Recently, psychologists have explored moral concepts including obligation, blame, and ability. While little empirical work has studied the relationships among these concepts, philosophers have widely assumed such a relationship in the principle that “ought” implies “can,” which states that if someone ought to do something, then they must be able to do it. The cognitive underpinnings of these concepts are tested in the three experiments reported here. In Experiment 1, most participants judge that an agent ought to keep a promise (...) that he is unable to keep, but only when he is to blame for the inability. Experiment 2 shows that such “ought” judgments correlate with judgments of blame, rather than with judgments of the agent’s ability. Experiment 3 replicates these findings for moral “ought” judgments and finds that they do not hold for nonmoral “ought” judgments, such as what someone ought to do to fulfill their desires. These results together show that folk moral judgments do not conform to a widely assumed philosophical principle that “ought” implies “can.” Instead, judgments of blame play a modulatory role in some judgments of obligation. (shrink)

Most philosophers assume that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, and most of them hold that this principle is true not only universally but also analytically or conceptually. Some skeptics deny this principle, although they often admit some related one. In this article, we show how new empirical evidence bolsters the skeptics’ arguments. We then defend the skeptical view against some objections to the empirical evidence and to its effect on the traditional principle. In light of the new evidence, we conclude that philosophers (...) should stop unconditionally assuming that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. In light of recent empirical evidence, however, some skeptics conclude that philosophers should stop assuming the principle unconditionally. Streumer, however, does not simply assume the principle’s truth; he provides arguments for it. In this article, we argue that his arguments fail to support the claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’.

We hypothesize that as one of the most consequential events in evolution, primary endosymbiosis accelerates lineage divergence, a process we refer to as the endosymbiotic ratchet. Our proposal is supported by recent work on the photosynthetic amoeba, Paulinella, that underwent primary plastid endosymbiosis about 124 Mya. This amoeba model allows us to explore the early impacts of photosynthetic organelle (plastid) origin on the host lineage. The current data point to a central role for effective population size (Ne) in accelerating divergence (...) post‐endosymbiosis due to limits to dispersal and reproductive isolation that reduce Ne, leading to local adaptation. We posit that isolated populations exploit different strategies and behaviors and assort themselves in non‐overlapping niches to minimize competition during the early, rapid evolutionary phase of organelle integration. The endosymbiotic ratchet provides a general framework for interpreting post‐endosymbiosis lineage evolution that is driven by disruptive selection and demographic and population shifts. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/gYXrFM6Zz6Q. (shrink)

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive neurostimulatory and neuromodulatory technique increasingly used in clinical and research practices around the world. Historically, the ethical considerations guiding the therapeutic practice of TMS were largely concerned with aspects of subject safety in clinical trials. While safety remains of paramount importance, the recent US Food and Drug Administration approval of the Neuronetics NeuroStar TMS device for the treatment of specific medication-resistant depression has raised a number of additional ethical concerns, including marketing, off-label use (...) and technician certification. This article provides an overview of the history of TMS and highlights the ethical questions that are likely arise as the therapeutic use of TMS continues to expand. (shrink)

This research aims to describe how practicing lawyers perceive ‘plain writing’ in the legal field and to conceptualize this notion through the discourse analysis of these specialists. To do so, a qualitative research framed in the interpretive paradigm has been developed. Specifically, 18 practicing lawyers, from different countries and with different specializations in the practicing of Law, were surveyed. After analyzing the discourse of the interviewed lawyers, eight macro categories accounting for plain language both generally and particularly were identified. The (...) audience was identified as a key element in the production of legal texts which facilitate justice to citizens. Based on our analysis, we conclude with a definition of plain writing. (shrink)

The exchange of goods and services between individuals is often formalised by a contract in which the parties establish norms to define what is expected of each one. Norms use deontic statements of obligation, prohibition, and permission, which may be in conflict. The task of manually detecting norm conflicts can be time–consuming and error-prone since contracts can be vast and complex. To automate such tasks, we develop an approach to identify potential conflicts between norms. We show the effectiveness of our (...) approach and its individual components empirically using two publicly available corpora, and contribute with a new annotated test corpus for norm conflict identification. (shrink)

