Abstract It would be puzzling if the morally best agents were not so good after all. Yet one prominent account of the morally best agents ascribes to them the exact motivational defect that has famously been called a “fetish.” The supposed defect is a desire to do the right thing, where this is read de dicto . If the morally best agents really are driven by this de dicto desire, and if this de dicto desire is really a fetish, then (...) the morally best agents are moral fetishists. This is puzzling. I resolve the puzzle by showing that on a proper understanding of the interaction between de dicto and de re moral motivation, it is not only not fetishistic, but quite possibly desirable, to be motivated by a de dicto desire to do the right thing. My argument relies partly on an appeal to a non-buck-passing account of moral rightness, according to which rightness is itself an additional reason-giving property over and above the right-making properties of an action. If this account of moral rightness is correct, then we would expect the morally best agents to exhibit de dicto moral motivation. However, since their de dicto desire acts in concert with de re desires, there is no reason to consider it a fetish. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9825-z Authors Vanessa Carbonell, Philosophy Department, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210374, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0374, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

If the traditional problem of demandingness is that a theory demands too much of all agents, for example by asking them to maximize utility in every decision, then we should ask whether there is a related problem of “differential demandingness”, when a theory places vastly different demands on different agents. I argue that even according to common-sense morality, the demands faced by particular agents depend on a variety of contingent factors. These include the general circumstances, the compliance of others, the (...) available resources, the agent’s relevant relationships, the agent’s psychological constitution, and the agent’s knowledge. Some agents, for instance, find themselves in a “sacrifice hazard”: a situation where morality calls for a huge unforeseen sacrifice. I argue that if moral demands are differential, it is harder than one might think to assess a theory’s general level of demandingness in the abstract. (shrink)

The moral community is a social community, and as such it is vulnerable to social problems and pathologies. In this essay I identify a particular way in which participation in the moral community can be constrained by social factors. I argue that features of the social world—including power imbalances, oppression, intergroup conflict, communication barriers, and stereotyping—can make it nearly impossible for some members of the moral community to hold others responsible for wrongdoing. Specifically, social circumstances prevent some marginalized people from (...) engaging in what Stephen Darwall calls “felicitous moral address” (Darwall 2006). We should think of some members of the moral community as having “second-class moral citizenship” in ways that parallel second-class political citizenship. The injustice of second-class moral citizenship can be understood by drawing an analogy with Miranda Fricker’s notion of “epistemic injustice” (Fricker 2007). Fricker’s account of how people can be undermined in their capacity as knowers can be extended to show how people can be undermined in their capacity as makers of moral claims, which can be called “claimant injustice”. (shrink)

I argue for the existence of a ‘ratcheting-up effect’: the behavior of moral saints serves to increase the level of moral obligation the rest of us face. What we are morally obligated to do is constrained by what it would be reasonable for us to believe we are morally obligated to do. Moral saints provide us with a special kind of evidence that bears on what we can reasonably believe about our obligations. They do this by modeling the level of (...) sacrifice a person can realistically bear. Exposure to moral saints thus ‘ratchets-up’ our obligations by combating a type of ignorance that would otherwise defeat those obligations. (shrink)

Susan Wolf famously claimed that the life of the moral saint is unattractive from the “point of view of individual perfection.” I argue, however, that the unattractive moral saints in Wolf’s account are self-defeating on two levels, are motivated in the wrong way, and are called into question by real-life counter-examples. By appealing to a real-life case study, I argue that the best life from the moral point of view is not necessarily unattractive from the individual point of view.

