When several agents together produce suboptimal outcomes, yet no individual could have made a difference for the better, Act Consequentialism counterintuitively judges that all involved agents act rightly. I address this problem by supplementing Act Consequentialism with a requirement of modal robustness: Agents not only ought to produce best consequences in the actual world, but they also ought to be such that they would act optimally in certain counterfactual scenarios. I interpret this Modally Robust Act Consequentialism as Act Consequentialism plus (...) a requirement of moral virtue, namely, to reliably act rightly and to act rightly for the right reasons. (shrink)

Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They (...) have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best. (shrink)

A sala de aula era clara, arejada, ampla e comportava vinte e cinco crianças de 6 anos de idade. Elas moravam num bairro da periferia da cidade, onde estava localizada a escota. Eram, portanto, crianças filhas de famílias de baixa renda. A professora era jovem, entusiasmada, democrática, residia perto da escola, fazendo parte da mesma comunidade das crianças. Ela estava fortemente incorporada pelo trabalho pedagógico fundamentado em Freinet. A classe era dividida em "ateliers", que as crianças chamavam de "caninhos", distribuídos (...) da seguinte maneira: o cantinho da Construção, cujos materiais eram blocos de madeira, caixas de papelão em diversos tamanhos e paus de vassoura coloridos, grandes, médios e pequenos; o das Artes continha tintas, pincéis, giz, giz de cera, lápis de cor, "a caixa de carimbos", papel jornal, roupas usadas de adulto, maquiagem, cola, tesoura e material de sucata; o cantinho da Escrita guardava o quadro-negro, lápis, cadernos de desenho grandes, folhas de papel de computador, papel pardo e papel sulfit; no da Biblioteca estavam os livros de estória e revistas diversas; o do Museu era identificado por objetos curiosos trazidos de casa pelas crianças, tais como pedras consideradas por elas diferentes e bonitas, vidros contendo areia colorida trabalhada artisticamente. [...] Palavras-chave: Carimbos; Pré-Escola; Biblioteca escolar. (shrink)

This paper argues against the idea of climate change refugeehood. Drawing on political realism, it reconstructs the idea and function of refugeehood in international politics. Refugees are not the agencyless victims merely in search of rescue by states of the Global North, as the idea of climate refugeehood as a form of humanitarian refugeehood would have it. Nor are they simply a function of reparative justice, or of defending international state legitimacy. To liberal democracies, refugees are those fleeing political oppression. (...) They hold an important political function in inter-state relations in undermining rival political systems and strengthening liberal democratic regimes, both ideally and materially. The idea of climate refugeehood collides with the role refugeehood plays in international politics, the reasons for their admission, and the conceptualization of their plight and function. It ought, hence, to be rejected. (shrink)

This essay examines the nature of man within the scope of situational philosophy. It explores the writing of William Golding to subvert intellectual error on racism. Besides, it challenges any claim to absolute moral refinement since existential situation set the stage for the unfolding of man. The radical transformation of Jack Merridew and the situational response of Ralph are used as philosophical base to explain the dynamism of man in the face of changing situation. However, the analysis of some scholars (...) on the black race reveals a fundamental philosophy that misses many fundamental points. This paper therefore advocates an incursion into appropriate political framework and dismissal of race based supremacist philosophy. (shrink)

Este artigo visa analisar de que modo as questões pertinentes à situação do Paraguai do Pós-Guerra da Tríplice Aliança serviram de instrumento de luta político-partidária entre nacionalistas e autonomistas durante a campanha presidencial argentina de 1873 e 1874. Para isso, foram consultados alguns jornais de Buenos Aires, uma vez que eram os principais canalizadores dos debates públicos e difusores de representações. Da análise das fontes pode-se apontar que a facção autonomista fez daquele conflito, da ocupação do Paraguai e das questões (...) pendentes daquele evento uma das suas principais armas de combate em sua luta eleitoral contra o nacionalismo. (shrink)

La nada y el vacío son conceptos que podemos reconocer como fundamentales en la filosofía oriental, sin embargo, a diferencia de las concepciones adoptadas en Occidente, en el pensamiento antiguo chino –y haciendo énfasis en el daoísmo (??)– la nada no se presenta como algo de carácter ontológico, sino como un estado previo indefinible. De manera similar, el espacio vacío se manifestaba en las artes como la representación del lugar en el que ocurrían los cambios y las transformaciones de la (...) realidad, apuntando hacia el ideal del artista en dejarse fluir durante el proceso de creación. De esta manera se hacía presente la ausencia, acercándose al origen de todas las cosas. (shrink)

