La Iglesia de América Latina y el Caribe recibe del Concilio Vaticano II una fuerza crítica y profética, que se evidencia en la Segunda Conferencia del Episcopado, reunida en Medellín, en 1968. A partir de la originalidad propia de nuestra amerindia, este Concilio se asume, integra y traduce para vivir su inspiración y derroteros fundamentales. La iglesia de la que somos testigos hoy, 50 años después de Medellín, se ha entretejido desde allí. Prueba fehaciente de ello, en este continente, son (...) aquellas comunidades que testimonian a una iglesia liberadora y misericordiosa, nazarena y samaritana, una iglesia que es pueblo de Dios y de los pobres, una iglesia comunitaria de comunidades y, siempre, en salida. Comunidades que han trabajado en aras de la paz, la justicia y la dignidad de todos; en una búsqueda y respuesta real de organización, de lucha ante la opresión y explotación de cualquier orden. (shrink)

In this work, originally published in 1986, Victor Seidler explores the different notions of respect, equality and dependency in Kant’s moral writings. He illuminates central tensions and contradictions not only within Kant’s moral philosophy, but within the thinking and feeling about human dignity and social inequality which we take very much for granted within a liberal moral culture. In challenging our assumption of the autonomy of morality, Seidler also questions our understanding of what it means for someone to live as (...) a person in his or her own right. The autonomy of individuals cannot be assumed but has to be reasserted against relationships of subordination. This involves a break with a rationalist morality, so that respect for others involves respect for emotions, feelings, desires and needs, and establishes a fuller autonomy as a basis for freedom and justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society by Patricia Lamoureux, Paul J. WadellVictor Lee AustinThe Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society Patricia Lamoureux and Paul J. Wadell Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010. 306pp. $27.00In ten chapters, the authors provide what is in effect an introductory college textbook in Roman Catholic moral theology. They aim to ground their exposition in scripture and to (...) reach a broad audience by drawing on ecumenical and interfaith perspectives. Their organization is clear: they summarize each chapter in advance and then conclude it with a list of main points and questions for reflection. The index is extensive, the bibliography is large, and the table of contents is quite detailed. In short, the book aims to be accessible to undergraduates and helpful to more advanced students. (There is, unfortunately, no index of scriptural citations.) [End Page 201]The arc of their approach to moral theology is as follows. One should begin with discipleship and more specifically with its dynamic of call and response. Discipleship is a process in which one learns to see, particularly to see the reign of God. Sin and repentance are continually involved in discipleship. The development of the virtues is central because through them we learn to be good at being human. In the moral life, conscience is the central gift by which we learn to live by love in a Eucharistic life. Such life is informed by the resurrection as understood both “analogically and dialectically” (206), it is guided by the Spirit, and it is anchored in the shared resources and discernment of Christian community. Finally, the moral life is not private. Thus, the authors conclude with a chapter that draws out the implications for public discipleship.I venture three critiques that arise in part from my place as an Anglican moral theologian. The first deals with scripture. The authors are aware of the characteristic biases of preconciliar Roman Catholic moral theology. I am less certain that they are self-conscious of some of their own presuppositions. Commendably, they provide a verse of scripture at the head of each chapter, and they conceive of what they are doing as working from scripture throughout. Yet it is not clear to me that they present us with a moral theology that comes out of a prayerful wrestling with scripture. For example, their statement, “Jesus praises the [good] Samaritan” (46) is not strictly true. Rather, in telling that parable, Jesus holds back from stating a conclusion. Moreover, the authors are correct to say that parables are useful in transforming our vision. They make that point over eight pages (39–47), in which there are seventeen citations of secondary literature from six different authors. Yet, I would have preferred to see how the authors themselves digested, synthesized, and struggled with the parables, rather than simply discussing the conclusions of others.My second critique deals with conscience. When students start to think about how the moral life is grounded in scripture, they will at some point ask: What if my conscience tells me that something is right that scripture says is wrong (or vice versa)? This question, however, does not appear in this book. In their chapter on the centrality of conscience, it becomes clear that the authors see the primary challenge to the primacy of the conscience as coming from “church leaders.” This is, I think, a regrettable continuation of the tired struggle of Roman moral theologians with their church’s magisterium. At least to this outsider—who lives within an ecclesial context marked by extreme weakness of teaching—there seems to be a highly important and positive use of obedience, which is different from the “mystique of obedience” that these authors criticize (170–71). To be precise, “church leaders” can help us learn something about the relationship of conscience and scripture. This book does not show the place of obedience in the Christian moral life.My last point is a comment on textbooks. Although this book is quite long (I estimate it at 150,000 words), it has that textbook quality of passing lightly [End Page 202] from one thing to the next... (shrink)

