This article develops a framework to analyze how political actors adopt social media in systems characterized by clientelism and populism, tracing the consequences and disruptive capabilities of the forms of social media adoption. The framework proceeds in two analytical stages. The first locates actors’ structural positions in the political system (internal/external) and their relationship with the mainstream media (allied/antagonistic). The second builds on pragmatism focusing on iterative problem situations actors face that explain forms of social media adoption. In examining the (...) structural positions and problem-solving stages of Colombian political actors, this article articulates three paths of adoption: habit preservation, internal innovation, and external innovation. Preservationists understand the new technology in old terms, projecting their understandings of old media onto the new one. Internal innovators combine clientelist practices and communication ones, upholding core routines while integrating new ones; they show a potential to reshape the system internally, making viable part of it, but changing the balance of power between existing elites. External innovators develop practices that integrate physical spaces and online communication, displaying a disruptive potential for existing core practices and the political system. In this way, the framework and empirical case link and develop the literatures on clientelism and political communication. (shrink)

Si quisiéramos agrupar en torno a preguntas algunos de los principales núcleos de la filosofía de Plotino, esas preguntas podrían ser las siguientes: “¿quiénes somos?”, “¿de dónde venimos?” y “¿hacia dónde vamos?”. A lo largo de las _Enéadas_ el Licopolitano se vale de metáforas locativas y temporales para dar cuenta de la unidad subyacente a todas las almas y de la búsqueda que el alma humana debe emprender para regresar a esa unidad. Nuestro filósofo puntualiza que la unidad no se (...) encuentra ni “fragmentada” ni “recortada” (como la de una cera que se puede dividir en varios trozos o la de un vino que se puede verter en distintas copas) sino que es indivisible (_améristos_) y también diversificada, parangonable a la de los distintos teoremas de una ciencia, los cuales dan cuenta cada uno a su manera de la totalidad de la disciplina. A su vez también realiza una diferenciación entre capacidades (_dýnamis_) del alma que remiten al cuerpo y otra que se halla separada de lo corpóreo y ejerce la contemplación (_nóesis_) de la Inteligencia. En el caso particular del ser humano ocurriría que no posee registro de la contemplación que su propia “alma superior” lleva a cabo, por lo cual necesita reponerla. Allí radica la finalidad de la filosofía, que se reviste de una dimensión teórica (la dialéctica) y de una práctica (el cultivo de las virtudes inferiores y de las superiores en la medida que vaya perfeccionándose en la dialéctica). El sabio sería entonces quien ha conseguido adecuar sus pensamientos y sus acciones a su actividad noética, ha alcanzado la felicidad y está en condiciones de experimentar la unión mística con lo Uno. Podemos entonces señalar la contemplación, la virtud y la felicidad como tres importantes motivaciones detrás del pensamiento de Plotino. (shrink)

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to explore the construct validity and diagnostic properties of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in non-demented patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.MaterialsA total of 61 consecutive patients and 50 healthy controls were administered the 36-item RMET. Additionally, patients underwent a comprehensive assessment of social cognition via the Story-Based Empathy Task, which encompasses three subtests targeting Causal Inference, Emotion Attribution, and Intention Attribution, as well as global cognitive [the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS (...) Screen ] and behavioral screening [the Frontal Behavioral Inventory ; the Dimensional Apathy Scale ; the Beck Depression Inventory ; and the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y]. The construct validity of the RMET was tested by regressing it within a stepwise model that encompassed as predictors the abovementioned cognitive and behavioral measures, covarying for demographic and motor confounders. Receiver-operating characteristics analyses allowed exploring intrinsic and post-test properties of the RMET both in discriminating patients from HCs and in identifying patients with a defective SET-EA performance.ResultsThe RMET was solely predicted by the SET-EA and SET-IA. RMET scores showed high accuracy both in discriminating patients from HCs and in identifying patients with a defective SET-EA score, with adequate-to-optimal both intrinsic and post-test properties.DiscussionThe RMET is a convergently and divergently valid measure of affective social cognition in non-demented ALS patients, also featuring optimal intrinsic and post-test diagnostic properties in both case-control and case-finding scenarios. (shrink)

