Teaching business ethics effectively may prepare future leaders and managers to better deal with delicate situations that they might face in the workplace. However, such an aim is one of the biggest challenges that educators at universities are called on to solve. An increasing number of scholars are invoking the role of prudence in the virtue ethics context as a viable approach to teach students how to manage ethical dilemmas. In this regard, this paper discusses the “St. Albans Family Enterprises” (...) case study that can serve as an instrument to help students and practitioners develop their ethical decision-making ability and to foster a disposition towards applying sound judgment or what can be called in classical terms, prudence. The teaching note that accompanies the case study offers guidance to educators about how the case can be used for teaching purposes, and explains the implications of exercising practical wisdom within a virtue ethics framework. (shrink)

This case study can serve as an instrument to help students and practitioners develop their ethical decision-making ability, in particular practical wisdom within a virtue ethics framework. St. Albans Family Enterprises is a group of companies with three business lines: petrol stations, flower exportation and women´s fashion retail establishments, with around 300 employees and 20 stores in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol. Apparently, an alleged leakage of sensitive information took place at the Head Office, involving several employees who found (...) themselves in a delicate professional situation and who happened to be relatives. Senior management are facing ethical dilemmas with respect to these employees but also with respect to themselves who feel partly responsible for having generated such compromising situation for some employees. (shrink)

Embryonic development in a given species is orchestrated by genes regulating growth and differentiation in a stereotyped and conserved manner, resulting in embryos of consistent size and shape. Several signaling pathways, including that of Sonic Hedgehog (SHH), have been implicated in these processes. Recent experiments with Gas1 indicate that it may act as a growth-inducing gene, challenging its previous function as a gene specifically involved in growth arrest. Moreover, GAS1, a GPI-linked membrane protein, can bind SHH, suggesting an interacting link (...) between growth and patterning through SHH and GAS1.(1-4) BioEssays 24:22–26, 2002. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

There is a peak in peer victimization during middle childhood, with multiple negative consequences. Parental use of corporal punishment and child aggression are the most widely studied predictors of this phenomenon. The aim of the present study was to analyze whether parental use of corporal punishment affects peer victimization through child aggression. This mediation model was explored for both mothers and fathers and for both physical and relational forms of aggression and peer victimization. Furthermore, we also analyzed whether the mediation (...) models were moderated by the sex of the child. Participants were 234 third graders (46% girls). Child aggression and victimization were measured by peers using the Mini Direct Indirect Aggression Inventory. Independent measures of mother’s and father’s use of corporal punishment were obtained from a PCA of items from the Parental Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). Conditional process modeling was carried out using a macro for SPSS developed byHayes (2013). Results indicated that aggression mediated the relation of parental corporal punishment to peer victimization. Some interesting moderating effects of sex in this mediation model were found; specifically, physical, and relational aggression mediated the relation of maternal corporal punishment to peer victimization only in boys. Few studies to date have addressed the connection between aggressive behavior and peer victimization as outcomes of corporal punishment, taking into consideration the role of parent’s and child’s sex, and both physical and relational forms of aggression and victimization during childhood. (shrink)

En el marco de una investigación mayor acerca de la duración en el arte, el cine y la literatura en Colombia, en este trabajo realizamos un estudio de caso de un corpus conformado por la videoinstalación El caballero de la fe, de José Alejandro Restrepo (2011), y los ensayos fílmicos Pirotecnia (2019), de Federico Atehortúa, y Bicentenario, de Pablo Álvarez (2020). La hipótesis que desarrollamos afirma que estas piezas audiovisuales colombianas contemporáneas, mediante un uso de los recursos técnicos disponibles (...) puestos sobre la materialidad de lo visual, transforman, reescriben, subvierten y sublevan el sentido de las imágenes. Son obras que, por un lado, dislocan el tiempo registrado de las imágenes al intervenir en sus tiempos, en las gradaciones de su intensidad y en los movimientos de sus elementos y, a su vez, los recolocan en el tiempo proyectado como parte del proceso de sublevación de la imagen. (shrink)

