In this article, we develop an approach for the moral assessment of research and development networks on the basis of the reflective equilibrium approach proposed by Rawls and Daniels. The reflective equilibrium approach aims at coherence between moral judgments, principles, and background theories. We use this approach because it takes seriously the moral judgments of the actors involved in R & D, whereas it also leaves room for critical reflection about these judgments. It is shown that two norms, namely reflective (...) learning and openness and inclusiveness, which are used in the literature on policy and technological networks, contribute to achieving a justified overlapping consensus. We apply the approach to a case study about the development of an innovative sewage treatment technology and show how in this case the two norms are or could be instrumental in achieving a justified overlapping consensus on relevant moral issues. (shrink)

In this paper we report on our experiences with using network analysis to discern and analyse ethical issues in research into, and the development of, a new wastewater treatment technology. Using network analysis, we preliminarily interpreted some of our observations in a Group Decision Room session where we invited important stakeholders to think about the risks of this new technology. We show how a network approach is useful for understanding the observations, and suggests some relevant ethical issues. We argue that (...) a network approach is also useful for ethical analysis of issues in other fields of research and development. The abandoning of the overarching rationality assumption, which is central to network approaches, does not have to lead to ethical relativism. (shrink)

O artigo busca refletir sobre a trajetória do filósofo francês Jean-Paul Sartre e sobre os elementos encontrados em suas reflexões que podem inspirar um fazer para a psicologia clínica no contemporâneo. Neste esforço, partiremos de um olhar para a biografia de Sartre desde seus primeiros anos até a compreensão da inexorável conexão entre existente e mundo. Olhando para a noção de engajamento defendida por Sartre, apontaremos para algumas questões políticas e sociais as quais ele correspondeu em seu tempo. Em seguida, (...) olharemos para questões contemporâneas que suas proposições nos auxiliam a pensar e em como sua filosofia nos acena para caminhos possíveis para um fazer clínico que seja engajado no horizonte histórico que é o nosso. (shrink)

Economies of scale and equivalent consumption units, which are present in households, must be considered in the measurement of monetary poverty, in order to obtain indicators that approximate the reality of each household. Therefore, in this research, monetary poverty in Ecuador is measured and analyzed at the provincial level for the period 2009–2016. It works with data from the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment and the INEC methodology is used to measure poverty, but per-capita income is replaced by (...) equivalent income, generated by applying a one-parameter scale and two two-parameter scales. The main results show that monetary poverty rates are significantly lower when equivalent income is applied, that there is high poverty sensitivity depending on the equivalence scale used and that the provinces with the highest levels of poverty are located in the Amazon region. (shrink)

This paper inquires into the nature of intertheoretic relations between psychology and neuroscience. This relationship has been characterized by some as one in which psychological explanations eventually will fall away as otiose, overthrown completely by neurobiological ones. Against this view it will be argued that it squares poorly with scientific practices and empirical developments in the cognitive neurosciences. We analyse a case from research on visual perception, which suggests a much more subtle and complex interplay between psychology and neuroscience than (...) a complete take-over of the former by the latter. In the case of vision, cross-theory influences between psychology and neuroscience go back and forth, resulting in refinement in both disciplines. We interpret this case study as showing that: (1) Mutual co-evolution of psychological and neurobiological theories, exemplifying persisting top-down influences from psychology, is a more empirically adequate way to describe psychoneural theory relations than a view on co-evolution, favoured by reductionists, which regards the cross-theory contributions from psychology as merely heuristically useful with no enduring influence on neurobiological theorizing; (2) In research on vision, discovering (or hypothesizing) the neural basis of functions vindicates psychological approaches, it does not eliminate them; (3) Current work on vision shows that many perceptual phenomena must be understood in terms of dynamical interactions between an observer and his/her environment. Therefore, we argue that internalist characterizations of the visual system must be supplemented with externalist accounts that address these reciprocal observer-environment interactions involved in vision. Such processes seem quite different from (internal) cellular and molecular ones, and as such seem to lie outside the scope of neuroscientific inquiry. We conclude that psychoneural reduction or elimination is implausible as a meta-theoretical prediction of theory choice in empirical work. Instead, this case study of vision shows that both psychology and neuroscience contribute to, and complement one another in the study of visual perception. (shrink)

