La crisis sanitaria mundial ha propiciado un fecundo debate iusfilosófico en lo referente a la protección de los derechos humanos. El nuevo escenario exige respuestas nuevas por parte de la filosofía del derecho. En este trabajo se somete a crítica la teoría del garantismo constitucional de Luigi Ferrajoli, cuestionándose su idoneidad como marco de referencia para afrontar los mencionados desafíos. La crítica se centra en la concepción ferrajoliana de la democracia y en su proyección cosmopolita. Se argumentará que la (...) extensión del constitucionalismo más allá del Estado debe realizarse a partir de un cosmopolitismo gradual y realista. (shrink)

Este artículo explora el concepto de trauma colectivo y su aplicación en el contexto histórico y social de las sociedades latinoamericanas. La transferencia del término «trauma colectivo» desde el campo del conocimiento psicológico a la esfera social e histórica plantea preguntas sobre su legitimidad y marco conceptual. El estudio examina la fidelidad de esta transferencia conceptual y su relación con la comprensión psicoanalítica temprana de los fenómenos traumáticos. El contexto cultural europeo de finales del siglo xix y principios del (...) siglo xx proporcionó la base para teorizar las consecuencias de experiencias intensas y violentas, lo que resultó en el concepto de «neurosis traumática», influenciado significativamente por el trabajo de Freud. El artículo discute la apropiación de herramientas psicoanalíticas en la crítica histórica y cultural para comprender eventos que desafían marcos tradicionales y la inteligibilidad social, como el Holocausto. La noción del trauma como una fuerza enigmática y recurrente en la experiencia histórica se explora a través del enfoque de los estudios del trauma. El artículo pone de relieve a destacados y destacadas académicas en este campo y su uso de conceptos psicoanalíticos, demostrando la preservación y aplicación significativa de estas nociones en la comprensión de fenómenos históricos y colectivos. Al acortar la brecha entre las experiencias psicológicas individuales y los traumas colectivos, los estudios del trauma ofrecen un enfoque único para interpretar y representar eventos que resisten las narrativas históricas tradicionales. (shrink)

A la luz de algunas críticas recientes, en el marco de este texto se busca impulsar un debate que tiene lugar en dos frentes: por una parte, la lógica del origen de la lógica y, por otra parte, la relación entre psicoanálisis y marxismo. Para ello se recuperan algunos textos publicados por Alain Badiou hacia finales de la década de 1960, en los que polemiza con Jacques-Alain Miller alrededor de los concepto de "sutura" y "sujeto" (Zizek), para situar tanto (...) las diversas posiciones como las coherentes reconsideraciones a lo largo de su trayectoria intelectual. En efecto, desde "El concepto de modelo" hasta su más reciente trilogía (Teoría del sujeto, El ser y el acontecimiento y Lógica de los Mundos), se propone una perspectiva que lejos de establecer jerarquías y subordinaciones busca promover conexiones a partir de las especificidades y las diferencias a través de esa vía particular que es la filosofía. De este modo resulta posible apreciar que, pese a su crítica respecto de la primacía de la lógica del significante, los conceptos propuestos por Jacques Lacan funcionaron como una notoria fuente de inspiración para Badiou, especialmente en relación con el sujeto del inconsciente. (shrink)

Since Darwin proposed that human musicality evolved through sexual selection, empirical evidence has supported intersexual selection as one of the adaptive functions of artistic propensities. However, intrasexual competition has been overlooked. We tested their relative importance by investigating the relationship between the self-perceived talent/expertise in 16 artistic and 2 sports modalities and proxies of intersexual selection and intrasexual competition in heterosexuals. Participants were 82 Brazilian men, 166 Brazilian women, 146 Czech men, and 458 Czech women. Factor analysis revealed five factors: (...) Literary-arts, Visual-arts, Musical-arts, Circus-arts, and Sports. Multivariate General Linear Model showed more associations of the arts to intersexual selection in women and to intrasexual selection in men, and overall more relationships in women than in men. In women, literary and musical-arts were related to elevated inter- and intrasexual selections proxies, visual and circus-arts were related to elevated intersexual selection proxies, and sports were related to intrasexual selection proxies. In men, literary-arts and sports were related to elevated inter- and intrasexual selection proxies, musical-arts were related to intrasexual proxies, and circus-arts were related to intersexual proxies; visual-arts did not have predictors. Although present in both sexes, each sexual selection component has different relative importance in each sex. Artisticality functions to attract and maintain long/short-term partners, and to compete with mating rivals. (shrink)

Presentation to the ethic@'s issue: n. 01, v. 19, (2020).

