When we evaluate moral agents, we consider many factors, including whether the agent acted freely, or under duress or coercion. In turn, moral evaluations have been shown to influence our (non-moral) evaluations of these same factors. For example, when we judge an agent to have acted immorally, we are subsequently more likely to judge the agent to have acted freely, not under force. Here, we investigate the cognitive signatures of this effect in interpersonal situations, in which one (...) agent (“forcer”) forces another agent (“forcee”) to act either immorally or morally. The structure of this relationship allowed us to ask questions about both the “forcer” and the “forcee.” Paradoxically, participants judged that the “forcer” forced the “forcee” to act immorally (i.e. X forced Y), but that the “forcee” was not forced to act immorally (i.e. Y was not forced by X). This pattern obtained only for human agents who acted intentionally. Directly changing participants’ focus from one agent to another (forcer vs. forcee) also changed the target of moral evaluation and therefore force attributions. The full pattern of judgments may provide a window into motivated moral reasoning and focusing bias more generally; participants may have been motivated to attribute greater force to the immoral forcer and greater freedom to the immoral forcee. (shrink)

Crisis requires society to renew itself, albeit in a disruptive way. The current Covid-19 pandemic is transforming ways of working, living, and relating to each other on a global level, suddenly and dramatically. This paper focuses on the field of education to show how higher education institutions are undergoing radical transformations driven by the need to digitalize education and training processes in record time with academics who lack innate technological capabilities for online teaching. The university system must strive to overcome (...) this situation to be competitive and provide high-quality education in a scenario of digital transformation, disruptive technological innovations, and accelerated change. To achieve these goals, this paper explains some barriers and challenges that universities encounter, as well as technological resources and methodologies they have used in the current scenario to transform higher education to face Covid-19 disruption. The discussion and conclusion synthesize significant insights that can be applied to the digitalization of education in the foreseeable future. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to carry out a genetic study on the Husserlian concept of noema based in the givenness of the real body in the passive experience of pain. The development focuses, either, on the delimitation of the painful body given in its physical sphere in attention to its material properties, and in the eventual integration of this passively given body in the so-called noetic-noematic structure regarding the intentional revelation that pain implies. To do this, pain will (...) first be briefly examined in light of "original" passivity. Secondly, the way in which the body is given in its real disposition and its understanding as a bodily ego in experiencing pain will be contemplated. Thirdly, considering the “original” constitution of the body in pain in a broad sense, emphasis will be placed on its correspondence with intentionality, a matter that only confirms that pain is a form of perception. Finally, the deployment of the genetically viewed noema is given on the basis of the determination of the real body as a noematic object. (shrink)

Background: In Hospital Emergency Department and Emergency Medical Services professionals experience situations in which they face difficulties or barriers to know patient’s advance directives and implement them. Objectives: To analyse the barriers, facilitators, and ethical conflicts perceived by health professionals derived from the management of advance directives in emergency services. Research design, participants, and context: This is a qualitative phenomenological study conducted with purposive sampling including a population of nursing and medical professionals linked to Hospital Emergency Department and Emergency Medical (...) Services. Three focus groups were formed, totalling 24 participants. We performed an inductive-type thematic discourse analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by ethical committees of Ethical Commitee of Clínic Hospital (Barcelona) and Comittee of Emergency Medical Services (Barcelona). The participants received information about the purpose of the study. Patients’ anonymity and willingness to participate in the study were guaranteed. Findings: There were four types of barriers that hindered the proper management of patients’ advance directives in Hospital Emergency Department and Emergency Medical Services: personal and professional, family members, organisational and structural, and those derived from the health system. These barriers caused ethical conflicts and hindered professionals’ decision-making. Discussion: These results are in line with those of previous studies and indicate that factors such as gender, professional category, and years of experience, in addition to professionals’ beliefs and the opinions of colleagues and family members, can also influence the professionals’ final decisions. Conclusion: The different strategies described in this study can contribute to the development of health policies and action protocols to help reduce both the barriers that hinder the correct management and implementation of advance directives and the ethical conflicts generated. (shrink)

This paper copes with a real-world classification problem related to the management of claims received in an insurance company. The way to obtain the classifier is not easy due to the high amount of missing values as well as the inherent imbalanced scenario within class labels. Once the data partition has been done, the training set is submitted to an intensive double grid search in order to obtain the most promising type of missing value imputation approach and then a step (...) ahead is done using the best method and it starts the next round of data mining strategies which now falls into data rebalancing umbrella. Again, a grid search from an undersampling and oversampling family with different settings is done taking into account only seen data. The training data obtained after the first grid search are now submitted to the second step according the second grid search in order to get the ready training set for the further classifier training. The main objective of the work is to find the best combination of data mining techniques that suits the data set with a pipeline containing two types of data preparation methods coming from different families. As an outcome, first the problem of the presence of missing values has been addressed and then the data rebalancing techniques has been applied. The study focuses on obtaining classifiers based on Bayesian and lazy approaches as well as decision trees, evaluated on metrics such as the area under the ROC curve (AUC), Cohen’s kappa, Accuracy and the F-measure, among others. The imputation by the mean the mode is preferable to the Expectation Maximization Imputation in the scenario faced in this paper taking into account that the amount of missing values is higher than a forty percent for many features. (shrink)