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

José L. Zalabardo puts forward a new interpretation of central ideas in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus concerning the structure of reality and our representations of it in thought and language. He presents the picture theory of propositional representation as Wittgenstein's solution to the problems that he had found in Bertrand Russell's theories of judgment. Zalabardo then attributes to Wittgenstein the view that facts and propositions are ultimate indivisible units, not the result of combining their constituents. This is Wittgenstein's solution to (...) the problem of the unity of facts and propositions. Finally, Zalabardo shows that Wittgenstein's views on the analysability of everyday propositions as truth functions of elementary propositions arise from his views on the epistemology of logic: this offers a new perspective on the nature of Tractarian analysis. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke rejects some of the most popular accounts of what meaning facts consist in on the grounds that they fail to accommodate the normative character of meaning. I argue that a widespread interpretation of Kripke's argument is incorrect. I contend that the argument does not rest on the contrast between descriptive and normative facts, but on the thought that speakers' uses of linguistic expressions have to be justified. I suggest that the line (...) of reasoning that I attribute to Kripke can be seen as putting pressure on the idea that predicate satisfaction is to be explained in terms of a relation between predicates and properties. (shrink)

The paper argues against Sosa’s claim that sensitivity cannot be differentially supported over safety as the right requirement for knowledge. Its main contention is that, although all sensitive beliefs that should be counted as knowledge are also safe, some insensitive true beliefs that shouldn’t be counted as knowledge are nevertheless safe.

Reliabilist accounts of knowledge are widely seen as having the resources for blocking sceptical arguments, since these arguments appear to rely on assumptions about the nature of knowledge that are rendered illegitimate by reliabilist accounts. The goal of this book is to assess the main arguments against the possibility of knowledge, and its conclusions challenge this consensus. The book articulates and defends a theory of knowledge that belongs firmly in the truth-tracking tradition, and argues that although the theory has the (...) resources for blocking the main standard lines of sceptical reasoning, there is a sceptical argument against which the theory offers no defence, as it doesn’t rely on any assumptions that the theory would render illegitimate. The book ends with the suggestion that the problem might have a metaphysical solution—that although the sceptical argument may make no illegitimate epistemological assumptions, it does rest on a questionable account of the nature of cognition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I argue that some of the central doctrines of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus can be seen as addressing the twin problems of semantic unity and...

I provide a construal of the epistemic regress problem and I take issue with the contention that a foundationalist solution is incompatible with an internalist account of warrant. I sketch a foundationalist solution to the regress problem that respects a plausible version of internalism. I end with the suggestion that the strategy that I have presented is not available only to the traditional versions of foundationalism that ascribe foundational status to experiential beliefs. It can also be used to generate a (...) version of internalist foundationalism based on reliabilist principles. (shrink)

The paper deals with the interpretation of Wittgenstein's views on the power of occurrent mental states to sort objects or states of affairs as in accord or in conflict with them, as presented in the rule-following passages of the Philosophical Investigations. I shall argue first that the readings advanced by Saul Kripke and John McDowell fail to provide a satisfactory construal of Wittgenstein's treatment of a platonist account of this phenomenon, according to which the sorting power of occurrent mental states (...) is to be explained by reference to the mind's ability to grasp universals. I contend that the argument that Kripke extracts from Wittgenstein's discussion doesn't succeed in undermining the platonist position. Then I argue that McDowell's reading exhibits a more serious shortcoming: the position that he ascribes to Wittgenstein is indistinguishable from the platonist account. Then I put forward a proposal as to how to articulate the relationship between Wittgenstein's views and the platonist position. (shrink)

Propaganda has been historically used for the benefit of certain social groups faced up to another. This propaganda is not always ethical at all. It is based on misconceptions, lies, and fallacies. We have analyzed (by using an experimental Psychology task) the presence and cognitive weight of certain mental footnotes and their influence on the Reasoning of Hispanic-Americans (Ecuadorian). These mental footnotes have been extracted from the classical work “A brief account of the destruction of the Indies” of Bartolomé de (...) las Casas in 1552. The most relevant and significant finding of this study is the clear evidence that nowadays we can still find these historical falsehoods in the current cognitive system of Ecuadorian people which are product of a well-planned and maliciously orchestrated propaganda. We conclude that all the contents of the Spanish black legend are the consequences of the aspirations of some social sectors to boycott the Spanish culture. (shrink)

An introduction to the basic concepts and results of contemporary logic, including a discussion of the basic mathematical tools needed to master the technical aspects of the subject.

Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity – particularly diversity of viewpoints – for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine (...) the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology. (shrink)

Replies to contributions to a symposium on the book, Scepticism and Reliable Belief.

