Antecedente. Se considera «eutanasia» al acto de acabar con la vida del paciente a petición expresa de él, para terminar el sufrimiento propio de alguna enfermedad sin perspectiva de cura. Objetivo. Evaluar los conocimientos y la percepción sobre la eutanasia en estudiantes y profesionales de medicina, demostrando los conocimientos y clasificando la percepción sobre la eutanasia. Metodología. Estudio clínico-epidemiológico, observacional, cualitativo-cuantitativo, de corte transversal y con muestreo no probabilístico por conveniencia, en los estudiantes y profesionales de medicina de un hospital (...) en Venezuela. Resultados. La muestra estudiada tuvo una distribución según grado de instrucción: 64.85% de estudiantes, 19.33% de residentes y 15.82% de especialistas. Presentaron un grado de conocimiento medio, distribuido en 84.4% de especialistas, 77.3% de residentes y 80.5% de estudiantes (p 0.051). De acuerdo con los grados de conocimiento y el apoyo a la eutanasia, el 76.18% tiene un grado medio de conocimientos (p 0.0002). Conclusión. Se demostró que existe un grado medio de conocimiento, en particular en la población estudiantil. La eutanasia no fue percibida de manera negativa, demostrando una alta significancia en la atención a las implicaciones éticas que rodean este concepto. (shrink)

Las células madre embrionarias humanas son células pluripotentes con potenciales aplicaciones en medicina regenerativa e interés considerable en investigación y biotecnología. Sin embargo, dada la estrecha relación con principios morales y bioéticos, ha existido una considerable discusión sobre la posibilidad de patentar o no este tipo de células madre. En el presente artículo, se revisa la legislación europea en materia de propiedad industrial, y la tradición del sistema jurídico continental en el reconocimiento de la dignidad humana como principio fundamental y (...) su relación con la protección de invenciones biotecnológicas, centrados en la reciente sentencia del caso Brüstle v. Greenpeace e.V. (shrink)

Electrical brain activity modulation in terms of changes in its intensity and spatial distribution is a function of age and task demand. However, the dynamics of brain modulation is unknown when it depends on external factors such as training. The aim of this research is to verify the effect of deductive reasoning training on the modulation in the brain activity of healthy younger and older adults ( (mean age of 21 ± 3.39) and (mean age of 68.92 ± 5.72)). The (...) analysis reveals the benefits of training, showing that it lowers cerebral activation while increasing the number of correct responses in the trained reasoning task (). The brain source generators were identified by time-averaging low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) current density images. In both groups, a bilateral overactivation associated with the task and not with age was identified. However, while the profile of bilateral activation in younger adults was symmetrical in anterior areas, in the older ones, the profile was located asymmetrically in anterior and posterior areas. Consequently, bilaterality may be a marker of how the brain adapts to maintain cognitive function in demanding tasks in both age groups. However, the differential bilateral locations across age groups indicate that the tendency to brain modulation is determined by age. (shrink)

The adoption of an individualistic perspective on reasoning, choice and decision is a spring of paradoxes of conflicts. Usually the agents immerse in conflicts are drawn or modelled as rational individuals with targets well defined and full capabilities to access to information, without both temporal limitations and perfect reasoning abilities to obtain their preferences are taken account.However, other models of agent, in the bounded rationality perspective, could help to understand better the interrelationships. I adopt embedded argumentative reasoning processes as satisfying (...) criteria to analyze the expert function in a new socio technical environment that has changed deeply the mechanism and tools to access and to aggregate information. The open access to information and institutional arrangements addressed towards team knowledge could offer other kind of tools to affront the conflict, even its possible benefits.The “crowd expertise” is emerging as an actual possibility and it must be incorporated to affront with conflicts. The very possibility of obtaining knowledge generated by “many minds”, collective wisdoms, brings up a real challenge to the conservative or elitist conception of the masses, because masses now emerge as a smart collective user, with new mechanisms to select and produce quality knowledge. These new collective actions differ deeply from the traditional modes of social organization. A new mass society is emerging now as a hybrid one that breaks some conceptual traditional models, such as Ortega y Gasset’s ones, and induces a structured way of flourishing both new practices and new knowledge with transforming capabilities. (shrink)

La introducción al ensayo relaciona la escritura y la supervivencia en Unamuno y en Lledó -en el primero como voluntad multidimensional y en el segundo como memoria viva colectiva- y después compendia la vida y la obra de Emilio Lledó El ensayo comenta varios textos de la obra de Lledó Memoria de la ética acerca de la muerte y de la existencia extendida en la época clásica de la cultura y la filosofía griegas. Como conclusión, y a partir del epicureísmo (...) de Lledó, se reafirma una cierta distinción entre las propuestas de una teoría de la vida post-mortem basada en la pervivencia por la memoria y otra que apunta a la vida perdurable por el impulso del ánimo o thymós. (shrink)

Confucio no sólo es el filósofo más conocido de la cultura China, sino que es, en cierto modo, el padre de su filosofía. Las Analectasde Confucio es el texto en el que la filosofía confuciana se expone con mayor claridad y concisión, la claridad de la narración y la concisión del lenguaje de máximas morales. Una perspectiva fecunda de análisis puede ser leerlas desde la Ética a Nicómaco y, en general, desde la perspectiva de los filósofos griegos fundadores de la (...) filosofía en nuestra cultura. (shrink)

In this discussion note we argue, contrary to the thrust of a recent article by Jenann Ismael, that resolving the paradox of predictability does not require denying the possibility of a natural oracle, and thus stands in no need of the response that she proposes.