In the context of a new wave of women’s activism for equality, the body is once again at the centre of the discussion today, in the USA and globally. Analysing American discourses about health and illness at the turn of the twenty-first century, Tasha Dubriwny has argued that the current narratives are dominated by neoliberal and postfeminist philosophies that have thrived in a framework of biomedicalisation and self-surveillance. What happens, then, when a successful feminist artist is diagnosed with uterine cancer? (...) How does Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and founder of V-Day, face the fact that her life may have a painful ending? How does a woman so aware of her physical and psychological self come to terms with illness? Is she willing to put her political project aside to become a patient? Through a close reading of Ensler’s uterine cancer memoir In the Body of the World, and focusing particularly on its structure and narrative strategies, this article situates her work within the corpus of female literature about health and illness in the twenty-first century, exploring her meaning-making process in the light of the current tensions between feminism and postfeminism. (shrink)

The judiciary is a key policy actor that is involved in deciding health rights and policy by intervening in the policy process through a variety of judicial mechanisms, yet the appropriate extent of its involvement remains contentious. Taking the competence objection seriously requires understanding it as an epistemic problem about how courts assess empirical and scientific evidence in order to competently adjudicate controversial health claims. This paper examines recent advances in social epistemology to develop insights for the epistemic competence of (...) the judiciary from a system‐oriented approach. I outline three epistemic features that set the judiciary and the judicial decision‐making process apart from other types of decision‐makers in health policy: the distribution of epistemic power, the epistemic authority of a justified believer, and the principle of disinterestedness. Finally, I relate these insights back to the judicial decision‐making process with a specific focus on recent court decisions in health rights and health policy in Chile. (shrink)

In this paper, I examined whether evidence from the neuroscience of morality supports the standard models of phronesis, i.e., Jubilee and Aretai Centre Models. The standard models explain phronesis as a multifaceted construct based on interaction and coordination among functional components. I reviewed recent neuroscience studies focusing on brain networks associated with morality and their connectivity to examine the validity of the models. Simultaneously, I discussed whether the evidence helps the models address challenges, particularly those from the phronesis eliminativism. Neuroscientific (...) evidence supported the importance of brain networks, i.e., the default mode, salience, and central executive functioning networks, in moral functioning in general. The findings favorably supported the multifaceted and integrative nature of phronesis proposed by the standard models. Finally, I considered how the two models could explain the mechanisms of phronesis more integratively based on neuroscientific findings. At the end of this paper, with the evidence, I proposed several practical ideas to promote the cultivation of phronesis, e.g., the consideration of coordination among components for moral functioning and the use of moral exemplars. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to carry out a genetic study on the Husserlian concept of noema based in the givenness of the real body in the passive experience of pain. The development focuses, either, on the delimitation of the painful body given in its physical sphere in attention to its material properties, and in the eventual integration of this passively given body in the so-called noetic-noematic structure regarding the intentional revelation that pain implies. To do this, pain will (...) first be briefly examined in light of "original" passivity. Secondly, the way in which the body is given in its real disposition and its understanding as a bodily ego in experiencing pain will be contemplated. Thirdly, considering the “original” constitution of the body in pain in a broad sense, emphasis will be placed on its correspondence with intentionality, a matter that only confirms that pain is a form of perception. Finally, the deployment of the genetically viewed noema is given on the basis of the determination of the real body as a noematic object. (shrink)

This article analyzes the rise of contemporary neo-macho discourse in South Korea and its dissemination on online platforms of great accessibility for Korean and Asian youth in general. More specifically, it focuses on the discourse of the leader of 신 남성연대 in a long 40-minute interview published on one of the most impactful YouTube channels for Asian youth. In 2021, their demands focused, among other issues, on the need to end the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of South Korea, (...) a struggle that was reflected in the electoral campaign of the candidates for the presidency in 2022, even reaching the political position of the progressive candidate who was also against said Ministry, despite having been conceived by his own party and having operated for five years. (shrink)

Philosophy and psychoanalytical psychology converge in this examination of some of the central themes in this work on María Zambrano, such as exile, mercy, and the development of the individual. With a special focus on the psychology of the unconscious and the universe of symbolism, the book also provides thought-provoking interpretations of two emblematic tragic figures, those of Oedipus and Antigone, and an interesting approach to the figure of Cervantes' Dulcinea.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine undergone by children in many countries is a stressful situation about which little is known to date. Children and adolescents' behaviors to cope with home confinement may be associated with their emotional welfare. The objectives of this study were: to examine the coping strategies used out by children and adolescents during the COVID-19 health crisis, to analyze the differences in these behaviors in three countries, and to examine the relationship between different coping modalities and (...) adaptation. Participants were 1,480 parents of children aged 3–18 years from three European countries. The children's mean age was 9.15 years. Parents completed an online survey providing information on symptoms and coping behaviors observed in their children. The most frequent coping strategies were accepting what is happening, collaborating with quarantine social activities, acting as if nothing is happening, highlighting the advantages of being at home, and not appearing to be worried about what is happening. Compared to Italian and Spanish children, Portuguese children used a sense of humor more frequently when their parents talked about the situation. Acting as if nothing was happening, collaborating with social activities, and seeking comfort from others were more likely in Spanish children than in children from the other countries. Compared to Portuguese and Spanish children, Italian children did not seem worried about what was happening. Overall, an emotional-oriented coping style was directly correlated with a greater presence of anxious symptoms, as well as to mood, sleep, behavioral, and cognitive alterations. Task-oriented and avoidance-oriented styles were related to better psychological adaptation. Results also show that unaffected children or children with a lower level of impact were more likely to use strategies based on a positive focus on the situation. This study provides interesting data on the strategies to be promoted by parents to cope with the COVID-19 health crisis in children. (shrink)