John Leslie Mackie (1917–81) was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His published works spanned many areas, but he is not well known as a political philosopher. In the late 1970s, however, Mackie turned his attention to issues concerning justice. In a series of writings Mackie built a case for a unique right-based approach to political philosophy, in part by delivering incisive critiques of theories dominant at the time. His most comprehensive work in this area is (...) Theories of Justice and Rights—a previously unpublished manuscript that finally sees the light of day in this volume. Also included are two of Mackie’s previously published papers, written during the same period: ‘Can There Be a Right-Based Moral Theory?’ (1978) and ‘Rights, Utility, and External Costs’ (1985). Some of Mackie’s arguments in these works draw on the metaethical conclusions in his seminal book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977). The editorial introduction of this volume canvasses the initially puzzling relation between Mackie’s moral error theory and his account of justice and rights, addresses some exegetical queries, and connects to present-day debates. In addition, the introduction provides summaries of Mackie’s theory of rights, his critique of Rawls’s liberalism, and of Nozick’s libertarianism. (shrink)

En este trabajo se defiende la existencia de un lugar específico para las decisiones de política educativa. Las decisiones de política educativa se presentan como un tipo de decisión ubicado entre la decisión técnica y la decisión moral. La racionalidad política, situada entre la racionalidad moral y la racionalidad científico-tecnológica, tiene una especial relevancia en el ámbito de la educación. Las decisiones de política educativa que no se confunden con la teoría interpretativa denominada Política de la Educación, ni con la (...) teoría práctica denominada Política Pedagógica, usan el conocimiento de la educación. En el trabajo se analiza con detenimiento la posibilidad de los hechos y las decisiones pedagógicas. El carácter axiológico de los hechos hace posible hablar de la orientación de la acción con fundamento en el conocimiento del propio proceso. Se mantiene que la decisión técnica es específica de la Pedagogía y su techo superior es el ámbito de la decisión moral. A su vez, las decisiones de política educativa se estudian en su especificidad y se concluye que los dos grandes errores en la polémica "ciencia-moral-política" son el reduccionismo del proceso al ciencismo o la subsunción de toda decisión en la decisión moral. El trabajo concluye que las peculiaridades de la decisión de política educativa, obligan a considerar que las finalidades no son criterios de decisión externos al sistema, sino constantes aceptadas provisionalmente en los procesos de planificación. Esta posición va más allá del esquema causal medios-fines y de la concepción taylorista de la organización, para defender frente a las largas cadenas de derivación de fines la formación de subsistemas de toma de decisiones. /// This article is engaged in upholding the appropiate place for decisions in Educational Politics and Policy. All that inside the knowledge of Education. Political decision making in the educational arena has got a place between technical decisions and moral decisions. That one has increasedy its relevance in educational forum. On the other point of view, this kind of decision must mot be understood as a result of the discipline "Politics of Education" or as a consequence of practical theories which are known like "Politica Pedag6gica" (Pedagogy into Politics). Decisions in educational policy are applied knowledge of Education but they are not made only with pedagogical facts and technical decisions. It's posible to think of technical decisions as the ones which come not only from the process, but from the knowledge of the process in its own. Pedagogy as a discipline of education let you make technical decisions. Upper these ones, we find the moral decision. To study the special characteristics of political decisions shows two bigs mistakes into the controversy "Science-Moral-Politics": scientism and moral subsunction of Political decision in that. In the last pages, this work goes beyond the causal relation between "means-ends". The authors suggest, for the field of goals, to make subsystem levels for decision making, in stead of using the taylorist model in order to organize several stages of goals. (shrink)

This book investigates the argument from queerness against moral realism, famously put forward by J. L. Mackie in Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977). The book can be divided into two parts. The first part, roughly comprising chapters 1 and 2, gives a critical overview of Mackie’s metaethics. In chapter 1 it is suggested that the argument from queerness is the only argument that poses a serious threat to moral realism. A partial defense of this idea is offered in chapter (...) 2 via a discussion of Mackie’s argument from relativity, which is concluded to fail for reasons that generalize to other influential arguments against moral realism. Chapter 2 also explores Mackie’s moral semantics at length. The key notion of authoritative prescriptivity is analyzed, and a new interpretation of Mackie’s error theory is defended. In the second part, consisting roughly of chapters 3 and 4, the argument from queerness is taken apart and put back together, resulting in several different versions. Chapter 3 discusses three different supervenience-related arguments, all of which are found to be unpersuasive. Chapter 4 develops two different versions of the core argument from queerness, focusing on authoritative prescriptivity. A total of thirteen objections are discussed and rejected. It is concluded that the two arguments do indeed refute the targeted versions of moral realism. Finally, in chapter 5 the entire discussion is briefly summarized. (shrink)

J. L. Mackie famously argued that a commitment to non-existent objective values permeates ordinary moral thought and discourse. According to a standard interpretation, Mackie construed this commitment as a universal and indeed essential feature of moral judgments. In this paper I argue that we should rather ascribe to Mackie a form of semantic pluralism, according to which not all moral judgments involve the commitment to objective values. This interpretation not only makes better sense of what Mackie actually says, but also (...) renders his error theory immune to a powerful objection. (shrink)

Reseña de: Baumgarten, A. G., & Kant, I.. Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy. A Critical Translation with Kant’s Reflections on Moral Philosophy. Edición y traducción: C. D. Fugate y J. Hymers. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-4742-8265-9, 375 pp.