La philosophie hédoniste de Michel Onfray est en son fond une philosophie tragique dont l’horizon métaphysique ultime est le néant. Ce thème et ses multiples résonances dans l’œuvre d’Onfray sera étudié ici à trois niveaux : le néant individuel de la mort, le néant des civilisations disparues et enfin l’horizon cosmique du néant. Un jour tout disparaîtra, y compris la pensée humaine que tout disparaîtra. De même que notre vie est une parenthèse entre deux néants, de même notre civilisation et (...) de même l’espèce humaine et l’univers dans son ensemble. Être philosophe, c’est pour Onfray savoir regarder cette vérité en face. (shrink)

Les formes et enjeux d’une patrimonialisation post-industrielle débordent la traduction littérale d’un patrimoine entendu comme héritage. Elle nous invite à considérer les traces de l’industrie – en l’occurrence de la mine – comme inscrites dans un processus toujours inachevé de protection, d’interprétation et de création, dont les enjeux ne sont assurément pas réductibles à la passion du collectionneur, ni même à la mise en tourisme d’un patrimoine envisagé comme vitrine culturelle d’une région. À partir d’un travail de recherche-accompagnement réalisé en (...) 2002-2003 pour la région Nord – Pas-de-Calais, nous interrogeons les formes de communication et de patrimonialisation du bassin minier visant, notamment, à le faire reconnaître au titre d’un patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO. La problématique d’une reconversion prend ici son sens dans des formes actives d’interprétation culturelle, notamment artistique et environnementale, qui participent d’une relecture de l’activité économique et sociale passée et présente.The questions raised by post-industrial museums and their different forms challenge the idea of “heritage” taken as meaning an “inheritance”. They are an invitation to consider the traces of an industry – mining in this case – as part of an unfinished process of conservation, interpretation and creation, which is driven by more than a passion for collection or even the need to attract the interest of tourists in a heritage collection intended as a showcase for a region. A research and accompaniment project in 2002-2003 for the Nord – Pas-de-Calais region was our starting point for this investigation into the forms of communication and the treatment of heritage in this mining area, which was aiming, in particular, to achieve recognition as a UNESCO world heritage. Here, the economic conversion issue takes on particular significance in the active forms of cultural – and especially artistic and environmental - interpretation that stem from new ways of envisaging economic and social activities past and present. (shrink)

Of all the distinctive features of the Buddhist religion, one of the most neglected is the sangha . Scholars give much attention to the study of texts and commentaries, the analysis of doctrines and the classification of schools. But the core of the Buddhist religion is the sangha , the community of bhikkhus around whose corporate life the religion is moulded. It is the existence and structure of the sangha which has shaped the history of Buddhism, enabled it to take (...) root in new countries, and given it the customs and rituals which have made it a religion rather than a small sect. (shrink)

Artificial placenta technologies (also termed ‘artificial wombs’) for use in place of conventional neonatal intensive care are increasingly closer to first-in-human use. There is growing ethical interest in partial ectogestation (the use of an artificial placenta to continue gestation of an underdeveloped human entity extra uterum), however, there has been little reflection on the ethical issues in the design of the technology. While some have noted the importance of such reflection, and others have noted that a ‘value sensitive design’ approach (...) should be preferred, they have not elaborated on what this means. In this article, we consider what a value sensitive design approach to artificial placenta design might encompass. We believe that applying this framework to the topic at hand raises theoretical and substantive ethical questions that merit further elucidation. Highlighting that there is a careful need to separate preferences from values and that our intervention should be considered only a starting point, we explore some of the values that could be used to make ethical design choices about the artificial placenta: efficacy, compassion and accessibility. (shrink)

Talvez “redescobrimento” seja uma caracterização adequada para designar o _status_ do movimento neokantiano atualmente. Se, por um lado, o neokantismo tem recebido uma maior atenção em diversos lugares da Europa, América do norte, Ásia, e em alguns países da América Latina, por outro, na ainda jovem cultura filosófica brasileira, o estudo desse importante e decisivo movimento é algo atípico dentro de nossas instituições de ensino, para dizer o mínimo. De fato, a quantidade de trabalhos acadêmicos, artigos e livros sobre as (...) filosofias de autores como Cassirer, Windelband, Cohen, Lask, Natorp, Rickert e tantos outros que fizeram parte desse plural movimento filosófico está muito aquém do que eles realmente merecem. Sem dúvidas, esse “acerto de contas” com tais personagens seria uma tarefa muito mais árdua se não tivéssemos à nossa disposição os _Estudos_ _Neokantianos_, do Professor Mario Ariel González Porta. (shrink)