiness: what Kahneman could have learnt from Pietro Verri Pier Luigi Porta Part II. Economics in relation to the life and natural sciences 4. Newtonian physics, experimental moral philosophy and the shaping of political economy Sergio Cremaschi 5. Evolutionary biology and economic behaviour: re-visiting Veblen's instinct of workmanship Mark Harrison 6. Medicine and economics in pre-classical economics Alain Clément and Ludovic Desmedt Part III. Economics and mathematics 7. Mathematics as the role model for neoclassical economics Nicola Giocoli 8. The role of econometric method in economic analysis: A reassessment of the Keynes-Tinbergen debate, 1938-43 Giovanna Garrone and Roberto Marchionatti IV. Economics and architecture 9. Economics and architecture Maurice Lagueux 10. Economic policies and urban development in Latin America Michele Alacevich and Andrea Costa V. Economics and geography 11. ‘Space’ in economic thought Giovanna Vertova 12. Economics, geography and colonialism in the writings of William Petty Hugh Goodacre Part VI. Economics and sociology 13. Economics and sociology: Gustav Schmoller and Werner Sombart on social differentiation Joachim Zweynert 14. Is Homo Oeconomicus a 'bad guy'? Isabelle This Saint-Jean -/- . (shrink)

The thesis of mental fragmentation has recently attracted increased attention as a way of explaining facts about mind and language. This volume provides an accessible introduction and essays on foundations and applications of fragmentation.

World-renowned specialists in contemporary critical theory address the recent crises and transformations of the global political and economic order.

In this article I assess Georges Canguilhem's historical epistemology with both theoretical and historical questions in mind. From a theoretical point of view, I am concerned with the relation between history and philosophy, and in particular with the philosophical assumptions and external norms that are involved in history writing. Moreover, I am concerned with the role that history can play in the understanding and evaluation of philosophical concepts. From a historical point of view, I regard historical epistemology, as developed by (...) Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, as a conception and practice which came out of the project, elaborated in France from the 1920s to the 1940s, of combining history of science and philosophy. I analyse in particular Canguilhem's epistemology in his theory and practice of history of science. What he called 'normative history' is the focus of my analysis. I evaluate the question of the nature and provenience of the norm employed in normative history, and I compare it with the norm as discussed by Canguilhem in Le normal et le pathologique. While I am critical of Canguilhem's treatment of history, I conclude that his philosophical suggestion to analyse the formation of scientific concepts 'from below' represents a useful model for history and philosophy of science, and that it can be very profitably extended to philosophical concepts. (shrink)

In this essay, I address several questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to the special issue on my book Democracy without Shortcuts. In particular, I address some implications of my critique of deep pluralism; distinguish between three senses of ‘blind deference’: political, reflective, and informational; draw a critical parallelism between the populist conception of representation as embodiment and the conception of ‘citizen-representatives’ often ascribed to participants in deliberative minipublics; defend the democratic attractiveness of participatory uses over empowered uses (...) of deliberative minipublics; clarify why accepting public reason constraints does not imply limiting deliberation to questions about constitutional rights, and argue that overcoming a state-centric conception of democracy does not require replacing the ‘all subjected’ principle with the ‘all affected’ principle. (shrink)

Providing people with information is considered an important first step in encouraging them to behave sustainably as it influences their consumption beliefs, attitudes and intentions. However, too much information can also complicate these processes and negatively affect behaviour. This is exacerbated when people have accepted the need to live a more sustainable lifestyle and attempt to enact its principles. Drawing on interview data with people committed to sustainability, we identify the contentious role of knowledge in further disrupting sustainable consumption ideals. (...) Here, knowledge is more than just information; it is familiarity and expertise or how information is acted upon. We find that more knowledge represents a source of dilemma, tension and paralysis. Our data reveal a dark side to people’s knowledge, leading to a ‘self-inflicted sustainable consumption paradox’ in their attempts to lead a sustainable consumption lifestyle. Implications for policy interventions are discussed. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive analysis of the idea of libertas and its conflicting uses in the political struggles of the late Roman Republic. By reconstructing Roman political thinking about liberty against the background of Classical and Hellenistic thought, it excavates two distinct intellectual traditions on the means allowing for the preservation and the loss of libertas. Considering the interplay of these traditions in the political debates of the first century BC, Dr Arena offers a significant reinterpretation of the political struggles (...) of the time as well as a radical reappraisal of the role played by the idea of liberty in the practice of politics. She argues that, as a result of its uses in rhetorical debates, libertas underwent a form of conceptual change at the end of the Republic and came to legitimise a new course of politics, which led progressively to the transformation of the whole political system. (shrink)

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my cri...