Is a painful experience less bad for you if you will not remember it? Do you have less reason to fear it? These questions bear on how we think about medical procedures and surgeries that use an anesthesia regimen that leaves patients conscious – and potentially in pain – but results in complete ‘drug-induced amnesia’ after the fact. I argue that drug-induced amnesia does not render a painful medical procedure a less fitting object of fear, and thus the prospect of (...) amnesia does not give patients a reason not to fear it. I expose three mistakes in reasoning that might explain our tendency to view pain or discomfort as less fearful in virtue of expected amnesia: a mistaken view of personal identity; a mistaken view of the target of anticipation; and a mistaken method of incorporating past evidence into calculations about future experiences. Ultimately my argument has implications for whether particular procedures are justified and how medical professionals should speak with anxious patients about the prospect of drug-induced amnesia. (shrink)

We emerge from certain activities with an altered sense of self. Whether returning from a warzone or from an experience as common as caring for an aging parent, one might remark, “I’m not the same person I was.” I argue that such transformations are relevant to debates about what morality requires of us. To undergo an alteration in one’s self is to make a special kind of sacrifice, a sacrifice of self. Since projects can be more or less morally obligatory (...) to the extent that they require more or less sacrifice, we must incorporate these unique sacrifices into any accounting of the contours and limits of moral obligation. But sacrifices of self pose a special difficulty for any such accounting, precisely because of their transformative nature. Unlike most other sacrifices, they cannot be analyzed entirely in terms of wellbeing. Using real-world case studies and examples, I argue for the existence of two types of sacrifice of self, involving changes in identity and moral agency. I argue that sacrifices of self require particular attention because they may be extra difficult to compare with other costs and with moral gains. (shrink)

In this paper, I raise the problem of dealing with counterpossible conditionals for theories of subject matter. I argue that existing accounts of subject matter need to be revised and extended to be able to a) provide reasonable (potentially non-degenerate) verdicts about what counterpossibles are about, b) explain the intuition that counterpossibles are in some sense about what would happen if the antecedent were true, and c) explain in what sense counterpossibles can be about individuals. I sketch how one could (...) extend atom-based and way-based theories of subject matters to handle the problem. Then, I raise the problem that it might be desirable for a theory of subject matter to prevent the inference that certain counterpossibles are about the kinds of things that they seem to mention. (shrink)

In “Conscientious of the Conscious: Interactive Capacity as a Threshold Marker for Consciousness” (2013), Fischer and Truog argue that recent studies showing that some patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state are in fact in a minimally conscious state raise various ethical questions for clinicians and family members. I argue that these findings raise a further ethical dilemma about how and whether to seek the involvement of the minimally conscious person herself in decisions about her care. There may be (...) a conflict between doing what is believed to accord with the patient’s prior stated wishes and/or her best interests, on the one hand, and respecting her own potential decision-making capacity and epistemic authority, on the other. (shrink)

En México estamos siempre ocupados por las constantes reformas constitucionales, que sin pausa y sin tregua han ido modificando nuestra Carta Magna a un ritmo increíble durante las últimas décadas. En otros países, como por ejemplo en Estados Unidos, la preocupación surge precisamente por el motivo contrario: por la falta de movilidad de su texto constitucional, derivado de las dificultades que se tienen para llevar a cabo la reforma.

O presente artigo traz reflexões que envolvem infância e experiência a partir da área da educação e, particularmente, das ponderações em torno das pesquisas com crianças pequenas e da educação infantil. Os apontamentos impõem limites relativos a este lugar de estudo e delimita estes como parte de uma crítica e autocrítica da educação e das possibilidades de consolidação de uma Pedagogia da Infância. Nesta direção, no artigo se toma para esta reflexão a análise do sentido da experiência para as principais (...) teorias educacionais ou projetos educativos para a educação na infância, a fim de levar a uma demarcação dos contornos da experiência educativa na/da infância institucionalizada. Para tal, apresenta alguns elementos relativos à experiência educativa como experiência social a partir de estudos empíricos que dão visibilidade às ações das crianças como parte de suas vidas nos coletivos infantis. Por fim, indica como desafios para a possível consolidação de uma Pedagogia da Infância uma aproximação da Pedagogia às manifestações infantis, a criança em situação e as possibilidades de os processos educativos se pautarem na escuta, na dialogicidade e nas relações, possibilitando incluir, nas práticas educativas, as significações produzidas pelas próprias crianças em seus contextos de vida e suas manifestações culturais e expressivas. (shrink)

