El concepto de dificultad contramayoritaria, aplicado al control de constitucionalidad, describe el problema de justificar que un tribunal declare inválida (inconstitucional) una ley, votada por los representantes de una mayoría de los ciudadanos. ¿Es esto legítimo? En el presente trabajo, analizamos un problema similar respecto a las burocracias públicas, relativamente menos discutido hasta ahora: ¿puede la burocracia pública tomar decisiones que considera justificadas, o tiene que limitarse a implementar las directivas del poder político en todos los casos? El debate se (...) ha planteado con intensidad en México, durante los últimos años, pero afecta a la configuración institucional de otros países en América Latina. (shrink)

It has been shown that counterintuitive ideas from mythological and religious texts are more acceptable than other world knowledge violations. In the present experiment we explored whether this relates to the way they are interpreted. Participants were presented with verification questions that referred to either the literal or a metaphorical meaning of the sentence previously read, in a block-wise design. Both behavioral and electrophysiological results converged. At variance to the literal interpretation of the sentences, the induced metaphorical interpretation specifically facilitated (...) the integration of religious counterintuitions, whereas the semantic processing of non-religious counterintuitions was not affected by the interpretation mode. We suggest that religious ideas tend to operate like other instances of figurative language, such as metaphors, facilitating their acceptability despite their counterintuitive nature. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza críticamente la caracterización del comunitarismo (Michael Walzer y Amitai Etzioni) respecto de los problemas de desintegración social de las sociedades post-industriales (diagnóstico social) y las categorías propuestas (tolerancia, solidaridad y resocialización moral) para solucionar dichos problemas y sus consecuencias (apatía ciudadana, desinterés por los asuntos públicos, falta de compromiso social, criminalidad, vandalismo, etc.) El análisis se centra en el carácter funcional que asume el modelo de integración social comunitarista y en los problemas que presentan los fundamentos de (...) ese modelo (solidaridad y tolerancia). (shrink)

While most business ethics texts focus exclusively on individual decision making--what should an individual do--this resource presents the whole business ethics story. Highly realistic, readable, and down-to-earth, it moves from the individual to the managerial to the organizational level, focusing on business ethics in an organizational context to promote an understanding of complex influences on behavior. The new Fifth Edition is the perfect text for students entering the workplace, those seeking to become professionals in training, communications, compliance, in addition to (...) chief ethics officers, corporate counsel, heads of human resources, and senior executives. (shrink)

La crisis económica de Argentina en años recientes derivó en la pérdida de legitimidad de las instituciones polí­ticas del paí­s. La medida de suspensión de las libertades y garantí­as de derechos individuales provocó una desobediencia civil generalizada que llevó a miles de personas a manifestar pací­ficamente su repudio al gobierno de Fernando de la Rúa. Este gesto ciudadano espontáneo, desorganizado y voluntario sirvió, entre otras cosas, para formar una autodeterminación primaria directa de la voluntad popular y una autocomprensión del carácter (...) democrático de la sociedad civil. La justificación de la desobediencia se basaba en una cuestión de derechos. Todos los manifestantes afirmaban que tení­an derecho a desobedecer porque la desobediencia, en ciertas circunstancias, era un derecho humano. ¿Pero puede ser la desobediencia civil, en un Estado de derecho, un auténtico derecho? ¿En qué circunstancias, en el contexto legal y fuera de los derechos habituales de resistencia como huelga, manifestación, etcétera, se puede desobedecer una norma legal?"œCivil disobedience in Argentina"The recent economic crisis in Argentina led to the loss of identity of the country"™s political institutions. The measure of the suspension of freedom and of the guarantee of individual rights provoked a generalized civil disobedience which led thousands of people to peacefully demonstrate their repudiation of Fernando de la Rua"™s government. This spontaneous, unorganized and voluntary action by the citizens served, among other things, to form a direct primary self-determination of the will of the people and a self-understanding of the democratic character of civil society. The justification of the disobedience was based on a question of rights. All the demonstrators asserted that they had the right to disobey because disobedience, in certain circumstances, was a human right. However, can civil disobedience, in a constitutional state, be an authentic right? In what circumstances, in the legal context and outside the normal rights of resistance such as strike action, demonstations etc., can a legal norm be disobeyed? (shrink)

