Se aborda la tercera sección del «Canon» de la Crítica de la razón pura, dedicada a la distinción entre opinión, saber y creencia, para analizar el concepto de «creencia doctrinal» (doctrinaler Glaube), que no aparece explícitamente en ningún otro lugar del corpus kantiano. Se sostiene que este concepto, bajo el cual Kant subsume nuestra creencia en la existencia de Dios, está pensado para descartar el denominado ateísmo por defecto (o la presunción de ateísmo), que de otro modo obtendría la primacía (...) en la epistemología crítica. (shrink)

This article argues that Hobbes can be considered Machiavellian, although not in the usual meaning of the term (a meaning to which Machiavelli himself did not adhere), that is the reduction of politics to the recourse to force and deceit. Hobbes’ Machiavellism is not to be found only where it would be expected (political realism, the need to use force and trickery) but also where it is not usually sought: in recognizing that the sovereign has to take his people into (...) account and to act in their favour, if only for self-serving reasons. (shrink)

This article puts forward solutions to some of the ethical and legal dilemmas posed in the current discussion on how to program crash algorithms in autonomous or self-driving cars. The first part of the paper defines the scope of the problem in the criminal legal field, and the next section gives a critical analysis of the proposal to always prioritise the interest of the occupant of the vehicle in situations with conflict of interests. The principle of minimizing social damage as (...) a model for configuring self-driving cars is examined in the third section. Despite its apparent plausibility, within the framework of a liberal legal system that recognises humans as free agents who have rights and responsibilities, maximizing the function of social utility does not justify harmful interference into a person’s legal sphere. Therefore, in the fourth part, the author argues the need to program the crash algorithms of autonomous cars based on a deontological understanding of the system of justifications in criminal law. The solution to the dilemma lies in a prior analysis of the legal positions of all agents involved in the conflict, from a perspective of the principles of autonomy and solidarity as the core of the system of justifications. (shrink)

El misteri del mal no té un tractament específic en Martí Luter, però és a través dels seus múltiples escrits, com són les classes i comentaris bíblics, cartes i sermons, consells i respostes a qüestions que li plantejaren els seus contemporanis, que és possible de refer el seu pensament. Molt característic del seu estil és que, aquí com tots els altres temes que tracta, defuig tot tractament racional i filosòfic, amb la finalitat de posar més clarament al descobert allò que, (...) segons ell, professa una fe cristiana alimentada únicament per la Sagrada Escriptura. (shrink)

El tema del mal exige un análisis especulativo de grandes vuelos, en el que no sólo se implican cuestiones metafísicas, sino también epistemológicas. Santo Tomás hizo lo que pudo, en los tres momentos (todos en la década de los sesenta) en que abordó directamente el asunto. Su conclusión, dándole la vuelta a la formulación boeciana, fue que, “si el mal existe, es que Dios existe”. Tal salida postula que el bien es una propiedad trascendental, y que el mal no es (...) nada, es sólo privación de un bien debido. Como es sabido, el bien, entendido como trascendental, supone una relación intencional. Cuando el ser se ofrece a la mirada del intelecto, éste advierte que es verdadero. Cuando la voluntad lo advierte, descubre que es apetecible, porque es bueno. El problema sigue, sin embargo, y desemboca en la paradoja existencial, que según Carlos Cardona suena así: “el mal no es, pero existe”. Por eso, Cardona señala que el mal no es cognoscible y que sólo sabemos qué es el mal, porque Dios nos garantiza el acceso a su noción, si se puede hablar así. Sería una forma radical de reformular la solución tomasiana: si el mal existe, es que Dios existe. (shrink)

