The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

According to a popular aphorism, biometrics are turning the human body into a passport or a password. As usual, aphorisms say more than they intend. Taking the dictum seriously, we would be two: ourself and our body. Who are we, if we are not our body? And what is our body without us? The endless history of identification systems teaches that identification is not a trivial fact but always involves a web of economic interests, political relations, symbolic networks, narratives and (...) meanings. Certainly there are reasons for the ethical and political concerns surrounding biometrics but these reasons are probably quite different from those usually alleged. (shrink)

This special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics is devoted to the ethical, societal and political implications of new and emerging technologies in the area of Human Security. Its aim is to address the wider implications of an altered security landscape. Specifically, and in accordance with SEE’s main area of interest, contributions to this special issue focus on those ethical considerations warranted by scientific and technological advances in the field of human security. This includes, but is not restricted to, issues (...) of privacy and data protection, control, trust, surveillance, authority, and freedom. Papers consider some of the ethical and societal challenges related to new and emerging technologies in the context of the Human Security Doctrine (HSD), as it has been initially formulated by the United Nations Commission on Human Security (UNCHS 2003). The HSD argues for a paradigm shift from understanding security based on tangible assets (e.g., national borders, goo .. (shrink)

Pulcinella is one of the most ancient comic characters of the Commedia dell’Arte.1 He is the stereotypical lazy servant, insolent and chauvinist, sometimes stupid, sometimes clever, always penniless, and absolutely unable to keep any secret. In a typical Commedia dell’Arte plot, the master reveals a secret to Pulcinella, who is under oath never to disclose it. Needless to say, after swearing that he will never divulge it, Pulcinella soon acts in a very different way, telling the secret to everybody he (...) meets. Yet each time Pulcinella discloses the secret, he asks for total confidentiality, pretending that no one else knows it. Sooner or later all characters on the stage know the secret but none of them know that all the others know it. Eventually each one behaves as though she were the sole repository of the secret while the only secret is that there is no secret at all. I often think of the Pulcinella’s secret nowadays, when someone evokes the ‘medical secret’. (shrink)

Nuclear warfare threat has been one of the main driver for cultural, political, economical and social changes in the late twentieth century, biological warfare threat is about to take it over. However, while nuclear warfare was a concrete possibility, biological warfare is just an elusive risk. This paper will explore some reasons for this apparent inconsistency by discussing biowarfare from a symbolic point of view, looking for its inner meanings and philosophical implications.

Stoic conception of mental disorders is still interesting and could be fruitful used in the current debate on psychiatric classification.

Ethical questions about information and communications technologies have been debated since World War II. Western democracies have had more than 50 years of experience in addressing and organising the ethical, social and legal aspects of scientific and technological developments. However, this expertise, tradition and experience are not enough to manage the most urgent ethical and social issues and contemporary challenges involving ICT. A systematic and institutional organisation of social values in the context of modern ICT tools is needed.This paper focuses (...) on four major areas: developing a specific approach to ethical issues raised by ICT; describing in more detail the age-related digital divide in Europe; identifying technology trends and emerging challenges; and defining the legal framework for inclusion of senior citizens in the digital society. The paper then concludes with a summary of its key points on the basis of which it makes three proposals as a contribution to efforts aimed at overcoming the exclusion of senior citizens from today's Information Society. (shrink)

The term “globalization” was popularized by Marshall McLuhan in War and Peace in the Global Village. In the book, McLuhan described how the global media shaped current events surrounding the Vietnam War [1] and also predicted how modern information and communication technologies would accelerate world progress through trade and knowledge development. Globalization now refers to a broad range of issues regarding the movement of goods and services through trade liberalization, and the movement of people through migration. Much has also been (...) written on the global effects of environmental degradation, population growth, and economic disparities. In addition, the pace of scientific development has accelerated, with both negative and positive implications for global health. Concerns for national health transcend borders, with a need for shared human security and an enhanced role for international cooperation and development [2]. These issues have significant bioethical implications, and thus a renewed academic focus on the ethical dimensions of public health is needed. Future developments in science and health policy also require a firm grounding in bioethical principles. These core principles include beneficence; nonmaleficence ; respect for persons and human dignity ; and attention to equity and social justice. According to the World Health Organization [3], global ethical approaches should monitor and update ethical norms for research, as necessary; anticipate ethical implications of advances in science and technology for health; apply internationally accepted codes of ethics; ensure that agreed standards guide future work on the human genome; and ensure that quality in health systems and services is assessed and promoted. (shrink)