Approximately 47 percent of women ages fifteen to forty‐four are currently without children, and slightly more than 20 percent of white women in America will never bear children, the highest percentage in modern history. Many fertile women who are childless are voluntarily so. Although any competent person twenty‐one years or older is legally eligible for voluntary sterilization, many doctors refuse to sterilize childfree women. This essay explores various reasons a woman would want to continue in her childfree lifestyle, evaluates the (...) accessibility of sterilization for women who are childfree by examining the reported reasons for denial of sterilization—both from the woman's and the physician's perspective—and assesses the legal status of voluntary sterilization for nonparous women. The essay also urges physicians to follow recommended guidelines for counseling women who, regardless of parity, desire sterilization and to provide this contraception if, after careful consideration, there are no outstanding health or other reasons that the procedure should not be performed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article studies multi-stakeholder initiatives as spaces for both deliberation and contestation between constituencies with competing discourses and disputed values, beliefs, and preferences. We review different theoretical perspectives on MSIs, which see them mainly as spaces to find solutions to market problems, as spaces of conflict and bargaining, or as spaces of consensus. In contrast, we build on a contestatory deliberative perspective, which gives equal value to both contestation and consensus. We identify four types of internal contestation which can be (...) present in MSIs—procedural, inclusiveness, epistemic, and ultimate-goal—and argue that embracing contestation and engaging in ongoing revision of provisional agreements, criteria, and goals can enhance the democratic quality of MSIs. Finally, we explore the implications of this perspective for theorizing about the democratic quality in MSIs and about the role of corporations in transnational governance. (shrink)

El siguiente texto pretende plantear las bases del pensamiento filosófico de Heráclito en su infinita lucha de opuestos en un cambio eterno, del acontecimiento estoico y del clinamen de Epicuro, articuladas en lógica de sentido de Deleuze, como base de los planteamientos en la última de etapa de enseñanza de Jaques Lacan. Los puentes teóricos trazados entre Lacan y Deleuze se han perdido en análisis históricos de sus encuentros y desencuentros, en el sentido que marcan hacía lo real y por (...) supuesto en el Edipo como máquina de subjetividad. Sin embargo, considero, hasta el momento no se ha planteado una articulación de sus teorías, porque se han desconocido las bases filosóficas lacanianas. El planteamiento que se realiza en el texto permite una forma novedosa de comprender la identificación al fin del análisis, como una identificación a lo permanente en la impermanencia, poniendo como lo más profundo e intimido de la subjetividad, la piel, el borde, lo falso de la imagen. (shrink)

This essay focuses on recent proposals to confer decisional status upon deliberative minipublics such as citizen juries, Deliberative Polls, citizen’s assemblies, and so forth. Against such proposals, I argue that inserting deliberative minipublics into political decision-making processes would diminish the democratic legitimacy of the political system as a whole. This negative conclusion invites a question: which political uses of minipublics would yield genuinely democratic improvements? Drawing from a participatory conception of deliberative democracy, I propose several uses of minipublics that could (...) enhance the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making in current societies. (shrink)

Through the use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), multiple children are born adding to worldwide carbon emissions. Evaluating the ethics of offering reproductive services against its overall harm to the environment makes unregulated ARTs unjustified, yet the ART business can move towards sustainability as a part of the larger green bioethics movement. By integrating ecological ethos into the ART industry, climate change can be mitigated and the conversation about consumption can become a broader public discourse. Although the impact of naturally (...) made children on the environment is undeniable, I will focus on the ART industry as an anthropogenic source of carbon emissions which lead to climate change. The ART industry is an often overlooked source of environmental degradation and decidedly different from natural reproduction as fertility centres provide a service for a fee and therefore can be subject to economic, policy and bioethical scrutiny. In this article, I will provide a brief background on the current state of human-driven climate change before suggesting two conservationist strategies that can be employed in the ART business. First, endorsing a carbon capping programme that limits the carbon emissions of ART businesses will be proposed. Second, I will recommend that policymakers eliminate funded ARTs for those who are not biologically infertile. I will conclude the article by urging policymakers and all those concerned with climate change to consider the effects of the reproductive technologies industry in light of climate change and move towards sustainability. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the historiographical ideas of the historian of chemistry Hélène Metzger against the background of the ideas of the members of the groups and institutions in which she worked, including Alexandre Koyré, Gaston Bachelard, Abel Rey, Henri Berr and Lucien Febrve. This article is on two interdependent levels: that of particular institutions and groups in which she worked and the École Pratique des Hautes Études) and that of historiographical ideas. I individuate two particular theoretical aspirations pursued (...) by the historians in Metzger's milieu: the ideal of total history and the study of the human mind. These two objectives were seen by Metzger and many others as implicating each other. Moreover, Metzger and other historians wanted to integrate the practice of commentary of texts in the realisations of those ideals. I argue, however, that these objectives proved very difficult to realise at the same time. One tradition which stemmed out of these discussions, exemplified by Bachelard, Canguilhem and Foucault, focused on the mind and knowledge, and renounced commentary of texts and total history as it was understood by the historians of the Centre de Synthèse. The latter, however, did not really pursue the study of the mind. Moreover, historians like Metzger and Koyré who practised an attentive analysis of texts could not realise total history. (shrink)