Resum: Actualitzar la didàctica de la filosofia i adaptar-la al nou context digital i social que ha convertit l’ensenyament en una activitat complexa però fonamental és un dels reptes didàctics que ha d’ orientar l’ensenyament filosòfic dirigit a la formació de ciutadans crítics i responsables d’una societat democràtica avançada. Amb aquesta finalitat és necessari posar la filosofia a l’abast de tothom, utilitzar les xarxes socials (Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) com a recursos didàctics per a l’ensenyament filosòfic, acompanyar la formació de (...) la joventut i proporcionar-los els instruments bàsics del pensament filosòfic com a ajuda en l’anàlisi d’una realitat en transformació.Paraules clau: didàctica, filosofia, TIC, xarxes socials, educació, ciutadania. English title: Teaching to think to people who does not want to learn. Or how to innovate in teaching philosophy in the age of digital idiotismAbstract: Updating philosophy didactics and adapting it to the new digital and social context which has turned teaching into a complex but essential activity is one of challenges in didactics that must guide our efforts to develop citizens’ critical awareness and responsibility in an advanced democratic society. To achieve this aim, we need to make philosophy accessible, using social networking sites—like Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, etc.—as didactic resources for teaching philosophy, accompanying young people in their education, and providing them with basic tools of philosophic thinking as a help for analysing a reality which is constantly changing.Keywords: didactics, philosophy, ICT, social networking sites, education, citizenship. (shrink)

The purpose of cultural competence education for medical professionals is to ensure respectful care and reduce health disparities. Yet as Berger and Miller (2021) show, the cultural competence framework is dated, confused, and self-defeating. They argue that the framework ignores the primary driver of health disparities—systemic racism—and is apt to exacerbate rather than mitigate bias and ethnocentrism. They propose replacing cultural competence with a framework that attends to two social aspects of structural inequality: health and social policy, and institutional-system activity; (...) and two psychological aspects of structural inequality: the clinical encounter, and the epistemic. -/- We agree with the structural approach. To that end, we think it would be fruitful to include attention to physical contributors to structural inequality, namely the material artifacts used in medicine. Devices, tools, and technologies can materialize biases, perpetuate oppression, and contribute to health disparities. Granted, not everything that interests philosophers can be squeezed into medical education. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons for including the study of material artifacts in education designed to reduce health disparities. First, devices and tools often carry forward biases from the past, and keep biases hidden from plain sight. Second, by studying these artifacts, future clinicians can begin to see themselves as part of a larger sociotechnical system. Finally, as medicine becomes increasingly tech-laden, it’s important for clinicians to see how material artifacts (including algorithms) connect individuals to structures. This will help to undermine oversimplified narratives according to which objective tools and technologies can correct for the bias and subjectivity of flawed human beings. (shrink)

In this paper, I give an overview of different models of understanding attribution and advance a contextualist account of understanding attribution. Whereas other contextualist accounts make the degree in which the epistemic states of the relevant agents satisfy certain invariant conditions context-sensitive, the proposed account makes the conditions themselves context-sensitive.