Ambient assisted living technologies are increasingly presented and sold as essential smart additions to daily life and home environments that will radically transform the healthcare and wellness markets of the future. An ethical approach and a thorough understanding of all ethics in surveillance/monitoring architectures are therefore pressing. AAL poses many ethical challenges raising questions that will affect immediate acceptance and long-term usage. Furthermore, ethical issues emerge from social inequalities and their potential exacerbation by AAL, accentuating the existing access gap between (...) high-income countries and low and middle-income countries. Legal aspects mainly refer to the adherence to existing legal frameworks and cover issues related to product safety, data protection, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and access to data by public, private, and government bodies. Successful privacy-friendly AAL applications are needed, as the pressure to bring Internet of Things devices and ones equipped with artificial intelligence quickly to market cannot overlook the fact that the environments in which AAL will operate are mostly private. The social issues focus on the impact of AAL technologies before and after their adoption. Future AAL technologies need to consider all aspects of equality such as gender, race, age and social disadvantages and avoid increasing loneliness and isolation among, e.g. older and frail people. Finally, the current power asymmetries between the target and general populations should not be underestimated nor should the discrepant needs and motivations of the target group and those developing and deploying AAL systems. Whilst AAL technologies provide promising solutions for the health and social care challenges, they are not exempt from ethical, legal and social issues. A set of ELSI guidelines is needed to integrate these factors at the research and development stage. (shrink)

Hailed by the Journal of the History of Astronomy as "charming and witty," this chronicle by a renowned physicist traces the development of scientific thought from the works of the "founding fathers" — Galileo, Huygens, and Newton — to the more recent discoveries of Maxwell, Boltzmann, and Gibbs. 1984 edition.

Providing the first English translation of Análisis del ser del mexicano, this book features a full biography of Uranga, a detailed overview of the translated text, and discussion of Uranga's relevance to contemporary debates in the phenomenology of culture, the philosophy of liberation, Latin American philosophy and phenomenology itself. Reading Uranga's brilliant words expertly translated and introduced by Carlos Alberto Sánchez finally allows us to understand why this Mexican philosopher is considered one of the most fearless and original thinkers of (...) the 20th century. (shrink)

The parallel distributed processing (PDP) perspective brings forward the important point that all semantic phenomena are based on analog underlying mechanisms, involving the weighted summation of multiple inputs by individual neurons. It falls short of indicating, however, how the essentially discrete nature of semantic processing may emerge at the cognitive level. Bridging this gap probably requires attractor networks.

The act of iudicare hostes (‘declare public enemy’) was a formal pronouncement of the Roman Senate, voted for the first time in 88 BCE following a proposal by L. Cornelius Sulla after his first march on Rome. Legal historians have generally interpreted it as an emergency measure intended to preserve legality in a situation of civil strife and viewed it as a consistently defined institutional framework throughout the final decades of the Republic. Through an analysis of Sulla’s performative political communication, (...) before, during and in the immediate aftermath of the march, this paper argues that the act of judging (iudicare) someone a public enemy (hostis publicus) was first deployed as a political action, void of legal effects. Later instances of iudicare suggest that this act underwent a process of institutionalization after 63 BCE. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to bring together (at least) two very different debates: one on justice, mercy and particularity, the other on the play of exclusionary reasons. My aim is to show how the discussion of the uneasy co-existence of justice and mercy pivots on the question of particularity. And, secondly, that the debate on exclusionary reasons can show us why law may fail to do justice in this context.

