Se analiza la presencia de la noci.n de “estado de naturaleza” en los teólogos y juristas españoles del siglo XVI, mostrando las diferencias y semejanzas entre cuatro temas que antecedieron a la formaci.n del concepto: el estado de inocencia original, las consecuencias del pecado original en la naturaleza humana, la hipótesis de un pacto legitimador de la autoridad política y la hipótesis teológica de la naturaleza pura. A partir de este análisis, se proponen algunos criterios para delimitar el concepto de (...) estado de naturaleza. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se analiza la presencia de la noción de "estado de naturaleza" en los teólogos y juristas españoles del siglo XVI, mostrando las diferencias y semejanzas entre cuatro temas que antecedieron a la formación del concepto: el estado de inocencia original, las consecuencias del pecado original en la naturaleza humana, la hipótesis de un pacto legitimador de la autoridad política y la hipótesis teológica de la naturaleza pura. A partir de este análisis, se proponen algunos criterios para delimitar el concepto (...) de estado de naturaleza. ABSTRACT The article analyzes the presence of the notion of "state of nature" in 16th century Spanish theologians and jurists, showing the similarities and differences among four topics that preceded the formation of that concept: the state of original innocence, the consequences of original sin for human nature, the hypothesis regarding a contract that legitimizes political authority, and the theological hypothesis of pure nature. On the basis of this analysis, the paper goes on to propose some criteria to define the state of nature. (shrink)

La regla lógica que prohíbe inferir conclusiones morales o normativas desde premisas fácticas fue atribuida a David Hume por los primeros autores analíticos que se ocuparon de esta cuestión, llegando a ser conocida, esta regla, como la ley de Hume. Sin embargo, esta atribución ha sido fuertemente discutida desde entonces. El propósito de este trabajo es sistematizar los argumentos de esta discusión desde su origen -que se encuentra en un trabajo de A.C. MacIntyrehasta la intervención de J.M. Finnis, en razón (...) de que en tal período, aunque no se cierra la discusión en cuestión, quedan ya enunciados todos los problemas centrales que envuelve la interpretación del texto de Hume. (shrink)

This article is about the radical unity of natural law, and shows that, according to the thinking of Saint Thomas, the plurality of moral precepts can be adequately understood only in its light. In other words, any precept of natural law is a precept because it participates in the first principle. It follows that a division of the precepts into primary, secondary and tertiary precepts does not correspond to a schematic classification. The distinction of primary, secondary and tertiary precepts of (...) natural law is a relative distinction. (shrink)

Resumen Según autores como Grisez y Finnis, la teoría clásica de la ley natural es inmune a la crítica contenida en el argumento de la ley de Hume, porque aquella teoría no aspira a derivar la ética de la metafísica, ni los enunciados prácticos de enunciados fácticos. La autonomía de la razón práctica, sostienen estos autores, permite una explicación de la teoría de la ley natural que no exige ningún recurso a la metafísica o a cualquier otro conocimiento teórico de (...) la naturaleza. Esta tesis ha sido fuertemente discutida por autores vinculados al neo-tomismo que niegan la validez de la regla lógica expresada en la ley de Hume y, a la vez, afirman que la teoría tomista de la ley natural sólo se sostiene sobre sus fundamentos metafísicos. Esta discusión, sin embargo, es manifestativa de la equivocidad con que unos y otros han recibido la ley de Hume, y de la falta de análisis sobre sus supuestos y sobre el modo en que tales supuestos dialogan con la tradición clásica del iusnaturalismo.According to authors such as Grisez and Finnis, the classical theory of natural law is immune to the criticism contained in Hume’s law argument, because that theory does not pretend to derive ethics from metaphysics, nor practical statements from factual statements. These authors argue that the autonomy of practical reason allows an explanation of the theory of natural law, which does not require any recourse to metaphysics or any other theoretical knowledge of nature. This thesis has been strongly contested by authors linked to neo-Thomism, who deny the validity of the logical rule expressed in Hume’s law and, at the same time, affirm that the Thomistic theory of natural law can only be sustained on its metaphysical foundations. This discussion, however, is indicative of the ambiguity with which they have received Hume’s law, and of the lack of analysis on the assumptions of such law and on the way in which such assumptions dialogue with the classical tradition of natural law. (shrink)