J. L. Mackie argued that moral thought and discourse involve commitment to an especially robust kind of normativity, which is too weird to exist. Thus, he concluded that moral thought and discourse involve systematic error. Much has been said about this argument in the last four decades or so. Nevertheless, at least one version of Mackie’s argument, specifically the one focusing on the intrinsic weirdness of the relevant kind of normativity, has not been fully unpacked. Thus, more needs to be (...) said about the issue of how to interpret Mackie’s argument. Moreover, I argue that by looking closely at Mackie’s discussion, we can extract two distinct versions of the argument which together present a tougher, and also more precise, challenge for moral realism than extant versions. In this paper I thus revisit Mackie’s discussion with an eye to making progress on an important issue in contemporary metaethics. (shrink)

Non-naturalists about normativity hold that there are instantiable normative properties which are metaphysically discontinuous with natural properties. One of the central challenges to non-naturalism is how to reconcile this discontinuity with the supervenience of the normative on the natural. Drawing on J. L. Mackie’s seminal but highly compressed discussion in Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, this paper argues that the supervenience challenge as usually conceived is merely a symptom of a more fundamental challenge in the vicinity.

The article explores and attempts the possibility of reading normative cultural relativism into J. S. Mill’s On Liberty. This article examines J. S. Mill’s On Liberty. It argues that even though Mill is often described as a moral universalist as evident in the methodology employed in the postulation of his ethical utilitarianism, one could also argue that his position maintained in On Liberty qualifies him to be a normative cultural relativist. Basically, the article contends that beyond the universalist reading of (...) Mill’s works, he is qualified to be called a normative cultural relativist. The article interrogates and interprets the position maintained by J. S. Mill’s in the On Liberty that commits him to normative cultural relativism. The paper concludes that anyone that maintains such a position as Mill need not necessarily reject normative cultural relativism. (shrink)