The well-being account of sacrifice says that sacrifices are gross losses of well-being. This account is attractive because it explains the relationship between sacrifice and moral obligation. However, sacrifices made on behalf of loved ones may cause trouble for the account. Loving sacrifices occur in a context where the agent’s well-being and the beneficiary’s well-being are intertwined. They present a challenge to individualism about well-being. Drawing inspiration from feminist philosophers and bioethicists, I argue that a notion of ‘relational well-being’, analogous (...) to ‘relational autonomy’, can help account for loving sacrifices without either undermining the well-being theory of sacrifice or minimizing the very real sacrifices made in caregiving situations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Aristotle's account of rhetoric goes beyond its previous consideration as an art of persuasion to be regarded as a suitable logic for human affairs. In the realm of ethics and politics, he needs to appeal to a logic that can deal with contingency without discarding the concept of truth. I claim that the double rapport of rhetoric with dialectic and ethical-political issues links public discourse with the question of rationality and practical truth. I will start with a brief overview (...) of two passages of the Rhetoric that account for the liaison of rhetoric with dialectic. Secondly, I consider two contributions that rhetoric theory makes to the enhancement of the rationality of ethics. Lastly, I will reflect on the relationship of rhetorical discourse with practical truth. RESUMEN La reflexión aristotélica sobre la retórica va más allá de su consideración previa como un arte de persuasión para ser comprendida como una lógica adecuada a los asuntos humanos. En el ámbito de la ética y la política se necesita apelar a una técnica de razonamiento que pueda lidiar con la contingencia, sin descartar el concepto de verdad. En este artículo defiendo que la doble relación de la retórica con las cuestiones dialécticas y ético-políticas vincula el discurso público con la cuestión de la racionalidad y la verdad práctica. Comenzaré con una breve descripción de dos pasajes de la Retórica que explican el vínculo de la retórica con la dialéctica. En segundo lugar, consideraré dos contribuciones que hace la teoría de la retórica al realce de la racionalidad de la ética. Por último, reflexionaré sobre la relación del discurso retórico con la verdad práctica. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza algunos temas de inteligencia artificial y ética. Desde una óptica humanista pone en el centro la reflexión antropológica para pasar a una exploración de la dimensión ética. En definitiva, el artículo realiza una defensa del ser humano, indaga sobre la responsabilidad ética de esa ciencia y muestra gran interés en que todos (pobres y ricos) se vean beneficiados por sus avances. La inteligencia artificial nos obliga a reflexionar de nuevo sobre los procesos éticos. Durante un tiempo parecía (...) que la ética de esta ciencia estaba dominada por filosofías transhumanistas. Es hora de poner al hombre en todas sus dimensiones en el centro del pensamiento. (shrink)

El presente artículo ha sido pensado como un análisis introductorio que explora la presencia de Schopenhauer en la novela filosófica Rupertine del Fino del filósofo y literato alemán Philipp Mainländer, debido a la exigua investigación que se ha realizado al respecto y a la ineluctable influencia que desplegó el filósofo pesimista en la obra de Mainländer, asimismo, dicho análisis se entreteje con algunos puntos de la Filosofía de la redención de Mainländer. El esquema que se sigue es, primero, desarrollar una (...) reflexión en torno a la búsqueda de sentido, relacionando esto con las diferentes posiciones que asumen los personajes de la novela filosófica ante la vida, los modos en que se desenvuelven en el mundo, entre otros aspectos, centrándonos en el personaje de Rupertine con el propósito de entrever otros aspectos que no se limiten a presentarla simplemente como una mujer apasionada, puesto que nos proponemos resignificar y repensar al personaje. Por último, ahondar en las antípodas de estas filosofías, en las que la constatación de los avatares de la existencia humana y el desenvolvimiento del mundo son el referente principal de este análisis. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show how context, in its multiple forms, as well as having influence in localization, organization, government, and business of firms, is also fundamental on an epistemological level because it acts directly on the dynamics of scientific knowledge construction. It will be shown how context takes on the role of a constraint that strongly influences the growth of the endless possibilities from which a scientific knowledge emerges, and how epistemology has to rethink the definition (...) of science, taking into account that it evolves in relation with its multiple contexts with which it reinvents itself every day. (shrink)