Resumen La literatura universal, se encuentra poblada de arquetípicos que comparten una condición de desamparo y marginalidad, siendo la literatura realista de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX la que constata y da cuenta de su condición. En un mismo sentido, también la Biblia presenta un sinnúmero de personajes similares, marcando un punto de inflexión al llamarlo bienaventurados. Así pues, el presente estudio bíblico-literario, se centra en el arquetipo de la “viuda pobre”, sosteniendo dicha ficción literaria es una clave interpretativa (...) de la realidad, a la luz de la teoría literaria de la Estética de la Recepción. El articulo estudia la “viuda pobre” como un imaginario cultural y estableciendo la recepción de dicho imaginario en los cuentos “El Chiflón del diablo” y “El pago” del escritor chileno Baldomero Lillo, demostrando cómo el dialogo entre cultura y Biblia representa un aporte a la comprensión de determinadas ficciones literarias como categorías antropológicas.Universal literature is crowded by archetypical characters who share abandonment and marginalization conditions, being second half 19,h century realistic literature that confirms and exposes those conditions. In that sense, The Holy Bible presents a number of those characters. Resides, it highlights a turning point, hence, The Beatitudes point out: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. Thus, the following biblical-literary study, centered in the “Poor widow” archetype, aims to the establishment of literary fiction as interpretative key of reality, under Wolfgang Iser Aesthetics Reception's theory as its methodology. The objective aims to postulate “Poor Widow” as a Cultural imaginary, and finally to establish the reception of that imaginary within the stories “El Chiflón del Diablo” and “El Pago” by the chilean writer Baldomero Lillo, demonstrating that the dialog between culture and The Holy Bible represents a contribution to some literary fiction s as anthropological categories. (shrink)

Localization Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) represent a research topic with increasing interest due to their numerous applications. However, the viability of these systems is compromised by the attained localization uncertainties once implemented, since the network performance is highly dependent on the sensors location. The Node Location Problem (NLP) aims to obtain the optimal distribution of sensors for a particular environment, a problem already categorized as NP-Hard. Furthermore, localization WSN usually perform a sensor selection for determining which nodes are to be (...) utilized for maximizing the achieved accuracy. This problem, defined as the Sensor Selection Problem (SSP), has also been categorized as NP-Hard. While different metaheuristics have been proposed for attaining a near optimal solution in both problems, no approach has considered the two problems simultaneously, thus resulting in suboptimal solutions since the SSP is biased by the actual node distribution once deployed. In this paper, a combined approach of both problems simultaneously is proposed, thus considering the SSP within the NLP. Furthermore, a novel metaheuristic combining the Black Widow Optimization (BWO) algorithm and the Variable Neighbourhood Descent Chains (VND-Chains) local search, denominated as BWO-VND-Chains, is particularly devised for the first time in the author’s best knowledge for the NLP, resulting in a more efficient and robust optimization technique. Finally, a comparison of different metaheuristic algorithms is proposed over an actual urban scenario, considering different sensor selection criteria in order to attain the best methodology and selection technique. Results show that the newly devised algorithm with the SSP criteria optimization achieves mean localization uncertainties up to 19.66 % lower than traditional methodologies. (shrink)