Starting from Proust’s distinction between the self-attributive and self-evaluative views on metacognition, this paper presents a third view: self-mindshaping. Based on the notion of mindshaping as the core of social cognition, the self-mindshaping view contends that mindshaping abilities can be turned on one’s own mind. Against the self-attributive view, metacognition is not a matter of accessing representations to metarepresent them but of giving shape to those representations themselves. Against the self-evaluative view, metacognition is not blind to content but relies heavily (...) on it. We characterize our view in terms of four issues that, according to Proust, distinguish the previous approaches, namely, whether metacognitive mechanisms are the same as those employed to access other minds, whether metacognitive control requires conceptual representation, whether metacognition is propositional, and whether metacognitive access is linked to mental action. After describing some of the mechanisms for self-mindshaping, we show how this view regards metacognition as grounded on social interaction mechanisms, conceptually driven, possibly, but not necessarily, propositional, and engaged in the practical regulation of mental states. Finally, we examine the prospects for the primacy of self-mindshaping as the primary metacognitive function. We argue that self-attributive processes typically subserve the practical goals emphasized by the mindshaping view, and that the evaluative role played by procedural metacognition can be grounded on social cues rather than on experiential feelings. Even if this is not enough to claim the primacy of self-mindshaping, it still appears as a third kind of metacognition, not reducible to the other two. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction by Anthony J. LisskaV. Bradley LewisAnthony J. Lisska. Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. xv + 320. Paper, $24.95.This volume aims to provide an explication of the natural law theory of St. Thomas Aquinas “consistent with the expectation of philosophers in the analytic tradition” (10–11, 17). Accordingly, the author begins, in the first (...) three chapters, by reviewing the recent history of Anglo-American metaethics, aligning himself broadly with those critics of analytic ethics like G. E. M. Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Martha Nussbaum, and Henry Veatch, who have argued for a recovery of Aristotelian moral theory, against varieties of intuitionism, non-cognitivism, and neo-Kantianism. Lisska’s principal objective is to present a reconstructed natural law theory based primarily on Aquinas’s discussion in questions 90–97 of the prima secundae of the Summa theologiae (a translation of these questions is appended to the book). This he offers mostly in the fourth, fifth and eighth chapters of the book. The sixth chapter is a critique of John Finnis’s account of natural law and the seventh is an exposition of the views of Henry [End Page 526] Veatch. The ninth chapter presents some suggestions on how the author’s account can illuminate controversies over the grounding of human rights, and the tenth is a brief conclusion.The three introductory chapters consist mainly of a review and endorsement of the critics of academic ethics since Moore’s Prıncipia Ethıca. Having accepted arguments for the inadequacy of modern ethics, Lisska argues for the recovery of Aquinas’s views which he sees as in fundamental continuity with Aristotelian ethics (84, 89, 100, 102–105, 108, 134–36). His central thesis is that natural law is a “second-order inquiry” based on a realist metaphysics of the human person as defined by a set of dispositional properties, the realization of which constitutes Aristotelian eudaimonia and Thomistic beatitudo (17, 104–106, 131–37, 152–55, 186, 195–201). Moreover, Lisska contends that Aristotelian “eudaimonism” constitutes an adequate account of moral obligation: what he calls, after Veatch, “obligatory teleology” (107–109, 121, 202–205, 235).At the core of Lisska’s account, then, is a metaphysical dispute that pits Aristotelian essentialism against modern reductionist ontology. This metaphysical core is separated from any theological implications in the fifth chapter (especially 119–23, 137) and Lisska reinforces his metaphysical thesis by appealing to Saul Kripke’s discussion of natural kinds and the early work of Hilary Putnam (97–99, 125, 206–209). Given the centrality of metaphysical argument, a critique of Finnis’s theory goes without saying, and Lisska devotes a chapter to it, adding another to expound Henry Veatch’s contrary view.While this book undertakes an important effort to recover a workable natural law theory—especially in its commendable stress on metaphysical questions—it is, as a whole, less satisfactory than it might have been. A good part of this owes to the book’s abstraction from historical questions. No sustained attention is devoted to the problems that accompanied the reception of Aristotle by Christian theologians, nor to the place of natural law in Aquinas’s overall understanding of morality. The former point is not so surprising, given the book’s analytic concerns; the latter, however, carries more serious theoretical implications. Why is it, for example, that natural law takes up so little space compared to the questions on happiness, human acts, and the habits and virtues in the prima secundae, not to mention the detailed treatments of the virtues and vices in the secunda secundae? Similarly, where Aquinas stresses that natural law as law is directed to the common good (Iallae 90.2), Lisska treats it mostly as a guide to “self-realization.”This issue suggests the tensions between Aristotle and Aquinas, tensions that seem to show themselves precisely in Aquinas’s discussion of the very notion of natural law, a notion that has no equivalent in Aristotle. This question hangs over Lisska’s brief treatment of obligation, in particular, since that concept is also lacking explicit treatment in... (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 Morality of Happiness By Julia Annas, Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. x + 502. ISBN 0–19–507999‐X. £45.00 (hbk), £13.99 (pbk).Dimensions of Creativity By Margaret A. Boden (ed.) MIT Press, 1994. Pp. 242. ISBN 0–262–02368–7. £24.95.Thomas Hobbes and the Science of Moral Virtue By David Boonin‐Vail, Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 219. ISBN 0–521–46209–6. £37.50.Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes By Quentin Skinner, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. 477. ISBN 0–521–55436–5. £35.00.Being and the Between By William Desmond, State (...) University of New York Press, 1995. Pp. 557. ISBN 0–7914–2271–2. $19.95.Perplexity and Ultimacy By William Desmond, State University of New York Press, 1995. Pp. 263. ISBN 0–7914–2387–5. $19.95.Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology By Susan Haack, Blackwell Publishers, 1994. Pp. x + 259. ISBN 0–631–19679‐X/£14.99 (pbk).Kant's Intuitionalism: A Commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic By Lorne Falkenstein, University of Toronto Press, 1996. Pp. xvii + 465. ISBN 0–8020–2973–6. $70.00.The Metaphysics of Free Will By John Martin Fischer, Blackwell, 1995. Pp. ix + 273. ISBN 1–55786–8573. £14.99.Identification Papers By Diana Fuss, Routledge, 1995. Pp. 179. ISBN 0–415–90886–8. $16.95.Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to his Critics Edited by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., Vanderbilt University Press, 1995. ISBN 0–8265–1263–1 $24.95.Nietzsche's French Legacy: a Genealogy of Poststructuralism By Alan D. Schrift, Routledge, 1995. Pp. xviii + 198. ISBN 0–415–91146‐X. £40.00.Causal Cognition ‐ A Multidisciplinary Debate Edited by Dan Sperber, David Premack, and Ann James Premack, Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp. 670. ISBN 0–19–852314–9. £00.00. (shrink)

