This article aims to analyze feminist strategies against digital violence and their relation to performative forms of social justice. Based on new feminist materialisms (Coole & Frost, 2010; Souza, 2019), the article shows how female bodies are at the crossroads in our digital society. On the one hand, they are a target of digital violence because of their political activities, while on the other hand feminist protesters are opening new political possibilities for mobilization. By conducting a digital ethnography with two (...) social collectives located in Mexico City – Luchadoras and Laboratorio de Interconectividades – I argue that embodying and politicizing technologies are strategies to mobilize the body as a political, critical and material category, which reveals a renewed feminist agency in hacking the hegemonic meanings of digital technology and resignifying its materiality in order to politicize it. Furthermore, I argue that based on the body as material category, innovative forms of social justice for feminist collectives emerge. These strategies are related to the critical questioning of technologies to repoliticize digital violence, to render visible the memories and affectations in women’s bodies, as well as to mobilize a new feminist positioning called hackfeminist self-defense. All in all, this article seeks to contribute to understanding the broader issue of feminist politics performing social justice in the digital era. (shrink)

Lejos de la interpretación de Leon Battista Alberti como prototipo del "hombre universal", GARIN ha reconocido el carácter contradictorio del pensamiento albertiano. En efecto, en la extensa y polifacética obra del humanista genovés coexisten dos visiones antagónicas del hombre y el mundo. A una le corresponde la confianza en la razón, a la otra la constatación del carácter absurdo de la existencia. Este Alberti "sombrío" se expresa en las páginas de Momus y las Intercenales. En ellas, la apelación a una (...) existencia simulada es abordada a través de una risa desacralizadora del ideal humano que alumbró el temprano Renacimiento italiano. Far from the interpretation of Leon Battista Alberti as a prototype of the "universal man", GARIN has analyzed the contradictory nature of Alberti's thought. In fact, in the extensive and versatile work of the Genoese humanist two opposite visions of man and the world coexist: one believes in the power of reason, the other acknowledges the absurdity of life. It is in Momus and the Intercenales that this "somber Alberti" is present. In these texts the appeal to a simulated life is addressed through a form of laughter that demystifies the human ideal of the early Italian Renaissance. (shrink)

La ingeniería constitucional de Sartori plantea la necesidad analizar la edificación de instituciones jurídico-políticas a través de una técnica de incentivos y castigos. El presente trabajo indaga la existencia o no de incentivos para dirigir la facultad del control disciplinario por parte de la Procuraduría General de la Nación contra el presidente y sus ministros como consecuencia de un poder legislativo pasivo en esa actividad debido a un régimen presidencialista que mezcla las agendas del Congreso y el Presidente. El resultado (...) de este estudio muestra un craso error en el despliegue de la ingeniería constitucional que hizo insipiente el control del Ministerio Público sobre el Gobierno. (shrink)

Reconstructing the genetic traits of the Last Common Ancestor and the Tree of Life are two examples of the reaches of contemporary molecular phylogenetics. Nevertheless, the whole enterprise has led to paradoxical results. The presence of Lateral Gene Transfer poses epistemic and empirical challenges to meet these goals; the discussion around this subject has been enriched by arguments from philosophers and historians of science. At the same time, a few but influential research groups have aimed to reconstruct the LCA with (...) rich-in-detail hypotheses and high-resolution gene catalogs and metabolic traits. We argue that LGT poses insurmountable challenges for detailed and rich in details reconstructions and propose, instead, a middle-ground position with the reconstruction of a slim LCA based on traits under strong pressures of Negative Natural Selection, and for the need of consilience with evidence from organismal biology and geochemistry. We defend a cautionary perspective that goes beyond the statistical analysis of gene similarities and assumes the broader consequences of evolving empirical data and epistemic pluralism in the reconstruction of early life. (shrink)