Little is known about older persons’ expectancies (or anticipations) about the possible actions of home-care professionals, although such data have implications for the ethics of home care and home-care policies. From a longitudinal study of older women’s experience of home care, findings are reported concerning their expectancies of professional home-care providers. A descriptive phenomenological method was used to detail the structure of the experience and its context. Data were analyzed from a series of interviews with 13 women aged 82 to (...) 96 years. Among the five key structures of experience were ‘finding that someone has the job of helping me here’ and ‘determining where the helper’s field lies’. Two subsets within a category of expectancies were differentiated: speculations about helpers’ possible actions and expectancies about outcomes of helpers’ actions. As parameters of relational ethics, clients’ speculations and expectancies are appropriate bases for dialogue about older widows’ relationships with home-care professionals and the foci of home-care policies. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the collective portrait of the 40 women occupying the highest posts in the communist party and state apparatus in Poland during the Stalinist period. It focuses on the vast majority of people involved in the communist movement, while it also examines the cases of Socialists and women from the younger generation. The first part of the study presents the milieus they came from, their educational and professional careers and – above all – (...) the motivations and patterns of their political engagement. The second part engages with their position in the structures of power, as well as the circumstances of their political advances and declines. The key biographical category is that of “widowhood”, understood both literally – considering the percentage of women whose husbands were killed by Soviets or Germans – and symbolically – as a bitter disappointment with the Idea and its realization. (shrink)

Single mothers spark what Nancy Fraser calls “needs talk,” the language for translating daily life into professional practice and social policy. The author analyzes expert needs talk in 709 case vignettes, published in the United States between 1900 and 1988, in which experts turn single mothers into “file persons,” the basic unit of bureaucratic welfare management. The author shows how expert needs talk in these sources determines single mothers' worthiness for philanthropic or government support according to their conformity with historically (...) specific notions of proper womanhood. Demographic, political, institutional, and especially professional changes help explain the observed shifts in expert needs talk and the social construction of single motherhood. (shrink)

Widows, women, and the bioethics of care must be understood within an authentic Christian ontology of gender. Men are men and women are women, and their being is ontologically marked in difference. There is an ontology of gender with important implications for the role of women in the family and the Church. The Christian Church has traditionally recognized a role for widows, deaconesses, and female monastics, which is not that of the liturgical priesthood, but one with a special relationship to (...) care and therefore with particular implications for health care and a Christian bioethics of care in the twenty-first century. In the shadow of early male mortality, women as wives should turn to support their husbands and as widows to support those in need. Widows, in becoming authentic Christian monastics, can bring into the world an icon of rightly ordered women providing rightly ordered Christian care for those in need. They can enter the moral vacuum created by misunderstandings of the place of women and the service vacuum created by a disappearance of religious nuns in Western health care facilities with a presence that is at one with the Church of the Fathers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Two Killers in Montana Naming, Metaphor, and the Language of Serial Murder What's in a Name? The Wolf and the Widow Naming: Putting Practice into Theory Metaphor: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Metaphor: White Wolf Revisited I Am Become Wolf: Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism Strange Bedfellows For Further Contemplation.

This essay argues for a renewed institution of an ancient Christian practice, the Order of Widows. Drawing on the Roman Catholic tradition’s recent writings on the elderly, particularly the 1998 document from the Pontifical Council for the Laity entitled “The Dignity of Older People and their Mission in the Church and in the World,” I argue that we find within the Roman Catholic tradition advocacy for a renewed understanding of the vocation of the elderly within the Church. Building on this, (...) I then trace in the broadest of outlines some elements of what a renewal of the Order of Widows might look like. In doing so, it becomes clear how this new ecclesial practice addresses health issues of older women (devaluation, marginalization, loss of voice, impoverishment, debilitation, loneliness, isolation, and euthanasia). More importantly, such a practice moves beyond principles to demonstrate a concrete alternative. As such it would provide a powerful witness to the very culture the Church seeks to transform. (shrink)