Using samples from three diverse populations, we test evolutionary hypotheses regarding how people reason about the inheritance of various traits. First, we provide a framework for differentiat-ing the outputs of mechanisms that evolved for reasoning about variation within and between biological taxa and culturally evolved ethnic categories from a broader set of beliefs and categories that are the outputs of structured learning mechanisms. Second, we describe the results of a modified “switched-at-birth” vignette study that we administered among children and adults (...) in Puno, Yasawa, and adults in the United States. This protocol permits us to study perceptions of prenatal and social transmission pathways for various traits and to differentiate the latter into vertical versus horizontal cultural influence. These lines of evidence suggest that people use all three mechanisms to reason about the distribution of traits in the population. Participants at all three sites develop expectations that morphological traits are under prenatal influence, and that belief traits are more culturally influenced. On the other hand, each population holds culturally specific beliefs about the degree of social influence on non-morphological traits and about the degree of vertical transmission—with only participants in the United States expecting parents to have much social influence over their children. We reinterpret people's differentiation of trait transmission pathways in light of humans' evolutionary history as a cultural species. (shrink)

Resumo: A Kehre (viragem) no pensamento de Heidegger foi amplamente discutida e debatida. A introdução da noção de metontologia (Metontologie), em 1927, informou proveitosamente esse debate, uma vez que implica uma preocupação com o domínio ôntico, por parte de Heidegger, que não está presente em trabalhos anteriores. O fato de essa noção desaparecer logo após ser introduzida, porém, desafia sua contribuição para esse debate. Neste artigo, mostra-se que o desaparecimento da metontologia não significa o desaparecimento da preocupação de Heidegger com (...) o ôntico, mas o contrário. Começa-se apresentando a visão de Freeman de uma tensão entre o ôntico e o ontológico, no pensamento de Heidegger, em meados da década de 1920, que resulta na introdução da metontologia, em 1927. Mais tarde, evidencia-se que a explicação de McNeill para o desaparecimento da metontologia, como consequência da visão de Heidegger, de meados dos anos 30, de que a projeção a priori do ser é uma retirada do ser (Entzug des Seins), permite dizer que esse desaparecimento não acarreta uma repentina falta de preocupação de Heidegger com o ôntico. Ao considerar a análise de Heidegger de “o matemático”, em Die Frage nach dem Ding, finalmente, argumenta-se que a metontologia desaparece do pensamento de Heidegger, porque sua dependência da ontologia a impede de explicar sua crescente preocupação com o ôntico, de maneira adequada. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Gaston Bachelard’s criticism of Henri Bergson’s employment of intuition as the specific method of philosophy, and as a reliable means of acquiring knowledge. I locate Bachelard’s criticism within the reception of Bergsonian intuition by rationalist philosophers who subscribed to the Third Republic’s ethos. I argue that the reasons of Bachelard’s rejection of Bergsonian intuition were not only epistemological, but also ethical and pedagogical. His view of knowledge as mediated, social, and historical, cannot be separated from (...) his conceptions of society, education, and the human being. (shrink)

