Vivian Sobchack _Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film_ New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1987 ISBN 0-8135-2492-X 345 pp.

I offered the title for this paper before family separations were on the news, before the president had brought attention to the exodus of migrants, and before the government shutdown in response to the request of billions of dollars to build a border wall.1 I had no idea how common immigration would be in everyday conversation. By the time you read this, I am sure there will be other worrisome news. Perhaps we will still be thinking about immigration, or we (...) might have moved on.I have been intrigued, however, as to what this intensified public discussion of the threats of immigration reveals about the self-image of the United States, and the racial and religious ideas that undergird that... (shrink)

Perfect ethical duties have usually puzzled commentators on Kant's ethics because they do not fit neatly within his taxonomy of duties. Ethical duties require the adoption of maxims of ends: the happiness of others and one's own perfection are Kant's two main categories. These duties, he claims, are of wide obligation because they do not specify what in particular one ought to do, when, and how much. They leave ‘a latitude for free choice’ as he puts it. Perfect duties, however, (...) such as the duties of respect, to avoid suicide, lying, and servility, do not appear to require the adoption of ends but only the performance or omission of specific types of actions. The puzzle is how these duties can be ethical, and therefore wide. Faced with this difficulty, Mary Gregor denies that perfect ethical duties are wide. She claims that they are an ‘anomaly’ and that they do not belong to ethics proper but to moral philosophy in general. She argues that these duties are derived from the categorical imperative, instead of, as Kant himself appears to have thought, the first principle of virtue. Taking a very different approach, Onora O'Neill finds the perfect/imperfect distinction of little importance and suggests doing without it altogether. Most other interpreters also assume that ‘wide’ is opposed to ‘perfect’ so that a wide perfect duty is a conceptual impossibility. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The demand for basic research ethics training has grown considerably in the past few years. Research and education organizations face the challenge of providing this training with limited resources and training tools available. To meet this need, Family Health International (FHI), a U.S.‐based international research organization, recently developed a Research Ethics Training Curriculum (RETC). It was designed as a practical, user‐friendly tool that provides basic, up‐to‐date, standardized training on the ethics of human research. The curriculum can easily be adapted (...) to different audiences and training requirements. The RETC was reviewed by a group of international experts and field tested in five countries. It is available in English, French, and Spanish as a three‐ring binder and CD‐ROM, as well as on the Web. It may be used as either an interactive self‐study program or for group training. (shrink)

La crisis del Covid-19 ha tenido un impacto en la docencia y costará mucho tiempo poder comprender y describir el alcance de este. La presencialidad en cualquier actividad humana se ha visto afectada desde muchos puntos de vista. Pero, sin duda, la educación ha sido una de las áreas sobre las que más se ha publicado dada la trascendencia que tiene sobre el ser humano. El objetivo del artículo es describir qué ha sucedido en materia de educación universitaria durante los (...) primeros momentos de la pandemia y como se ha desarrollado posteriormente, así como los aspectos esperables a largo plazo. (shrink)

abstract The possibility that organ sales by living adults might be made legal is morally distressing to many of us. However, powerful arguments have been provided recently supporting legalisation (I consider two of those arguments: the Consequentialist Argument and the Autonomy Argument). Is our instinctive reaction against a market of organs irrational then? The aim of this paper is not to prove that legalization would be immoral, all things considered, but rather to show, first, that there are some kinds of (...) arguments, offered in favour of legalisation, that are, in an important sense, illegitimate, and second, that even if legalisation might not be wrong all things considered, there are good reasons for our negative moral intuitions. Moreover, identifying these reasons will help highlight some features of moral decisions in non‐ideal situations, which in turn might be relevant to some other moral or policy choices. (shrink)