This papers analyzes the communitarian project of social integration exposed in the Walzer and Etzioni's work as a possible answer to the disintegration of social bonds in the advanced societies . It deals with the notions of tolerance, solidarity and moral resocialization of the citizenship. In this sense, some considerations are made about the functional character deduced of this communitarian model of social integration and show the extent and limits of this model .Este trabajo analiza críticamente la caracterización del comunitarismo (...) respecto de los problemas de desintegración social de las sociedades post-industriales y las categorías propuestas para solucionar dichos problemas y sus consecuencias El análisis se centra en el carácter funcional que asume el modelo de integración social comunitarista y en los problemas que presentan los fundamentos de ese modelo. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta la fórmula del comunitarismo (Michael Walzer y sobre todo, Amitai Etzioni) para contrarrestar los problemas de desintegración social de las sociedades postindustriales. Dicha fórmula está basada en una «reforma de conciencia» que se debe lograr a través de la educación para fomentar la tolerancia social. El análisis se centra en el carácter funcional que asume este modelo y en los problemas que presentan sus fundamentos. Por último, se propone una alternativa basada en el sistema de derechos.

The linguafranca, or Mediterranean pidgin, was spoken by sailors and merchants that sailed the Mediterranean Sea during centuries. This pidgin borrowed terms from languages such as: Castilian and Catalan, French and Provencal (Occitanian language), Italian, Genovese, and Venetian. Moreover, words of Arabic and Neogreek origins were added to al1 this common mass. So, this lingua is a great interesting resource to deal with the study of the Spanish naval histoy in the Mediterranean Sea from 12" to 13" century, when its (...) usage started to vanish. From 16" century on, it started to be spoken in America. This common language, between Romance language nations, only uses the infinitive verb for al1 tenses and modes of verb's conjugation. Nowadays, there are terms that still remain in sailors' language such as wind names: leveche, jaloque, maestral or mistral, tramontana; meteorological phenomena names: bórea or boria; and nomenclature for typical crafts: paramola, escálamo, car, batallol, laud or llaüt, latino. (shrink)

Appeals to nature are ubiquitous in Epicurean ethics and politics. The foundation of Epicurean ethics is its claim that pleasure is the sole intrinsic good and pain the sole intrinsic evil, and this is supposedly shown by the behavior of infants who have not yet been corrupted, "when nature's judgement is pure and whole." Central to their recommendations about how to attain pleasure is their division between types of desires: the natural and necessary ones, the natural but non-necessary ones, and (...) the vain and empty ones. Elsewhere, the Epicureans talk about the "natural goods" of political power and fame, and they contrast "natural wealth" with wealth as "defined by empty opinion." Finally, in their politics, Epicurus claims that the "the justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness, [i.e.,] neither to harm one another nor to be harmed." This paper explores two questions regarding these various appeals to nature. The first is: what is it for these things to be natural, i.e., what notion of "natural" or "nature" is at play here? (Furthermore, is there a single notion being used across these appeals, and if not, how are they related?) The second is: what normative work does a thing's being natural do? That is, what reason, if any, does a desire's being natural give me for pursuing the object of that desire and trying to fulfill that desire, as opposed to not doing so and trying to eliminate it, and similarly for the other appeals to nature? (shrink)

'Two things', wrote Kant, 'fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within'. Many would argue that since Kant's day, the study of the starry heavens has advanced while ethics has stagnated, and in particular that Kant's ethics offers an empty formalism that tells us nothing about how we should live. In Acting on Principle Onora O'Neill shows that Kantian ethics has practical as well as philosophical importance. First published (...) in 1975, the book is regarded as a classic account and defence of the Kantian ethical position. It addresses Kant's account of reasoning about action, in particular his controversial claim that the Categorical Imperative guides action and is basic to ethics and justice. This second edition offers a substantial new introduction and updated bibliography, and will be valuable for a wide readership in Kant studies and those studying ethics. (shrink)

Esta dissertação encontra-se construída em torno de um núcleo central - a exposição, aná-lise e discussão do chamado 'Argumento da linguagem privada', de Wittengstein. A dinâmica própria da abordagem e discussão do tema leva necessariamente a percorrer o conjunto da obra de Wittengstein, o que motiva um notável aprofundamento do assunto e torna ainda mais aliciante este ensaio.