Stakeholder engagement and dialogue have a central role in defining the relations between organisations and their internal and external interlocutors. Drawing upon the analysis of dialogic motifs, power–conflict dynamics and sociopolitical perspectives, and based on a set of interviews with the stakeholders of a consumer-owned cooperative, the research explores the dialogic potential of stakeholder engagement. The analysis revealed a fragmented picture where the co-design and co-implementation aspects were mainly related to the non-business areas of cooperative life, while business logic dominated (...) the most central aspects. Stakeholder engagement was mainly related to consensus building, while dialogic engagement based on a pluralistic understanding was only partially considered and then neglected. The social capital in the local area, the growing size of the organisation and the related power structure embrace stakeholder engagement, influencing the orientation of the dialogic dynamic. The analysis indicates that a dialogic exchange is a relative concept which depends on the interests involved and the topics discussed. It also reveals that the key factors in the democratisation of stakeholder engagement are a mutual understanding and long-term opportunities. Common sociopolitical aspects are also important, but they do not necessarily guarantee the creation of dialogism paths. The research contributes to the critical dialogic literature in revealing whether and how stakeholder engagement has been implemented in a specific setting. It also shows the limitations of voluntarist stakeholder engagement initiatives. (shrink)

La obra literaria de santa Rosa de Lima se reduce a unos versos registrados en el Primer Proceso Ordinario de la jerarquía peruana y a dos medios pliegos holográficos, conservados en el convento de Santa Rosa de las Madres, de Lima. Basándose en estos datos y ahondando en el testimonio de las conclusiones obtenidas por el Dr. Juan del Castillo, tras el examen de conciencia de 1614 realizado a la Santa, el autor realiza una semblanza de la primera escritora místico-visionaria (...) de la América del virreinato. (shrink)

La decouverte de plus en plus profonde de la signification du christianisme a transforme la pensee de Fichte. Reciproquement, Fichte s'engage dans la voie d'une transformation du christianisme, au sens d'une metamorphose de la croyance en vision; il saisit la foi comme un stade imparfait de la science et souligne que seule cette derniere est a meme de supprimer l'exteriorite de l'Absolu. Le present ouvrage allie les points de vue genetique et systematique. De ses cinq parties, les quatre premieres exposent, (...) en suivant l'ordre chronologique, l'evolution de la theorie fichteenne du christianisme, depuis les textes prekantiens jusqu'a la Doctrine de l'Etat de 1813. La longue cinquieme partie, structuree thematiquement plutot que chronologiquement, est reservee non seulement a la reprise synthetique, mais aussi a la confrontation critique. Elle examine les differents aspects de la conception fichteenne du christianisme, notamment sa position a l'egard du Nouveau Testament, de la dogmatique, de la morale et de la mystique chretiennes. (shrink)

The introduction looks at the constitutional situation in Chile since the demand for a new Constitution erupted in demonstrations all across the country, and argues that the notion of ‘constitutional moment’ is inadequate to capture the radicality of the popular mobilisation that is sweeping the country as a pure expression of constituent power.

In this paper I take issue with and argue against a certain subordination of the political to the legal that, I argue, is advanced under theories or ‘republican constitutionalism’ and undertake a defense of the political as ‘reflexive’. In republican constitutionalism one discerns an ‘imperialistic’ legal move to set the terms of political discourse, as political conflicts in order to be legally resolved are forced to meet criteria of legal relevance: in the process much that is vital to political action, (...) its understanding and undertaking, is suppressed, elided or appropriated. I argue against the purported ‘containment’ of politics in law and for a ‘reflexivity’ that is constitutive of politics, re-introducing contingency and selfreference (‘what is political can only be a political question’) at the heart of what it means to act politically. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage important reflète le dynamisme actuel en Espagne de la recherche en histoire des femmes, tout en vérifiant la diversité théorique, méthodologique et thématique de ce courant historiographique. Afin de faciliter la présentation nous regroupons par thèmes les 24 travaux inclus dans cette vaste publication. En premier lieu, distinguons les contributions orientées vers l’analyse théorique. Mª Isabel del Val Valdivieso dans « A modo de introducción. La historiografía en los albores del...

To think a Deleuzian politics requires to understand the philosophical markleft in his work by Spinoza. Both philosophers’ paths crisscross in their problems, questions and consequences. In this paper three concepts will be put in relation: critique, right and crowd. The aim is to elucidate how man can open new ways of political experience from the conjunction of two philosophies articulated upon a common ground: immanence and life.