BackgroundThe present study aimed at assessing the diagnostic properties of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in non-demented ALS patients and at exploring the MoCA administrability according to motor-functional status.MaterialsN = 348 patients were administered the MoCA and Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen. Administrability rates and prevalence of defective MoCA scores were compared across King’s and Milano-Torino clinical stages. Regression models were run to test whether the non-administrability of the MoCA and a defective score on it were predicted, net of the (...) ECAS-Total, by disease duration, ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised and progression rate, computed as /disease duration. Intrinsic and post-test diagnostics were tested against a below-cut-off ECAS-total score.ResultsThe 79.9% of patients successfully underwent the MoCA, whose administrability rates decreased with advanced clinical stages, at variance with its defective score prevalence. The probability of the FAB not being administrable was predicted only by lower ALSFRS-R-bulbar and-upper-limb scores; no motor features, but the ECAS-Total, predicted a defective MoCA performance. The MoCA showed high accuracy and good intrinsic and post-test properties—being slightly more specific than sensitive.DiscussionIn non-demented ALS patients, the MoCA is featured by optimal diagnostics as a screener for cognitive impairment, especially for ruling-out its occurrence, as long as patients are in the early stages of the disease and have sufficiently spared bulbar and upper-limb functions. (shrink)

El sólo título Ética de la economía, con que bautiza la Dra. Gonzáles Butrón a su libro, resulta sugerente. El prólogo se manifiesta también sugerente. Cerutti, quien lo escribe, explica que la economía implica valores y que estos valores determinan criterios que colocan a los seres humanos en determinadas posiciones, donde las neutralidades son meras apariencias. Cerutti argumenta que las posiciones que implican pisar las cabezas, los cuerpos, las necesidades y las dignidades de los otros y ..

El presente artículo es la primera traducción española de un artículo del jurista alemán Hermann Heller titulado "¿Liberalismo autoritario?", en el que pretende dar cuenta de una nueva forma de articulación política que se desarrolla al comienzo de los años 30 en Alemania y que combina el autoritarismo político con el liberalismo económico.

Cuando comparamos la Revolución de Inglaterra de 1688 con la Revolución Francesa de 1792, encontramos semejanzas en lo que concierne a las causas de ambas, y a los principios que las dirigían. Tales semejanzas, pese a la diferencia de tiempos, de circunstancias y de luces, muestran que la causa del pueblo francés es la de la nación inglesa, y también la de todos los pueblos libres o que han concebido la esperanza de llegar a serlo.

De revolución hemos derivado revolucionario; y esta palabra, con carácter general, se refiere a todo lo atinente a una revolución. Pero el término fue creado específicamente para aplicarse a la nuestra, para la revolución que ha transformado en pocos años a uno de los países en los que el despotismo prevalecía desde más antiguo, en la única república donde la libertad ha tenido alguna vez por base una total igualdad de derechos. Así, la palabra revolucionario se aplica solo a las (...) revoluciones que tienen por objeto la libertad. (shrink)

The concept of vital force – the immanent energy that promotes the processes of life in the body and in nature – has proved a source of endless fascination and controversy. Indeed, the question of what vitalizes the body has haunted humanity since antiquity, and became even more pressing during the Scientific Revolution and beyond. Examining the complexities and theories about vital force in Spanish modernity, Nicolás Fernández-Medina's Life Embodied offers a novel and provocative assessment of the question of (...) bodily life in Spain. Starting with Juan de Cabriada's landmark Carta filosófica, médico-chymica of 1687 and ending with Ramón Gómez de la Serna's avant-gardism of the 1910s, Fernández-Medina incorporates discussions of anatomy, philosophy, science, critical theory, history of medicine, and literary studies to argue that concepts of vital force served as powerful vehicles to interrogate the possibilities and limits of corporeality. Paying close attention to how the body's capabilities were conceived and strategically woven into critiques of modernity, Fernández-Medina engages the work of Miguel Boix y Moliner, Martín Martínez, Diego de Torres Villarroel, Sebastián Guerrero Herreros, Ignacio María Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Pedro Mata y Fontanet, Ángela Grassi, Julián Sanz del Río, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pío Baroja, among others. Drawing on extensive research and analysis, Life Embodied breaks new ground as the first book to address the question of vital force in Spanish modernity. (shrink)