I focus on a family of inferences that are intuitively incapable of producing knowledge of their conclusions, although they appear to satisfy sufficient conditions for inferential knowledge postulated by plausible epistemological theories. They include Moorean inferences and inductive-bootstrapping inferences. I provide an account of why these inferences are not capable of producing knowledge. I argue that the reason why these inferences fail to produce knowledge of their conclusions is that inferential knowledge requires that the subject is more likely to believe (...) the premises of the inference if the conclusion is true than if it is false. I end by comparing the treatment of these cases that emerges from the approach that I recommend with the position advocated by Sherrilyn Roush in her recent book, Tracking Truth (2005). (shrink)

The paper deals with Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism. It considers the objections to the argument raised by David Lewis, Mark Heller, James van Cleve, Anthony Brueckner and others, to the effect that Putnam's reasoning fails to undermine versions of metaphysical realism which construe reference along externalist lines. I argue that the version of Putnam's argument that his critics have attacked is indeed powerless against externalist accounts of reference, but that, on a different construal, the argument puts genuine (...) pressure on externalism. On the version of the argument that I develop, the thrust of the model-theoretic considerations is that an externalist construal of reference would make grasp of reference facts impossible. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the only book-length work to have been published during his lifetime, continues to generate interest and scholarly debate. This volume of new essays showcases contemporary ideas on how to interpret the Tractatus and throws new light on some of its most challenging passages.

Understanding compositional practices is a major goal of musicology and music theory. Compositional practices have been traditionally viewed as disembodied and idiosyncratic. This view makes it hard to integrate musical creativity into our understanding of the general cognitive processes underlying meaning construction. To overcome this unnecessary isolation of musical composition from cognitive science, in this conceptual analysis, we approach compositional processes with the analytic tools of blending theory, material anchoring, and enaction. Our case study is Iannis Xenakis’ use of sieves (...) for distributing rhythmic patterns inPsappha. Though disregarded in previous accounts, the timeline and the gearwheel provide crucial conceptual templates for anchoring Xenakis’ idea of time for this score. This case study of conceptual integration templates for temporal representation seeks to gain insight into musical creativity, embodiment, and blending, especially into how virtual interactions with material structures facilitate the construction of complex meanings. (shrink)

Information theoretic semantics proposes to construe predicate reference in terms of nomological relations between distal properties and properties of representational mental events. Research on the model has largely concentrated on the problem of choosing the nomological relation in terms of which distal properties are to be singled out. I argue that, in addition to this, an information theoretic account has to provide a specification of which properties of representational mental events will play a role in determining reference, qua bearers of (...) nomological relations. I contend that this task poses a serious additional challenge to the viability of the model. (shrink)

A partir de la revisión de bibliografía especializada y del análisis crítico-constructivo del trabajo de Dow (2013) que examina los anacronismos existentes en la recreación digital de la ciudad de Florencia en el videojuego Assassin’s Creed II (2009), el presente trabajo explora la capacidad que tienen este tipo de videojuegos para reconstruir la ambientación de un período histórico concreto a partir del uso de anacronismos derivados de licencias creativas y de las necesidades artísticas propias del videojuego. Los resultados demuestran que (...) el anacronismo es una herramienta que los desarrolladores de videojuegos históricos utilizan de forma intencionada para transmitir una imagen del pasado que resulte vigente y atractiva en la actualidad. Igualmente se evidencia la necesidad de una metodología propia dentro de los denominados Game Studies que aborde el videojuego como objeto de estudio artístico lejos del enfoque de líneas de investigación como los Historical Game Studies y otras disciplinas humanísticas. (shrink)

The paper deals with our ability to classify objects as being of a certain kind on the basis of information provided by the senses (empirical classification) and to ascribe empirical predicates to objects on the basis of these classificatory verdicts (empirical predication). I consider, first, the project of construing the episodes in which this ability is exercised as involving universals. I argue that this construal faces epistemological problems concerning our access to the universals that it invokes. I present the empiricist (...) strategy for dealing with these problems by appeal to sensory qualities, and argue that it rests on a mistake. Then I turn to sketching an account of our faculty of empirical classification and predication which doesn't invoke universals. The account takes as its starting point the nominalist construal of sense experience to be found in the work of C. I. Lewis and Nelson Goodman. I argue that this construal has the resources for explaining some of the central features of the practice of empirical predication. There are those who feel that our ability to understand general terms ... would be inexplicable unless there were universals as objects of apprehension. And there are those who fail to detect, in such appeal to a realm of entities over and above the concrete objects in space and time, any explanatory value. W. V. O. Quine, ‘Logic and the Reification of Universals’. (shrink)