Preposição 'ni' no português brasileiro do centro-oeste -- Deslizamentos funcionais do verbo ver na língua falada em goiás/Brasil -- Variação no uso do imperativo gramatical no falar goiano : fatores internos -- Educação linguística de pessoas surdas : uma proposta de práticas de letramento nas perspectivas da tradução transcultural em travessias sociolinguísticas -- Reflexão linguística e consciência morfossintática no ensino da concordância verbal -- A gramática em esfera escolar e o uso da anáfora pronominal acusativa a de 3a pessoa -- (...) Sobre os fundamentos teóricos e metodológicos presentes nas orientações oficiais para o ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa na educação básica brasileeira -- Concordância verbal sob a ótica da Aprendizagem linguística ativa : reflexôes sobre uma estratégia de comprensão do fenômeno por meio da identificação de princípios. (shrink)

It is well-known that racism is encoded into the social practices and institutions of medicine. Less well-known is that racism is encoded into the material artifacts of medicine. We argue that many medical devices are not merely biased, but materialize oppression. An oppressive device exhibits a harmful bias that reflects and perpetuates unjust power relations. Using pulse oximeters and spirometers as case studies, we show how medical devices can materialize oppression along various axes of social difference, including race, gender, class, (...) and ability. Our account uses political philosophy and cognitive science to give a theoretical basis for understanding materialized oppression, explaining how artifacts encode and carry oppressive ideas from the past to the present and future. Oppressive medical devices present a moral aggregation problem. To remedy this problem, we suggest redundantly layered solutions that are coordinated to disrupt reciprocal causal connections between the attitudes, practices, and artifacts of oppressive systems. (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch a new model for the format of the content of understanding states, Compressible Graph Maximalism (CGM). In this model, the format of the content of understanding is graphical, and compressible. It thus combines ideas from approaches that stress the link between understanding and holistic structure (like as reported by Grimm (in: Ammon SGCBS (ed) Explaining Understanding: New Essays in Epistemollogy and the Philosophy of Science, Routledge, New York, 2016)), and approaches that emphasize the connection between (...) understanding and compression (like Wilkenfeld (Synthese 190(6):997–1016, 2018)). I argue that the combination of these ideas has several attractive features, and I defend the idea against some challenges. (shrink)

Do we have control over the content of our imaginings? More precisely: do we have control over what our imaginings are about? Intentionalists say yes. Until recently, intentionalism could be taken as the received view. Recently, authors like Munro & Strohminger (2021) have developed some arguments against it. Here, I tentatively join their ranks and develop a new way to think about the way in which imaginings develop their contents that also goes against intentionalism. My proposal makes use of what (...) we may call a ballistic framework for mental dynamics, which I sketch to some length. In this model, imaginings are articulated by ballistic events sensitive to constraints that modify the trajectories that imaginings trace in a special working space. This framework leaves room for alternatives to pre-assigned-content models, such as Kung’s (2016). In the ballistic-based models sketched here, and against intentionalism, imaginings can fail to be about what we intend them to be about. The framework also has applications beyond the intentionalism debate, some of which I will sketch. (shrink)

I argue that modal epistemology should pay more attention to questions about the structure and function of modal thought. We can treat these questions from synchronic and diachronic angles. From a synchronic perspective, I consider whether a general argument for the epistemic support of modal though can be made on the basis of modal thoughs’s indispensability for what Enoch and Schechter (2008) call rationally required epistemic projects. After formulating the argument, I defend it from various objections. I also examine the (...) possibility of considering the indispensability of modal thought in terms of its components. Finally, I argue that we also need to approach these issues from a diachronic perspective, and I sketch how to approach this task. (shrink)

Language is a cognitively demanding human trait, but it is also a fundamentally cooperative enterprise that rests on the motivation to share information. Great apes possess many of the cognitive prerequisites for language, but largely lack the motivation to share information. Callitrichids (including marmosets and tamarins) are highly vocal monkeys that are more distantly related to humans than great apes are, but like humans, they are cooperative breeders and all group members help raising offspring. Among primates, this rearing system is (...) correlated with proactive prosociality, which can be expressed as motivation to share information. We therefore propose that the unique coincidence of these two components in humans set the stage for language evolution: The cognitive component inherited from our great ape-like ancestors, and the motivational one added convergently as a result of cooperative breeding. We evaluate this scenario based on a review of callitrichd vocal communication and show that furthermore, they possess many of the mechanistic elements emphasized by the mirror system hypothesis of language evolution. We end by highlighting how more systematic phylogenetic comparisons will enable us to further promote our understanding of the role of cooperative breeding during language evolution. (shrink)