Literature has been philosophically understood as a practice in the last thirty years, which involves “modes of utterance” and stances, not intrinsic textual properties. Thus, the place for semantics in philosophical inquiry has clearly diminished. Literary aesthetic appreciation has shifted its focus from aesthetic realism, based on the study of textual features, to ways of reading. Peter Lamarque’s concept of narrative opacity is a clear example of this shift. According to the philosophy of literature, literature, like any other art (...) form, does not compel us to engage realistically with it. Against this trend, this paper argues for the distinction between two kinds of opacity, defending textual opacity as a necessary condition for literary opacity. In this sense, examples in literary criticism properly illustrate not a peripheral role of meaning in literary appreciation, but arbitrariness in interpretation, which involves semantic concerns. So the assumed interest in the specific ways in which literature embeds meaning in fictional narrative works. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about (...) experimental evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

Nowadays, around half of the global population lives in urban areas. This rate is expected to increase up to two-thirds by the year 2050. Most studies analyze urban dynamics in wide geographic ranges, focusing mainly on cities. According to them, the global population is spatially distributed in two extremes: large urban agglomerations and rural deserts. However, this remark is excessively general and imprecise. For this reason, it remains essential to analyze these dynamics at other spatial scales. A close-up look in (...) thinly populated regions shows how urban dynamics are also noticeable. In this paper, we analyze spatiotemporal patterns of population distribution in a predominantly rural area by applying a local-scale approach. These patterns are represented by using spatial networks with nodes representing the human settlements and links showing hierarchies between nodes. This case study is conducted in a small municipality located in northwestern Spain. It is a predominantly rural area with a very particular spatial pattern of population distribution. (shrink)

The present research study focuses on how the language of instruction has an impact on the mathematical thinking development as a consequence of using a language of instruction different from the students’ mother tongue. In CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) academic content and a foreign language are leant at the same time, a methodology that is widely used in the schools in the present times. It is, therefore, our main aim to study if the language of instruction in second (...) language immersion programs influences the development of the first formal mathematical concepts. More specifically, if the learning of mathematical concepts in the early ages develops in a similar way if it is taught in the students’ mother tongue and is not influenced by the language used for teaching. Or else, if it can influence the development of the first skills only in the students’ general performance or in certain areas. The results of both the analysis of variance and multiple regression confirm how influencing the language of instruction is when mathematical thinking is developed teaching formal contents in a non-coincidence language. The second language is affecting the resolution of daily life problems, being more competent those students in 1st grades whose language of instruction matched with their mother tongue. (shrink)

In recent years, a great deal of evidence has accumulated on the health risks and environmental impacts of some herbicides. Both conventional agriculture and agroecology are searching for alternatives to address the challenges posed by the consequences of herbicide use. In this search, peasant and indigenous agroecosystems have much to contribute since their crops evolved thousands of years ago together with diverse communities of weeds, and farmers have carried out sophisticated strategies to manage them. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, free (...) lists, and botanical collection, we document a milpa design that integrates and manages spontaneous vegetation to take advantage of its presence and minimize risks of crop loss. The objective of this article is to critically contrast agroecological mechanisms in this milpa design which matches the prevention principle with a set of recommendations recognized as preventive in conventional weed science. (shrink)

The use of visual attention for evaluating consumer behavior has become a relevant field in recent years, allowing researchers to understand the decision-making processes beyond classical self-reports. In our research, we focused on using eye-tracking as a method to understand consumer preferences in children. Twenty-eight subjects with ages between seven and twelve years participated in the experiment. Participants were involved in two consecutive phases. The initial phase consisted of the visualization of a set of stimuli for decision-making in an eight-position (...) layout called Alternative Forced-choice. Then the subjects were asked to freely analyze the set of stimuli, they needed to choose the best in terms of preference. The sample was randomly divided into two groups balanced by gender. One group visualized a set of icons and the other a set of toys. The final phase was an independent assessment of each stimulus viewed in the initial phase in terms of liking/disliking using a 7-point Likert scale. Sixty-four stimuli were designed for each of the groups. The visual attention was measured using a non-obstructive eye-tracking device. The results revealed two novel insights. Firstly, the time of fixation during the last 4 visits to each stimulus before the decision-making instant allows us to recognize the icon or toy chosen from the eight alternatives with a 71.2% and 67.2% of accuracy respectively. The result supports the use of visual attention measurements as an implicit tool to analyze decision-making and preferences in children. Secondly, eye movement and the choice of liking/disliking choice are influenced by stimuli design dimensions. The icon observation results revealed how gender samples have different fixation and different visit times which depend on stimuli design dimension. The toy observations results revealed how the materials determinate the largest amount fixations, also, the visit times were differentiated by gender. This research presents a relevant empirical data to understand the decision-making phenomenon by analyzing eye movement behavior. The presented method can be applied to recognize the choice likelihood between several alternatives. Finally, children's opinions represent an extra difficulty judgment to be determined, and the eye-tracking technique seen as an implicit measure to tackle it. (shrink)

