Observational studies have suggested that some nonhuman primates’ cooperative behavior may rely on their capacity to share goals and understand the role of their partners. Experimental studies have tried to find evidence for this under controlled conditions, investigating aspects like the degree of organization in different primate species and the individuals’ capacity to recognize and choose good partners, switch roles with them, and care about their outcomes. Often, the results have been mixed. Partly, this is because of the methodological difficulties (...) inherent to empirical research. In this paper, I offer a critical, methodological review of the experimental studies done in the last years on nonhuman primates’ cooperation, I discuss their findings, and suggest possible solutions to some of the procedural problems. Hopefully, this will contribute to improve the design of future studies and therefore our knowledge about the evolutionary history of cooperation. (shrink)

Prompted and ever diversified by the specifically human interrogative logos, scientific inquiries seek a common system of links in order to mutually confirm and rectify their results. Coming closer and closer to phenomenology, the sciences of life find the common ground of the reality in the ontopoiesis of life. Could it not be that the interrogative logos of science, participating in human creative inventiveness will bring together also the divergent scientific methods in a common network? A network which comprises natural (...) processes, societal sharing-in-life, and existential communication. Papers by: Gary Backhaus, Anjana Bhattacharjee, Simon Du Plock, Ignacy Fiut, Maria Golaszewska, Wendy C. Hamblet, Alexandr Kouzmin, Nikolay Kozhevnikov, Olga Louchakova, Jarlath Mc Kenna, Amy Louise Miller, Aria Omrani, Arthur Piper, Leszek Pyra, W. Kim Rogers, A.L. Samian, Camilo Serrano Bonitto, Natalia Smirnova, Eva Syristova, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Roberto Verolini, Eldon C. Wait, Leo Zonneveld. (shrink)

El trabajo consiste en una elucidación de los elementos que conforman el concepto de pena natural (poena naturalis) en el Derecho penal. Se puede caracterizar la pena natural como el daño o sufrimiento que recae sobre el autor de un delito, producto de la comisión del mismo, que debe ser descontado de la pena legal que ha de aplicársele. Si bien existe un mínimo acuerdo sobre esto, tanto en la jurisprudencia como en la doctrina penal se observan serios desacuerdos acerca (...) de los requisitos que se deben cumplir para reconocer que se está frente a una pena natural. Para elucidar los elementos, se utilizará el constructivismo conceptual de Ronald Dworkin, a fin de describir el desacuerdo y sus implicancias, reconocer los elementos principales de la pena natural y justificarlos bajo su mejor luz moral. ABSTRACT This study focuses on the clarification of the conceptual elements of poena naturalis in criminal law settings. The poena naturalis is the damage or suffering that falls on the convict for its commission. This damage must be deducted from the poena forensis to be applied. Although there is a minimum agreement about the concept of poena naturalis, in the jurisprudence and among legal scholars, there are serious disagreements about the elements of poena naturalis. To elucidate the elements, I will adopt Ronald Dworkin’s conceptual constructivism to describe the disagreement and its implications. At last, I will justify the main elements of the poena naturalis by their best moral light. (shrink)

Pain is a global problem whose social, economic, and psychological costs are immeasurable. It is now seen as the most common reason why people seek medical (including psychiatric) care. But what is pain? This article shows that the discourse of pain tends to suffer from the same problems of ethnocentrism and obscurity as the discourse of emotions in general. Noting that in the case of pain, the costs of miscommunication are particularly high, this article offers a new paradigm for communicating (...) about pain. It shows how the use of natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) techniques developed in linguistic semantics can help in this area, as in other areas concerned with human subjectivity, and can lead to a greater understanding between psychologists, psychiatrists, medical practitioners, social workers, and ordinary suffering mortals. (shrink)

La pena natural es una situación paradójica que se puede presentar cuando el autor de un delito, al cometerlo o a causa de éste, ha sufrido un daño igual o mayor al que padecería si el juez de la causa le aplicara la pena estatal prevista para tal conducta. Se da con frecuencia al juzgar ciertos accidentes viales, cuando el acusado ya carga el peso de ser quien, por imprudencia, mató a su pareja o familiar cercano, por ejemplo. Pero ¿en (...) qué situaciones y cómo cabe recurrir a la pena natural? En esta investigación, Manuel Serrano explora las diversas aristas y posturas en pugna que atraviesan este tema, donde se cruzan cuestiones como la idea de la “culpa compensada”, la prohibición de aplicar castigo doble por un mismo hecho (non bis in idem) y la clemencia judicial. El autor desmonta la estructura conceptual de la pena natural, estudia jurisprudencia argentina y recorre producciones teóricas de juristas que se han preocupado por este asunto complejo, profundo y poco abordado del derecho penal. (shrink)