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu present a sophisticated argument in defense of the imperative of moral enhancement. They claim that without moral enhancement, the future of humanity is seriously compromised. The possibility of ultimate harm, caused by a dreadful terrorist attack or by a final unpreventable escalation of the present environmental crisis aggravated by the availability of cognitive enhancement, makes moral enhancement a top priority. It may be considered optimistic to think that our present moral (...) capabilities can be successfully improved by means of moral education, moral persuasion, and fear of punishment. So, without moral enhancement, drastic restrictions on human freedom would become the only alternative to prevent those dramatic potential outcomes. In this article, I will try to show that we still have reason to be less pessimistic and that Persson & Savulescu’s arguments are fortunately unconvincing. (shrink)

At the core of anthropomorphism lies a false-positive cognitive bias to over-attribute the pattern of the human body and/or mind. Anthropomorphism is independently discussed in various disciplines, is presumed to have deep biological roots, but its cognitive bases are rarely explored in an integrative way. I present an inclusive, multifaceted interdisciplinary approach to refine the psychological bases of mental anthropomorphism. I have integrated 13 conceptual dissections of folk finalistic reasoning into four psychological inference systems (physical, design, basic-goal and belief stances); (...) the latter three are truly teleological and thus prone to anthropomorphisms. I then have empirically integrated the cross-disciplinary genetic, neural, cognitive, psychiatric, developmental, comparative and evolutionary/adaptive evidence that converge supporting the nature of the distinct stances. The over-reactive calibration of the three teleological systems is framed as an evolved design feature to avoid harmful ancestral contexts. Nowadays, these stances easily engage with scientific reasoning about bio-evolutionary matters with negative and positive consequences. Design, basic-goal, and belief stances benefit biology by providing cognitive foundations, expressing a high-powered explanatory system, promoting functional generalization, fostering new research questions and discoveries, enabling metaphorical/analogical thinking and explaining didactically with brevity. Hence, it is neither feasible nor advantageous to completely eliminate teleology from biology. Instead, we should engage with the eight classes of problems in bio-philosophy and bio-education that relate to the three stances: types of anthropomorphism, variety of misunderstandings, misleading appeal, legitimacy controversy, gateway to mysticism, total prohibition and its backfire effect. Recognizing the distinction among design, basic-goal, and belief stances helps to elucidate much of the logic underlying these issues, so that it enables a much more detailed taxonomy of anthropomorphisms, and organizes the various misunderstandings about evolution by natural selection. It also offers a solid psychological grounding for anchoring definitions and terminology. This tripartite framework also shed some light on how to better deal with the over-reactive stances in bio-education, by organizing previous pedagogical strategies and by suggesting new possibilities to be tested. Therefore, this framework constitutes a promising approach to advance the debate regarding the psychological underpinnings of anthropomorphisms and to further support regulating and clarifying teleology and anthropomorphism in biology. (shrink)

Nietzsche's philosophy unfolds, at all times, in denouncing that the schools and universities in Germany serve, mostly, to domesticate as a modern force in favor of the values administered by the State. Considering this horizon, this article investigates the analytical background of the Nietzschean critique of education (Ersiehung) of his time to show the necessary tension that human formation (Bildung) emerges in the framework of his philosophy as the cultivation of new values. For that, it will be necessary to show (...) that another level of discipline, at the same time cause and effect of a unique and proper formative experience, must be triggered as a creative power of and for other existential values. (shrink)

Analisarei o método científico da personagem Simão Bacamarte do livro O Alienista de Machado de Assis a partir do pensamento de Nietzsche sobre a moral. Percebo que os estudos comportamentais do protagonista da obra machadiana são semelhantes durante o desenrolar de toda sua história: o que se modifica gradualmente é a intensidade classificatória entre o “certo” e o “errado” através da relativização e do detalhamento dos costumes do louco e do são. Os estudos psicológicos de Bacamarte se baseiam em suas (...) próprias concepções morais permitindo a aproximação filosófica com os textos nietzschianos que estudam a moral cuja “fundamentação” científica a transforma em um discurso normativo. No entanto, a intensificação desse discurso revela que o “certo” e o “errado” procuram abarcar as (des)semelhanças idiossincráticas enquanto método de avaliação comportamental – sem levar em conta que o seu julgamento é apenas uma interpretação, entre muitas, da existência. Dessa forma, a hipótese é a de que, quando levada ao extremo, a delimitação entre a loucura e a sanidade dissolve o seu próprio limite, pois a peculiaridade presente em cada pessoa representa um conjunto único de vivências e costumes que impossibilitam a comparação entre o certo e o errado, o são e o louco. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 1, Page 96-110, January 2022.