The book intends to interpret how different religions articulate their territories and manage the relationship with other religions, understanding systems and multiple everyday spaces, in a dynamic that is not only a component of contemporary reality, but is central to living it. The underlying thesis is that religion is the great geopolitical issue of our time, but an interpretation is only possible in terms of religious plurality and how ideas, symbolism, subjectivities and practices are incorporated in the daily life of (...) those who share the religious times and spaces, producing territorial identities and imaginary concrete cartographies as world projects. The volume has articles that focus on the religious space being gestated, expanded, contracted, celebrated or represented as a foundation for common life, as well as inter-religious conflicts arising in a world of diverse and differential coexistence. It is not a debate about classical geopolitics, but how geopolitical relations cross cultural-religious experience. (shrink)

Background This study introduces an empirical approach for studying the role of prudence in physician treatment of end-of-life (EOL) decision making.Methods A mixed-methods analysis of transcripts from 88 simulated patient encounters in a multicenter study on EOL decision making. Physicians in internal medicine, emergency medicine, and critical care medicine were asked to evaluate a decompensating, end-stage cancer patient. Transcripts of the encounters were coded for actor, action, and content to capture the concept of Aristotelian prudence, and then quantitatively and qualitatively (...) analyzed to identify actions associated with preference-concordant treatment.Results Focusing on codes that describe characteristics of physician-patient interaction, the code for physicians restating patient preferences was associated with avoiding intubation. Multiple codes were associated with secondary measures of preference-concordant treatment.Conclusions Prudent actions can be identified empirically, and research focused on the virtue of prudence may provide a new avenue for assessment and training in EOL care. (shrink)

In bioethics, discussions of justice have tended to focus on questions of fairness in access to health care: is there a right to medical treatment, and how should priorities be set when medical resources are scarce. But health care is only one of many factors that determine the extent to which people live healthy lives, and fairness is not the only consideration in determining whether a health policy is just. In this pathbreaking book, senior bioethicists Powers and Faden confront (...) foundational issues about health and justice. How much inequality in health can a just society tolerate. The audience for the book is scholars and students of bioethics and moral and political philosophy, as well as anyone interested in public health and health policy. (shrink)

본 연구의 목적은 트랜스휴머니즘 시대의 약리학적 도덕교육의 방향에 대해 비판적 성 찰을 제공하고는 것이다. 즉 인류의 도덕성을 향상시키기 위한 방안 중 하나인 약리학적 방식으로 도덕적 능력을 향상시키는 방안을 살펴보고자 한다. 약리학적인 접근은 이론적 으로 의료화 또는 생의료화 현상과 깊은 연결성을 가지는데, 최근의 생의료화 접근은 치료 를 목적으로 하는 것을 넘어서 생명공학이 도덕적 생명향상에 초점을 두고 있다. 이것은 자연이나 사물을 향했던 기술이 이제 인간 자신을 향하게 되었지만 기술의 영향이 생의료 화 현상과 관련하여 주의할 필요성이 있게 된 것이다. 이 때문에 본 연구에서는 (...) 약리학의 의료화 생의료화가 정신건강과 행복교육의 영역을 먼저 어떻게 식민화화하면서 어떤 한 계를 표출하였는지를 살피고자 하였다. 이러한 한계는 도덕적 향상의 영역, 덕성 강화의 영역에서도 연결되면서 어떤 기술적 한계를 가질 수 있음을 살펴볼 것이다. 뿐만 아니라 윤리학적으로도 도덕판단에서 감정의 중요성과 역할에 초점을 맞추고 있는 약리학적 인간 향상 연구의 동향이 일면적 한계를 갖고 있음을 밝히면서 덕윤리학의 입장을 통해 인간의 감정에 대한 완벽한 조작가능성의 한계가 무엇인지 제시하고자 하였다. 비록 첨단 과학기 술을 통해 치료와 향상의 경계선이 불분명한 상황이지만 치료뿐만 아니라 향상의 추구가 상당한 한계를 갖고 있음을 제시하였다. 결국 트랜스휴머니즘의 도덕성 향상 기획중 약리 학적 접근은 아직 인간의 도덕적 행위능력을 고양시키지 못한다는 점을 강조하였으며, 의 료화와 생의료화의 경향이 강화되는 현실에서 오히려 역발상적 태도도 필요함을 제시하였다 즉 덕교육적 접근을 통해 전통적 도덕교육을. 제대로 시도해야 할 필요성이 있음을 제시하였다. (shrink)

This paper focuses on an emergency basic income as a tool for avoiding financial insecurity during the time of pandemic. The authors argue that paying each resident a monthly cash amount for the duration of the crisis would serve to protect them from the economic fallout.They suggest three reasons why the EBI proposal is particularly well-suited to play an important role in a comprehensive public health response to COVID-19: it offers an immediate and agile response; it prioritizes the most vulnerable (...) in the affected population; and it promotes a solidaristic response to the pandemic crisis. To go beyond the need to shut down and restart an EBI assistance scheme each time a pandemic hits, the authors propose considering turning the program into a permanent feature. (shrink)