I consider the problem of reflective knowledge faced by views that treat sensitivity as a sufficient condition for knowledge, or as a major ingredient of the concept, as in the analysis I advance in Scepticism and Reliable Belief. I present the problem as concerning the correct analysis of SATs — beliefs to the effect that one of my current beliefs is true. I suggest that a plausible analysis of SATs should treat them as neither true nor false when they ascribe (...) truth to a non-existent belief. I argue that the problem is inescapable if we construe SATs as ascribing the property of truth to a belief. Deflationism manages to avoid the problem of reflective knowledge, but it does so by violating alethic priority — the principle that our account of representation must be built on our account of truth. I argue that we can avoid the problem of reflective knowledge while preserving alethic priority with a pragmatist account of truth — according to which truth is explicated in terms of the rules that govern the practice of assessing judgments and related items as true or false. (shrink)

This volume comprises nine lively and insightful essays by leading scholars on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, focusing mainly on his early work.

I discuss the account of logical consequence advanced in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I argue that the role that elementary propositions are meant to play in this account can be used to explain two remarkable features that Wittgenstein ascribes to them: that they are logically independent from one another and that their components refer to simple objects. I end with a proposal as to how to understand Wittgenstein's claim that all propositions can be analysed as truth functions of elementary propositions.

According to actualism, modal reality is constructed out of valuations (combinations of truth values for all propositions). According to possibilism, modal reality consists in a set of possible worlds, conceived as independent objects that assign truth values to propositions. According to possibilism, accounts of modal reality can intelligibly disagree with each other even if they agree on which valuations are contained in modal reality. According to actualism, these disagreements (possibilist disagreements) are completely unintelligible. An essentially actualist semantics for modal propositional (...) logic specifies which sets of valuations are compatible with the meanings of the truth-functional connectives and modal operators without drawing on formal resources that would enable us to represent possibilist disagreements. The paper discusses the availability of an essentially actualist semantics for modal propositional logic. I argue that the standard Kripkean semantics is not essentially actualist and that other extant approaches also fail to provide a satisfactory essentially actualist semantics. I end by describing an essentialist actualist semantics for modal propositional logic. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the two central ingredients of Laurence BonJour’s position on empirical knowledge that have survived the transition from his earlier coherentist views to his current endorsement of the doctrine of the given: his construal of the problem of the epistemic regress and his rejection of an internalist solution to the problem. The bulk of the paper is devoted to a critical assessment of BonJour’s arguments against externalism. I argue that they fail to put real pressure on (...) externalism, as they rely on a highly questionable conception of epistemic rationality and responsibility. Then, more briefly, I take issue with BonJour’s endorsement of the irrelevance thesis—the claim that even if externalism were true it would not offer a satisfactory solution to the epistemic regress problem. I contend that he is not entitled to subscribe this thesis unless he is prepared to abandon his construal of the problem. (shrink)

I use some ideas of Keith DeRose's to develop an (invariantist!) account of why sceptical reasoning doesn't show that I don't know that I'm not a brain in a vat. I argue that knowledge is subject to the risk-of-error constraint: a true belief won’t have the status of knowledge if there is a substantial risk of the belief being in error that hasn’t been brought under control. When a substantial risk of error is present (i.e. beliefs in propositions that are (...) false in nearby worlds), satisfying the constraint requires bringing the risk under control. This is achieved either by sensitivity, i.e. you wouldn’t have the belief if it were false, or by identifying evidence for the proposition. However, when the risk of error is not substantial (i.e. beliefs in propositions that are not false in nearby worlds), the constraint is satisfied by default. My belief that I am not a brain in a vat is insensitive and I have no evidence for it, but since it is not false in nearby worlds, it satisfies the constraint by default. (shrink)

I argue that our procedures for determining whether ascriptions of a predicate represent things as being a certain way are ultimately pragmatic. Pragmatic procedures are not subject to validation by the referential procedure – determining whether there is a property playing the role of its referent. Predicates can represent even if we can't provide an independent identification of its referent. For these predicates, the speakers’ knowledge of how they represent objects as being would have to be construed in terms of (...) the ascription practices they associate with the predicates. The same approach can be applied to semantic predicates, such as ‘is representational’ or ‘refers to’. They can be treated as representational even if we can't provide an independent identification of their referents. The availability of this position undermines accounts of the referents of semantic predicates in naturalistic terms. (shrink)