In his recent article, ‘A Gift to Theology? Jean-Luc Marion's ‘Saturated Phenomena’ in Christological Perspective’, Brian Robinette has critiqued Marion's phenomenology for confining theology to a one-sided approach to Christology, one that stresses only the passive, mystical reception of Christ. To correct this imbalance, Robinette brings Marion into dialogue with those more active Christologies or ‘prophetical-ethical’ liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez, Johann Baptist Metz and others that stress a life-praxis focused on confronting evil and suffering. In this essay I am (...) arguing that Robinette has not fully developed the ‘logic’ of Marion's phenomenology of the ‘call and the gifted’, in which both a passive and an active element are operative. I explore more fully that very dynamic phenomenological process of the call-and-the-gifted as developed in Marion's work Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness. Once viewed in Christological perspective, and especially in light of Christ's death and resurrection, Marion's phenomenology entails an ethical trope consistent with the mission of Christ as rendered in Scriptural revelation, and thus the gap between Marion's work and the prophetical-ethical theologies of Gutierrez and Baptist Metz becomes narrowed. (shrink)

Genetic research in human beings poses deep ethical problems, one being the problem of distributive justice. If we suppose that genetic technologies are able to produce visible benefits for the well being of people, and that these benefits are affordable to only a favored portion of society, then the consequence is obvious. We are introducing a new source of inequality. In the first section of this paper, I attempt to justify some concern for the distributive consequences of applying genetics to (...) human beings. This concern transcends a mere preoccupation for material equality. I argue that genetic inequality can undermine the very basis of social cooperation, at least regarding health care. The second section is more practical. My aim is to defend how, at least in some legal and cultural frameworks , the undesired distributive consequences of genetics are more likely to arise and more difficult to avoid. (shrink)

Beneficence is usually regarded as adequate when it results in an actual benefit for a beneficiary and satisfies her self-chosen end. However, beneficence that satisfies these conditions can harm beneficiaries' free agency, particularly when they are robustly dependent on benefactors. First, the means that benefactors choose can have undesirable side-effects on resources that beneficiaries need for future free action. Second, benefactors may undermine beneficiaries' ability to freely deliberate and choose. It is therefore insufficient to satisfy someone's self-chosen ends. Instead, good (...) beneficence depends on whether the benefactor avoids undue influence over a beneficiary's deliberation and whether the choice of means is compatible with the beneficiary's conception of her good. Consequently, benefactors must have substantial respect for a beneficiary's free agency and the practical competence to choose means that take into account the beneficiary's conception of her good and the wider set of circumstances that influence her life. (shrink)

Aiming at a better understanding of the extent to which Africa-focused research has helped develop context-bound, context-specific, and context-free knowledge, the authors present the findings from a literature review of journal articles with an African context. A systematic search resulted in 271 articles with African data and 139 Africa-focused articles published in 63 top business journals and related disciplines from 2010 onwards. The sample included all journals belonging to the University of Texas Dallas and Financial Times research rankings, as well (...) as the main international business, and business and society outlets. An in-depth analysis of the 139 Africa-focused articles shows an important imbalance in terms of publication patterns, topics covered, theoretical groundings, types of contributions, approaches to the African contexts, and empirics. Building on this exhaustive literature review, the authors provide specific suggestions regarding potential data sources and empirical strategies in African contexts, propose avenues for future research, and introduce four recent studies included in the special issue. (shrink)

This paper considers three modes of captivity with an eye to examining the effects of captivity on free agency and whether these modes depend on or constitute coercion. These modes are: physical captivity, psychological captivity, and social/legal captivity. All these modes of captivity may severely impact capacities a person relies on for free agency in different ways. They may also undermine or destroy a person’s identity-constituting cares and values. On a Nozick-style view of coercion, coercion amounts to conditional threats and (...) so many of the processes creating captivity are not coercive. However, this view overlooks the role that barriers to action play in making threats effective. Thus, an enforcement view of coercion is better to understand the coercion that takes place in captivity but the effects of the use of power on a captive’s psychology remains an important area of investigation. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on a central phenomenological concept in Michel Henry’s work that has often been neglected: generation. Generation becomes an especially important conceptual key to understanding not only the relationship between God and human self but also Henry’s adoption of radical interiority and his critical standpoint with respect to much of the phenomenological tradition in which he is working. Thus in pursuing the theme of generation, I shall introduce many phenomenological-theological terms in Henry’s trilogy on Christianity as (...) well as how he understands the relationship between phenomenology and theology. In the final sections of the paper, I turn to positively defining Henry’s notion of divine generation and examine the theological implications of it in light of his confrontation and rejection of the doctrine of creation in the book of Genesis found in his book, Incarnation: une philosophie de la chair. Humans are not created but are eternally generated, a bold claim that brings Henry to the brink of a kind of interiorized pantheism or Gnostic dualism. Finally, I offer some critical comments specifically about Henry’s doctrine of generation in light of the tension between auto-affection and hetero-affection and thus how one might think after Henry in light of the basic Augustinian theological distinction between self and God and the intentionality of faith opened up by that distinction. (shrink)