Humans have been using fire for hundreds of millennia, creating an ancestral expansion toward the nocturnal niche. The new adaptive challenges faced at night were recurrent enough to amplify existing psychological variation in our species. Night-time is dangerous and mysterious, so it selects for individuals with higher tendencies for paranoia, risk-taking, and sociability. During night-time, individuals are generally tired and show decreased self-control and increased impulsive behaviors. The lower visibility during night-time favors the partial concealment of identity and opens more (...) opportunities for disinhibition of self-interested behaviors. Indeed, individuals with an evening-oriented chronotype are more paranoid, risk-taking, extraverted, impulsive, promiscuous, and have higher antisocial personality traits. However, under some circumstances, such as respiratory pandemics, the psychobehavioral traits favored by the nocturnal niche might be counter-productive, increasing contagion rates of a disease that can evade the behavioral immune system because its disease cues are often nonexistent or mild. The eveningness epidemiological liability hypothesis presented here suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the evening-oriented psychobehavioral profile can have collectively harmful consequences: there is a clash of core tendencies between the nocturnal chronotype and the recent viral transmission-mitigating safety guidelines and rules. The pandemic safety protocols disrupt much normal social activity, particularly at night when making new social contacts is desired. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is contagious even in presymptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, which enables it to mostly evade our evolved contagious disease avoidance mechanisms. A growing body of research has indirectly shown that individual traits interfering with social distancing and anti-contagion measures are related to those of the nocturnal chronotype. Indeed, some of the social contexts that have been identified as superspreading events occur at night, such as in restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. Furthermore, nocturnal environmental conditions favor the survival of the SARS-CoV-2 virus much longer than daytime conditions. We compare the eveningness epidemiological liability hypothesis with other factors related to non-compliance with pandemic safety protocols, namely sex, age, and life history. Although there is not yet a direct link between the nocturnal chronotype and non-compliance with pandemic safety protocols, security measures and future empirical research should take this crucial evolutionary mismatch and adaptive metaproblem into account, and focus on how to avoid nocturnal individuals becoming superspreaders, offering secure alternatives for nocturnal social activities. (shrink)

Desenvolveremos no trabalho apresentado os temas que julgamos necessários para uma maior compreensão da filosofia da religião de Henri Bergson. Focaremos, mais especificamente, o aspecto dinâmico desta filosofia e suas conseqüências éticas. Portanto, em um primeiro momento, trataremos os dois sentidos da palavra religião, para o filósofo francês, em um segundo momento, estudaremos o misticismo como forma dinâmica de religião e, por último, a relação existente entre religião dinâmica e a é tica sociedade aberta.

In this article, I endeavor to analyze Wittgenstein’s remarks on certain aspects of Freud’s theory in the hope to show that his criticism can be epistemologically fruitful to pinpoint some insurmountable theoretical difficulties in the metapsychological aspect of psychoanalysis, especially with regard to Freud’s insistent remarks that his deep psychology must be viewed as a scientific approach of psychic phenomena.

No filme Gattaca, imagina-se um futuro já nada distante em que os casais poderão consultar um especialista em fertilização artificial e escolher as características de seu futuro filho. Eles podem selecionar embriões fertilizados em laboratório, podendo também alterar seus traços genéticos, eliminando genes capazes de expressar doenças ou mesmo características físicas indesejáveis. Técnicas recentes, como a edição genética por Prime Editing ou por meio da CRISPR-Cas9, logo permitirão terapias gênicas em embriões fertilizados in vitro antes de sua implantação uterina. Neste (...) artigo, pretendemos avaliar essas possibilidades, revisando criticamente alguns argumentos conhecidos contra o uso indiscriminado de tais técnicas. Ao final, em defesa de que objeções de princípio a práticas eugênicas devem estar assentadas na proteção e promoção dos direitos humanos, pretendemos avaliar quais limites poderiam publicamente justificar a permissão ou proibição do uso privado de tais técnicas. (shrink)