This thesis develops a theory about the structure of modal judgment and knowledge. Arguing in favour of pluralism about the source of modal knowledge, it focuses on the questions of the varieties of modal judgment and their relations, the function of modal judgment and the scope of modal knowledge. It offers a hypothesis about the development of the framework of modal knowledge, grounding it on the capacity to evaluate temporal judgments, from which the capacity to evaluate alternatives comes from, and (...) it suggests that the most basic framework of modal judgments consists in that of agentive modality, and in particular, about what one can do, and how. Then, it is argued that the rest of the framework of modal judgment can be developed on this basis, although this imposes certain restrictions about the scope of modal knowledge. Additionally, the thesis provides analyses of various agentive modal notions, such as imaginability, what is a way to do something, and discusses how to understand counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. (shrink)

Claims concerning the death of the nation-state are often accompanied by postnationalist arguments that emphasize the potential of human rights to contest nation-bounded conceptualizations of membership. Conversely, arguments focusing on the continuing importance of state-bounded social citizenship rights undermine such postnationalist claims. To assess these claims, this article turns to the Irish state and its prohibition of abortion except in cases where the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. The authors focus their analysis on four legal cases (...) that unfolded between 1992 and 2010. These cases reflect how specific women’s social location within interconnected power hierarchies of nationality, gender, class, race/ethnicity positioned them differently vis-a-vis the Irish state, international and supranational bodies. Furthermore, the transnational, in the form of immigration, non-governmental organizations and the Catholic Church, plays an important role in structuring the context within which these cases unfold. Rather than showing that the international, supranational and transnational are conduits for the declining power of the nation-state, this article finds that in the increasingly dense legal-political field there is room for all of these forces. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic (...) and procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper develops a precise understanding of the thesis of moral encroachment, which states that the epistemic status of an opinion can depend on its moral features. In addition, I raise objections to existing accounts of moral encroachment. For instance, many accounts fail to give sufficient attention to moral encroachment on credences. Also, many accounts focus on moral features that fail to support standard analogies between pragmatic and moral encroachment. Throughout the paper, I (...) discuss racial profiling as a case study, arguing that moral encroachment can help us identify one respect in which racial profiling is epistemically problematic. (shrink)

While C. I. Lewis’s most celebrated logical innovation is by no means neglected, strict implication features in Rosenthal’s discussion in a fashion parallel, one comes to understand, to its role in his broader philosophical efforts, viz., as one component of a much more ambitious philosophical enterprise. Were one pressed to apply a label to Lewis’s broader project, “epistemological” is perhaps the most fitting term, with his accomplishments in logic paving the way to this broader effort. As with Lewis, Rosenthal sets (...) for herself an ambitious project. She offers a meticulous explication of Lewis’s philosophical development, ranging from his logical investigations to his treatment of a priori knowledge, and, eventually, to a pragmatic understanding of moral imperatives. But always in her sights is the promise of a bridge between traditions, one might say, in which Lewis’s work is relevant both to analysts and to continentalists . Similarly, but more narrowly, Rosenthal’s Lewis manages to plaster over many of the cracks in the work of other classical pragmatists. For example, in response to James’s apparent commitment to the notion of degrees of truth whereby new systems of thought are judged. (shrink)

What moral claims do undocumented immigrants have to membership? Joseph Carens has argued that illegal migrants with long-term residence have a claim to national membership because they already are de facto members of local communities. This article builds on the linkage between illegality, residence, and rights, but shifts the focus from the migrant to the state, and from membership-based arguments to the rule of law. I argue that the rule of law, as expressed in the principle of legal (...) certainty, provides an alternative justification for the regularization of resident undocumented migrants. The principle of legal certainty recognizes the right of individuals to make long-term plans for their lives by requiring that state action be reasonably predictable and nonarbitrary. Thus, as an expression of legal certainty, both civil and criminal codes have statutes of limitation that place a time limit beyond which most crimes and misdemeanors can no longer be prosecuted, and individuals can move on with their lives. Not only do these statutes recognize the individual’s right to be free from arbitrary state control, they also demand that the state cut its losses and accept the consequences of its failure to act in a timely manner. I contend that, in the absence of a statute of limitation on illegal entry, the deportation of settled migrants constitutes an arbitrary act of state power. The article explores a number of judicial rulings to illustrate the argument’s normative logic. (shrink)

Commentators have shown a steady interest in the role of feeling in Kant’s moral and practical philosophy over the last few decades. Much attention has been given to the notion of ‘moral feeling’ in general, as well as to what Kant calls the ‘feeling of respect’ for the moral law. My focus in this essay is on the role of feeling in practical judgment. My claim in what follows is that the act of judging in the (...) practical domain—i.e., determining what one ought to do, or what action one ought to perform, in a specific case—crucially involves feeling. Put more simply: I argue that practical judgment has an essentially affective dimension. The upshot of the account I will give is that it provides us with a richer and more complex account of moral feeling than has previously been appreciated in the literature. While it is recognized that feeling plays a certain role in moral motivation, what I hope to demonstrate here is that feeling is involved much earlier in the exercise of moral agency. Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Patriotism is controversial in moral education across contexts. In China, patriotism is highly politicised by the government and heavily promoted in education. In the last few decades, the moralisation of patriotism, which refers here to the framing of patriotism as a virtue, has become the focus of teaching patriotism in China. This paper demonstrates how patriotism is moralised and promoted in Chinese moral education textbooks. The paper begins by providing a theoretical introduction to patriotism in (...) class='Hi'>moral education and defending a rational approach to teaching patriotism given its controversial nature. Then it elaborates on the Chinese context of teaching patriotism and analyses patriotism as part of moral education in Chinese textbooks. Our findings indicate various ways in which patriotism is promoted in Chinese education as a non-controversial virtue and moral duty. Finally, the paper discusses the limitations of this way of teaching patriotism and argues for the adoption of the rational approach as an alternative. (shrink)