“ Moral luck” alludes to the fact of being responsible for things over which we have no control. Typically, we have neither control over the consequences of our acts of will nor over the circumstances in which these acts are performed. The Kantian thesis on oral responsibility claims that every kind of moral responsibility claims that every kind of moral luck should be eliminated from our moral language and practice. In the case of consequences, this aim does not seem impossible. (...) But circumstances are more difficult to avoid because the act of will itself has to be performed within the framework of circumstances that the agent cannot control at all, and these circumstances will dramatically bear on his/her responsibility. Therefore, the following anti-Kantian argument can be construed. Either we reject circumstantial luck argument can be construed. Either we reject circumstantial luck or we accept it. If we reject it, then every attribution of responsibility becomes impossible. If we accept it, then we no longer have a good argument against consequential luck, the core of the Kantian rejection of moral luck. In this paper, I defend the Kantian position from this argument, claiming that both kinds of moral luck are relevantly different. This will, nevertheless, lead to a revision of the scope of our judgments of responsibility. They compare how someone acted with how others would act in identical 8or similar) circumstances. (shrink)

This paper adds to the epistemological contributions of Latin American philosophy. In particular, I propose a “resistant epistemology” informed by contemporary indigenous Andean philosophies and cosmologies. Focusing on the work of María Lugones, Rodolfo Kusch, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, I explore ways in which communities are made and remade on the basis of knowledges from below, surviving political and ecological crises, including colonialism and modern development. These kinds of resistive knowledges draw from rituals, quotidian and cosmic rhythms, and affective (...) withdrawals from instrumental and objectifying dispositions. (shrink)

Edited by Ivette Fred-Rivera and Jessica Leech. What is the relationship between ontology and modality: between what there is, and what there could be, must be, or might have been? Throughout a distinguished career, Bob Hale’s work has addressed this question on a number of fronts, through the development of a Fregean approach to ontology, an essentialist theory of modality, and in his work on neo-logicism in the philosophy of mathematics. This collection of new essays engages with these themes (...) in Hale’s work in order to make further progress in our understanding of ontology, modality, and the relations between them. Some essays directly address questions in modal metaphysics, drawing on ontological concerns. Others raise questions in modal epistemology and its links to matters of ontology, such as the challenge to give an epistemology of essence. There are also several essays engaging with questions of what might be called ‘modal ontology’: the study of whether and what things exist necessarily or contingently. Such issues can be raised and addressed directly, but they also have an important bearing on the kinds of semantic commitments engendered in logic and mathematics, e.g., to the existence of sets, or numbers, or properties, and so on. It is thus explored in some chapters to what extent one’s ontology—and indeed, one’s ontology of necessary beings—interacts with other plausible assumptions and commitments. (shrink)

The fruit borne of the debate concerning the economy of the gift carried out between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion in the 1990s continues to ripen into the present with publications like Anthony Steinbock’s lucid It’s not about the Gift: From Givenness to Loving. I challenge and qualify the fundamental argument of this book in dialogue with two principal French proponents of givenness, Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Marion, against whom Steinbock promotes his strategy of the gift. While Steinbock wishes to (...) displace our relation to the other from giving to loving, I suggest that the discourse of givenness remains the very movement of loving as such. Steinbock occupies a position reminiscent of, but not reducible to, gift-exchange theory, rooted in reciprocity between lover and beloved, whereas I am inclined to move near to the terrain of the unconditioned gift in which loving need not entail reciprocity. My position is not so much a counterclaim as it is a clarification of the inextricable unity between giving and loving. The final section contends that the I enlarge my horizon when I give myself because I do not grasp the other, nor do I expect or obligate the other’s givenness in return; rather in my growth beyond my own self-interest, I allow the other to be given just as the other likes to be given. (shrink)