In this article, I am intent on rehabilitating Strawson’s overall anti-sceptical strategy. First, I focus on his earlier attempt, which ignited the debate about the adequacy of transcendental arguments against the sceptic. I present Stroud’s main reservation that Strawson’s viewpoint is unworkable because it does not take into consideration the view of the external world upon which the sceptic is based in order to challenge our knowledge claims. I then focus on Strawson’s later attempt, which is based upon a Humean-like (...) naturalistic strategy. I show that his naturalism is intractable for two reasons: first because it reproduces the proof structure of transcendental arguments and ends up employing a rational proof to counter rational proofs; and second, because it matches the sceptic’s advice that we should live according to our natural inclinations without ever trying to justify our beliefs. In the last section, I claim that it is possible to rehabilitate transcendental arguments as sound anti-sceptical proofs if we argue for the senselessness of the idea of thing in itself completely apart from our powers of conceptualisation. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta um estudo exploratório sobre o tema dos interesses gerais, propondo uma diferenciação entre interesses genuinamente coletivos e interesses comuns. A defesa de que há interesses genuinamente coletivos é parte essencial das teorias políticas identificadas como “republicanas”. Meu objetivo, porém, não será propriamente defender a visão republicana contra suas adversárias. Pretendo apenas explorar alguns caminhos teóricos que permitem tornar plausível a tese de que nem todos os interesses tidos como “públicos” possuem uma característica única. Defenderei que há uma (...) diferença essencial entre os interesses que chamarei de “comuns”, que resultam da agregação de interesses individuais, e os interesses genuinamente “coletivos”. Não obstante, mesmo que existam interesses genuinamente coletivos disso não se segue que todos esses interesses devam prevalecer sobre todo e qualquer interesse privado ou comum. Há interesses individuais exigíveis sobre a comunidade, que, por definição, prevalecem sobre os interesses da coletividade. Ao final, abordarei a questão de se o princípio majoritário pode ser defendido como modalidade de decisão epistemicamente superior quando se trata de decidir qual é o conteúdo do interesse geral. Palavras-chave: Rousseau, Hobbes. Vontade Geral. Interesse Coletivo. Teorema de Condorcet. Proceduralismo Epistêmico. (shrink)

A relação mente-corpo é um dos problemas componentes da agenda da filosofia. Na modernidade, Renê Descartes foi um dos que trataram da questão, adquirindo bastantes adeptos e críticos. Ele defende uma abordagem dualista substancial, segundo a qual mente e corpo são entes substancialmente distintos. Uma visão oposta a essa é defendida pelas perspectivas fisicalistas reducionistas, segundo as quais, de modo geral, toda a realidade é ou pode ser reduzida, ontológica e/ou epistemologicamente ao físico, de modo a dissolver o problema da (...) relação mente-corpo. Ambas as visões apresentam controvérsias. A dualista cartesiana, por afirmar que a mente pertence a um plano metafísico, não consegue explicar como seria possível a interação entre uma entidade imaterial e uma material. As de cunho fisicalista, com frequência, desconsideram processos mentais subjetivos, dada a dificuldade de sua redução aos termos físicos. Outra perspectiva explicativa do mental, denominada teoria do aspecto dual, pretende ser um meio termo entre os fisicalismos e o dualismo substancial. Analisamos algumas das principais correntes de pensamentos dentro da filosofia da mente buscando apresentar, de maneira simples, o quão plural são as perspectivas que tratam do mesmo objeto de pesquisa, qual, seja a mente, tratando em particular da relação entre a mente o corpo. (shrink)

Neste trabalho, apresentamos e comparamos as perspectivas epistemológicas sugeridas por Kuhn, por Popper e pelo Empirismo Lógico. Inicialmente tratamos dos principais elementos envolvidos na proposta de Kuhn, como as concepções de pré-ciência, paradigma, ciência normal, quebra-cabeça, anomalia, crise e revolução. Expomos, em linhas gerais, as outras duas posturas epistemológicas consideradas e comparamos as três propostas, tomando como ponto de partida a noção de progresso científico. Finalizamos o artigo com uma breve reflexão sobre a adequação destas concepções de ciência e de (...) progresso científico. (shrink)

A questão da racionalidade e o desenvolvimento de uma teoria da argumentação são centrais no pensamento habermasiano. Partindo sobretudo do primeiro capítulo da Teoria da ação comunicativa, o artigo pretende analisar a noção de racionalidade proposta por Habermas, o que implica questões de natureza filosófica e sociológica, e também expor as bases de sua teoria da argumentação, realizando uma análise do discurso argumentativo e apresentando as críticas feitas a Toulmin, Klein e Tugendhat.