Kant’s moral philosophy can be criticized on the basis of the allegation that, requiring an austere disposition for attending to moral obligations, does not leave any room for inclinations. The focus of that reading is found in Groundwork I in which Kant refers to the charitable act of an insensible philanthropist. This passage seems to support the interpretation that morality in Kant requires the suppression of inclinations for an action to have moral value. Hence Schiller’s wellknown (...) criticism of Kant’s rigorism. Kant is in part responsible for such misunderstandings. However, it is possible to defend Kantian moral philosophy, on the basis of the premise that inclinations do not withdraw the moral value of an action. Kant’s morality only requires that the determining ground of actions cannot be inclinations, which is different from the suppression of inclinations. Indeed, that pretension would contradict the finite nature of man, and is not required by Kant’s moral philosophy. KEY WORDS – Duty. Inclination. Kant. Moral value. Rigorism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the present study, we examined how the perceived attainability and relatability of moral exemplars predicted moral elevation and pleasantness among both adult and college student participants. Data collected from two experiments were analyzed with Bayesian multilevel modeling to explore which factors significantly predicted outcome variables at the story level. The analysis results demonstrated that the main effect of perceived relatability and the interaction effect between attainability and relatability shall be included in the best prediction model, and (...) thus, were deemed to predict the outcome variables significantly. The main effect of relatability as well as its interaction with attainability positively predicted elevation and pleasantness. We discussed educational implications of the findings in terms of how relatability may be the first point of emphasis for moral educators to focus on and attainability can then bolster the effectiveness. These relatable and attainable moral exemplars can be sources for moral elevation and pleasantness, which promote motivation to emulate moral behavior presented by the exemplars. (shrink)

A survey of Western feminist ethics over the past thirty years reveals considerable diversity; nonetheless, much recent work in this area is characterized by its adoption of a naturalistic approach. Such an approach is similar to that found in contemporary naturalized epistemology and philosophy of science, yet feminist naturalism has a unique focus. This paper explains what feminist naturalism can contribute to moral philosophy, both by critiquing moral concepts that obscure or rationalize women’s subordination and by paying (...) attention to real-life practices of moral inquiry, including those used by women. (shrink)

The essays in this volume open up reflection on the implications of social inequality for theorizing about moral responsibility. Collectively, they focus attention on the relevance of the social context, and of structural and epistemic injustice, stereotyping and implicit bias, for critically analyzing our moral responsibility practices.

Are there any moral restraints on how a company should behave towards its competitors, or is all fair in love, war ‐ and business? Dr Higginson is Director of the Ridley Hall Foundation, Cambridge CB3 9HG. The Foundation is concerned with the application of Christian faith and values in business, and conducts research, seminars, publications and speaking engagements to that end. This paper was first presented at a Seminar on Teaching Business Ethics held at London Business School on Friday, (...) 10 March, 1995. (shrink)

We study whether robots can satisfy the conditions of an agent fit to be held morally responsible, with a focus on autonomy and self-control. An analogy between robots and human groups enables us to modify arguments concerning collective responsibility for studying questions of robot responsibility. We employ Mele’s history-sensitive account of autonomy and responsibility to argue that even if robots were to have all the capacities required of moral agency, their history would deprive them from autonomy in a (...) responsibility-undermining way. We will also study whether humans and technological artifacts like robots can form hybrid collective agents that could be morally responsible for their actions and give an argument against such a possibility. (shrink)

This paper discusses the fragmentation of psychology and proposals for unification hitherto proffered. It is argued that unity will not be achieved until competing ideas regarding morality, ontology, epistemology, and so forth are critically examined and evaluated. Ideas that pass theoretical muster and that cohere with human moral interests will provide a theoretical starting point for unification efforts. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

In this article, we explore the role that art can play in ethical reflection on risky and controversial technologies. New technologies often give rise to societal controversies about their potential risks and benefits. Over the last decades, social scientists, psychologists, and philosophers have criticized quantitative approaches to risk on the grounds that they oversimplify its societal and ethical implications. There is broad consensus amongst these scholars that stakeholders and their values and concerns should be included in decision-making about technological risks. (...) It has also been argued that the emotional responses of people can shed important light on the ethical aspects of risk and uncertainty. However, people’s emotions can be narrowly focused and biased. This article therefore assesses the role that technology-inspired artworks can play in overcoming such biases, by challenging our imagination and providing us with different perspectives on possible technological developments and their implications for society. Philosophers have not yet studied such artworks, so this constitutes an entirely new field of research for scholars of risk and moral theory. In particular, we focus on the case of BNCI technologies and related artworks. These technologies and artworks touch on questions of what it means to be human, thereby raising profound ethical and philosophical challenges. We discuss the experiences of artists, scientists, and engineers who are directly involved with BNCI technologies, and who were interviewed during a Hackathon at Amsterdam’s Waag Society in June 2016. Their views are analyzed in light of philosophical and aesthetic theories, which allows us to consider relevant ethical and conceptual issues as well as topics for further investigation. (shrink)