I take issue with Robert Brandom’s claim that on an analysis of knowledge based on objective probabilities it is not possible to provide a stable answer to the question whether a belief has the status of knowledge. I argue that the version of the problem of generality developed by Brandom doesn’t undermine a truth-tracking account of noninferential knowledge that construes truth-tacking in terms of conditional probabilities. I then consider Sherrilyn Roush’s claim that an account of knowledge based on probabilistic tracking (...) faces a version of the problem of generality. I argue that the problems she raises are specific to her account, and do not affect the version of the view that I have advanced. I then consider Brandom’s argument that the cases that motivate reliabilist epistemologies are in principle exceptional. I argue that he has failed to make a cogent case for this claim. I close with the suggestion that the representationalist approach to knowledge that I endorse and Brandom rejects is in principle compatible with the kind of pragmatist approach to belief and truth that both Brandom and I endorse. (shrink)

This work is not a specific assessment of Utility of Religion by John Stuart Mill, but a defence of what I think is a utilitarian, but not millian, view on the problem that work states, the question of the utility of religion in contemporary societies. I construct that view from neohumeanism more than from millian positions, notwithstanding, I postulate that view as a genuine utilitarian one. -/- Every cultural tradition makes a different approach to ethical and political theories. Spanish and (...) Ibero-American utilitarians make precisely it with Classical Utilitarianism. -/- From that point of view, Ibero-American people identifies utilitarianism with radical and enlightened tradition linked with the reform that through XVIIIth and XIXth centuries tried to undermine the foundations of conservative society in our nations. -/- This aim was not achieved, at least not completely; because of that, the pursuit of Utilitarianism remains opened between us. In the end, I will argue that Spanish and Ibero-American utilitarians connect utilitarianism with philosophical and political radicalism, and inside that Hispanic utilitarianism, plays an important role the criticism of social and political functions of Religion. -/- Maybe, part of the future of Utilitarianism in our cultural context depends on a return of the Theory to its radical roots, also in religious subjects. (shrink)

I argue that a target of the rule - following considerations is the thought that there are mental episodes in which a consciously accessible item guides me in my decision to respond in a certain way when I follow a rule. I contend that Wittgenstein’s position on this issue invokes a distinction between a literal and a symbolic reading of the claim that these processes of guidance take place. In the literal sense he rejects the claim, but in the symbolic (...) sense he sees nothing wrong with it. I consider some arguments that Wittgenstein deploys against the literal sense of the claim. (shrink)

Background: Several authors have focused on the aesthetics of nursing care from diverse perspectives; however, there are few studies about the sublime and the beautiful in nursing. Aim: To identify beautiful and sublime moments in the context of the aesthetics of nursing care. Methods: A theoretical reflection has been contemplated about sublime and beautiful values in the context of the aesthetics of nursing care from the cultural history perspective. For that purpose, a revision of this issue has been completed. The (...) terms ‘beautiful’ and ‘sublime’ have been analysed to identify the characteristics of both in the context of nursing care. Ethical consideration: We have followed all ethical requirements regarding the sources, conducting research and authorship. There is no conflict of interest in this paper. Results: With aesthetic knowledge, the nurse expresses the artistic nature of nursing care by appreciating the act of caring for individuals. The sublime is a complex phenomenon, since apparently contrary feelings are interwoven. Nursing care is an art with an anthropological object-subject on which the ‘artist’ applies their prior knowledge and skills. Feelings and emotions that develop during the clinical nursing practice – especially at times sublime and beautiful, aesthetic – constitute experiences which are professionally significant. (shrink)

Many interpreters of the Tractatus accept that the book endorses an argument for simples based on the reflection that, since complexes exist only contingently, if names referred to complexes the propositions in which they figure would lack sense if their referents went out of existence. More specifically, most interpreters read 2.0211-2.0212 as putting forward this argument. My main goal in this paper is to attack this reading and to put forward an alternative. I argue that there is no good reason (...) for thinking that the Tractatus advances this argument. I argue that 2.0211-2, in particular, should not be read in this way, and put forward an alternative reading of the passage. (shrink)