The aim of this text is to develop an epistemological-technique approach which permit analyze the work of Juan Downey, and his use of technical medias and also include the struggle against the State in the political and cultural model of the primitive societies of the Yano- mani, particularly by the work of Pierre Clastres and Jacques Lizot, and also their point of view of the methods of production in the societies of abundance, as theorized the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, considering these (...) anthropological paradigms as a medium to understand the mediatic interaction and the technique development in the works of Juan Downey. (shrink)

The aim of this text is to develop an epistemological-technique approach which permit analyze the work of Juan Downey, and his use of technical medias and also include the struggle against the State in the political and cultural model of the primitive societies of the Yano- mani, particularly by the work of Pierre Clastres and Jacques Lizot, and also their point of view of the methods of production in the societies of abundance, as theorized the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, considering these (...) anthropological paradigms as a medium to understand the mediatic interaction and the technique development in the works of Juan Downey. (shrink)

Post‐translational modifications regulate each step of DNA replication to ensure the faithful transmission of genetic information. In this context, we recently showed that deubiquitination of SUMO2/3 and SUMOylated proteins by USP7 helps to create a SUMO‐rich and ubiquitin‐low environment around replisomes that is necessary to maintain the activity of replication forks and for new origin firing. We propose that a two‐flag system mediates the collective concentration of factors at sites of DNA replication, whereby SUMO and Ubiquitinated‐SUMO would constitute “stay” or (...) “go” signals respectively for replisome and accessory factors. We here discuss the findings that led to this model, which have implications for the potential use of USP7 inhibitors as anticancer agents. (shrink)

Las exigencias del diálogo entre la fe y la cultura actual han obligado a plantearse seriamente la tarea de "inculturación" del cristianismo, una misión necesaria aunque compleja y delicada. Tras definir los términos principales del tema, se exponen los criterios a seguir y los equilibrios necesarios para su adecuada realización. A continuación se describe el objeto principal de este estudio: la inculturación de la catequesis. En primer lugar, los agentes o personas responsables de la inculturación (la comunidad cristiana, los diferentes (...) servicios o ministerios, el papel de los catequistas), los aspectos o lugares particularmente implicados (pequeñas comunidades cristianas, catequesis locales, catequesis populares, etc.). El estudio termina destacando algunos de los posibles riesgos y dificultades que la tarea de inculturar la catequesis debería intentar superar. (shrink)

The anticipation of the typical under the assumption of the non-occurrence of the atypical is the experiential schema governing the individuation of ordinary enduring objects and their properties. Against this background, a primitive form of “if-and-only-if” consciousness is implicit in our everyday perceptual intentions. The thematization of the fact that perception operates under this proto-tentative structure occurs at the level of reflection and is expressed by defeasible judgments of the form “if p, then q, unless r,” or “if p, then (...) q provided that not-r”. Here I will argue that what is made thematic by judgments containing such restrictive clauses is the structure of unpredictability inherent in what Husserl calls the horizon of latency and, indirectly, the world as background of normality. (shrink)

Includes articles about Origen, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Blondel, Teilhard de Chardin, Barth, Heidegger, Gadamer, postmodernism.

El artículo presenta y comenta las catequesis de Benedicto XVI en las audiencias públicas de los miércoles. A lo largo de los años los temas tratados son: los salmos y cánticos litúrgicos de laudes y vísperas; la Iglesia, su naturaleza e identidad; los Padres de la Iglesia; San Pablo (en el Año Paulino, 2008). En 2009, Benedicto XVI lanza una serie dedicada al Año Sacerdotal. En los últimos años de pontificado (2009-2011), presenta figuras de la historia de la Iglesia en (...) la Edad Media en los siglos XII y XIII, y a continuación personalidades femeninas de la historia eclesial de la Edad Media, y Moderna. Una última nueva serie está dedicada a los Doctores de la Iglesia. Estas catequesis dirigidas a todos los fieles constituyen un significativo momento de formación. (shrink)