This paper contains a joint study of two sentential logics that combine a many-valued character, namely tetravalence, with a modal character; one of them is normal and the other one quasinormal. The method is to study their algebraic counterparts and their abstract models with the tools of Abstract Algebraic Logic, and particularly with those of Brown and Suszko's theory of abstract logics as recently developed by Font and Jansana in their "A General Algebraic Semantics for Sentential Logics". The logics studied (...) here arise from the algebraic and lattice-theoretical properties we review of Tetravalent Modal Algebras, a class of algebras studied mainly by Loureiro, and also by Figallo, Landini and Ziliani, at the suggestion of the late Antonio Monteiro. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Noël Carroll denies and Robert Stecker affirms that it is a necessary condition of aesthetic experience that it should be valued for its own sake. I make use of their controversy to argue for the psychological impossibility of discharging very common practices of art evaluation and analysis without undergoing an aesthetic experience valued for its own sake. By way of supporting my thesis and also making progress in Stecker and Carroll’s dispute about aesthetic experience, I analyse their methodological assumptions and (...) develop further our understanding of negative, indifferent and unexpected aesthetic experiences. The article provides a defence of Stecker’s position based on my contention regarding art evaluation and analysis. (shrink)

Recently, the mechanistic framework of active inference has been put forward as a principled foundation to develop an overarching theory of consciousness which would help address conceptual disparities in the field (Wiese 2018 ; Hohwy and Seth 2020 ). For that promise to bear out, we argue that current proposals resting on the active inference scheme need refinement to become a process theory of consciousness. One way of improving a theory in mechanistic terms is to use formalisms such as computational (...) models that implement, attune and validate the conceptual notions put forward. Here, we examine how computational modelling approaches have been used to refine the theoretical proposals linking active inference and consciousness, with a focus on the extent and success to which they have been developed to accommodate different facets of consciousness and experimental paradigms, as well as how simulations and empirical data have been used to test and improve these computational models. While current attempts using this approach have shown promising results, we argue they remain preliminary in nature. To refine their predictive and structural validity, testing those models against empirical data is needed i.e., new and unobserved neural data. A remaining challenge for active inference to become a theory of consciousness is to generalize the model to accommodate the broad range of consciousness explananda; and in particular to account for the phenomenological aspects of experience. Notwithstanding these gaps, this approach has proven to be a valuable avenue for theory advancement and holds great potential for future research. (shrink)

In this article I argue that a high capacity for courage, in the sense of the strength of character that enables one to face distress, angst or psychological pain, is required of Hume’s ideal critics just as the other well-known five characteristics are. I also explore the implications of my proposal for several aspects of Hume’s aesthetics, including the one brought into relief by Shelley’s interpretation of Hume along the lines of distinguishing between the perceptual and affective stages in aesthetic (...) appreciation. (shrink)

Objetivamos elaborar um balanço sobre lógica das perguntas científicas na produção do conhecimento stricto sensu. Tomamos como fontes 100 dissertações e 32 teses escritas por docentes que trabalham em cursos de Educação Física no Estado da Bahia – 1982 a 2018, abordando enquanto objeto a lógica instituída pelas perguntas científicas na referida produção. Trata-se de uma pesquisa documental, tendo como método o materialismo histórico e dialético. Os resultados apontam que 48% das produções têm suas perguntas de investigação construída a partir (...) da lógica formal; 28% apresenta uma lógica dialética na elaboração das perguntas científicas; e 24% não apresentam problema de investigação. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that moral projectivism cannot be coherently fix the content of our moral responses. To this purpose, I develop a number of arguments against moral dispositionalism and, in this context, I challenge both David Lewis' dispositionalist account of colour and Chistine Korsgaard's procedural realism.

ABSTRACT In the 1960s, when Dr. Belding Scribner discovered how to accomplish the process of dialysis in a repeated way, he could not imagine that in solving such a problem others as or more difficult would appear. Given the technological progress and the impossibility of assisting all patients through the most modern methods, the medical doctor often finds himself faced with the moral dilemma of choosing which patient in the waiting list will receive the treatment. This same dilemma is amplified (...) in the case of organ transplants. Professionals, students, professors of the juridical and health fields, and the population in general, were interviewed as a means of documenting the moral concepts and opinions surrounding this problem. In the reality in which we find ourselves, it seems to us that deciding who lives, and the responsibility for all the events that culminate in such decisions, is still a subject left open to discussion. (shrink)