Conceptual primitives and semantic universals are the cornerstones of a semantic theory which Anna Wierzbicka has been developing for many years. Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical and readable way. It delineates a full set of universal concepts, as they have emerged from large-scale investigations across a wide range of languages undertaken by the author and her colleagues. On the basis of empirical (...) cross-linguistic studies it vindicates the old notion of the "psychic unity of mankind", while at the same time offering a framework for the rigorous description of different languages and cultures. (shrink)

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

¿Qué pasaría si, en el momento fundacional de la modernidad, el personaje principal no fuera el yo cartesiano, sino ese otro personaje que Descartes llamó genio maligno? Esa es la hipótesis que plantea el presente ensayo: ¿qué ocurriría si en lugar de la agotada certeza del yo, el mundo moderno se hubiera asentado más bien sobre la confusión y sobre la trampa que se condensan en la metáfora del genio maligno? Desde esa hipótesis, la mayor parte de las configuraciones filosóficas (...) de eso que llamamos modernidad aparecen transfiguradas, se convierten en meras repeticiones de aquel fraude básico que ocultan. Pero donde tales configuraciones velan ese gesto al repetirlo, el género de terror y los discursos sobre la angustia y la locura parecen haberlo denunciado como grietas de un edificio sin fondo. Este es el viaje apasionante que se propone en este libro, un viaje en el que autores como Poe, Stevenson o Conrad se atreven a proponernos lecturas de Nietzsche, Heidegger o Deleuze y Foucault, en el que personajes como Frankenstein o el doctor Jekyll nos enseñan aspectos inéditos de la filosofía de los siglos modernos, un viaje en el que la posmodernidad se revela como el penúltimo recurso retórico de un personaje ficticio y casi olvidado. (shrink)

Surging from the ontopoietic vital timing of life, human self-consciousness prompts the innermost desire to rise above its brute facts. Imaginatio creatrix inspires us to fabulate these facts into events and plots with personal significance attempting to delineate a life-course in life-stories within the ever-flowing stream – existence. Seeking their deep motivations, causes and concatenations, we fabulate relatively stabilized networks of interconnecting meaning – history. But to understand the meaning and sense of these networks’ reconfigurations call for the purpose and (...) telos of our endless undertaking; they remain always incomplete, carried onwards with the current of life, while fluctuating with personal experience in the play of memory. Facts and life stories, subjective desires and propensities, the circumambient world in its historical moves, creative logos and mythos, personal freedom and inward stirrings thrown in an enigmatic interplay, prompt our imperative thirst for the meaning of this course, its purpose and its fulfillment – the sense of it all. To disentangle all this animates the passions of the literary genius. The focus of this collection is to isolate the main arteries running through the intermingled forces prompting our quest to endow life with meaning. Papers by: Jadwiga Smith, Lawrence Kimmel, Alira Ashvo-Munoz, William D. Melaney, Imafedia Okhamafe, Michel Dion, Franck Dalmas, Ludmila Molodkina, Victor Gerald Rivas, Rebecca M. Painter, Matti Itkonen, Raymond J. Wilson III, Christopher S. Schreiner, Bruce Ross, Bernadette Prochaska, Tsung-I Dow, Jerre Collins, Cezary Jozef Olbromski, Victor Kocay, Roberto Verolini. (shrink)

Introduction 1. Language and meaning Nothing is as easily overlooked, or as easily forgotten, as the most obvious truths. The tenet that language is a tool ...

Making decisions can be tough, but how do you know it s the right one and how can you be sure that unconscious biases aren t distorting your thinking? In Risky Business, Anna Withers and Mark Withers draw on decades of research in the fields of psychology, behavioral economics and neuroscience to explain why are so-called rational brains are frequently fooled by over 100 powerful unconscious biases. At the same time they provide a straightforward framework everyone can use, where (...) these biases are embodied into eight memorable characters that help us to avoid these pitfalls and make better decisions.". (shrink)