La Práctica Filosófica tiene lugar en el asesoramiento que realiza un filósofo con un cliente que le plantea un problema vital suyo. Este encuentro se realiza siempre mediante el diálogo. Sin embargo, este diálogo siempre está condicionado por unos presupuestos metafísicos del filósofo asesor porque, de hecho, estos condicionan toda acción del filósofo. En este dialogar conjunto, el cliente clarifica su relación con el entorno y le permite comprenderlo mejor. Esta comprensión genera en él un bienestar. El bienestar que gana (...) nuestro cliente no parece responder al resultado de una terapia si se toma la palabra en su significado actual, que tiene su origen en un cambio semántico al ser tomada del griego por el latín: la curación de un mal físico. El proceder de las terapias, alternativas o no, tampoco responde a la forma de comprender los problemas que es característica de la filosofía. En definitiva, las terapias no consideran al ser humano en su totalidad, como sí pretende hacerlo la filosofía. (shrink)

La inteligencia artificial doxástica (IAD) es un tipo de inteligencia artificial que reproduce actitudes doxásticas. Si la IAD cumple con las condiciones de paridad epistémica que se le exige a un humano, ¿podría ser también un igual epistémico? Dos iguales epistémicos sostienen propiedades cognitivas simétricas como la inteligencia, el razonamiento o la ausencia de sesgos. Para evaluar si alguien es un igual se tendrán en cuenta estas condiciones: (1) la igualdad probatoria, (2) la igualdad cognitiva y (3) revelación completa. La (...) IAD cumple tanto (1) como (2), pero es en (3) cuando se descubre que no puede ser un igual epistémico. Ésta responde con la opinión popular más aceptada estadísticamente, es incapaz de sostener y defender sus propias afirmaciones y éstas no son un genuino acto de habla. Es una máquina doxástica incapaz de señalar cuáles son las razones que guían su respuesta. (shrink)

El principio de proporcionalidad constituye hoy en día quizá el más conocido y el más recurrente "límite de los límites" a los derechos fundamentales, y en esa medida supone una barrera frente a intromisiones indebidas en el ámbito de los propios derechos. La idea de este libro es la de difundir entre los interesados una serie de herramientas hermenéuticas que son necesarias para lograr la adecuada protección de los derechos fundamentales. Las constituciones de América Latina, siguiendo la tendencia que ya (...) se apuntaba sobre el carácter fuertemente "materializado" de las cartas supremas de nuestros días, contienen todas ellas un amplio catálogo de derechos fundamentales. Pero su aplicación práctica ha dejado y sigue dejando mucho que desear. Esperamos que con la publicación de este libro se inicie un debate provechoso sobre las mejores formas de proteger los derechos fundamentales, a partir de una correcta interpretación de los mismos. Desde luego, Colombia lleva en este punto mucha ventaja respecto de otros países latinoamericanos, pues cuenta con la mejor jurisdicción constitucional de todos ellos. La Corte Constitucional de Colombia es reconocida y respetada en toda América Latina por su liderazgo intelectual y por su fuerte activismo progresista en materia de derechos fundamentales. (shrink)

POLITICS is a system of computer programs which simulates humans in comprehending and responding to world events from a given political or ideological perspective. The primary theoretical motivations were: (1) the implemention of a functional system which applies the knowledge structures of Schank and Abelson (1977) to the domain of simulating political belief systems; (2) the development of a tentative theory of intentional goal conflicts and counterplanning. Secondary goals of the POLITICS project include developing a representation for belief systems, investigating (...) cognitive processes such as goal‐directed inferencing, and the integration of several types of knowledge representations into a functional system. (shrink)