Prior research has shown the relationship between objective economic inequality and searching for positional goods. It also investigated the relationship between social class and low income with conspicuous consumption. However, the causal relationship between economic inequality has been less explored. Furthermore, there are also few studies looking for the psychological mechanisms that underlie these effects. The current research’s main goal is to analyze the consequences of perceived economic inequality on conspicuous and status consumption and the possible psychological mechanisms that could (...) explain its effects. Furthermore, the current research aims to examine whether there is a causal relationship between PEI and materialism preferences and attitudes toward indebtedness. This work includes two preregister experimental studies. In the Study 1, we manipulated PEI and its legitimacy through a 2 × 2 between-participants experiment. Results showed a main effect of PEI on status consumption, status seeking, status anxiety, materialism, and attitude toward indebtedness. No interaction effect between legitimacy and inequality was found. In the Study 2, we manipulated the PEI through the Bimboola Paradigm. We replicated the effect of PEI on status consumption, status seeking, and materialism and found that status seeking mediated the relationship between PEI and status and conspicuous consumption. Economic inequality affects consumer behavior and favors consumption preferences for products that provide desirable symbolic values associated with status. These results could have important implications in the interpersonal and intergroup processes, including those related to consumption and purchase. (shrink)

Este artículo trata sobre el filósofo chileno Jenaro Abasolo. Se expone en él, primeramente, la producción literaria de Abasolo y la nula receptividad que su obra tuvo en los círculos intelectuales de su tiempo, aludiendo, a la vez, al concepto central de su filosofía, es decir, la idea de personalidad. Luego, y más extensamente, se presentan las consideraciones de Abasolo respecto de algunas de las problemáticas sociales y económicas discutidas en los inicios de la República, abordando temas como la moral, (...) la religión, el fin social y la libertad. This artick is a treatise on the Chilean philosopher Jenaro Abasólo. Vrimarilj, it exposes Abasólo, his literary production, and the complete lack of attention that his oeuvre recieved from the intellectual áreles of his period. It alludes, at the same time, to the central concept of his philosophy, Le., the idea of personality. Later and more extensively, it presents Abasolo’s considerations regarding social and economic issues discussed at the beginning of the Republic, addressing topics such as morality, religión, social order and freedom. (shrink)

Synthetic biology, as a research field, brings together molecular life scientists, computational biologists, and social scientists to engineer biological systems toward societally desired goals. Given the field’s broad multidisciplinarity and relatively young age, innovative educational methods are required to provide students with the needed background knowledge to push the field forward in the future. The international Genetically Engineered Machine competition is such an example where education and high-level research merge, providing the synthetic biology field with trained students, new ideas, and (...) novel results. In the 2021 edition alone, 343 teams from across the world completed the competition to tackle societal problems with synthetic biology. As Wageningen University & Research celebrates 10 years of participation in iGEM, we share our thoughts and experiences on supervising iGEM teams, which is especially relevant to organizers of current and new teams, and also others interested in the iGEM competition. (shrink)

Freely falling point-like objects converge toward the center of the Earth. Hence the gravitational field of the Earth is inhomogeneous, and possesses a tidal component. The free fall of an extended quantum mechanical object such as a hydrogen atom prepared in a high principal-quantum-number state, i.e. a circular Rydberg atom, is predicted to fall more slowly than a classical point-like object, when both objects are dropped from the same height above the Earth’s surface. This indicates that, apart from transitions between (...) quantum states, the atom exhibits a kind of quantum mechanical incompressibility during free fall in inhomogeneous, tidal gravitational fields like those of the Earth.A superconducting ring-like system with a persistent current circulating around it behaves like the circular Rydberg atom during free fall. Like the electronic wavefunction of the freely falling atom, the Cooper-pair wavefunction is quantum mechanically incompressible. The ions in the lattice of the superconductor, however, are not incompressible, since they do not possess a globally coherent quantum phase. The resulting difference during free fall in the response of the nonlocalizable Cooper pairs of electrons and the localizable ions to inhomogeneous gravitational fields is predicted to lead to a charge separation effect, which in turn leads to a large Coulomb force that opposes the convergence caused by the tidal gravitational force on the superconducting system.A “Cavendish-like” experiment is proposed for observing the charge separation effect induced by inhomogeneous gravitational fields in a superconducting circuit. The charge separation effect is determined to be limited by a pair-breaking process that occurs when low frequency gravitational perturbations are present. (shrink)

A destination’s image is a critical factor in tourists’ perceptions and evaluations of said destination. This paper analyzes the formation of the tourist destination image of Segóbriga Archeological Park, a cultural destination located in the province of Cuenca (Spain) that holds great heritage value. To this end, the paper adopted a multidimensional approach and used PLS-SEM to analyze the destination image, taking into account not only its cognitive and affective components, but also the unique image component. The latter has received (...) less attention in the literature and is a novel factor among cultural destinations. The results show that this component is essential to the overall image of an archeological destination, but is not influenced by information sources. (shrink)