Editions and translations were a major part of the work of French philosophers in the 19th century. They were not considered trivial tasks but philosophical works unto themselves. In this article, I show that to be considered as such, it is necessary to identify the reasons that would spark an author’s interest in the text he was publishing and the effects he expected from its publication in the philosophical field. I focus on the case of Blaise Pascal in the second (...) half of the 19th century. My goal is to underline that the matter of Pascal’s inclusion or exclusion from the philosophical “canon” led two philosophers, who were hostile to his thought, to publish Pascal’s Pensées: Ernest Havet and Léon Brunschvicg. Their aim was not to declare themselves “against” Pascal but rather to integrate their edition of his texts into their own philosophical projects. (shrink)

This paper deals with the challenges of rationing of existential goods due to scarcity and conflicting interests (at the latest in the question of costs). The legal-political example pursued in this paper is rationing in the health care system, i. e. in curative and partly also in preventive measures. In each case - and in everyday life and by no means only in extreme corona pandemic situations - it is a question of whether there are absolute, ponder-proof claims to certain (...) goods. Ultimately, this is to be denied, even if rationing, especially in Germany, is usually concealed behind vague concepts such as the medical necessity and economic efficiency of treatment. But the public authorities cannot escape the weighing process - even if its consequences are often fatal in industrial society. In particular, misunderstandings of human dignity as well as skewed accusations of utilitarianism and a misleading pseudo-controversy between deontology and consequentialism have for a long time obscured the fact that in liberal democracies a balancing of different aspects of freedom and freedom preconditions is inevitable. Due to parliamentary reservations, however, this weighing must not be outsourced to administrative committees. Caution is called for in all of this with the economic cost-benefit analysis, which is hardly tenable in its foundations, with egalitarian approaches, and with the traditional but unfounded idea that fundamental rights are primarily (or exclusively) protected in single situations and are not relevant in the case of mass concern. Based on the latter point, it can also be shown that the previous tendency is not convincing to judge areas such as curative health treatment, preventive corona hazard control and fine dust or climate policy as being completely different from each other in terms of fundamental rights. (shrink)

El filósofo Mario Bunge ha sido el más notable investigador de la epistemología en nuestros días. Su preferencia por la ciencia y su rechazo hacia la pseudociencia son evidentes. Así, se reconoce que la filosofía de Bunge fue analítica. En consecuencia, Bunge también manifestó su desacuerdo con aquellas filosofías (en su mayoría continentales) que son anticientíficas o que no hayan promovido el estudio de la ciencia. De este modo, se analizan las razones por las que Bunge rechazó a Hegel, Husserl (...) y Heidegger. Este rechazo lleva a investigar las bases del negacionismo y la posverdad y, finalmente, se realiza un balance entre la postura de Bunge y el florecimiento de la desinformación en la actualidad. (shrink)

El reinado de Fernando III de Castilla y León constituye un período de transición entre las viejas curias plenas regias alto y plenomedievales y la baja Edad Media en la que se desarrollará ya con intensidad la institución de las Cortes. A través del presente trabajo abordamos el estudio del proceso transformador jurídico-institucional de las antiguas curias regias a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XII, así como las manifestaciones que de este proceso apreciamos en el reinado de Fernando (...) III, con especial incidencia en el “ordenamiento” promulgado por este monarca en las cortes de Sevilla de 1250. (shrink)

For about 200 years, the opening verses of the final scene of Plautus’s “Bacchides” have been commonly edited in such a fashion that the speaker assignations produce a contradictory and dramatically weak dialogue. By a few minor modifications, a coherent dialogue can be restored. The two Bacchis sisters are consistently characterized and their contrasting attitudes and temperaments correspond to those of the two old men, who, too, are presented as two opposites. Since the corresponding scene in Menander’s “Dis Exapaton” must (...) have been designed quite differently, the symmetrical composition is entirely Plautus’s own work and is witness to his careful composition and aesthetic judgement. (shrink)