La justificación del ejercicio de la crítica como un derecho fundamental en todo ordenamiento democrático viene despertando mayor interés en los últimos tiempos. El presente trabajo se propone analizar este tema desde la democracia deliberativa de J. Habermas, mostrando algunas similitudes, pero también señalando las diferencias conceptuales con la teoría crítica. La idea es identificar el alcance de la herencia conceptual de la Escuela de Frankfurt en la política deliberativa habermasiana, una conexión que en esta teoría siempre resulta solo implícita (...) pero no explícitamente reconocida como condición de validez y legitimidad democrática del ordenamiento político. (shrink)

This paper seeks to highlight the methodological contributions developed by Michel Foucault in regard to a critical history. We propose a tour through various passages of the thinker´s work, with the aim of bashing the main elements that allegedly make up his method. From this exercise we maintain that, in order to record the existence of a Foucauldian method, it is necessary to reproblematize this notion beyond the displacements around the well-known three moments of his work -archeological/genealogical/ethical-, reorienting the look (...) towards the critical tension possible to peer around the unique place that occupies the question of history in his work. The novelty of our proposal is to point out that, beyond the well-known substantial contributions foreshadowed around Foucault's conceptual rig, his work must be understood as an eminently practical historical-philosophical methodology, aimed at disarticulating the canonical principles that legitimize knowledge produced by the historiographic method, thus opening a region of indiscernibility and rarity in historical practice that, we maintain, can be thought of in the vicinity of a parahistory. In sum, we propose the thesis that the displacement in Foucault's work takes on a singular power from the introduction of a strategic artifice ― anonymous ―, aimed at forcing a fold of history on itself, showing how historiographical plots actively tax to sustain and legitimize the regimes of knowledge, power and truth present in them. (shrink)

La composición polifónica musical nos permite hablar de la emergencia, en el sur y desde el sur que somos, de Voces de la Tierra, que han susurrado, cantado, llorado o gritado el dolor producido por las maneras de habitar humanas construidas en la modernidad cosificadora de la tierra y del mundo de la vida, modernidad mercantil, industrial y global cuya ética se ha reducido a valores absolutamente euro-antropo-racional-centristas, permeados por el valor supremo del capital. En este artículo, emergente de pensadores (...) ambientales latinoamericanos y pensadores-otros que han sospechado radicalmente del edificio de la ética ambiental emergente de la conferencia del Club de Roma o del Informe Burndtland, intentamos desplegar lo ético, como ethos con e larga, que en griego significa casa, y desde este lugar de enunciación, intentamos salirnos del sujeto y del objeto en la variación ética ambiental eurocentrista, y proponer con las voces de la tierra sur, abya yala, diseños del ethos, ligado óntica-relacionalmente con el cuerpo-tierra. Diseñamos, inspirados en Husserl, Heidegger, Deleuze, Guattari, Ángel-Maya, Enrique Leff, Noguera, Echeverri, pensadores-otros y voces de montañas, animales, ríos, y plantas, la vida, territorios de libertad entendida ésta como expansión de los cuerpos en la naturaleza y de paz integral y completa, entendiendo que no puede haber paz, si no amamos ni respetamos la tierra que somos. Esto exige el giro óntico-etico- estético-político de la ética en clave de un Pensamiento Ambiental Sur. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es compartir con la comunidad académica el resultado de investigación de la tesis doctoral de filosofía intitulada La parresía como heterotopía en el último Foucault: otro modo crítico y específico de ser, pensar, decir y vivir. En efecto, intento esbozar el itinerario de la obra del úlltimo Foucault como una genealogía de la parresía, que recoge las conclusiones más relevantes de cuatro años de indagación. Finalmente, resalto la retrospectiva y la prospectiva de la parresía foucaultiana (...) como un arte integral de vivir a partir del cuidado de sí, desarrollado por sus autores más estudiosos y otras corrientes contemporáneas afines a este tópico. Todo converge en la “heterotopía” como ese tetraédrico otro modo crítico y específico o línea de fuga: ser, pensar, decir y vivir, que culmina con una relectura desde el ámbito latinoamericano como una propuesta pertinente altermundialista focalizada en una “cuidadanía” —más que ciudadanía— ética en todos los ámbitos humanos, sobre todo el que más nos compete: el educativo. (shrink)