Bachelard regarded the scientific changes that took place in the early twentieth century as the beginning of a new era, not only for science, but also for philosophy. For him, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics had shown that a new philosophical ontology and a new epistemology were required. I show that the type of philosophy with which he was more closely associated, in particular that of Léon Brunschvicg, offered to him a crucial starting point. Brunschvicg never considered scientific (...) objects as independent of the mind, and as a consequence questions such as the existence of particles independently of the mind, theory or apparatus, were absent from his philosophy, which was rather aimed at analyzing the mind critically, and above all historically. Bachelard accepted the fundamental ideas of Brunschvicg’s philosophy; however, his own reading of contemporary science enabled him to go beyond it, as shown by his emphasis on the social production of knowledge, and by his removal of the distinction between ideas and technologically produced objects of knowledge. For him, modern science teaches philosophy that knowledge is not a phenomenology but rather a ‘phenomenotechnique’. I argue that Bachelard’s view that philosophy ‘should follow science’ stems from moral considerations.Keywords: Gaston Bachelard; Léon Brunschvicg; Phenomenotechnique; Chosisme; Theory of relativity; Quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Every day from the moment we wake up until the moment we sleep, we have the option to look outward or look inward. This is more than an outlook; it is also a metaphor. As we – citizens, ethicists,...

‘Bioethics still has important work to do in helping to secure status equality for LGBT people’ writes Timothy F. Murphy in a recent Bioethics editorial. The focus of his piece, however, is much narrower than human rights, medical care for LGBT people, or ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Rather, he is primarily concerned with sexuality and gender identity, and the medical intersections thereof. It is the objective of this response to provide an alternate account of bioethics from a Queer perspective. I (...) will situate Queer bioethics within Queer studies, and offer three ‘lessons’ that bioethics can derive from this perspective. These are not definitive rules for Queer bioethics, since it is a field which fundamentally opposes categorizations, favoring pastiche over principles. These lessons are exploratory examples, which both complement and contradict LGBT bioethics. My latter two lessons – on environmental bioethics and disability – overlap with some of Murphy's concerns, as well as other conceptions of LGBT bioethics. However, the first lesson takes an antithetical stance to Murphy's primary focus by resisting all forms of heteroconformity and disavowing reproduction as consonant with Queer objectives and theory. The first lesson, which doubles as a primer in Queer theory, does heavy philosophical lifting for the remainder of the essay. This response to Timothy F. Murphy, whose work is certainly a legacy in bioethics, reveals the multiplicity of discourses in LGBT/Queer studies, many of which are advantageous – even essential – to other disciplines like bioethics. (shrink)

In this essay I analyze some conceptual difficulties associated with the demand that global institutions be made more democratically accountable. In the absence of a world state, it may seem inconsistent to insist that global institutions be accountable to all those subject to their decisions while also insisting that the members of these institutions, as representatives of states, simultaneously remain accountable to the citizens of their own countries for the special responsibilities they have towards them. This difficulty seems insurmountable in (...) light of the widespread acceptance of a state-centric conception of human rights, according to which states and only states bear primary responsibility for the protection of their citizens' rights. Against this conception, I argue that in light of the current structures of global governance the monistic ascription of human rights obligations to states is no longer plausible. Under current conditions, states are bound to fail in their ability to protect the human rights of their citizens whenever potential violations either stem from transnational regulations or are perpetrated by non-state actors. In order to show the plausibility of an alternative, pluralist conception of human rights obligations I turn to the current debate among scholars of international law regarding the human rights obligations of non-state actors. I document the various ways in which these obligations could be legally entrenched in global financial institutions such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. These examples indicate feasible methods for strengthening the democratic accountability of these institutions while also respecting the accountability that participating member states owe to their own citizens. I conclude that, once the distinctions between the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights are taken into account, no conceptual difficulty remains in holding states and non-state actors accountable for their respective human rights obligations. (shrink)