This book offers a first rate selection of academic articles on Latin American bioethics. It covers different issues, such as vulnerability, abortion, biomedical research with human subjects, environment, exploitation, commodification, reproductive medicine, among others. Latin American bioethics has been, to an important extent, parochial and unable to meet stringent international standards of rational philosophical discussion. The new generations of bioethicists are changing this situation, and this book demonstrates that change. All articles are written from the perspective of Latin American scholars (...) from several disciplines such as philosophy and law. Working with the tools of analytical philosophy and jurisprudence, this book defends views with rational argument, and opening for pluralistic discussion. (shrink)

This article discusses what could be called “the adventure of translating” Sein und Zeit in Spanish. It argues that every translation is an adventure, and particularly the translation of a philosophical text. A translation does not literally reproduce into another language what an author or philosopher affirms. The question is instead to express it in the most accurate form with the resources of the translator’s language, in such a way that the text may sound as if it was written in (...) the language to which it is to be translated. This article refers to the very long route that the author had to go over in order to make Sein und Zeit “speak” a good and clear Spanish. (shrink)

Susan Wolf's paper "Meaning and Morality" draws our attention to the fact that Williams's objection to Kantian morality is primarily a concern about a possible conflict between morality and that which gives our lives meaning. I argue that the force of Williams's objection requires a more precise understanding of meaning as dependent on our intention to make our lives themselves worthwhile. It is not meaning simpliciter that makes Williams's objective persuasive but rather meaning as arising out of our positive evaluation (...) of the value of our lives as a whole. This type of meaning has a normative element: it involves a person's deep-seated commitment to make her actions consistent with ends that confer worth on her life itself. The more significant conflict with morality lies in the conflict between the normative force of moral requirements and the normative force of the need to have a life that is itself worthwhile. (shrink)

This paper argues that the diversity of conflicting comprehensive doctrines in liberal pluralist societies raises a problem of estrangement between citizens and the basic structure of society that Rawls' version of political liberalism does not successfully solve. 'Political estrangement' occurs when someone refuses to accept a political outcome that favors a comprehensive doctrine she rejects, based on what she imagines, correctly or incorrectly, to be true of her fellow citizens' comprehensive doctrines and their effect on political outcomes. Rawls argues that (...) the political conception of justice and the use of public reason ensure the incompatibility of our comprehensive doctrines will not undermine our willingness to to accept political decisions contrary to our own values. However, public reason does not guarantee this result. Imagination can allow us to see that the influence of some reasonable comprehensive doctrines can lead to oppressive political outcomes and public reason restricts us from addressing this fact. Yet, widening public reason to account for this problem is likely to increase the conditions that cause estrangement. The paper concludes that the political conception of justice and public reason may sometimes fail to adequately justify political outcomes in the sense Rawls hopes. (shrink)

A distinctive focus of 19th- and 20th-century Latin American philosophy is the convergence of identity formation and political liberation in ethnically and racially diverse postcolonial contexts. From this perspective, Omar Rivera interprets how a "we" is articulated and deployed in central political texts of this robust philosophical tradition. In particular, by turning to the work of Peruvian political theorist José Carlos Mariátegui among others, Rivera critiques philosophies of liberation that are invested in the redemption of oppressed identities as (...) conditions for bringing about radical social and political change, foregrounding Latin America's complex histories and socialities to illustrate the power and shortcomings of these projects. Building on this critical approach, Rivera studies interrelated epistemological, transcultural, and aesthetic delimitations of Latin American philosophy in order to explore the possibility of social and political liberation "beyond redemption.". (shrink)

. A comparison is made between two unlikely debates over intelligence. One debate took place in 1550 at Valladolid, Spain, between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepúlveda over the intelligence of the Amerindian. The other debate is contemporary, between John Searle and various representatives of the “strong” artificial intelligence community over the adequacy of the Turing test for intelligence. Although the contemporary debate has yet to die down, the Valladolid debate has been over for four hundred years. (...) The question asked here is whether the contemporary debate can profit from the previous one. The common bond providing the basis for contrast is the issue of the “other” which is present in both debates. From this contrast, the observation is made that the question of meaning is intimately tied to the question of intelligence. (shrink)