In chapter 3 of Wild Animal Ethics Johannsen argues for a collective obligation based on beneficence to intervene in nature in order to reduce the suffering of wild animals. In the same chapter he claims that the non-identity problem is merely a “theoretical puzzle” which doesn’t affect our reasons for intervention. In this paper I argue that the non-identity problem affects both the strength and the nature of our reasons to intervene. By intervening in nature on a large scale we (...) change which animals come into existence. In doing so, we enable harmful animals to inflict harms on other animals, and we put other animals in harm’s way. The harms that these animals will inflict and endure are foreseeable. Furthermore, since non-human animals aren’t moral agents, harmful animals cannot be morally responsible for their harmful actions. I argue therefore that by causing animals to exist, knowing that they will inflict and suffer harms, we become morally responsible for those harms. By engaging in identity-affecting actions then we take on secondary moral duties towards the animals we have thereby caused to exist, and these secondary moral duties may be extremely demanding, even more so than the initial costs of intervention. Finally, these duties are duties of justice rather than duties of beneficence, and as such are more stringent than purely beneficence-based moral reasons. Furthermore, this conclusion flows naturally from several plausible principles which Johannsen explicitly endorses. (shrink)

National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching (...) for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham. (shrink)

This is the first modern, annotated and scholarly edition of Jean-Baptiste Du Bos’ _Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting_, one of the seminal works of modern aesthetics in any language.

. History of the concept of economic efficiency . INTRODUCTION James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize by proving that the process by which elected officials ...

Providing a vibrant four-color design, market-leading BUSINESS ETHICS: ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AND CASES, Ninth Edition, thoroughly covers the complex environment in which managers confront ethical decision making. Using a proven managerial framework, this accessible, applied text addresses the overall concepts, processes, and best practices associated with successful business ethics programs--helping readers see how ethics can be integrated into key strategic business decisions. Thoroughly revised, the new ninth edition incorporates coverage of new legislation affecting business ethics, the most up-to-date examples, and (...) the best practices of high-profile organizations. It also includes 20 all-new or updated original case studies. (shrink)

Two centuries after they were published, Kant's ethical writings are as much admired and imitated as they have ever been, yet serious and long-standing accusations of internal incoherence remain unresolved. Onora O'Neill traces the alleged incoherences to attempt to assimilate Kant's ethical writings to modern conceptions of rationality, action and rights. When the temptation to assimilate is resisted, a strikingly different and more cohesive account of reason and morality emerges. Kant offers a `constructivist' vindication of reason and a moral vision (...) in which obligations are prior to rights and in which justice and virtue are linked. O'Neill begins by reconsidering Kant's conceptions of philosophical method, reason, freedom, automony and action. She then moves on to the more familiar terrain of interpretation of the Categorical Imperative, while in the last section she emphasises differences between Kant's ethics and recent 'Kantian' ethics, including the work of John Rawls and other contemporary liberal political philosophers. This reassessment will add significantly to the understanding of Kantian practical philosophy. (shrink)

Although vast and complex, the universe is orderly in many ways, and conditions at its beginning were right for the eventual evolution of life on this planet. But with life there is death, and with sentient life there is great pain and suffering, often with no apparent justification or purpose. Taking these things together, is it reasonable to conclude that the universe was brought about by God? Moreover, does the magnitude of seemingly pointless suffering square with the idea that God (...) exists, or is it good reason to think there is no God? These questions come up for many people, not just religious believers, and are examined in this engaging and thought-provoking book. Starting out with no pre-disposition to theism, atheism, or agnosticism, God, Evil, and Design takes up these questions in order to see where an impartial investigation leads. To achieve impartiality, the reader is invited to simulate ignorance insofar as his or her own religious preference is concerned. With this approach, God, Evil, and Design provides both a fresh look at important and controversial issues in philosophy and an excellent introduction to the contemporary debates surrounding them. Lively and non-technical, this book will be accessible to anyone with an interest in these topics. (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive, accessible survey of Western philosophy of music from Pythagoras to the present. Its narrative traces themes and schools through history, in a sequence of five chapters that survey the ancient, medieval, early modern, modern and contemporary periods. Its wide-ranging coverage includes medieval Islamic thinkers, Continental and analytic thinkers, and neglected female thinkers such as Vernon Lee (Violet Paget). All aspects of the philosophy of music are discussed, including music and the cosmos, music's value, music's relation (...) to the other arts, the problem of opera, the origins of musical genius, music's emotional impact, the moral effects of music, the ontology of musical works, and the relevance of music's historical context. The volume will be valuable for students and scholars in philosophy and musicology, and all who are interested in the ways in which philosophers throughout history have thought about music. (shrink)