Soccer players inescapably live under stress during the sportive career, and many real-life aspects of soccer situations operate in the ongoing performance. This study’s main objective was to elaborate the List of Stressors in Professional Indoor and Field Soccer, a self-report instrument designed to measure the impact of 77 soccer situations upon the sport performance. Participants were 138 indoor and field soccer players from the Brazilian Premier League. Each situation was evaluated on a 7-point scale, ranging from the most negative (...) to the most positive. Data were analyzed according to the players’ perception of the items: distress or eustress and its intensity, and after that, situations perceived as plus −1 and +1 were compared by time in which they were experienced and distributed among five categories established by the literature: Expectations about the Performance, Personal Factors, Competition Aspects, Training Demands, and Relationship with Significant People. Narratives of athletes’ experiences were also used to discuss the results. An Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling using Bi-factorial was employed to assess the factor structure. For the total participants, 49 situations were perceived as distress and 28 as eustress. Using the criteria established a priori, the distribution was among the five categories in the remaining 32 situations. Differences in perception between less and more experienced players were found in 11 situations. The results revealed that Brazilian professional soccer players experience various stressful situations. These events are important representations of environmental demands and could predict the performance as they are perceived as eustress or distress. Some of these stressful situations are inherent in sport and others adjacent to the sports system or environment. Coach pressure to win and conflicts with teammates are examples of stressors in-sport, family problems and disputes with press or fans are examples of stressors external to the team, also called peripheral opponents, and showed the relative social influence of significant others in soccer performance. We can conclude that the knowledge of the direction of a given stress situation has important practical implications in preparing athletes and helping them face the performance stressors that are part of soccer daily life. (shrink)

Cuando se estudian los hitos, modos y autores que han participado en la construcción de una suerte de canon de la poesía colombiana desde comienzos del siglo xx el investigador encuentra en diversas fuentes y a lo largo de las décadas el tópico frecuente de “la cuestión Silva”, entendido como la asimilación paulatina de la obra de José Asunción Silva dentro del canon, su referenciación como un norte pensado desde la modernidad y por tanto como legado de esa modernidad poética (...) a la poesía colombiana de las generaciones posteriores. Este artículo revisita, desde una relectura en la sombra de la obra de José Asunción Silva, ciertos hitos de su recepción relacionados con las diversas y a veces contradictorias maneras como se asumieron en Colombia -y se siguen asumiendo- los conceptos de modernidad, modernismo, simbolismo y decadentismo, y señala críticamente algunas de las referencias textuales y de lectura que tanto la obra como su recepción deben a los tránsitos de otras obras y otras estéticas y poéticas entre Europa y Colombia. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose to investigate one common adult representation of childhood that will serve both to reflect on and to problematize current and varied representations. As such, our object of study will always be a representation and not a substantialist definition. We propose to analyze the adult concept “child” from a critical perspective by reviewing it through a historical lens—that is, as it is expressed in the political and educational world of 19th century Chile, which, in turn, we (...) can glimpse in the historical writings of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. To carry out this journey, we propose three guiding thematic axes: 1) how all school apparatuses embody, configure and assume a certain identifiable representation of “child’ and childhood; 2) an analysis of the characteristics and objectives of the 19th century Chilean school apparatus, particularly in its function as a government device, or dispositif; 3) just how that dispositif becomes visible to inquiry in the historical record, particularly in what it can reveal to us about the image or images of childhood held by adults. To be understood by adults as a boy or a girl in Chile during that period is communicated in the historical record through a myriad of diverse sources, each requiring consideration in its context. Magazines, syllabaries, school textbooks and children's stories configure different perspectives on and attitudes toward childhood, which in turn are associated with the social origin of these documents and the purposes they embody. The images, ideas and signs of interaction that appear in these school documents act cumulatively to reveal a cultural image of “child” and aid us in understanding the political and socio-cultural significance attributed to that period in the human life-cycle. And while we cannot claim to have identified how all adults of 19th century Chile understood and represented childhood, such documents do offer insights into the beliefs and assumptions of the political and ruling classes. (shrink)

La aparición de un medio de transporte como el Ferrocarril Trasandino influyó en la percepción estética que los transeúntes formaron sobre la geografía local. La montaña surge como un elemento fundamental dentro de la poética de diversos autores, entre ellos la poeta chilena Gabriela Mistral. La cordillera y el acceso a ella, desde el Elqui hasta Los Andes, es un elemento troncal de su poesía, adquiriendo características particulares en cada etapa de su creación poética y visión política, las cuales se (...) analizarán en el presente artículo. The arrival of the Transandean Railway influenced the aesthetic perception that passers-by formed of the local geography. The mountain appears as a fundamental element of poetry in various authors, including Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. The mountains and its access, from the Elqui to the Andes, are a core element of her poetry, acquiring particular characteristics at each stage of her poetic creation and political vision, which will be analyzed in this article. (shrink)