This article ana l yses the birth of some n e w female identities in Latin America, mar k e d b y strong cultural inn o v ation. The process of change has been w on b y political st r uggles that h a v e pe r mitted Latin American w omen to g ain some essential rights. More o v er the t e x t describes the compl e xity of syncretising all Lati n America, (...) but the common elements are more important than the di f ferences. H o w e v e r , accepting this d i v ersit y , the great inequality of basic essentials in the relationships be t w een w omen, is producing one v oice, one discourse and one common demand. F inal l y , it sh o ws the political contradictions in w hich contempora ry Latin America w omen l i v e, summoned to pa r ticipate, as mode r n w omen, in the institutions w hen these same institutions put them in positions of social, political and economic subordination. Despite these di f f iculties, it emphasises the political e xperiments that w omen are ca r r ying out to f ind a syncretism without eliminating cultural d i versit y. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es aportar elementos para construir una compresión de las menores en el sistema de justicia penal que atienda a las discriminaciones específ icas de las que son objeto y que tenga en cuenta los elementos particulares que se dan con relación a las infractoras más jóvenes. En la primera parte del artículo, se indica como la historia ha invisibilizado a las niñas y sus experiencias. El análisis histórico evidencia cómo el control ha constituido un elemento (...) clave en la construcción y percepción de la identidad femenina, particularmente a través de los procesos de socialización de las niñas, cargados de estereotipos y expectativas de lo que se espera de una buena mujer. La segunda parte muestra como la identidad de género atraviesa el sistema de justicia juvenil, que reprodu- ce y amplif ica los sexismos y discriminaciones que las niñas sufren en otros ámbitos. Y por último, se exponen los principales aportes de la criminología feminista, con el fin de comprender la experiencia de las menores en la justicia juvenil. (shrink)

Este artículo considera el tema de las tecnologías de representación de las ruralidades queer en el cine. Las autoras llevan a cabo un análisis pormenorizado de la representación de las disidencias sexuales y de género sostenidas en y a través de espacialidades rurales tomando como objeto de estudio tres piezas fílmicas producidas en el estado español durante las últimas dos décadas, a saber, Ander (2009), 80 Egunean (2010) y Elisa y Marcela (2018). A manera de conclusión, el artículo muestra (...) las tensiones entre dos marcos interpretativos desde los que afrontar los ensamblajes en que se relacionan las ruralidades y las disidencias sexuales y de género. Estos son el enfoque de las ruralidades urbanas que produce epistemologías de carácter identitariamente fuerte, y el enfoque de las ruralidades queer que permite leer las representaciones tomadas en cuenta como figuraciones posidentitarias y subversivas de la disidencia. (shrink)

Recent research in philosophy of science has shown that scientists rely on a plurality of strategies to develop successful explanations of different types of phenomena. In the case of biology, most of these strategies go far beyond the traditional and reductionistic models of scientific explanation that have proven so successful in the fundamental sciences. Concretely, in the last two decades, philosophers of science have discovered the existence of at least two different types of scientific explanation at work in the biological (...) sciences, namely: mechanistic and structural explanations. Despite the growing evidence about the radically different nature of these two types of explanation, no inquiry has been conducted to date to determine the ontological reasons that might underlie these differences, nor the way in which these types of explanations can be systematically related with each other. Here, we aim to cover this gap by connecting this plurality of research strategies with the existence of emergent levels of reality. We argue that the existence of these different—and apparently incompatible—explanatory strategies to account for biological phenomena derives from the existence of “ontological jumps” in nature, which generate different regimes of causation that in turn demand the development of different explanatory frameworks. We identify two of these strategies—mechanistic modelling and network modelling—and connect them to the existence of two ontological regimes of causation. Finally, we relate them with each other in a systematic way. In this vein, our paper provides an ontological justification for the plurality of explanatory strategies that we see in the life sciences. (shrink)

We argue that microbiome research should be more reflective on the methods that it relies on to build its datasets due to the danger of facing a methodological problem which we call “epistemic misalignment.” An epistemic misalignment occurs when the method used to answer specific scientific questions does not track justified answers, due to the material constraints imposed by the very method. For example, relying on 16S rRNA to answer questions about the function of the microbiome generates epistemic misalignments, due (...) to the different temporal scales that 16S rRNA provides information about and the temporal scales that are required to know about the functionality of some microorganisms. We show how some of these exist in contemporary microbiome science and urge microbiome scientists to take some measures to avoid them, as they may question the credibility of the field as a whole. (shrink)

A quick scan of the leading figures in western philosophy reveals that relatively few have made a name for themselves by defending intuitive, natural, and sensible positions. Aristotle is one, and perhaps Aquinas is another. Francisco Suarez, the sixteenth-century Spanish scholastic, would be a third. His invariable working procedure is to give copious consideration to the various ancient and medieval views, and then to find some sensible compromise position. But today Suarez can hardly claim to have a broad (...) readership. Of his fifty-four Metaphysical Disputations, only nine have now been published in English, while his other works remain almost entirely untranslated. This clear and accurate new translation aims to show readers what they have been missing. (shrink)