Arguments attempting to debunk moral beliefs, by showing they are unjustified, have tended to be global, targeting all moral beliefs or a large set of them. Popular debunking arguments point to various factors purportedly influencing moral beliefs, from evolutionary pressures, to automatic and emotionally-driven processes, to framing effects. We show that these sweeping arguments face a debunker’s dilemma: either the relevant factor is not a main basis for belief or it does not render the relevant beliefs unjustified. Empirical debunking arguments (...) in ethics can avoid this predicament, but only if they are refocused on highly selective classes of moral belief. Experimental data can combine with familiar consistency reasoning to reveal that like cases are not being treated alike. Selective debunking arguments are unlikely to yield sweeping sceptical conclusions, but they can lead to rational moral change. (shrink)

Recently, Hosmer (1994a) proposed a model linking right, just, and fair treatment of extended stakeholders with trust and innovation in organizations. The current study tests this model by using Victor and Cullen''s (1988) ethical work climate instrument to measure the perceptions of the right, just, and fair treatment of employee stakeholders.In addition, this study extends Hosmer''s model to include the effect of right, just, and fair treatment on employee communication, also believed to be an underlying dynamic of trust.More specifically, the (...) current study used a survey of 111 managers to test (1) whether right, just, and fair treatment influences trust, both directly as well as indirectly via communication, and (2) whether trust influences perceptions of commitment and innovation. Strong support for the study''s hypotheses and Hosmer''s (1994a) model was found. Such findings support those who argue that moral management may be good management. (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)

This book offers a critical examination of those theories and advances a new argument for punishment's justification, calling it the 'duty view'.

Western philosophers have generally neglected honor as a moral phenomenon worthy of serious study. Appiah’s recent work on honor in moral revolutions is an important exception, but even he is careful to separate honor from morality, regarding it as only “an ally” of morality. In this paper we take Appiah to be right about the psychological, social, and historical role honor has played in three notable moral revolutions, but wrong about the moral nature of honor. We defend two new theses: (...) First, honor is an emotional and moral form of recognition respect that can hinder or aid moral progress. Second, honor, so conceived, can play a rational role in progressive moral change, as it did among the working class in the British abolition of slave trade, when the pressure of moral consistency moved them to protest American slavery as an affront to their honor without change in their moral belief that slavery is wrong. (shrink)

The development and use of advanced and innovative neuroscience, neurotechnology and some forms of artificial intelligence have exposed potential threats to the human condition, including human rights. As a result, reconceptualizing or creating human rights (i.e. neurorights) has been proposed to address specific brain and mind issues like free will, personal identity and cognitive liberty. However, perceptions, interpretations and meanings of these issues—and of neurorights—may vary between countries, contexts and cultures, all relevant for an international-consensus definition and implementation of neurorights. (...) Thus, we encourage reflecting on the proactive inclusion of transnational, cross-cultural and contextual considerations and concerns to contribute to the global discourse. This inclusion does not mean endorsing ethical relativism but rather a call to foster a universal understanding of key concepts and concerns. Including contextual and cultural perspectives may truly anticipate global concerns which could be addressed while developing and implementing neurorights. Consequently, any ethical and/or legal regulatory framework(s) for the translational and transnational use of advanced neuroscience, neurotechnology and some forms of artificial intelligence intended to protect and safeguard human dignity should be contextually and culturally mindful, responsible, respectful and inclusive of not only human rights and fundamental freedoms but also of neurocognitive cultural diversity. (shrink)

In resultant moral luck, blame and punishment seem intuitively to depend on downstream effects of a person’s action that are beyond his or her control. Some skeptics argue that we should override our intuitions about moral luck and reform our practices. Other skeptics attempt to explain away apparent cases of moral luck as epistemic artifacts. I argue, to the contrary, that moral luck is real—that people are genuinely responsible for some things beyond their control. A partially consequentialist theory of responsibility (...) justifies moral luck. But this justification is no mere rationalization of the status quo. Recent experimental and evolutionary work on punishment and learning suggests that the very same reasons that justify moral luck have also shaped the evolution of our luck-sensitive moral practices. (shrink)

Establishing the basic knowledge, methodology, and technology for a framework for the continuous decoding of hand/arm movement intention was the aim of the ERC-funded project “Feel Your Reach”. In this work, we review the studies and methods we performed and implemented in the last 6 years, which build the basis for enabling severely paralyzed people to non-invasively control a robotic arm in real-time from electroencephalogram. In detail, we investigated goal-directed movement detection, decoding of executed and attempted movement trajectories, grasping correlates, (...) error processing, and kinesthetic feedback. Although we have tested some of our approaches already with the target populations, we still need to transfer the “Feel Your Reach” framework to people with cervical spinal cord injury and evaluate the decoders’ performance while participants attempt to perform upper-limb movements. While on the one hand, we made major progress towards this ambitious goal, we also critically discuss current limitations. (shrink)