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged the dental health profession in an unprecedented manner. Suspension of elective dental care across the United States during the initial phase of the pandemic was necessary to prevent viral transmission. The emergency dental care that was provided had to be tailored to minimize the generation of aerosols. With the suspension of elective care, over time, the proportion of dental emergencies was anticipated to rise. Dentists who care for children have continued to provide emergency dental (...) treatment to this vulnerable population. Treatment decisions for pediatric dental emergencies had to be tailored to principles of public health that best mitigated risk of viral transmission. Decisions needed to balance the benefits of chosen treatment modality for the individual child with the risk of viral transmission to dental professionals and their staff, patients, and community. The paucity of reliable research for dentists to aid in clinical decision making may have left careproviders feeling ethically and morally insecure in shifting from a patient-centered to a community-centered paradigm. We present analysis of four pediatric emergency case scenarios that are representative of those likely to present to a private practice, academic setting, or emergency department during the pandemic. This analysis aims to empower dentists who care for children to implement the American Dental Association’s Principles of Ethics & Code of Professional Conduct within the context of a global health crisis. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article interprets a recently recovered manuscript, Tratado de astronomía y la reformaçión del tiempo, composed by Antonio Sánchez in New Granada c.1696, in the context of the Spanish and Renaissance cosmographies. Sánchez’s Tratado proposes a spherical astronomy, in which celestial bodies – including comets — move in orbs containing pyramidal knots that explain the changing speed observed in the motion of planets. From this astronomy and following the peninsular style of repertorios, Sánchez derives two major conclusions: the corrected (...) length of the solar year and a revised birth date of Jesus. Taking as center of reference Vélez, where Sánchez was based, these claims led to conclusions in domains ranging from calendric astronomy to eschatology, including the incorporation of the indigenous peoples into salvation narrative and a demonstration of the arrangement of the celestial orbs at the Last Judgment. Sánchez’s Tratado constitutes an expansion of the Spanish mathematical cosmography that sheds light on the production of knowledge in the Spanish-American world and, at the same time, provides elements to reassess our understanding of the global circulation of Renaissance and early modern ideas. (shrink)

Existe una escisión del hombre con la naturaleza inscrita en los aspectos de la vida; la civilización moderna está en crisis ambiental, de la cultura, de sentido, de la técnica y de la manera en que habita y crea hábitat el hombre. La técnica moderna se ha instaurado de la mano de la ciencia y la economía llamándose tecnología: una manera de la techné distanciada de sus orígenes y que ha pasado de la creación e invención a una repetibilidad que (...) solo permite crear lo que cumple las condiciones e ideales establecidos por un modelo económico. Mientras la techné se comprende en un mundo de la vida, en un lugar con espacio y tiempo, la técnica moderna se cree separada de él. Se propone entonces un giro en el pensar/habitar hacia la techné, para un reencuentro con el mundo de la vida. (shrink)

La teoría neoliberal, leída en clave antropológica -- Educación, investigación y universidad en Friedrich Hayek -- Educación y formación universitaria en Milton Friedman -- Sujeto, educación y formación universitaria en el neoliberalismo en y para América Latina -- Apropiación de la antropología neoliberal: el otro sendero -- Educación y formación universitaria en El ladrillo -- Educación y formación universitaria en los organismos internacionales: Banco Mundial, CEPAL y UNESCO -- Educación y formación universitaria en José Joaquín Brunner -- Sujeto, educación y (...) formación universitaria en los críticos latinoamericanos -- Una concepción economicista de la educación -- Concepción y formación reduccionistas del sujeto -- La universidad en peligro -- Reflexiones finales: sobre la normatividad, el lenguaje y las categorías de la crítica. (shrink)