Background Migrant live-in care workers are a main pillar of long-term care in many countries, including Germany. Several studies examining their working and living conditions reveal serious problems. However, a key element of live-in arrangements, namely the relationship between the individuals involved, has not yet been systematically investigated from an ethical perspective. Aim Building on previous socioempirical work that explored and set out the meaning of “care networks”, we start from the premise that live-ins are embedded in a network of (...) relationships which are essential for their employment and living situation. Methods The theoretical analysis draws on a network approach that takes care–ethical considerations into account. Using Joan Tronto’s four care–ethical phases, existing dependencies are described and reflected upon using the corresponding four care–ethical dimensions. The central questions are how dependencies in the live-in arrangement can be characterised based on the existing body of empirical studies and with a focus on the elements of power, dependency and trust in the ethical reflection on care. Results Based on this analysis, it becomes apparent that the ambivalence resulting from the simultaneity of different forms of asymmetry and mutual dependence is omnipresent in live-in arrangements and gives rise to seemingly contradictory forms of relationships and emotions. Responsibilities are vague and are constantly renegotiated on the basis of implicit assumptions and problematic role expectations and are also assigned without negotiation. Conclusions In the future, it will not only be necessary to better understand and clarify responsibilities at the micro level of the individual care arrangement from the various positions and roles and with a view to the changing processes of caring for another, but also to address the pressing ethical questions and problems in live-in arrangements at the meso and macro levels—enriched by care–ethical perspectives. (shrink)

This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.

The main theme of the paper is the role of the mass media in the production, creation, retention, protection and defense of a social order, or in carrying out revisions, or cosmetic and extensive changes to it. In the first section, the author explains the Power of the Mass Media by looking at Foucauldian leprosy/plague management. The second part, Docile Mass Media Producers Under Panoptic Control, deals with the routinization of the mass media craft. Finally, the Social Order of Docile (...) Individuals who Feel Freedom takes a closer look at the social order and how it is created by mass media producers (as professionals in their craft). (shrink)

The physical properties of color and its influence on the organism -- The source of the myths about experience : the principle of the being and thinking identity.

Einrichtungen der Altenpflege weisen spezifische ethische Spannungsfelder und ethische Fragestellungen auf. Das Strukturinstrument EMMA (Ethik Multiprofessionell Methodisch Anwenden) zur Moderation einer Ethik-Fallberatung wurde für den Einsatz in Einrichtungen der Altenpflege konzipiert. Inhaltlich werden die Besonderheiten dieses Settings unter Bezugnahme auf den Schlüsselbegriff Privatheit in den Mittelpunkt gestellt. EMMA eignet sich aufgrund seiner Kontextsensitivität darüber hinaus zum Einsatz in der Ethik-Fallberatung in unterschiedlichen außerklinischen Settings.

This article presents the development, validation and application of an instrument to measure everyday moral distress in different health care settings. The concept of moral distress has been discussed and developed over 20 years. A few instruments have been developed to measure it, predominantly in nursing. The instrument presented here consists of two factors: level of moral distress, and tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas. It was tested in four medical departments and three pharmacies, where 259 staff members completed a questionnaire. The (...) two factors were found to be reliable. Differences in levels of moral distress were found between pharmacies and clinical departments, and between the youngest and oldest age groups; departmental staff and the youngest group experienced higher levels of moral distress. Departments reported less tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas than pharmacies. The instrument needs to be tested further, but its strengths are the focus on everyday ethical dilemmas and its usefulness in different health care settings. (shrink)

The volumes published in the series Beiträge zur Altertumskunde comprise monographs, collective volumes, editions, translations and commentaries on various topics from the fields of Greek and Latin Philology, Ancient History, Archeology, Ancient Philosophy as well as Classical Reception Studies. The series thus offers indispensable research tools for a wide range of disciplines related to Ancient Studies.

Merleau-Ponty's categories of the visible and the invisible are investigated afresh and with originality in this penetrating collection of literary and ...

Testimony of oppression is testimony that something constitutes or contributes to a form of oppression, such as, for example, “The stranger’s comment was sexist.” Testimony of oppression that is given by members of the relevant oppressed group has the potential to play an important role in fostering a shared understanding of oppression. Yet, it is frequently dismissed out of hand. Against the background of a recent debate on moral testimony, this paper discusses the following question: How should privileged hearers approach (...) testimony of oppression if they aim to do so in an ethically and epistemically sound way? Should they defer or try to understand? Both strategies constitute ways of learning from testimony of oppression. However, they differ in important respects and exclude each other. Because testimony of oppression is often based on personal experience, empathizing with the speaker can play an important role in trying to understand testimony of oppression. While the fact that empathy can change your mind and the advantages of understanding over knowledge support trying to understand as the right approach to testimony of oppression, considerations of the “limits of empathy” and the value of deference support deferring. I argue that, on balance, these contrasting arguments allow for a limited defense of the role of empathy in learning from testimony of oppression. We should try to understand testimony of oppression by empathizing with the speaker, but not treat our ability to understand as a condition on accepting a speaker’s claim. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 338-369.