The necessity defense is barely accepted in contemporary Western case law. The courts, relying on the opinion held by the majority of legal scholars, have reduced its margin of application to practically zero, since in the framework of contemporary welfare states, there is almost always a “legal alternative.” The needy person who acts on their own behalf, regardless of whether they save an interest higher than the one they injure, does not show due deference to democratic legal solutions and procedural (...) channels. This article aims to contest this abrogative interpretation of the necessity defense and to outline the limits of its legitimate scope. Even in welfare states, there are actions in a necessity scenario that neither question the legal decisions of the democratically elected legislature nor make a mockery of established procedural channels. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the discussion on the role of truth degrees in manyvalued logics from the perspective of abstract algebraic logic. It starts with some thoughts on the so-called Suszko’s Thesis (that every logic is two-valued) and on the conception of semantics that underlies it, which includes the truth-preserving notion of consequence. The alternative usage of truth values in order to define logics that preserve degrees of truth is presented and discussed. Some recent works studying these in the (...) particular cases of Łukasiewicz’s many-valued logics and of logics associated with varieties of residuated lattices are also presented. Finally the extension of this paradigm to other, more general situations is discussed, highlighting the need for philosophical or applied motivations in the selection of the truth degrees, due both to the interpretation of the idea of truth degree and to some mathematical difficulties. (shrink)

The last years of the 20th Century have been somewhat contradictory with respect to values like loyalty, trust or truthfulness. On the one hand, (often implicitly, but sometimes very explicitly), self-interest narrowly defined seems to be the dominant force in the business world, both in theory and in practice. On the other hand, alliances, networks and other forms of cooperation have shown that self-interest has to be at least "enlightened".The academic literature has reflected both points of view, but frequently in (...) an ambiguous way, since the concepts of loyalty and trust are somewhat elusive and equivocal. This paper attempts to analyze the concept of loyalty in depth, examining the different conceptions about the word that can be found in the literature. We begin by going to the management classics (specifically, Follett, Barnard and Simon), and we then turn to the anthropological approach of Pérez López (1993), with its built-in ethical analysis, and show how trust and loyalty are crucial to the development of organizations. We end by suggesting in what ways loyalty and trust can be created and fostered in organizations. (shrink)

This paper reviews the development of socially responsible investment (SRI) in the Spanish financial market. The year, 1997 saw the appearance in Spain of the first SRI mutual fund, but it was not until late 1999, that major Spanish fund managers offered SRI mutual funds on the retail market. The development of SRI in the Spanish financial market has not experienced the high levels of development seen in other European countries, such as France or Italy, where interest in SRI began (...) during the same period. This paper presents an analysis of the impact of SRI mutual funds managed by Spanish fund managers comparing the evolution of managed assets and number of investors. We also analyse the investment strategies adopted by these funds, which mainly use negative screening criteria and the participation of non-governmental organisations as institutional investors. An analysis of the take up of socially responsible investment in the Spanish financial market shows majors deficits in this process. This is due to Spanish investors having limited sensitivity to social issues and knowledge of SRI, and a lack of development of SRI investment strategies, such as engagement or shareholder activism by fund managers. Furthermore, the take-up of SRI mutual funds in the Spanish financial market coincided with a fall in the stock market at the beginning of the 21st Century. We conclude with an analysis of the relationship between SRI and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). (shrink)

Faced with the inaction of liberal democracies to effectively tackle global warming, many climate activists engage in forms of protests that involve committing minor criminal offences. They seek to shape official decisions on climate policies by resorting to civil disobedience. Some of these activists, rather than accepting punishment, have successfully claimed to be acting in a justified manner by invoking the necessity defence. The aim of this article is to show that, within the framework of representative democracies guided by the (...) rule of law, the climate necessity defence must be rejected, since such protests do not meet the ‘non-legal alternatives’ requirement. This does not mean, however, that protesters should be punished as common offenders. Their acceptance of responsibility and political motivation should be taken into account as a mitigating factor at sentencing. (shrink)