Este artículo plantea un diálogo sobre la ficción y su relevancia narrativa dentro del relato histórico contemporáneo colombiano, a la luz de sus relaciones transversales. Tras el Acuerdo de Contribución a la Verdad Histórica y la Reparación y de la consolidación del trabajo llevado a cabo por el Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica iniciado hace casi una década con su primer informe, es pertinente volver sobre algunas ideas relacionadas con la manera en la que se narra la historia en Colombia. (...) En este sentido, se constata el valor histórico de la ficción, así como la vitalidad de sus diversos actores sociales y culturales, en sus intersecciones y recorridos por la memoria colectiva, en su materialidad y en su reinvención histórica. Los textos de ficción, por tanto, ofrecen caminos de reinvención de los relatos históricos, que no los sustituyen, pero sí empoderan a sus participantes/enunciantes, sus lectores/receptores y sus versiones/ relatos dentro de los procesos de memorias nacionales y humanas de la Colombia de hoy. Lo significativo de esta propuesta radica en que estos relatos son inclusivos, plurales y carecen del juicio moral hecho por una voz narradora autoritaria y única. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo trata del método y su relación con la investigación educativa. El objetivo es analizar la relevancia del método en ciencias humanas y sociales, en especial, en educación. Para ello, dividimos este artículo en tres secciones: 1. ¿Hay método? 2. ¿Hay uno o varios métodos? 3. La discusión sobre el método en la investigación educativa. A la primera pregunta, respondemos que hay método. Respondemos a la segunda señalando la necesidad de adoptar un pluralismo metodológico. La tercera sección defiende (...) que las discusiones sobre el método de investigación educativa implican dimensiones ontológicas, epistemológicas y éticas que se han tornado críticas, y se hace una revisión de cada una de ellas. En el apartado conclusivo, sugerimos algunas vías para desanudar esos asuntos críticos en la investigación educativa.: This article deals with method and its relation to educational research. The objective is to analyze the relevance of method in human and social sciences, especially in education. To this end, we divide this article into three sections: 1. Is there a method? 2. Is there one or more methods? 3. The discussion on method in educational research. To the first question, we answer that there is a method. We answer the second question by pointing out the need to adopt methodological pluralism. The third section argues that discussions on the method of educational research involve ontological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions that have become critical, and a review is made of each of them. In the concluding section, we suggest some ways to disentangle these critical issues in educational research. (shrink)

De se attitudes seem to play a special role in action and cognition. This raises a challenge to the traditional way in which mental attitudes have been understood. In this chapter, we review the case for thinking that de se attitudes require special theoretical treatment and discuss various ways in which the traditional theory can be modified to accommodate de se attitudes.

Theories of emotional justification investigate the conditions under which emotions are epistemically justified or unjustified. I make three contributions to this research program. First, I show that we can generalize some familiar epistemological concepts and distinctions to emotional experiences. Second, I use these concepts and distinctions to display the limits of the ‘simple view’ of emotional justification. On this approach, the justification of emotions stems only from the contents of the mental states they are based on, also known as their (...) cognitive bases. The simple view faces the ‘gap problem’: If cognitive bases and emotions (re)present their objects and properties in different ways, then cognitive bases are not sufficient to justify emotions. Third, I offer a novel solution to the gap problem based on emotional dispositions. This solution (1) draws a line between the justification of basic and non-basic emotions, (2) preserves a broadly cognitivist view of emotions, (3) avoids a form of value skepticism that threatens inferentialist views of emotional justification, and (4) sheds new light on the structure of our epistemic access to evaluative properties. (shrink)

Iberian repertorios de los tiempos stemmed from Medieval almanacs and calendars. During the sixteenth century significant editorial, conceptual and material changes in repertorios incorporated astronomy, geography, chronology and natural philosophy. From De Li’s Repertorio (1492) to Zamorano’s Cronología (1585), the genre evolved from simple almanacs to more complex cosmological works which circulated throughout the Iberian-American world. This article claims that repertorios are a form of syncretic knowledge rather than “popular science” by relying on the concept of “knowledge in transit”. Elaborating (...) on this perspective, I present how repertorios ended up delivering a worldview from existing materials, a fact so far unnoticed by scholarship. At the same time, repertorios should not be considered an exclusively Iberian phenomenon, but the full scope of their nature as a form of syncretic knowledge should include their networks with migrants, indigenous, mestizos, and criollos across the Atlantic. In this sense, I try to trace the paths connecting productions in the Americas with Iberian repertorios. (shrink)

Call ‘a substance’ a person who is at home in a relatively stable and unified sense-making framework: a social structure that to some degree specifies which categories are important for interpreting reality, which goals are worth pursing, which character traits are admirable, etc. Call ‘an accident’ a person who is not at home in one such framework. It is tempting to think that being a substance is preferable, but I present some considerations for thinking otherwise. Mexican philosophers Emilio Uranga and (...) Jorge Portilla, I argue, present notions of accidentality as decolonial tools. Uranga’s account enables Mexicans to have positive valuation of their being independently of the approving gaze of the colonizers and their standards of value. Portilla’s thought distinguishes between pernicious accidentality resulting from the disintegration of sense-making frameworks and authentic accidentality as a condition for freedom, self-creation, and ultimately for individual and communal liberation. (shrink)