Almost all admit that there is beauty in the natural world. Many suspect that such beauty is more than an adornment of nature. Few in our contemporary world suggest that this beauty is an empirical principle of the natural world itself and instead relegate beauty to the eye and mind of the beholder. Guided by theological and scientific insight, the authors propose that such exclusion is no longer tenable, at least in the data of modern biology and in our view (...) of the natural world in general. More important, we believe an empirical aesthetics exists that can help guide experimental design and development of computational models in biology. Moreover, because theology and science can both contribute toward and equally profit from such an aesthetics, we propose that this empirical aesthetics provides the foundation for a living synergy between theology and science. (shrink)

In this paper the author reflects upon the past, the present and the future of philosophical education within the framework of a democratic mode of living, integrating three levels of argumentation: an autobiographic level, triggered by the encounter with an old school notebook that belonged to the author’s father; a conceptual level, in which the author recalls John Dewey’s pragmatist approach to philosophy; and a descriptive and proactive level, in which the author examines recent developments concerning the teaching of philosophy (...) and proposes a perspective on philosophical education in tune with these. The author underscores the importance of different displacements and transformations undergone by the practice of teaching philosophy during the last century, and sets up a contrast between the old practices, intended to provide a “correct view of the world”, and the urge for philosophy to provide a critique of society and knowledge. In this way, the author draws on Dewey’s ideal, according to which philosophy should carry out both a critique and a reconstruction of present experience. Finally, the author sets forth ten challenges for future philosophical education. (shrink)

The question of God or the Divine has essential influenced the development of Fichtian thinking and guided it from transcendental I as the first principle in the Jena period to absolute being or God and his absolute phenomenon or manifestation. The turning point came with the so-called atheism dispute due to his article »On the Ground of our Belief in a divine World-Governance«, which caused him so much trouble. In this article, Fichte defended the idea that the divine is not (...) a substance or object, not a person, so no theistic God, but the moral order – a notion that could not be accepted by the Christian Church. The criticism that he is either atheist or pantheist or nihilist or a merely subjective thinker has greatly hit him and changed his horizon of thought in line with the new more religious spirit of his cultural environment.Die Frage nach Gott oder nach dem Göttlichen hat die Entwicklung des Fichtischen Denkens grundsätzlich beeinflusst, und vom transzendentalen Ich als erstem Prinzip in seiner Jenaer Zeit zum absoluten Sein oder Gott und seiner absoluten Erscheinung geführt. Der Wendepunkt kam mit dem sogenannten Atheismusstreit aufgrund des Aufsatzes von Fichte »Über den Grund unseres Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung «, der Fichte so viele Schwierigkeiten bereitete. In diesem Artikel verteidigte Fichte den Gedanken, das Göttliche sei keine Substanz oder Objekt und keine Person, also kein theistischer Gott, sondern die moralische Ordnung – eine Vorstellung, die von der christlichen Kirche nicht akzeptiert werden konnte. Die Vorwürfe, er sei entweder Atheist oder Pantheist oder Nihilist oder ein bloß subjektiv Denkender, hat ihn stark getroffen und seinen Denkhorizont im Einklang mit dem neuen religiöseren Geist seiner kulturellen Umgebung verändert. (shrink)

Drawing from Andean cosmological, mythological and aesthetic lineages, this paper is about the possibility of a phenomenology of things at catastrophic ends. In this regard, I approach things under the sway of a (de)formative emptiness. In the first part, I develop a relational ontology on the basis of the Andean notion of pacha or cosmos, which provides a phenomenological frame for a determination of “place,” “world” and “topology.” I also contrast an elemental topology of the cosmos configured by ouranic sunlight (...) with an elemental catastrophism that overturns it. In the second part, I study a chronological series of artifacts in an Andean aesthetic lineage in order to attempt a phenomenology of “things” (utensils, buildings, mountains) that “spectrally” hover in overturns of the cosmos (pachakuti). (shrink)