La renta básica se nos presenta en la obra de Philippe van Parijs como una propuesta política filosóficamente argumentada, de modo tal que convencerá tanto al teórico de la justicia como al ciudadano que votará su implantación. En este artículo analizamos la argumentación de van Parijs mostrando cómo la efectividad política de sus tesis sólo se sostiene a costa de reducir el debate sobre la renta básica a los términos de su propia concepción de la ética. Ponemos en duda, por (...) nuestra parte, el alcance de esta reducción sobre un doble plano: diluye por completo la dimensión prudencial de toda argumentación política, y no deja más alternativa que la educación sentimental para quienes no se dejen convencer por el equilibrio reflexivo. (shrink)

The objective of this study has been to establish the level of significance that Gustavo Gutierrez and Juan Luis Segundo attribute to politics in their contributions to liberation theology and to extract the relevant consequences for political theory. ;A systematic analysis of the theory of history in the works of these two authors indicates a higher level of integration between Christianity and politics that is usual in Christian political thought. Liberation is equated with salvation and political liberation is seen as (...) one of its components. This brings politics to a position of privilege. When at the service of justice it occupies, for our authors, a high rank among Christian concerns and when devoted to oppression it requires diligent response from every Christian. ;This understanding of politics is valuable in that it accentuates the political aspect of the Christian theory of history, an element frequently underestimated. Certain tensions remain, however, in the theory as a result of this emphasis: between the moral improvement expected from the involvement in political activities conducive to justice and the moral ambiguity of political structures emerging from such activity; and between the use of the concept of class struggle and notions of conversion and reconciliation. Finally, there is the danger of reducing the critical ability of Christians regarding a particular political project by identifying it with the concept of eschatology. (shrink)

BackgroundUmbilical cord banks are a central component, as umbilical cord tissue providers, in both medical treatment and scientific research with stem cells. But, whereas the creation of umbilical cord banks is seen as successful practice, it is perceived as a risky style of play by others. This article examines and discusses the ethical, medical and legal considerations that arise from the operation of umbilical cord banks in Mexico.DiscussionA number of experts have stated that the use of umbilical cord goes beyond (...) the mere utilization of human tissues for the purpose of treatment. This tissue is also used in research studies: genetic studies, studies to evaluate the effectiveness of new antibiotics, studies to identify new proteins, etc. Meanwhile, others claim that the law and other norms for the functioning of cord banks are not consistent and are poorly defined. Some of these critics point out that the confidentiality of donor information is handled differently in different places. The fact that private cord banks offer their services as "biological insurance" in order to obtain informed consent by promising the parents that the tissue that will be stored insures the health of their child in the future raises the issue of whether the consent is freely given or given under coercion. Another consideration that must be made in relation to privately owned cord banks has to do with the ownership of the stored umbilical cord.SummaryConflicts between moral principles and economic interests (non-moral principles) cause dilemmas in the clinical practice of umbilical cord blood storage and use especially in privately owned banks. This article presents a reflection and some of the guidelines that must be followed by umbilical cord banks in order to deal with these conflicts. This reflection is based on the fundamental notions of ethics and public health and seeks to be a contribution towards the improvement of umbilical cord banks' performance. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la justificación normativa de la adopción de los ensayos clínicos aleatorizados por parte de las autoridades sanitarias británicas como estándar metodológico en 1946. A partir de un análisis de los distintos intereses de los participantes en el proceso (pacientes, médicos, farmacéuticas y el propio Estado) argumentamos que la aleatorización se adoptó como mecanismo de asignación imparcial de tratamientos, aunque sus propiedades estadísticas no fueran bien comprendidas. Tal justificación permanece aún vigente.

La filosofía, como "toma de posición razonada respecto a la totalidad de lo real", constituye todavía hoy, en la modernidad tardía, quizás no un saber propiamente dicho, pero sí, en todo caso, una "sabiduría buscada" ; una sabiduría que se constituye por relación a la razón y que no renuncia a abordar las cuestiones últimas, fundamentales y metafísicas. El filósofo resulta, pues, guardián de una tradición de inquietudes y problemas intelectuales hondamente humanos que no deben ser acallados. Para ellos la (...) ciencia no tiene una adecuada solución, pero permanecen ahí incitando al pensamiento e invitando a superar toda concepción positivista de la razón. ¿Cómo hacer compatible la pervivencia actuante de esa tradición y el irrenunciable criticismo que hacia la misma mantiene, por razones sobradamente justificadas, la racionalidad ilustrada? He aquí quizá una de las tareas más difíciles, pero también más estimulantes, que tiene ante sí la filosofía actual. (shrink)

The authors revisit the idea that Enlightenment spearheaded secularization. This book invites all to look at the Enlightenment religiosity as founded on a merger of religious criticism and heterodoxy.

Habilitation thesis, book proposal in preparation.