Purpose. Romanticism as a movement developed in Germany, where, becoming the philosophy of time in the 18th-19th centuries, spread to all European countries. The "mobility" of the Romantic doctrine, its diversity, sometimes contradictory views, attitude to man as a free, harmonious, creative person led to the susceptibility of this movement by ethnic groups, different in nature and mentality. Its ideas found a wide response in Ukraine with its "cordocentric" type of culture in the early nineteenth century. Since the peculiarity of (...) "Ukrainian Romanticism" was its "literary-centric" nature, the purpose of this study is to analyse and comprehend the place of man in the national philosophy and literature of this period. Accordingly, the main tasks of the work are as follows: to determine the main features, the nature of Ukrainian Romanticism; to trace the main vectors of comprehension and image of man in the literature of this time. Theoretical basis. The ideas of European Romanticism were creatively rethought and assimilated during the emergence of new Ukrainian literature. It provided samples of highly artistic works, unique names of talented writers – creators and thinkers, who in their works reflected the philosophy of time. Based on the works of F. Schlegel, partly E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers, Romanticism in the Ukrainian humanities, in terms of philosophy, culturology, as well as at the intersection with literature, was studied by T. Bovsunivska, Y. Hrybkova, S. Efremov, N. Kalenichenko, S. Kozak, T. Komarynets, D. Nalyvayko, Y. Nakhlik, I. Ogorodnyk, V. Ogorodnyk, A. Sinitsyna, D. Chyzhevsky, M. Yatsenko, E. Kyryliuk, M. Biletsky, D. Dontsov, S. Efremov, G. Kostyuk, S. Krymsky, Y. Sherekh and others. Originality. The authors of the article prove that Romanticism in Ukraine, being "literary-centric" inherently, having absorbed the main ideas and features of European Romanticism, has its own features and vectors of formation and development. Man in this kind of movement, thanks to the means of art, appears very clearly as a spiritually rich, sensitive, vulnerable and strong person. For him or her, the highest value is freedom, the ability to make freely independent fateful decisions. Conclusions. Ukrainian writers, reflecting the philosophical ideas of Romanticism, saw in man a harmonious combination of "natural" and "social", through which he indirectly carries out his own national existence. In addition to the objective realities of the external world, in their works, Romantic writers appeal to the subjective, internal, spiritual, "ideal" world of the hero, who interacts with reality through his own system of values. At each level of development of the humanities and methodology of cognition, this allows a new reading of these works. (shrink)

Purpose. The dynamics and pace of social and economic transformations that are characteristic of modern society, lead to an increase in tension and the destruction of habitual stereotypes – ideals, values, norms, patterns of behaviour that unite people. These moments encourage us to rethink the understanding of "security" essence, in particular, psychological, which emphasizes the urgency of its study in the philosophical and sociocultural coordinates. Theoretical basis of the research is based on the philosophical methodology of K. Jaspers, E. Fromm (...) and the A. Maslow’s psychological approach to understanding of a person. Originality. Psychological security is considered at different levels: first and foremost, society is a characteristic of social security, that is an analysis of how today’s social technologies, social changes affect the quality of life of the country’s population; secondly, the social environment – the family, the immediate environment, reference groups, training teams; thirdly, a person is an experience of his own security-insecurity, when it is possible to talk about the manifestations of psychological violence, when certain behavioral acts contribute to the violation of the security of the other or to self-destruction. It is found out that the knowledge of psychological security is closely connected with the socio-historical conditions of being, with the level of development of material and spiritual culture, with the interests and values prevailing in society, which determines its ontological, epistemological and axiological features. The presented issue is considered in the correlation of psychological security with types of scientific rationality – classical, nonclassical and post-nonclassical approaches, within the framework of which various perspectives, aspects, forms and types of psychological security are studied. Conclusions. The concept of security requires a systematic description of its manifestations, types, levels, concepts: security as the absence of dangers ; security as a certain activity to ensure or to prevent any threats or dangers ; security as a conscious necessity, the value of the individual. The study systematizes various ideas about psychological security in accordance with the logic of scientific knowledge: in the mainstream of classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