Engineering ethics is usually focused on engineers’ ethics, engineers acting as individuals. Certainly, these professionals play a central role in the matter, but engineers are not a singularity inside engineering ; they exist and operate as a part of a complex network of mutual relationships between many other people, organizations and groups. When engineering ethics and engineers’ ethics are taken as one and the same thing the paradigm of the ethical engineer which prevails is that of the heroic engineer, a (...) certain model of the ideal engineer: someone both quite individualistic and strong enough to deal with all the moral challenges that could arise. We argue that this is not the best approach, at least today in our interrelated world. We have achieved a high degree of independence from nature by means of technology. In exchange for this autonomy we have become increasingly tied up with very complex systems to which we constantly delegate new tasks and powers. Concerns about safety keep growing everywhere due to the fact that now we have a sensitive awareness of the huge amount of power we are both consuming and deploying, thus, new forms of dialogue and consensus have to be incorporated at different levels, in different forums and at different times. Within these democratic channels of participation not just the needs and interests, but also the responsibilities and mutual commitments of all parties should be taken into account. (shrink)

There are many theories about organizations that are mutually inconsistent with each other, which explain phenomena to very similar extents. Most of them ignore the ethical dimension completely. In this paper I put forth the basic principles for a theory of decision-making in organizations, which integrates ethics in the core of the theory. It is based on the work of Juan Antonio Pérez López [1991, Teoría de la Acción humana en las organizaciones (Ediciones Rialp, Madrid), 1993, Fundamentos de la Dirección (...) de Empresas (Ediciones Rialp, Madrid)] and is essentially a humanistic view of the interrelationships between people and its implications for organizational decision-making. I will first show that in any relationship between two people, the learning of the two is crucial for such a relationship to last; and then I will expand on the different aspects of that learning. This analysis will then be applied to the organizational context as a basis for organizational decision-making, Second, it applies the previous analysis to the organizational context as a basis for organizational decision making, showing how any decision in an organization needs to be analyzed on the basis of three criteria (short-run effectiveness, development of distinctive competence, and unity and identification with the organization) and how ethics is included in the last two. (shrink)

In this paper two deductive systems associated with relevance logic are studied from an algebraic point of view. One is defined by the familiar, Hilbert-style, formalization of R; the other one is a weak version of it, called WR, which appears as the semantic entailment of the Meyer-Routley-Fine semantics, and which has already been suggested by Wójcicki for other reasons. This weaker consequence is first defined indirectly, using R, but we prove that the first one turns out to be an (...) axiomatic extension of WR. Moreover we provide WR with a natural Gentzen calculus. It is proved that both deductive systems have the same associated class of algebras but different classes of models on these algebras. The notion of model used here is an abstract logic, that is, a closure operator on an abstract algebra; the abstract logics obtained in the case of WR are also the models, in a natural sense, of the given Gentzen calculus. (shrink)

En este trabajo ofrezco una interpretación de la concepción heideggeriana del organismo biológico presente en sus cursos de 1929. Para ello, primero enmarcaré la discusión dentro de la interpretación heideggeriana del naturalismo y su manera de entender la relación entre filosofía y ciencia. Luego, analizaré su interpretación de la embriología y la ecología mediante la cual Heidegger esboza aportes originales a la filosofía de la biología, especialmente en torno al problema de la identidad del organismo biológico. Finalmente, mostraré cómo esta (...) interpretación supone una profunda crítica a las concepciones sustancialistas del organismo a favor de una concepción relacional y procesual. (shrink)

(1988). Understanding, truth, and explanation. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 19-34. doi: 10.1080/02698598808573322.

A definition and some inaccurate cross-references in the paper A Survey of Abstract Algebraic Logic, which might confuse some readers, are clarified and corrected; a short discussion of the main one is included. We also update a dozen of bibliographic references.