Experimental research in moral psychology can be used to generate debunking arguments in ethics. Specifically, research can indicate that we draw a moral distinction on the basis of a morally irrelevant difference. We develop this naturalistic approach by examining a recent debate between Joshua Greene and Selim Berker. We argue that Greene's research, if accurate, undermines attempts to reconcile opposing judgments about trolley cases, but that his attempt to debunk deontology fails. We then draw some general lessons about the possibility (...) of empirical debunking arguments in ethics. (shrink)

Central to Watts and Newson’s argument in their seminal paper ‘ Is there a duty to routinely reinterpret genomic variant classifications? ’ is that diagnostic laboratories are not morally obligated to actively reinterpret variants of uncertain significance (VUS) due to the superior outcomes offered by next-generation sequencing (NGS) compared with traditional methods.1 NGS technologies can identify, analyse and interpret millions of genetic variations at once. For example, ‘the use of conventional molecular assays in clinical contexts could require doing a lot (...) of assays for various mutations. Using these different assays, more tissue may be required. These targets can accurately be questioned using NGS technology in a single test.’2 If NGS-based genomic sequencing is reliable and its output outweighs the potential harm of uncertainties, then, it is plausible to say that those test providers cannot incur a moral duty to actively reinterpret VUS because there won’t be any need to do so.1 Despite its seeming reliability, diagnostic laboratories face enormous challenges in implementing NGS-based …. (shrink)

The central challenges for moral fictionalism are twofold: first, to explain how its recommendation that we abandon moral belief and assertion can be reconciled with its rationale of preserving the motivational efficacy of moral thought and discourse; second, to explain what the point is of replacing moral belief and assertion to begin with. This chapter clarifies these challenges and argues that Richard Joyce’s recent “metaphorist” version of fictionalism fares no better with respect to them than his earlier “narrationist” version. Just (...) like its narrationist predecessor, metaphorist fictionalism fails to secure the motivational efficacy of moral thought and talk. The authors also find faults with yet more recent attempts at answering the above challenges for moral fictionalism, leaving the conservationist recommendation a more attractive alternative. This conclusion could be overturned if the conservationist proposal were sufficiently problematic in other respects, but the authors argue that it isn’t. (shrink)

For the past four decades, Anglo-American legal philosophy has been preoccupied – some might say obsessed – with something called the “Hart-Dworkin” debate. Since the appearance in 1967 of “The Model of Rules I,” Ronald Dworkin’s seminal critique of H.L.A. Hart’s theory of legal positivism, countless books and articles have been written either defending Hart against Dworkin’s objections or defending Dworkin against Hart’s defenders. My purpose in this essay is not to declare an ultimate victor; rather it is to identify (...) precisely the core issue around which the debate is organized. Is the Hart-Dworkin debate, for example, about whether the law contains principles, as well as rules? Or does it concern whether judges have discretion in hard cases? Is it about the proper way to interpret legal texts in the American legal system? Or is it about the very possibility of conceptual jurisprudence? Although trying to capture the essence of a philosophical debate can be tricky, I think that there is an important unity to the Hart-Dworkin debate that can be described in a relatively straightforward manner. I suggest that the debate is organized around one of the most profound issues in the philosophy of law, namely, the relation between legality and morality. Dworkin’s basic strategy throughout the course of the debate has been to argue that, in one form or another, legality is ultimately determined not by social facts alone, but by moral facts as well. This contention directly challenges, and threatens to undermine, the positivist picture about the nature of law, in which legality is never determined by morality, but solely by social practice. As one might expect, the response by Hart and his followers has been to argue that this dependence of legality on morality is either merely apparent or does not, in fact, undermine the social foundations of law. The Hart-Dworkin debate, I also try to show, is not a monolithic entity. In the second half of the paper, I describe how Dworkin modified his critique to circumvent the responses of Hart’s followers, thereby inaugurating a new phase in the debate. Virtually no attention, however, has been paid to this latter challenge, which is especially surprising given that none of the previous positivistic defenses are helpful against it. I then sketch out a possible response positivists might offer to this extremely powerful objection. (shrink)

Two hundred and twenty-six state employees completed a structured questionnaire that investigated their ethical values and training needs. Top management were more likely to have attitudes against cronyism and giving advantage to others. Individuals higher in the organizational hierarchy, and female employees were more likely to believe that discriminatory practices were an ethical concern. In addition, employees with a larger number of clients outside of the organization were more supportive of the need to maintain strict confidentiality in business dealings. Employees'' (...) awareness and use of the organization''s code of conduct generally proved to be poor predictors of ethical values. Other analyses revealed that a variety of sociodemographic factors, job characteristics and ethical values predicted specific areas of training needs in ethics. (shrink)

I argue against Matthew Slater’s rejection of what he calls the grounding claim in his stable property cluster account of natural kinds. This claim states that the epistemic value of natural kinds depends on the existence of some ground to bind together a kind’s properties. Using two test cases from academic medicine, I show that grounds are genuinely explanatory of scientific epistemic practices and that the SPC account should not do without them in its philosophical analysis of natural kinds.