In Roman Catholic moral theology there is an ongoing debate between the proportionalist or revisionist school and the traditionalist school that has developed what is referred to as the ‘New Natural Law Theory’ or ‘Basic Goods Theory’ . The stakes in this debate have been raised with Pope John Paul II's encyclical Veritatis Splendor on fundamental moral theology that condemned ‘proportionalism’ or ‘teleologism’ as an ethical theory while utilizing many of the ideas, concepts, and terminology of the BGT, (...) thereby implicitly endorsing that ethical theory. While absolute norms and intrinsically evil acts have frequently been the focus of debate between these two schools, what is it that divides them fundamentally, on the level of ethical method? It is the role and function of reason and experience as two sources of moral knowledge, in part, that distinguish these two versions of natural law on the most basic level. While the BGT has a strict hierarchy of the sources of moral knowledge that posits the hierarchical magisterium as the definitive interpreter of reason and experience, revisionists posit a more dialogical relationship between reason, experience, and the magisterium. On certain ethical issues , the experience of the faithful as well as the rational arguments developed by revisionist Catholic moral theologians challenge some of the normative claims of the magisterium. This paper investigates the methodological use of reason and experience in each theory's interpretation of natural law and how and why these two sources of moral knowledge lead to fundamentally divergent normative claims on particular ethical issues. (shrink)

Examination of the application of virtue ethics to business has only recently started to grapple with the measurement of virtue frameworks in a practical context. This paper furthers this agenda by measuring the impact of virtue at the level of the organisation and examining the extent to which organisational virtue impacts on moral attentiveness and the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility in creating organisational effectiveness. It is argued that people who operate in more virtuous organisational contexts will (...) be expected to be more attentive to ethical issues and in turn perceive a greater role for ethics and social responsibility in business. Analysis of results based on a sample of 137 HR professionals shows that where people report that their organisation provides meaningful work, they are more likely to display reflective MA and the belief that ethics and social responsibility are compatible with business objectives, suggesting that organisations who are interested in promoting an ethical culture should focus on their work structures and practices. More generally, OV is shown to have a more complex relationship with PRESOR than hypothesised pointing towards a more nuanced view of OV. The paper examines the implications of the results for organisations and research. (shrink)

Objectives: To describe the concerns and priorities of key stakeholders in a developing country regarding ethical obligations held by researchers and perceptions of equity or “what is fair” for study participants in an HIV/AIDS clinical drug trial. Design: Qualitative study with focus groups. Setting: Teaching and referral hospital and rural health centre in western Kenya. Participants: Potential HIV/AIDS clinical trial participants, clinician researchers, and administrators. Results: Eighty nine individuals participated in a total of 11 focus groups over a (...) four month period. The desire for continued drug therapy, most often life long, following an HIV/AIDS clinical trial was the most common priority expressed in all focus groups. Patients with and without HIV/AIDS also thought subsidisation of drug therapies and education were critical forms of compensation for clinical trial participation. Financial incentives were considered important primarily for purchasing drug therapy as well as obtaining food. Patients noted a concern for the potential mismanagement of any money offered. Clinician researchers and administrators felt strongly that researchers have a moral obligation to participants following a trial to provide continued drug therapy, adverse event monitoring, and primary care. Finally, clinician researchers and administrators stressed the need for thorough informed consent to avoid coercion of study participants. Conclusions: Kenyan patients, clinician researchers, and administrators believe that it would be unfair to stop antiretroviral therapy following an HIV/AIDS clinical trial and that researchers have a long term obligation to participants. (shrink)

This paper aims to clear up the epistemology of learning morality from Artificial Moral Advisors (AMAs). We start with a brief consideration of what counts as moral enhancement and consider the risk of deskilling raised by machines that offer moral advice. We then shift focus to the epistemology of moral advice and show when and under what conditions moral advice can lead to enhancement. We argue that people’s motivational dispositions are enhanced by inspiring people (...) to act morally, instead of merely telling them how to act. Drawing upon these insights, we claim that if AMAs are to genuinely enhance people morally, they should be designed as inspiration and not authority machines. In the final section, we evaluate existing AMA models to shed light on which holds the most promise for helping to make users better moral agents. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to introduce scholars to recent discussions of early Confucian ethics that intersect with contemporary moral psychology. Given the early Confucian tradition's intense focus on the cultivation of virtue, there are a number of ways in which early Confucian thinkers – as represented in the texts of the Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi – fruitfully engaged in a range of topics that are closely connected to live issues in moral psychology. Not (...) only did they anticipate some contemporary debates but explored them from a distinctively Confucian normative worldview, attending especially to the role of the family and ritual practice. This essay seeks to demonstrate that early Confucianism, by integrating a normative vision with empirically grounded observations of human behavior, offers resources for constructively exploring a number of ongoing questions in moral psychology. (shrink)