Background:The right of children to have their voice heard has been accepted by researchers, and there are increasing numbers of qualitative health studies involving children. The ethical and methodological issues of including children in research have caused worldwide concerns, and many researchers have published articles sharing their own experiences.Objectives:To systematically review and synthesise experts’ opinions and experiences about ethical and methodological issues of including children in research, as well as related solution strategies.Research design:The research design was a systematic review of (...) opinion-based evidence, based on the guidelines by Joanna Briggs Institute.Methods:A search of five computerised databases has been conducted in April 2014 and 2271 articles were found. After screening the titles, abstracts, full texts and appraising the quality, 30 articles were finally included in the review. A meta-aggregative approach was applied in the data analysis and synthesis process.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval is not needed as it is a systematic review of published literature.Results:Six themes were identified, including evaluating potential risks and benefits, gaining access, obtaining informed consent/assent, protecting confidentiality and privacy, building rapport and collecting rich data. The similarities and differences between research involving children and that involving adults were indicated.Conclusion:All potential incentives should be justified when designing the study. Further studies need to research how to evaluate individual capacity of children and how to balance protecting children’s right to participate and their interests in the research. Cultural differences related to researching children in different regions should also be studied. (shrink)

Анотація. У статті розглянуто тісний зв´язок між зменшенням впливу Московського патріархату на суспільно-політичні процеси в Україні та відновленням українського культурно-цивілізаційного простору. А саме – поступове позбавлення православних віруючих проявів постімперського синдрому, зокрема установок, уявлень, поведінкових моделей тощо, пов´язаних із перебуванням українців у складі іншомовної та чужої за ментальністю й культурою імперії. Зазначено, що отримання православними віруючими України Томосу про визнання автокефалії і конституювання Православної Церкви України позитивно впливає не лише на розвиток самої ПЦУ, але й рівня патріотизму, відновлення і розвою (...) україномовного середовища, архетипних традицій, обрядів, поведінкових моделей тощо. Все це, у підсумку, сприяє українському поступу від азійської до європейської культурно-цивілізаційної моделі. (shrink)

'Two things', wrote Kant, 'fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within'. Many would argue that since Kant's day, the study of the starry heavens has advanced while ethics has stagnated, and in particular that Kant's ethics offers an empty formalism that tells us nothing about how we should live. In Acting on Principle Onora O'Neill shows that Kantian ethics has practical as well as philosophical importance. First published (...) in 1975, the book is regarded as a classic account and defence of the Kantian ethical position. It addresses Kant's account of reasoning about action, in particular his controversial claim that the Categorical Imperative guides action and is basic to ethics and justice. This second edition offers a substantial new introduction and updated bibliography, and will be valuable for a wide readership in Kant studies and those studying ethics. (shrink)

It argues that states forge a relationship due to strategic needs such as economic or security needs. Slobodchikoff has developed a database composed of the whole population of bilateral treaties between Russia and each of the former Soviet republics, and examines all of these bilateral relationships. He finds that Russia indeed forged relationships with the former republics based on its strategic interests. However, despite Russia's strategic interests, it had to build a bilateral relationship that would address the issues of mistrust (...) and power asymmetry between the states. To achieve this, Russia and the former Soviet republics created treaty networks, which served to legitimize as well as legalize the independent status of each of the former republics while also increasing the cost to Russia of violating any of the treaties. (shrink)