Apuntes para un ensayo sobre la dialéctica de la conciencia -- Entre la retama y el laurel -- Apéndice.

Antonio Ungar (Bogota, 1974) has published two novels: Zanahorias voladoras (Alfaguara, 2004) and Las orejas del lobo (Ediciones B, 2006). This paper aims to analyze the two literary works, based on the relationship between abjection and revolt (Kristeva 2006 (1980), 1998 (1996)) presented in the novels. This relationship will make it possible to understand, to a great extent, the author’s esthetic proposal, as well as his position in the current Colombian literary field and his answer to the social conditions of (...) his time. (shrink)

Introduction: bearing politics -- Abortion, sin, and the state -- A history of the abortion debate -- Conceiving the nation: representations of abortion in Thailand -- Corrupt girls, victims of men, desperate women: representations of women who abort -- 'A small sin': everyday acts -- 'The truth of our day by day lives': situational ethics -- Global debates, local dilemmas.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Gregorian University).

Accompanying DVD is a filmed segment of the conversation.

Several attempts have been made to apply the choice-sensitive theory of distributive justice, luck egalitarianism, in the context of health and healthcare. This article presents a framework for this discussion by highlighting different normative decisions to be made in such an application, some of the objections to which luck egalitarians must provide answers and some of the practical implications associated with applying such an approach in the real world. It is argued that luck egalitarians should address distributions of health rather (...) than healthcare, endorse an integrationist theory that combines health concerns with general distributive concerns and be pluralist in their approach. It further suggests that choice-sensitive policies need not be the result of applying luck egalitarianism in this context. (shrink)

Because of its practical advantages, machine learning (ML) is increasingly used for decision-making in numerous sectors. This paper demonstrates that the integral characteristics of ML, such as semi-autonomy, complexity, and non-deterministic modeling have important ethical implications. In particular, these characteristics lead to a lack of insight and lack of comprehensibility, and ultimately to the loss of human control over decision-making. Errors, which are bound to occur in any decision-making process, may lead to great harm and human rights violations. It is (...) important to have a principled way of assigning responsibility for such errors. The integral characteristics of ML, however, pose serious difficulties in defining responsibility and regulating ML decision-making. First, we elaborate on these characteristics and their epistemic and ethical implications. We then analyze possible general strategies for resolving the assignment of moral responsibility and show that, due to the specific way in which ML functions, each potential solution is problematic, whether we assign responsibility to humans, machines, or using hybrid models. Then, we shift focus on an alternative approach that bypasses moral responsibility and attempts to define legal liability independently through solutions such as informed consent and the no-fault compensation system. Both of these solutions prove unsatisfactory because they leave too much room for potential abuses of ML decision-making. We conclude that both ethical and legal solutions are fraught with serious difficulties. These difficulties prompt us to re-weigh the costs and benefits of using ML for high-stake decisions. (shrink)

The intention of this paper is to point to the dilemma humanity may face in light of AI advancements. The dilemma is whether to create a world with less evil or maintain the human status of moral agents. This dilemma may arise as a consequence of using automated decision-making systems for high-stakes decisions. The use of automated decision-making bears the risk of eliminating human moral agency and autonomy and reducing humans to mere moral patients. On the other hand, it also (...) has the potential to bring tremendous benefits to humanity by decreasing human-induced harm in the world. After presenting how this dilemma may arise, I explore general avenues for addressing it. I will argue that we do not have to solve this dilemma in an all-or-nothing fashion and that a more nuanced approach may be suitable. However, the main point I want to highlight is that we need to have a principled way of addressing this dilemma, which is currently missing. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo explora los rendimientos de la teoría de la justicia de Axel Honneth para comprender las experiencias del sujeto en las sociedades contemporáneas. Para esto primeramente define la teoría de la justicia a través de las esferas del reconocimiento y posteriormente construye un modelo analítico posible considerando la justicia social a través de grados. Se proponen tres grados de justicia, que no son camisas de fuerza a lo social, sino puntos de partida para pensar la constitución y (...) las prácticas de los sujetos. Se concluye que las esferas del reconocimiento, pensadas a través de grados de justicia social permiten analizar las disímiles experiencias de los sujetos, pero comprendiendo las esferas y finalmente la justicia, a la luz de relaciones de poder y dominación que configuran ciertos contenidos morales de la justicia, pero no necesariamente contenidos que favorecen un mayor progreso moral en los órdenes sociales que prevalecen. El modelo analítico presentado permite considerar cómo se institucionalizan órdenes morales que definen formas de justicia que coactan la crítica, la lucha y el cambio.: This article explores the performances of Axel Honneth’s theory of justice to understand the subject’s experiences in contemporary societies. For this, it first defines the theory of justice through the spheres of recognition and then builds a possible analytical model considering social justice through degrees. Three degrees of justice are proposed, which are not social straitjackets, but starting points for thinking about the constitution and practices of the subjects. It is concluded that the spheres of recognition, thought through degrees of social justice, allow to analyze the different experiences of the subjects, but understanding the spheres and finally justice in the light of relations of power and domination that configure certain moral contents of the justice, but not necessarily content that will favor greater moral progress in the prevailing social orders. The analytical model allows us to consider how institutionalized moral orders, which define forms of justice that coerce criticism, struggle and change. (shrink)