In this fascinating and accessible book, physicist Victor J. Stenger guides the lay reader through the key developments of quantum mechanics and the debate over its apparent paradoxes. In the process, he critically appraises recent metaphysical fads. Dr. Stenger's knack for elucidating scientific ideas and controversies in language that the nonspecialist can comprehend opens up to the widest possible audience a wealth of information on the most important findings of contemporary physics.

In this paper I explore the controversial claim that morality exists in the Hobbesian state of nature (represented in the rationality and prudence of natural laws), and how this moral is a necessary condition to achieve civil state. In order to accomplish this objective, I examine the work of G. Kav..

In Sparing Civilians, Seth Lazar claims that in war, with rare exceptions, killing noncombatants is worse than killing combatants. This paper raises some doubts about whether this is an important principle – at least, once we understand Lazar’s clarifications. It also suggests that however it is clarified, it seems false. And it suggests a related principle that more plausible. This related principle applies only to those with just aims, and it applies only to intentional killing rather than to all forms (...) of killing. (shrink)

Parsa-Parsi et al systematically discuss and elucidate contentious and non-controversial ethical issues that emerged during the ICoME (International Code of Medical Ethics) revision process and the consensus they achieved. The ethical issues discussed include the physician’s duty to act in the best interests of patients and to ensure they are protected from the unjustifiable risk of harm, respect for patient autonomy and the duties of physicians during emergencies, among others. This paper examines paragraph 26, which requires doctors to provide only (...) medically justified remote treatment, ensure patients offer informed consent and adequately protect their confidentiality.1 At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries in Europe and America implemented remote-by-default healthcare policies. At that time, the policy aimed to ensure that patients enjoyed continued access to care while protecting healthcare professionals’ health and well-being. After the COVID-19 pandemic, this policy remained in place. Regardless of the nature of their ailment, patients have consistently preferred in-person care out of concern that their health issues might not be accurately diagnosed and that they may not receive quality care …. (shrink)

Much of today’s public and private discourse surrounding social norms, morals, and values is non-productive, if not counter-productive. It is rare that any kind of consensus is reached when such discrepancies surface. Some of this is due to honest disagreement among genuinely reflective and open-minded individuals, but it is becoming more obvious that a large and perhaps growing portion of this problem stems from misunderstandings about the nature of these concepts themselves. Sadly, these misunderstandings do not seem to be diminishing. (...) This essay is an attempt to further the clarification of these ideas from the perspective of a concerned citizen. (shrink)

Many theists regard the claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine-tuned for life as the best scientific argument for the existence of God since Paley’s watch. Even atheist physicists find these so-called “anthropic coincidences” difficult to explain naturally and many think they need to invoke multiple universes and the so-called “anthropic principle” to do so. Certainly if there are many universes, fine-tuning is simple. Our universe is not fine-tuned for life. Life is fine-tuned to our universe. While multiple (...) universes are expected from modern cosmological theories, theists and some scientists object that invoking the unobservable is not science. Of course, God is unobservable too, so the best theists can claim is a standoff. (shrink)

This paper analyses the structure of evolutionary theory as a quasi-Newtonian theory and the need to establish a Zero-Cause Law. Several authors have postulated that the special character of drift is because it is the default behaviour or Zero-Cause Law of evolutionary systems, where change and not stasis is the normal state of them. For these authors, drift would be a Zero-Cause Law, the default behaviour and therefore a constituent assumption impossible to change without changing the system. I defend that (...) drift's causal and explanatory power prevents it from being considered as a Zero-Cause Law. Instead, I propose that the default behaviour of evolutionary systems is what I call the Principle of Stasis, which posits that an evolutionary system where there is no selection, drift, mutation, migration, etc., and therefore no difference-maker, will not undergo any change (it will remain in stasis). (shrink)

Cohen’s (2023) mapping exercise of possible bioethical issues emerging from the use of ChatGPT in medicine provides an informative, useful, and thought-provoking trigger for discussions of AI ethic...

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is the self-proclaimed inventor of the binary system and is considered as such by most historians of mathematics and/or mathematicians. Really though, we owe the groundwork of today’s computing not to Leibniz but to the Englishman Thomas Harriot and the Spaniard Juan Caramuel de Lobkowitz, whom Leibniz plagiarized. This plagiarism has been identified on the basis of several facts: Caramuel’s work on the binary system is earlier than Leibniz’s, Leibniz was acquainted—both directly and indirectly—with Caramuel’s work and (...) Leibniz had a natural tendency to plagiarize scientific works. (shrink)