A lo largo de la historia el ser humano ha sentido interés por el fenómeno del movimiento y su vínculo con la ilusión de vida; diferentes mecanismos y sistemas articulados se han construido con el fin de insuflar vida en seres inertes. El presente artículo reflexiona sobre la cualidad móvil del acto creador presente en diferentes campos socioculturales, desde el misticismo hasta los avances tecnológicos. Se parte del enigma del anima, y su conexión con los creadores, denominados ejecutantes y sus (...) creaciones, denominadas “avatares encarnados”. Se analizan las relaciones de control-libertad, dependencia-independencia entre el ejecutante y su “avatar encarnado”; como también el grado de aceptación que tiene la audiencia al ver las creaciones reproducidas bajo el dispositivo diacrónico. La transición del autómata al personaje animado constata la evolución de los sistemas de representación y reconocimiento del movimiento. (shrink)

A gênese histórica da paróquia e seu desenvolvimento estrutural em relação à história da Igreja é a problemática central à qual este texto está subordinado. Por esta razão, o texto parte da etimologia do termo paróquia à compreensão de suas origens e matrizes dentro da concepção do cristianismo nascente e em suas raízes bíblicas, sem a pretensão de apresentar críticas e reformulações da estrutura paroquial. O respectivo trabalho toma como alicerce os decorrentes períodos e fatos históricos da Igreja para caracterizar (...) e contextualizar o desenvolvimento da paróquia que, desde os primórdios, está subordinada a estruturas de autoridades eclesiais. O seguinte texto vale-se de documentos importantes que contextualizam a visão, função e organização da paróquia como parte fundamentalmente integrante do corpo eclesial, bem como conceituam juridicamente esta comunidade de fé, célula da Igreja Particular. Após um apanhado geral da genealogia eclesiástica, com o desenvolvimento paroquial no seu interior, o presente trabalho atem-se a contextualizar a visão que a paróquia assumiu dentro da eclesiologia do XXI Concílio Ecumênico da Igreja Católica, o Concílio Vaticano II e do Código do Direito Canônico de 1983 em comparação com o Código Pio-beneditino. Com isso, o presente texto intui proporcionar fundamentos a futuros estudos e questionar a efemeridade. (shrink)

O artigo explora a relação do ser humano com o inefável e quais os caminhos para a presença de Deus na consciência religiosa, de acordo com Abraham Heschel, através da visão bíblica de mundo, nas seguintes categorias: sublime, maravilhoso, mistério, temor e glória. O resgate desses sentimentos dentro da religião é fundamental para a experiência da fé.

Entendemos os eventuais problemas em discutir subjetividades a partir dos escritos de dois pensadores tão diferentes como Foucault e Winnicott, mas nesse estudo, o objetivo é fornecer um possível contraponto _winnicottiano_ para as análises realizadas por Foucault a respeito da subjetividade na racionalidade neoliberal. Nossa proposta é pensar a constituição da subjetividade na racionalidade política neoliberal, que conforme verificamos, constrói indivíduos psiquicamente voltados para certo individualismo em detrimento da ética e da alteridade. Após uma discussão sobre a dinâmica da formação (...) do capital humano, conforme apresentado por Foucault, e da apresentação das noções fundamentais acerca dessa constituição específica da subjetividade, realizamos um contraponto apresentando os pontos fundamentais da teoria do amadurecimento de Winnicott para pensar a respeito de possíveis consequências psíquicas que a racionalidade neoliberal, produtora de sujeitos voltados para a competição, impõe a essas estruturas subjetivas. (shrink)

O presente estudo tem como tema o surveillance e a sociedade do controle biopolítico, sendo dada ênfase à conexão com o sistema penal e as tecnologias dispostas nas práticas de segurança. Tem-se como problema de pesquisa como e de que forma operam os “novos” mecanismos de surveillance em prol da segurança no modelo biopolítico do Estado penal? Conclui-se que o modelo de controle atual baseado em riscos e algoritmos emprega o surveillance em uma atuação securitária seletiva, adotando o discurso “científico/tecnológico” (...) como escusa para manutenção discriminatória de uma biopolítica da atuação penal voltada para morte de sujeitos e grupos sociais específicos. Por fim, a metodologia empregada compreende uma abordagem fenomenológico-hermenêutica, um método de procedimento monográfico e técnica de pesquisa por documentação indireta. (shrink)