This book analyses the moral theory of the seventh century Indian Mahayana master, Santideva. Santideva is the author of the well-known religious poem the Bodhicaryavatara (Entering the Path of Enlightenment) , as well as the significant, but relatively overlooked, Siksasamuccaya (Compendium of Teachings) . Both of these works describe the nature and path of the bodhisattva, the altruistic spiritual ideal especially exalted in Mahayana literature. With particular focus on the Siksasamuccaya , this work offers a response to three (...) questions: What is Santideva's moral theory? How does it compare to other analyses of Buddhist ethics? Can one moral theory adequately describe Buddhist moral thought? An exegetical account of the bodhisattva path as outlined in the Siksasamuccaya is provided by textual analysis and translations. The central moral concept of this Buddhist thinker and Santideva's ethical presuppositions and moral reasoning are brought to light by analysing the use of key moral terms and comparing them to other Buddhists' principles. It is also considered in relation to dominant Western ethical theories. By focusing on a neglected Buddhist Sanskrit text by a major Mahayana figure, Barbra Clayton helps to redress a significant imbalance in the scholarship on Buddhist ethics, which has up to now focused primarily on the ethics of the Pali literature and as interpreted in the Theravada tradition. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is largely defensive. I aim to discuss some problems for moral error theory and to offer plausible solutions. A full positive defense of moral error theory would require substantial investigations of rival metaethical views, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. I will, however, try to motivate moral error theory and to clarify its commitments. Moral error theorists typically accept two claims – one conceptual and one ontological – about (...) moral facts. The conceptual claim is that moral facts are or entail facts about categorical reasons (and correspondingly that moral claims are or entail claims about categorical reasons); the ontological claim is that there are no categorical reasons – and consequently no moral facts – in reality. I accept this version of moral error theory and I try to unpack what it amounts to in Section 2.1 In the course of doing so I consider two preliminary objections: that moral error theory is (probably) false because its implications are intuitively unacceptable (what I call the Moorean objection) and that the general motivation for moral error theory is self-undermining in that it rests on a hidden appeal to norms. The above characterization seems to entail the standard formulation of moral error theory, according to which first-order moral claims are uniformly false. Critics have argued that the standard formulation is incoherent since – by the law of excluded middle – the negation of a false claim is true. Hence if ‘Torture is wrong’ is false, ‘Torture is not wrong’ is true. Contrary to what moral error theorists contend, then, moral error theory seems to carry first-order moral implications that by the theory’s own lights are uniformly false. In Section 3 I suggest a formulation that is consistent with the standard formulation of moral error theory, free of first-order moral implications, and subject to no logical difficulties. In Section 4 I consider and rebut Stephen Finlay’s recent attack on moral error theory. According to Finlay the conceptual claim is false because all moral claims – and indeed all normative claims – are, or should be understood as, relativized to some moral standard or system of ends. Moral error theorists thus attribute to ordinary speakers an error that simply isn’t there. I argue that Finlay’s view has some very implausible implications and that it does not avoid commitment to various forms of error theory. This becomes especially clear when we focus on fundamental moral claims. In Section 5 I consider the worry that error theorists’ rejection of categorical reasons proves too much; in particular, the worry that error theorists’ qualms about categorical reasons apply equally to claims about hypothetical reasons, that is, claims to the effect that there is reason to take the means to one’s ends. In my view error theorists such as Mackie and Joyce have failed to pay due consideration to this problem. What the challenge establishes, I submit, is that error theorists cannot just take for granted that hypothetical reasons are metaphysically unproblematic; they must offer an account of hypothetical reasons that shows that they are. I argue that the only plausible account available to error theorists is one according to which claims about hypothetical reasons reduce to non-normative claims about relations between means and ends. (shrink)

Although post-traumatic stress disorder is now constituted by a set of characteristic symptoms, its roots lie in Post-Vietnam Syndrome, a label generated by a Vietnam-era advocacy movement that focused not on symptoms but on war’s traumatic context. When Post-Vietnam Syndrome was subsumed into the abstract, individualistic, symptom-centered language of DSM-III and rendered as PTSD, it not only lost this focus on context but also neglected the experiences of veterans who suffer from things done or witnessed, not primarily from what (...) was done to them, in war. This agent-related trauma has been rediscovered in contemporary work on moral injury, but moral injury too is increasingly subjected to the hegemony of the symptom. Focusing on symptoms, however, unhelpfully pathologizes and individualizes trauma, neglects traumatic context, and legitimates problematic therapeutic approaches. Trauma researchers and clinicians should decenter the language of symptoms and focus instead on context and on alternative accounts of trauma. (shrink)

The formulation of moral issues surrounding consumer advertising tends to focus on the capacity to persuade or inform, and how these capabilities may be used to distort or fulfill needs and desires. Discussion of these issues abstracts from widespread advertising and marketing practices, by assuming that all advertising is mass advertising, broadcast indiscriminately over the entire market population. This assumption directs attention away from important issues stemming from actual advertising strategies, which involve campaigns designed for and conveyed to (...) particular customer groups or segments within broader product market. Several cases are outlined to illustrate the class of practices considered to be important and usually ignored, and issues that they raise for moral appraisal are suggested. (shrink)