Resumen: Los estudios críticos en discapacidad se han convertido durante las últimas tres décadas en un campo académico interdisciplinario que introduce un camino plural y diverso para la comprensión de la discapacidad. Estos estudios se enfocan en una serie de desarrollos teóricos que privilegian las comprensiones culturales, discursivas y relacionales de la discapacidad, conectando las aspiraciones de las personas con discapacidad con las agendas de los estudios feministas, queer, poscoloniales, postestructuralistas y posthumanos. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo esbozar los aportes (...) epistemológicos de estos estudios a través de la identificación de ejes teóricos que se han ido consolidando: poder, producción de los cuerpos y opresión internalizada; interseccionalidad e identidades múltiples; y ensamblajes posthumanos. La contribución de estos ejes radica, por un lado, en la salida del binarismo discapacidad-impedimento propio de los estudios sociales de la discapacidad más convencionales, lo que permite comprender la variabilidad de experiencias de la discapacidad, y, por otro lado, hace entender el concepto discapacidad como estratégico para explicar las formas en las que se producen los sujetos en las sociedades actuales.: Critical disability studies have become over the last three decades an interdisciplinary academic field that introduces a plural and diverse path to understanding disability. These studies focus on a series of theoretical developments that privilege cultural, discursive, and relational understandings of disability, connecting the aspirations of people with disabilities with the agendas of feminist, queer, postcolonial, poststructuralism and posthuman studies. This work aims to outline the epistemological contributions of these studies through the identification of theoretical axes that have been consolidated: power, production of bodies and internalized oppression; intersectionality and multiple identities; and posthuman assemblages. The contribution of these axes lies on the one hand, in the departure from the disability-impediment binary characteristic of the more conventional social studies of disability, which allows us to understand the variability of experiences of disability, and, on the other hand, it makes disability concept strategic to explain the ways in which subjects are produced in current societies. (shrink)

Prolongando los trabajos de Horst Bredekamp y de Quentin Skinner, la hipótesis que pretendo defender aquí consiste en demostrar que si el célebre frontispicio que adorna el Leviatán, obra mayor del pensamiento de Hobbes, hace de la figura del Leviatán el sustento estructurante de nuestra iconografía..

Die Reihe Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW) ist eine der ältesten undrenommiertesten internationalen Buchreihen zur neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Seit 1923 publiziert sie wegweisende Forschungsarbeiten zum frühen Christentum und angrenzenden Themengebieten. Die Reihe ist historisch-kritisch verankert und steht neuen methodischen Ansätzen, die unser Verständnis des Neuen Testaments befördern, gleichfalls offen gegenüber.

Not all homo sapiens are human subjects. This paper explores the lived experience of homo sapiens but not human that I call “lived flesh.” A lived experience/distinction that shouldn’t be possible on Merleau-Ponty’s account of human subjectivity in Phenomenology of Perception and “The Intertwining – The Chiasm.” The use of flesh is deliberate and emerges from my engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and “The Intertwining – The Chiasm” through Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Hortense Spillers’ “Interstices: A Small Drama of Words” (...) and “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book,” Amber Musser’s Sensual Excess: Queer Femininity and Brown Jouissance, and Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. The affective, experiential, and ethical practices of american Blackwomxn in these texts problematize Merleau-Ponty’s account of human subjectivity and his account of the generality of Being (“The Intertwining – The Chiasm”). Merleau-Ponty’s effacement of raced, sexed, and gendered difference results in a construct of the human subject that cannot include all homo sapiens. (shrink)

L'ingegneria concettuale è una branca della filosofia caratterizzata da un approccio normativo nei confronti della rappresentazione. Assunzione fondamentale è che i nostri dispositivi rappresentazionali possano essere difettosi. Si configura dunque come l'attività che consiste nell'identificare i difetti in tali dispositivi e mettere in atto strategie di miglioramento. Verranno illustrate le questioni fondamentali a cui una teoria di ingegneria concettuale deve rispondere: in cosa consiste esattamente questa attività? Come possiamo attuarla? Quali meccanismi regolano la formazione dei dispositivi rappresentazionali? Possiamo influire su (...) tali meccanismi? Verrà inoltre presentata un'obiezione all'ingegneria concettuale e varie risposte. -/- Conceptual engineering is a branch of philosophy characterised by a normative approach towards representation. The fundamental assumption of it is that our representational devices can be defective. Conceptual engineering is then the activity consisting of identifying the defects of such devices and putting in place ameliorative strategies. This paper illustrates the fundamental issues for a theory of conceptual engineering: what does this activity consist of? How can we implement it? What mechanisms regulate the formation of representational devices? Can we have an influence over those mechanisms? Moreover, it will be presented an objection to conceptual engineering and various responses to it. (shrink)