Con el presente texto se pretende hacer un ejercicio reflexivo en torno a los nuevos retos que debe cumplir la ética personal y social a partir de las normativas de papel, las cuales emergen a raíz de la consolidación de una cultura del incumplimiento de las reglas en nuestro contexto latinoamericano y le hacen mucho daño a los individuos en los diferentes escenarios sociales. Para tal efecto, se inicia haciendo un análisis sobre la corrupción como fenómeno ejemplar que afecta el (...) cumplimiento de las normas. Posteriormente, se aborda el problema referido a la violación de la norma y la disonancia cognitiva, la cual es un conflicto mental que surge cuando existe un desacuerdo entre las actuaciones y las creencias de los individuos, por lo general, éstas tienden a contradecirse. Finalmente, se trae a colación, la situación de que los tres elementos anteriores nos conllevan a repensar la vida desde una ética personal y social. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that defenders of Frankfurt-style counterexamples to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities do not need to construct a metaphysically possible scenario in which an agent is morally responsible despite lacking the ability to do otherwise. Rather, there is a weaker (but equally legitimate) sense in which Frankfurt-style counterexamples can succeed. All that's needed is the claim that the ability to do otherwise is no part of what grounds moral responsibility, when the agent is indeed morally responsible.

This article investigates the relationship between emotional sharing and the extended mind thesis. We argue that shared emotions are socially extended emotions that involve a specific type of constitutive integration between the participating individuals’ emotional experiences. We start by distinguishing two claims, the Environmentally Extended Emotion Thesis and the Socially Extended Emotion Thesis. We then critically discuss some recent influential proposals about the nature of shared emotions. Finally, in Sect. 3, we motivate two conditions that an account of shared emotions (...) ought to accommodate: Reciprocal Other-awareness and Integration. Consideration of and discussion of relational accounts of joint attention lead us to the proposal that a construal of socially extended emotions in terms of a constitutive integration of the participating individuals’ experiences is more promising than proposals that simply appeal to various forms of social situatedness, embeddedness, or scaffolding. (shrink)

Entrevista com Luiz Felipe de Alencastro.

The experimental interventions that provide evidence of causal relations are notably similar to those that provide evidence of constitutive relevance relations. In the first two sections, I show that this similarity creates a tension: there is an inconsistent triad between Woodward’s popular interventionist theory of causation, Craver’s mutual manipulability account of constitutive relevance in mechanisms, and a variety of arguments for the incoherence of inter-level causation. I argue for an interpretation of the views in which the tension is merely apparent. (...) I propose to explain inter-level relations without inter-level causation by appealing to the notion of fat-handed interventions, and an argument against inter-level causation which dissolves the problem. (shrink)

This book provides an up to date, high-level exchange on God in a uniquely productive style. Readers witness a contemporary version of a classic debate, as two professional philosophers seek to learn from each other while making their cases for their distinct positions. In their dialogue, Joshua Rasmussen and Felipe Leon examine classical and cutting-edge arguments for and against a theistic explanation of general features of reality. The book also provides original lines of thought based on the authors’ own (...) contributions to the field, and offers a productive and innovative inquiry into on one of the biggest questions people ask: what is the ultimate explanation of things? (shrink)

Replicability is widely taken to ground the epistemic authority of science. However, in recent years, important published findings in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences have failed to replicate, suggesting that these fields are facing a “replicability crisis.” For philosophers, the crisis should not be taken as bad news but as an opportunity to do work on several fronts, including conceptual analysis, history and philosophy of science, research ethics, and social epistemology. This article introduces philosophers to these discussions. First, I (...) discuss precedents and evidence for the crisis. Second, I discuss methodological, statistical, and social-structural factors that have contributed to the crisis. Third, I focus on the philosophical issues raised by the crisis. Finally, I discuss proposed solutions and highlight the gaps that philosophers could focus on. (shrink)

The reward system of science is the priority rule. The first scientist making a new discovery is rewarded with prestige, while second runners get little or nothing. Michael Strevens, following Philip Kitcher, defends this reward system, arguing that it incentivizes an efficient division of cognitive labor. I argue that this assessment depends on strong implicit assumptions about the replicability of findings. I question these assumptions on the basis of metascientific evidence and argue that the priority rule systematically discourages replication. My (...) analysis leads us to qualify Kitcher and Strevens’s contention that a priority-based reward system is normatively desirable for science. (shrink)

This paper makes a conceptual prescription: it argues that judges and lawyers should adopt a positivist concept of law, on normative grounds. The positivist view, I will argue, is more consistent with reasonable disagreement and majority rule than nonpositivist views, offers a better view of law’s moral standing, and is more consistent with what Dworkin called ‘integrity’ than non-positivism. As the paper explains, this is an argument about what I call the ‘operative’ concept of law. As such, the argument avoids (...) potential problems for conceptual prescription, and shows why even those who adopt non-positivist views about the nature of law might accept it. (shrink)