The article starts with a definition of the concept feminization of labour. It aims to signal how, at both the Italian and the global level, precarity, together with certain qualitative characteristics historically present in female work, have become decisive factors for current productive processes, to the point of progressively transforming women into a strategic pool of labour. Since the early 1990s, Italy has seen a massive increase in the employment of women, within the wave of legislation that has introduced various (...) flexible contracts – so-called atypical work. I show how cognitive capitalism tends to prioritize extracting value from relational and emotional elements, which are more likely to be part of women's experiential baggage. The results of a study conducted in November 2006 among freelance workers of the Rizzoli Corriere della sera group, the largest publishing group in Italy, will be used to show how women are able to move more easily on the shifting sands of precarity, within the context of cognitive work. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of NGOs in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through an analysis of various stakeholders’ perceptions and of NGOs’ self-perceptions. In the course of qualitative research based in Spain, we found that the perceptions of the role of NGOs fall into four categories: recognition of NGOs as drivers of CSR; concerns about their legitimacy; difficulties in the mutual understanding between NGOs and trade unions; the self-confidence of NGOs as important players in CSR. Each of these categories comprises (...) the various elements analysed in the paper. We found some discrepancies between the perception of others and the self-perceptions of NGOs, which explains why their role is often controversial. The research confirms that secondary stakeholders, such as NGOs, are key players in CSR, but their role is still regarded as controversial and their legitimacy contested. Deep-seated misunderstandings and mistrust among various stakeholder groups (particularly between NGOs and trade unions) are a possible hurdle to the integration of social and environmental concerns in business activity and corporate governance in Spain. The study finds that business managers need to take a less firm-centric and a more contextual approach, and look more closely into the relationship with and among stakeholder groups. For NGO managers, the research shows that NGOs are not always aware of the stereotypes they generate and the problems caused mainly by what is seen as ambivalent roles: critic and counsellor, accuser and judge, idealist and fund raiser. (shrink)

In this essay, I analyze the cosmopolitan project for a new international order that Habermas has articulated in recent publications. I argue that his presentation of the project oscillates between two models. The first is a very ambitious model for a future international order geared to fulfill the peace and human rights goals of the UN Charter. The second is a minimalist model, in which the obligation to protect human rights by the international community is circumscribed to the negative duty (...) of preventing wars of aggression and massive human rights violations due to armed conflicts such as ethnic cleansing or genocide. According to this model, any more ambitious goals should be left to a global domestic politics, which would have to come about through negotiated compromises among domesticated major powers at the transnational level. I defend the ambitious model by arguing that there is no basis for drawing a normatively significant distinction between massive human rights violations due to armed conflicts and those due to regulations of the global economic order. I conclude that the cosmopolitan goals of the Habermasian project can only be achieved if the principles of transnational justice recognized by the international community are ambitious enough to cover economic justice. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the relationship between appeal to self-perceptions of moral identity, included in the teaching of ethics, and the strengthening of moral judgment among postgraduate business students. As appeal to moral identity emphasizes personal engagement in the appraisal of an ethically charged situation, it addresses critiques of abstract rule application and principle transfer leveled at traditional business ethics teaching. Eighty-one participants completed a series of reflective writing exercises throughout a twelve-week business ethics unit. Based on an instrument (...) completed at the beginning and end of the education process, our results indicate a positive shift in moral judgement intensity. We, therefore, recommend appeal to moral identity as a leverage strategy to be employed in business ethics education in order to strengthen students’ moral judgment. (shrink)

This article aims to advance the discussion of how multinational companies manage the tension between global integration and local responsiveness in their corporate social responsibility. In particular, it studies the relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries in a transnational CSR strategy and the types of coordination mechanisms used. Building on a qualitative study of a multinational bank, we find that in addition to formal and informal coordination mechanisms, a transnational CSR strategy cannot be fully understood without considering lateral learning and participatory (...) decision making. Further, we suggest that discussions about the transnational approach to CSR should not be disentangled from the question about a company's CSR orientation. Finally, we propose some characteristics of transnational CSR and discuss its theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

This article deals with some aspects of the study of the mind between the 1920s and 1940s at the University of Paris. Traditionally the domain of philosophy, the study of the mind was encroached upon by other disciplines such as history of science, ethnology, sociology and psychology. These disciplines all had weak institutional status and were struggling to constitute themselves as autonomous. History of science did not as a rule reject its relationship with philosophy, whereas ethnology, sociology and psychology were (...) constructing their identities by breaking away from philosophy. A discussion about Lévy-Bruhl’s La mentalité primitive, hosted by the Société Française de Philosophie in 1923, showed that the positions of philosophers, sociologists and psychologists about the questions posed by the book, namely the fixity and universality of the mind, were strictly linked with their views about the ‘scientificity’ of ethnology. A compromise between fixity and historical transformation of the mind was put forward by Gaston Bachelard, who institutionally represented the discipline of history and philosophy of science. This discipline was institutionally linked to ethnology, psychology and sociology, but, unlike them, had no claim to ‘scientificity’. Bachelard realized this compromise by breaking the unity of the mind and by employing an extra-institutional discipline: psychoanalysis. His freedom of choice corresponded with an increasingly weak institutional position for the discipline of history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Medicalization occurs when an aspect of embodied humanity is scrutinized by the medical industry, claimed as pathological, and subsumed under medical intervention. Numerous critiques of medicalization appear in academic literature, often put forth by bioethicists who use a variety of “lenses” to make their case. Feminist critiques of medicalization raise the concerns of the politically disenfranchised, thus seeking to protect women—particularly natal sex women—from medical exploitation. This article will focus on three feminist critiques of medicalization, which offer an alternative narrative (...) of sickness and health. I will first briefly describe the philosophical origins of medicalization. Then, I will present three feminist critiques of medicalization. Liberal feminism, trans feminism, and crip feminism tend to regard Western medicine with a hermeneutics of suspicion and draw out potential harms of medicalization of reproductive sexuality, gender, and disability, respectively. While neither these branches of feminism—nor their critiques—are homogenous, they provide much-needed commentaries on phallocentric medicine. I will conclude the paper by arguing for the continual need for feminist critiques of medicalization, using uterus transplantation as a relevant case study. (shrink)