One important limitation of the current renditions of interpretivism is that its emphasis on the moral dimension of sport has overlooked the aesthetic dimension lying at the core of this account of sport. The interpretivist’s failure to acknowledge and consider the aesthetic implicitly distances this realm from the moral. Marcia Muelder Eaton calls this distancing the separatist mistake. This paper argues that interpretivism presupposes not only moral but also aesthetic principles and values. What it sets out to demonstrate is that (...) interpretivism is an integralist, or nonseparatist, account of sport, one in which ethical and aesthetic values are not exclusive. Making explicit and specifying interpretivism’s combined moral-aesthetic approach to sport not only helps to better distinguish the whole range of values that make up sport as well as their interconnection but also encourages sportspeople to pursue more coherent sport and, thus, more enriching lives. (shrink)

This paper characterizes José Celestino Mutis’ appropriation of Newton in the Viceroyalty of New Granada. First, we examine critically traditional accounts of Mutis’ works highlighting, on the one hand, their inadequacy for directing their claims toward the nineteenth-century independence from Spain and, on the other, for not differentiating between Newtonianism and Enlightenment. Next, we portray Mutis’ complex Newtonianism from his own statements and from printed sources, including a variety of works and translations from British, Dutch, and French authors, in addition (...) to a wide range of Newton’s writings, unusual for an eighteenth-century reader in the Americas. Finally, we analyze a salient claim of Mutis’ Newtonianism in order to depict his appropriation and transformation of Newton’s ideas: the characterization of Newtonian experimental physics as a useful science. In so doing, Mutis further developed metaphysical and methodological positions not present in Newton’s works. (shrink)

What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate question or as an ultimate question. The question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful (...) articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants' distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant's rights on the resources to be distributed. (shrink)

Desde hace algunas décadas es un lugar común en la Industria Newton mencionar una y otra vez la creencia de Isaac Newton en una sabiduría perdida. Sin embargo, el trabajo de crítica e interpretación al respecto se ha limitado a enunciar esta creencia sin ensayar una interpretación. Quienes más han trabajado el problema se han limitado a mostrar cómo esta creencia era plausible en el contexto intelectual de la época señalando a predecesores y seguidores de Newton que compartían esta creencia. (...) En contraste con lo anterior, este artículo indaga cómo, desde puntos de vista epistemológicos y filosóficos, la sabiduría de los antiguos era para Newton una fuente legítima de información sobre el mundo y sus designios, proponiendo una distinción entre tiempo y temporalidad como niveles complementarios pero diferentes de indagación sobre lo creado. (shrink)

This article defends a relational account of personhood. I argue that the structure of personhood consists of dyadic relations between persons who can wrong or be wronged by one another, even if some of them lack moral competence. I draw on recent work on directed duties to outline the structure of moral communities of persons. The upshot is that we can construct an inclusive theory of personhood that can accommodate nonhuman persons based on shared community membership. I argue that, once (...) we unpack the internal relation between directed duties, moral status, and flourishing, relations can ground personhood and include nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Most people believe that suffering is intrinsically bad. In conjunction with facts about our world and plausible moral principles, this yields a pro tanto obligation to reduce suffering. This is the intuitive starting point for the moral argument in favor of interventions to prevent wild animal suffering. If we accept the moral principle that we ought, pro tanto, to reduce the suffering of all sentient creatures, and we recognize the prevalence of suffering in the wild, then we seem committed to (...) the existence of such a pro tanto obligation. Of course, competing values such as the aesthetic, scientific or moral values of species, biodiversity, naturalness or wildness, might be relevant to the all-things-considered case for or against intervention. Still, many argue that, even if we were to give some weight to such values, no plausible theory could resist the conclusion that WAS is overridingly important. This article is concerned with large-scale interventions to prevent WAS and their tractability and the deep epistemic problem they raise. We concede that suffering gives us a reason to prevent it where it occurs, but we argue that the nature of ecosystems leaves us with no reason to predict that interventions would reduce, rather than exacerbate, suffering. We consider two interventions, based on gene editing technology, proposed as holding promise to prevent WAS; raise epistemic concerns about them; discuss their potential moral costs; and conclude by proposing a way forward: to justify interventions to prevent WAS, we need to develop models that predict the effects of interventions on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and animals’ well-being. (shrink)