This article argues that the early Christian ?order of widows? provides a fruitful model for Christian ethicists struggling to address the medical and social problems of elderly women today. After outlining the precarious state of the ?almanah? - or widow - in biblical times, it describes the emergence of the order of widows in the early Church. Turning to the contemporary situation, it argues that demographics both in the United States and around the globe suggest that meeting the needs (...) of elderly women will become an enormous challenge in the years to come. The order of widows illustrates a three-fold conception of solidarity that has immediate implications today. That conception of solidarity encourages us: 1) to identify the unique medical needs of elderly women (e.g., osteoporosis); 2) to find ways of overcoming their societal isolation, which can increase their risk of medical and psychological problems; and 3) to develop strategies for enabling them to remain contributing members of the community for as long as possible. This essay is a slightly revised version of a keynote address given by the author at a conference on ?Women?s Health and Human Rights? held in Rome, Italy in February 1998 and sponsored by the Vatican, Georgetown University, and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. The proceedings of that conference were published in Italy by the Società Editrice Universo-Roma in a volume entitled Women?s Health Issues, edited by Spagnolo and Gambino (2003). (shrink)

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with vocations to the Christian religious orders of the West in marked decline, an authentic Christian presence in health care is threatened. There are no longer large numbers of women willing to offer their life labors bound in vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, so as to provide a real preferential option for the poor through supporting an authentic Christian mission in health care. At the same time, the frequent earlier death of men (...) leaves a large number of widows, some in need of care and some able to provide care. Drawing on the role of widows sketched in I Timothy 2, one can envision Christian widows entering a life of prayer and service in health care settings. As female monastics, such widows could reintroduce a salient Christian presence in health care. How one ties this response to the message of I Timothy 2 will depend on one’s understanding of the status of Scripture, the significance of tradition, the nature of theological epistemology, the meaning of theology, the nature of the Church, and the ontology of gender. The position taken on these issues will define the character of a Christian bioethics of care. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI will sketch an evolutionary map of the four versions of Chineseness and explore the corresponding changes in the ideologies of the Chinese culture. A focal point is to diagram the shifting currents of moral realism vs. nihilism, cultural universalism vs. particularism and to explain how political legitimacy becomes entangled with personal identity and, as an example, how chaste widows can constitute a potent political rhetoric.

This paper examines the Luo custom of caring for a ‘widow’ and for the home of a deceased husband, its rationale and some of its contemporary challenges. The paper maintains that this custom is still the best alternative available to the Luo widow and for the care of the home of one’s deceased brother, especially in the context of Luo culture. However, it recommends a number of adjustments to the practice to discourage some of the abuses that are (...) becoming prevalent in it, with a view to making it more amenable to some of the challenges of our time. (shrink)

Intellectual property rights present an increasingly important challenge to social ethicists. An analysis of ethical issues raised by TRIPS—the international agreement protecting intellectual property rights—can illuminate an insufficiently acknowledged shift in Catholic thought about property rights. Vatican statements on AIDS drugs are one example of how intellectual property policies can be held accountable to the "option for the poor" and the common good.

Does Seoul, a city of eight million inhabitants, one of the planet's ten megalopolises, still have shamans? Can there be a place for shamanism in a country like South Korea, which is striving to be modern? Can shamanism survive at all in a country where the successes of Christianity have been celebrated by Westerners? Can it adapt itself to religious pluralism? What is shamanism's role in the urban setting? How does the fast pace of urban life affect its rituals? How (...) is shamanism presented in the mass media? Is it beginning to emerge from the centuries-long ostracism imposed on it by official ideologies?These questions will be explored in this article on the basis of data gathered on-site in the city of Seoul between the years 1982 and 1991. We will attempt not only to highlight several important facts but to grasp the overall process of transformation that the city is imposing on shamans and shamanism. (shrink)

Studies in the social and biomedical sciences of racial differences in socioeconomic status or health within a population view the race of members as fixed and look for a difference in the frequency of a trait like average income or disease risk between racial subgroups. But, as I explain in this paper, there are good reasons to allow the race of members to vary with the trait whose variation within the population is to be described or explained. According to such (...) a view of race, racial categories are more scientifically significant if membership in the categories is allowed to vary with differences in scientific interest rather than held constant across a variety of interests. (shrink)

In this first study of the social context that produced the Apocryphal Acts, Stevan L. Davies con­tends that women wrote the Acts and that the “Acts appear to have been a striving by Christian women for both a mode of self-expression and ...