Resumo: O alvo da teoria do conhecimento de dewey é a ação humana "guiada" pela inteligência, a "conduta inteligente". Mas, a inteligência não é uma estrutura que se sobrepõe aos seres humanos: ela é uma função vital natural que tem como papel específico produzir, na ação, indicações de suas conseqüências possíveis.: Dewey's epistemology target is the human behavior "guided" by intelligence: an intelligence conduct. But, not intelligence as structure which rises upon human beings: it is a natural vital function charged (...) of producing, by acting, indications of theirs consequences. (shrink)

Karl R. Popper e Raymond Aron foram dois dos mais destacados pensadores do século XX, notadamente a partir da segunda guerra mundial. Sendo o primeiro um destacado epistemólogo e filósofo político e o segundo um filósofo social e político, entre suas mais diversas obras encontramos um denominador comum, a crítica epistemológica das ciências humanas. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo investigar os possíveis pontos de contato entre os dois filósofos, bem como suas divergências. Como metodologia de estudo, nos centraremos nos (...) textos produzidos pelos autores que tenham como tema principal a epistemologia das ciências humanas. Notadamente, encontraremos em ambos uma crítica ao historicismo como fundamento das humanidades. Palavras-chave: Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Historicismo. (shrink)

This article aims at showing that contemporary attempts to rehabilitat Pyrrhonian scepticism do not hold water. I claim that a sceptic of this trend gets stuck in two major dilemmas. The first regards her object of investigation. I argue that, if she holds that her object of investigation is the non-evident truth, she will not be able to distance herself from dogmatism. In turn, if she holds that she seeks to establish sense data propositions, she will not be able to (...) pose herself as an investigator. The second dilemma stems from the sceptical attempt to wipe out dogmatism by developing arguments to the effect that no (dogmatic) proof exists. I contend that those arguments can be viewed either as "good" arguments, in which case the sceptic will be considered just another theorist in possession of an explanation, or as expendable devices, in which case the sceptic will be incapable of carrytng out her anti-dogmatic programme. Either way the sceptical position crumbles. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the widely accepted view that rights establish normative constraints on authority’s powers, command is still a core notion in modern philosophical jurisprudence. Nevertheless, if Herbert Hart is correct in his analysis on the deficiencies of the traditional command theories, a command is binding only if there is a right of being obeyed implying authority. My main objective in this paper is to make explicit the semantical and normative relations between rights and commands. In the first part, after some remarks (...) on Hobbes’ semantics, I will note that, although commands are performative utterances paradigmatically addressed to “inferiors”, claims, on the contrary, are utterances addressed also to “superiors”. In the second part, assuming Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld’s distinctions between claims, privileges, powers and immunities, I will discuss Joseph Raz’s theory that authorities have a right of being obeyed. Looking for a more coherent theory, and taking a little bit of distance from Raz’s definitions, I will present some refinements in the semantics of authority. My main point is that a command is valid only if it presupposes a right of being obeyed, a right that would be a claim-right in Hohfeld’s sense; but since all claims are correlated to duties, this entails that the duty of being obeyed cannot be created by any acts of the authority which holds the claim. Anyway, since claims purport to present reasons for action, a command can only constitute a reason for action for persons who have a duty of obeying other persons with claims of being obeyed. In that case, commanding involves making an appeal not to fear, but to respect for authority. (shrink)