Recent research put forward the hypothesis that eye movements are integrated in memory representations and are reactivated when later recalled. However, “looking back to nothing” during recall might be a consequence of spatial memory retrieval. Here, we aimed at distinguishing between the effect of spatial and oculomotor information on perceptual memory. Participants’ task was to judge whether a morph looked rather like the first or second previously presented face. Crucially, faces and morphs were presented in a way that the morph (...) reactivated oculomotor and/or spatial information associated with one of the previously encoded faces. Perceptual face memory was largely influenced by these manipulations. We considered a simple computational model with an excellent match that expresses these biases as a linear combination of recency, saccade, and location. Surprisingly, saccades did not play a role. The results suggest that spatial and temporal rather than oculomotor information biases perceptual face memory. (shrink)

Is freedom a plausible political value for animals? If so, does this imply that animals are owed legal personhood rights or can animals be free but remain human property? Drawing on different conceptions of freedom, I will argue that while positive freedom, libertarian self-ownership, and republican freedom are not plausible political values for animals, liberal ‘option-freedom’ is. However, because such option-freedom is in principle compatible with different legal statuses, animal freedom does not conceptually imply a right to legal self-ownership. Nonetheless, (...) a concern for animal option-freedom means that humans do have a pro tanto duty of non-interference. Arguments familiar from the liberal tradition moreover imply that such a duty speaks for drastic reforms of existing animal law. But it does not imply wholesale abolitionism: it neither rules out positive duties towards animals nor means that we should abandon all interactions with animals. (shrink)

Traditionally, the manufacturer/operator of a machine is held (morally and legally) responsible for the consequences of its operation. Autonomous, learning machines, based on neural networks, genetic algorithms and agent architectures, create a new situation, where the manufacturer/operator of the machine is in principle not capable of predicting the future machine behaviour any more, and thus cannot be held morally responsible or liable for it. The society must decide between not using this kind of machine any more (which is not a (...) realistic option), or facing a responsibility gap, which cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility ascription. (shrink)

Andreas Stokke presents a comprehensive study of lying and insincere language use. He investigates how lying relates to other forms of insincerity and explores the kinds of attitudes that go with insincere uses of language. -/- Part I develops an account of insincerity as a linguistic phenomenon. Stokke provides a detailed theory of the distinction between lying and speaking insincerely, and accounts for the relationship between lying and deceiving. A novel framework of assertion underpins the analysis of various kinds of (...) insincere speech, including false implicature and forms of misleading with presuppositions, prosodic focus, and semantic incompleteness. -/- Part II sets out the relationship between what is communicated and the speaker's attitudes. Stokke develops the view of insincerity as a shallow phenomenon that is dependent on conscious attitudes rather than deeper motivations. The various of ways of speaking while being indifferent toward what one communicates are covered, and the phenomenon of 'bullshitting' is distinguished from lying and other forms of insincerity. Finally, an account of insincere uses of interrogative, imperative, and exclamative utterances is also given. (shrink)

So‐called nudge policies utilize insights from behavioral science to achieve policy outcomes. Nudge policies try to improve people's decisions by changing the ways options are presented to them, rather than changing the options themselves or incentivizing or coercing people. Nudging has been met with great enthusiasm but also fierce criticism. This paper provides an overview of the debate on the ethics of nudging to date. After outlining arguments in favor of nudging, we first discuss different objections that all revolve around (...) the worry that nudging vitiates personal autonomy. We split up this worry into different dimensions of autonomy, such as freedom of choice, volitional autonomy, rational agency, and freedom as nondomination. We next discuss worries that nudging is manipulative, violates human dignity, and prevents more important structural reform. Throughout, we will present responses that proponents of nudging can muster. On the whole, we conclude that the objections fail to establish that the nudge program as a whole should be rejected. At the same time, they give us important guidance when moving towards an ethical assessment of nudges on a case‐by‐case basis. Towards the end, we provide some possible ways forward in debates around the ethics of nudging. (shrink)

Traditionally, the manufacturer/operator of a machine is held (morally and legally) responsible for the consequences of its operation. Autonomous, learning machines, based on neural networks, genetic algorithms and agent architectures, create a new situation, where the manufacturer/operator of the machine is in principle not capable of predicting the future machine behaviour any more, and thus cannot be held morally responsible or liable for it. The society must decide between not using this kind of machine any more (which is not a (...) realistic option), or facing a responsibility gap, which cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility ascription. (shrink)

This article investigates structural aspects of source domains in metaphorical mappings with regard to their manifestation in public discourse data. Specifically, it analyses the organization of source concepts into mininarratives or "scenarios" that dominate the discourse manifestations of source domains. The material consists of examples from a bilingual corpus of British and German public debates about the &European Union.& The data show that while the two national samples share some basic mappings between the source and target domains, they each are (...) characterised further by specific scenarios that provide focal points for conceptualizing the target topic. The scenarios can also be shown to carry evaluative and attitudinal biases that are related to particular political dispositions and preferences of the respective national discourse communities. In conclusion, it will be argued that the analysis of scenarios is a necessary complement to the study of source domains and of domain-mappings in metaphorical language use. (shrink)