Advocates of the self-corrective thesis argue that scientific method will refute false theories and find closer approximations to the truth in the long run. I discuss a contemporary interpretation of this thesis in terms of frequentist statistics in the context of the behavioral sciences. First, I identify experimental replications and systematic aggregation of evidence (meta-analysis) as the self-corrective mechanism. Then, I present a computer simulation study of scientific communities that implement this mechanism to argue that frequentist statistics may converge upon (...) a correct estimate or not depending on the social structure of the community that uses it. Based on this study, I argue that methodological explanations of the “replicability crisis” in psychology are limited and propose an alternative explanation in terms of biases. Finally, I conclude suggesting that scientific self-correction should be understood as an interaction effect between inference methods and social structures. (shrink)

. Este artículo se propone discutir las dificultades que pertenecen al ejercicio de pensarnos en cuanto corporales. Guía de estas reflexiones son los índices heideggerianos sobre la corporalidad humana realizados en Zollikoner Seminare. Dichos seminarios advierten que la actual experiencia de nuestro cuerpo, pese a poder ser estimada como inmediata, se halla mediada por nuestros propios supuestos epocales y se enraiza ya en el pensar ontológico de Occidente. Así, este artículo intentará examinar las aporías filosóficas de tal mediación histórico-epocal, exponiendo (...) la reflexión heideggeriana del cuerpo desde el claro del ser como una respuesta a la idea tradicional de subjetividad fundada en la noción de “mera presencia”. (shrink)

Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of a “replicability crisis” in the behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences. Researchers have made progress identifying statistical and methodological...

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing (...) modal epistemology. The middle chapters present positive accounts that reject rationalism, but which stop short of advocating exclusive appeal to empirical sources of modal knowledge. The final chapters mark a transition toward exclusive reliance on empirical sources of modal knowledge. They explore ways of making similarity-based, analogical, inductive, and abductive arguments for modal claims based on empirical information. Modal epistemology is coming into its own as a field, and this book has the potential to anchor a new research agenda. (shrink)

On a widely held characterization, triadic joint attention is the capacity to perceptually attend to an object or event together with another subject. In the last four decades, research in developmental psychology has provided increasing evidence of the crucial role that this capacity plays in socio-cognitive development, early language acquisition, and the development of perspective-taking. Yet, there is a striking discrepancy between the general agreement that joint attention is critical in various domains, and the lack of theoretical consensus on how (...) to account for it. This paper pursues three interrelated aims: (i) it examines the contrast between reductive and non-reductive views of (triadic) joint attention, by bringing into focus the notion of recursive mindreading; (ii) it assembles, advances, and discusses a number of arguments against reductive views; (iii) finally, in dialogue with some prominent non-reductive views, it outlines the case for a non-reductive view that gives pride of place to the idea that co-attenders relate to one another as a ‘you’. (shrink)

The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which olfactory qualities are (...) attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

La teoría de la aceleración ha hecho hincapié en los efectos alienantes de la aceleración de la vida social, pero ha prestado menos atención a posibles objetivos emancipadores. ¿Es posible considerar la acción y los conflictos colectivos como un motor de aceleración? Si es así, ¿es una motivación contingente-situada o más bien una condición estructural? La hipótesis principal de este artículo es que los conflictos se consideran un motor de aceleración contingente o estructural dependiendo del punto de partida teórico que (...) se adopte: 1) si los conflictos son una “excepción”, como “anomalía” a resolver en un supuesto curso “normal” de la sociedad (perspectiva funcionalista), no existe una condición estructural de aceleración sobre ellos, sino más bien contextual. A la inversa, 2) si los conflictos se perciben como parte constitutiva de la sociedad moderna-capitalista también pueden entenderse como un motor acelerador que apuntala la vida social con potenciales emancipadores. (shrink)

This manuscript intends to show some features of the concept “Historical Time” and its link with an idea of acceleration of History in constitutive terms. The Historical Time is used as concept mainly from the XVIII century and correspond to a way of understanding the contemporary World as a moment in which take place a chronology of Time and, along with it, the appearance of History. Different temporary schemes support this transit; among them, a pass from Synchrony to Diachrony, a (...) change from iteration to the Event, the circularity to the linearity. In it follows we propose to observe some implications and forms of articulation of an Historical Time and Social Acceleration in the sense that both of them are connecting and mutual depending elements. (shrink)