Advocates of the Person-Centered Healthcare (PCH) approach say that PCH is a response to a failure of caring for patients as persons. Nevertheless, there are many human subjects falling to fulfill the requirements of a traditional philosophical definition of personhood. Hence, if we take, PCH seriously, a greater clarification of the key terminology of PCH is urgently needed. It seems necessary, for instance, that the concept of the person should be extended in order to include those individuals with insipient or (...) immature levels of consciousness, as well as those who are severely and permanently mentally handicapped. In this article, we will depart from some well-known philosophical concepts of what it means to be a person and try to offer a broader and more inclusive meaning. We suggest that persons are human beings with a socially recognized biography, which implies to recognize as persons individuals with necessities, but also with narratives about their interests and claims, expressed sometimes by other people related to them. This is particularly the case of individuals that suffer from severe disorders of consciousness. For those, is not only care that matters; respect matters too. Caregivers should therefore not only sympathetically care for the well-being of these people; they should also be concerned to respect their interests and claims by interpreting them empathetically, in the light of their biographical story. Our conclusion is that, in order to be coherent, PCH must consider individuals with severe disorders of consciousness as persons and we think that our revised concept of personhood fits with this requirement. (shrink)

Apresentação do Dossiê "Contribuições formativas da Filosofia".

Afirma-se inicialmente que a filosofia oferece elementos formativos para o ser humano, seja quando acessa produções filosóficas, seja quando se dá ao trabalho do filosofar dialogando com estas produções filosóficas. Daí os três itens que compõem o texto: formação humana e filosofia; papel formativo da filosofia segundo alguns autores; perspectivas relativas ao papel formativo da filosofia.

In this paper I shall show that Kant's best anti-sceptical argument, found in the “Refutation of Idealism” — hereafter Refutation —, is not successful in debunking the sceptic. My strategy will be to argue that, although dependent upon transcendental idealism, the Refutation is inconsistent with it. In order to achieve this goal, I shall sketch, in section 1, the two main interpretations of Kant's idealism, namely, the ‘two world’ and the ‘two aspect’ theories. I shall maintain that the latter is (...) more in keeping with Kant's overall intentions in the Critique of Pure Reason. In section 2, I shall spell out the main points of the Refutation. In section 3, I shall argue that, in the context of the Refutation, the conception of the permanent as the pre-condition of any temporal sequence clashes with some of the main doctrines of transcendental idealism. Finally, in section 4, I shall follow some unsuccessful attempts to harmonise transcendental idealism with the Refutation. (shrink)

Influenced by James Bernat’s approach, the US President’s 1981 Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioural Research concluded that human death is an instant that separates the dying process from the cadaveric state. Death, as Bernat and the President’s Commission argue, cannot be a process. Because organisms cannot be both alive and dead, Bernat claims, the transition from one state to the other must be sudden and instantaneous. Since then, few have argued the opposite (...) notion that death is a process, and that the transition between living and perishing is not a discrete event. In this article we argue that human death is a process that comprises three distinct phases: dying (when the physiological responses against the shutdown of vital organs and systems are in an imminence of breaking down), decease (when events such as respiratory and cardiac arrest indicate the critical failure of vital organs or systems), and decay (the irreversible and accelerated systemic biological process of cellular death that eventually takes over the whole body). We also argue that human death differs from the ‘time of death’ indicated by death certificates, which is pointed out only to clinically and legally establish the irreversibility of the entire process. (shrink)

Curso de Geografia de Jean-Jacques Rousseau integra o X volume da edição de OEuvres complètes de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Édition thématique du Tricentenaire, Slatkine/Honoré Champion (2012), subintitulado Escritos Científicos. Para esta tradução, além do texto consagrado na edição do tricentenário, também utilizamos a edição norte-americana dos textos de Rousseau organizada por Christopher Kelly, intitulada Autobiographical, scientific, religious, moral, and literary writings (2007). Preservamos, integralmente, as indispensáveis notas ao texto em língua francesa, que são de autoria de Christophe Van Staen.

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, 'legalistic mistake'. The use of “legal‐like” terms abounds outside the legal domain. But sometimes the users of these terms commit the fallacy Joel Feinberg called the legalistic mistake. On widening the use of such legal‐like terms, we must be cautious, for we might find ourselves guilty of making inferential mistakes or even proffering pure nonsense. The error, according to Feinberg, is committed by “one who, in stating a moral (...) question using a legal‐like term, uncritically imports the precision of that term in its strict legal sense, while excluding appeal to the kinds of criteria which alone can decide its use”. In “On Being 'Morally Speaking a Murderer’” Feinberg introduced the idea that, sometimes, using legal notions outside legal contexts may lead to a peculiar kind of fallacy he called the legalistic mistake. (shrink)