Questo articolo presenta un quadro dei problemi che il frammento B85DK di Eraclito solleva e delle interpretazioni antiche e moderne che sono state suggerite. In particolare, è esaminata la testimonianza di Aristotele, la più antica e anche la più profonda e articolata. Una panoramica sui significati di thumos, punto centrale del frammento, mostra che per Aristotele questo concetto non si esaurisce nel pathos dell’ira. Il thumos è in primo luogo una dunamis, una facoltà dell’anima che rende possibile non solo il (...) pathos, l’affezione passeggera dell’ira, ma anche il coraggio, l’impulsività, l’affetto, il senso della libertà e dell’autorità. Questa nozione aristotelica, così ricca e polimorfica da sottrarsi a una traduzione unica esaustiva, proviene in realtà dalla sistematizzazione di un materiale molto antico, omerico e presocratico, legato ai proverbi. Eraclito stesso ne offre già una formulazione che sintetizza due aspetti che Aristotele accoglie e sottolinea: la forza irresistibile e inarrestabile dello slancio impulsivo naturale, una volta che sia stato innescato, e l'estrema conseguenza a cui puo' portare, e cioè la perdita della vita stessa. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the problem of the neural conditions of shared attitudes and intentions: which neural mechanisms underlie “we-mode” processes or serve as precursors to such processes? Neurophysiological and neuropsychological evidence suggests that in different areas of the brain neural representations are shared by several individuals. This situation, on the one hand, creates a potential problem for correct attribution. On the other hand, it may provide the conditions for shared attitudes and intentions.

In his Democracy across borders, Bohman articulates an ambitious political proposal for a future international order. Perhaps its most salient feature is the promise of global democracy without a world government. Global democracy is usually associated with the ideal of a world community unified under a set of global democratic institutions. Fear of the totalitarian consequences that such a concentration of power would generate often leads even the staunchest cosmopolitans to limit their democratic aspirations to the national level and merely (...) hope for the progressive implementation of the rule of law at the global level. In his book, Bohman tries to break with the widespread assumption that an increase in democratization across national borders must be purchased at the price of a concentration of power that dangerously increases the potential for political domination. According to Bohman, this assumption is rooted in a narrow understanding of the democratic ideal - an understanding that needs to be replaced by a more complex one. (Published: 5 February 2010) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2010, pp. 13-19. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i1.4850. (shrink)

Occupational health covers technical, medical, social and legal aspects. This article analyzes it from the perspective of biodiversity, specifically aspects related to risky behavior and its protective factors that are contained in binding international instruments, resolutions and declarations issued by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization, which seek to improve safety and health at work and in the environment. A bibliographic review of legal documents and scientific articles of reference was conducted to that end. The challenge is (...) to raise awareness among public and business policy-makers concerning the complexity of the phenomenon of work. The implementation of good practices in the various sectors involved is emphasized as well. (shrink)

The Lewisean counterpart theorist– despite not defending a genuinely essentialist view of what is possible, de re, of individuals – generally has a way to make essentialist claims come out as true, in those contexts in which they are endorsed by a committed essentialist. In this paper, I am going to show that the normal system that the Lewisean adopts when she wants to make the essentialist a truth-teller does not work with Kit Fine: his essentialist beliefs, which support his (...) counterexamples to the modal account of essentialism, cannot come out as true, in any contexts whatsoever, under the Lewisean view. After arguing that this represents a genuine problem for Lewis’s theory, I will propose a solution. I will indeed show that the Lewisean has a principled way to account for Fine’s essentialist beliefs, consistently with her own counterpart-theorist reading of them. (shrink)