One of the most famous, and most derided, arguments against the morality of abortion is the argument from potential, which maintains that the fetus' potential to become a person and enjoy the valuable life common to persons, entails that its destruction is prima facie morally impermissible. In this paper, I will revisit and offer a defense of the argument from potential.

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called ' weak analogy'. As Patrick Hurley writes, the weak analogy fallacy “occurs when the conditions of an argument depend on an analogy (or similarity) that is not strong enough to support the conclusion”. Often, vegetarians and vegans will hear the following argument from analogy in defense of carnivorism: “Animals eat each other in nature, so it's permissible for us to eat them as well”. By focusing on the (...) similarities between animals and humans, and by arguing that these similarities are indeed relevant to the issue at hand, philosopher Peter Singer presents a strong argument from analogy in favor of the conclusion that animals are indeed sentient beings. (shrink)

This chapter explores the phenomenon of dehumanization, and how it facilitates violence, in the episode “Men Against Fire.” After exploring the nature, and consequences, of the MASS Implant as a tool to see human beings as literal monsters, we consider some historical and contemporary examples of dehumanization, such as language and propaganda, that functions similarly by stripping away the humanity of marginalized groups. “Men Against Fire” simultaneously serves the function of a historical lesson on the relationship between dehumanization and violence, (...) as well as a cautionary tale in a current society that is already repeating so many of the mistakes that have lead to genocide and mass human rights violations in the past. (shrink)

En una época en la que el "pensamiento débil" del posmodernismo intenta desmantelar las bases del comportamiento ético, es muy necesaria una reflexión profunda sobre las ideas de libertad y responsabilidad. No es sólo la "mente" humana la que exige la excelencia moral, sino también la realidad del "ser" humano, en particular de los seres humanos que sufren. Este ensayo se ha escrito como un diálogo entre dos autores contemporáneos.

Ignorance is often a perfectly good excuse. There are interesting debates about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake subvert obligation, but little disagreement about whether non-culpable factual ignorance and mistake exculpate. What about agents who have all the relevant facts in view but fail to meet their obligations because they do not have the right moral beliefs? If their ignorance of their obligations derives from mistaken moral beliefs or from ignorance of the moral significance of the facts they have in (...) view, should they be excused for failing to meet their moral obligations? It is not obvious that they should. In this paper we argue that the best non-skeptical accounts of moral responsibility acknowledge that factual ignorance and mistake will diminish moral responsibility in a way that moral ignorance and mistake will not. That is because factual ignorance is often non-culpable so long as it meets certain merely procedural epistemic standards but the same is not true of moral ignorance. Our argument is that the assumption that it is gets the standards of culpability for moral ignorance wrong, and that the mistake is encouraged by the thought that culpability in general requires an instance of known wrongdoing: that acting wrongly requires de dicto unresponsiveness to one’s obligations at some stage. We deny this and conclude that, therefore, ignorance and mistaken belief are indeed often perfectly good excuses – but far less often than some philosophers claim. (shrink)

Empirical research on Rational Choice Theory has brought up two focus of the economics laws problem. On one hand, we find the authors who state that the neoclassical economics laws are explanatory and predictive on specific cases: in transparent contexts in which the standard rationality operates successfully. On the other hand, we find the authors who state that the descriptive theories of the rational choice opens up a research path in which fundamental principles of the neoclassical building could be questioned. (...) Both view points have generated an important standard Rational Choice Theory revision what has produced the so called descriptive view point. It implies understanding that most of the choices take place under risky or uncertainty conditions and, that, these choices are far more complex than the normative Rational Choice Theory supposes. This article's main goal is to expand the descriptive point of view in rational choice, theorizing how some factors, coming from the social and cultural environment, operate within the rational choice. Into space of this research essay we find the debatable question of whether these sort of proposals expands the explanation of the deviation of the rational choice normative theory, and that, of the disturbing causes of the microeconomics laws, or they call into question fundamental principles of these laws and therefore they are opening the possibility to focus some economics issues in a new different manner. (shrink)

Sin duda, uno de los conceptos con abundantes trabajos en la teoría política es el de democracia. No existe prácticamente discurso, texto o conversación vinculada con la política que no lo mencione. Sin embargo, es pertinente establecer su significado en el mundo actual. Este requerimiento se origin..

En el presente trabajo se pretende reconstruir la noción de imaginación expuesta por Kant en la "Crítica de la razón pura", en su primera edición, y en la "Crítica del juicio" con el fin de poder dilucidar un posible papel de este concepto en el marco de la ética kantiana. -/- .

Este trabajo pretende justificar que, aun cuando es cierto que hay diferencias entre la filosofía aristotélica y la schmittiana, existe un punto de conexión entre ambos en lo que se refiere a la prudencia. En particular, se pretende demostrar que en la descripción que hace Schmitt de la función del juez en Ley y Juicio y en Sobre los tres modos de pensar la ciencia jurídica están presentes ideas propias de la filosofía práctica del estagirita. This work aims to justify (...) that, although it is true that there are differences between Aristotelian and Schmittian philosophy, there is a point of connection between both in what refers to prudence. In particular, we intend to demonstrate that in Schmitt's description of the role of the judge in Law and Judgment and On the three types of juristic thought ideas of the practical philosophy of the Stagirite are present. (shrink)