Consensual homicide remains a crime in jurisdictions where active voluntary euthanasia has been legalized. At the same time, both jurisdictions, in which euthanasia is legal and those in which it is not, recognize that all patients (whether severely ill or not) have the right to refuse or withdraw medical treatment (including life-saving treatment). In this paper, I focus on the tensions between these three norms (the permission of active euthanasia, the permission to reject life-saving treatment, and the prohibition of consensual (...) homicide), assuming a justification of euthanasia based on the right to (personal) autonomy. I argue that the best way to provide a coherent account of these norms is to claim that patients have two distinct rights: the right to autonomy and the right to bodily integrity. This solution has some relevant implications for the discussion of the legalization of active euthanasia. (shrink)

Resumen: La presente contribución gira en torno al significado del atentado terrorista del 11 de septiembre de 2001 para la hermenéutica filosófica, en particular la de Gianni Vattimo. El turinés gestó en sus textos de entre 2006 y 2014 una versión nueva de la hermenéutica que se basa en la experiencia de este acontecimiento. Esta nueva hermenéutica estaría atenta al conflicto y a las transformaciones sociales y tendría por núcleo la noción de “evento”, Sin embargo, Vattimo mismo no ofrece una (...) definición operativa adecuada del término. Ante esto, propongo incorporar a la tradición hermenéutica conceptos como “evento” y “milagro”, acuñados por Joseph de Maistre. Se trata de una propuesta de “maistrianización” de la hermenéutica para hacer de ella un discurso viable y fructífero en un mundo violento e inestable. (shrink)

La pregunta que exploro en este trabajo es si la injusticia social puede socavar la autoridad moral de la sociedad para castigar al que delinque. La respuesta a esta pregunta depende esencialmente de cuál sea la teoría justificatoria del castigo penal de la que se parte. Analizo diversas teorías de la pena, entre ellas la teoría consensual de Carlos Nino. Mi objetivo es explorar de qué modo las diferentes teorías de la pena enfrentan el desafío que plantea la pregunta y (...) extraer algunas conclusiones tentativas de ese recorrido. The question I address in this paper is whether social injustice can undermine the moral authority of society to punish criminals. The answer to this question crucially depends on the underlying justificatory theory of punishment. I consider several theories, among them the consensual theory proposed by Carlos Nino. My aim is to explore how different theories of punishment address the challenge and to draw some tentative conclusions. (shrink)

The question I address in this paper is whether there is a version of mental state welfarism that can be coherent with the thesis that we have a legitimate concern for non‐experiential goals. If there is not, then we should reject mental state welfarism. My thesis is that there is such a version. My argument relies on the distinction between “reality‐centered desires” and “experience‐centered desires”. Mental state welfarism can accommodate our reality‐centered desires and our desire that they be objectively satisfied. (...) My general strategy is, at the level of the value theory, somewhat analogous to the strategy that indirect consequentialism applies at the level of moral obligation theory. To test my argument, I appeal to Nozick's well‐known example of the Experience Machine. (shrink)

By putting forward the notions of “eco-sensibilities” and “eco-permeable relationalities,” this paper explores a non-instrumentalizing mode of relation with the “non-human.” On this basis, it shows the possibility of affectively disempowering the hold of “ecological indifference” as Nancy Tuana describes it. It focuses on “animal becoming” and “elemental architecture” as “eco-sensibilities” that effect such a disempowerment.

La presente publicación de Víctor Samuel Rivera reúne diez ensayos, escritos entre los años 2014 y 2017, cuyo foco son las democracias capitalistas liberales, según las llama el autor. Estamos, por consiguiente, ante un trabajo decididamente actual que nos coloca frente a dos evidencias. La primera es que el objeto de estudio ofrece retos singulares, pues se trata de reflexionar acerca del mismo flujo histórico que enmarca nuestras condiciones de saber y fija nuestros horizontes de sentido. La segunda sería (...) que Rivera, al acometer la indagación de un presente vivo, se ha lanzado a articular ideas de primera mano. Nos encontramos, así, ante una apuesta del pensar, justamente aquello que se le pide, en su grado máximo, a la filosofía. (shrink)