The COVID-19 disease has caused thousands of deaths worldwide and required the rapid and drastic adoption of various protective measures as main resources in the fight to reduce the spread of the disease. In the present study we aimed to identify socio cognitive factors that may influence adherence to protective measures toward COVID-19 in a Spanish sample. This longitudinal study analyzes the predictive value of perceived severity and vulnerability of infection, self-efficacy, direct exposure to the virus, and instrumental focused coping (...) style for adhering to infection protection behaviors during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also tests sex and age differences in these factors and changes over time. A two-wave longitudinal study was conducted in March and April 2020 starting the day after a strict national lockdown was decreed in Spain. A path analysis was used to test direct and indirect effects between vulnerability and the adherence to protective behaviors. Results suggest that individuals' perceived severity and vulnerability to COVID-19 and instrumental coping strategies are related to the use of more protective behaviors. This coping strategy mediates the effect of perceived vulnerability on engaging in protective behaviors, and this effect depends on direct exposure to COVID-19 and perceived self-efficacy moderators. Results suggest that recognizing one's own abilities to engage in instrumental actions may facilitate adherence to protective measures in people who had not been directly exposed to COVID-19. Therefore, adopting instrumental coping strategies to manage an individual's perceived vulnerability to infection may positively impact the adherence to protective behaviors, especially during the onset of an unexpected threat and when there is no prior direct experience with the situation. (shrink)

The debate over the political power of business has witnessed a revival after the global financial crisis of 2007—2009. We begin by arguing that business political fragmentation or unity has important consequences for policy outcomes. The structure of the U.S. government is conducive to incremental policy changes, often in response to business pressures. In turn, these changes shape the political interests and alliances of business. We illustrate this dynamic through an analysis of the political processes leading to the enactment of (...) the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, which repealed Depression-era regulations and allowed commercial banks to enter the securities and insurance business and vice versa. The FMA condoned the emergence of largely unregulated diversified financial institutions, which proved “too big to fail” during the crisis. Several factors contributed to the FMA: political institutions, international competition, the ideological convergence of the Republican and Democratic parties, and the political interests of financial industry actors. (shrink)

Partendo da un corso sul cambiamento politico tenuto da Norberto Bobbio nel 1979 e ora trasformato in un libro postumo grazie ad alcuni studenti di allora, Vitale mette in luce quattro questioni su rivoluzione, riforma e altre forme di cambiamento nell’età moderna e contemporanea. In primo luogo, qual è oggi, nelle nostre società capitalistiche alle prese con i cambiamenti climatici e altri disastri ecologici, il rapporto tra rivoluzioni scientifiche e politiche? In secondo luogo, alla fine del secolo scorso la prospettiva (...) rivoluzionaria è stata abbandonata a favore di un più realistico riformismo, ma possiamo chiederci se questa scelta non abbia portato a un grande inganno, perché il riformismo era in effetti una forma di “dolce” resa alla società di mercato e ai suoi valori. In terzo luogo, ci sono nel nostro tempo gli ingredienti (principalmente, soggetto politico, leadership e un’ideologia ben strutturata) per trasformare la rabbia per l’ingiustizia e la disuguaglianza in un progetto rivoluzionario e non solo in sporadiche rivolte? In quarto luogo, quale ruolo gioca la guerra a livello del cambiamento geopolitico, con particolare riferimento all’attuale guerra in Ucraina che sembra prospettare una nuova situazione di “scontro di civiltà” tra Weltanschauung occidentale e orientale? (shrink)

Federal, state, and local laws shape the use of health information for public health purposes, such as the mandated collection of data through electronic disease reporting systems. Health professionals can leverage these data to better anticipate and plan for the needs of communities, which is seen in the use of electronic case reporting.

As Cuba achieves one of the lowest per capita ecological footprints in the world, the country’s overshoot day was on 1 December 2019, while some European countries already reach this limit in February (e.g., Luxembourg), monitoring the environmental preferences of the Cuban younger generation may offer valuable behavioral or pedagogical insights into such a society. As accepted standardized measures exist in the scales of 2-Major Environmental Values (2-MEV) and the General Ecological Behavior (GEB), both measures are following the necessary psychometric (...) requirement, as they have the unique advantage of repeated independent confirmation (and thus provide an external validity). These captured 40 items of reported behavior originating in six subscales that total in a single main cover score. The first one (2-MEV) monitors individual biocentric and anthropocentric preferences with a 20 item-set by relying upon these two higher-order factors of “Preservation” (PRE) and “Utilization” (UTL). Although many language versions already exist (33 in the case of the 2-MEV) for verifying validities and reliabilities of both scales, a country such as Cuba may affirm that this is due to expected cultural differences as well as their exceptionally low global footprint. Additionally, neither the individual connectedness with nature nor the diurnal preferences within the linear structural model showed a substantial relationship to PRE or UTL. Nevertheless, all the regression scores follow the expected positive or negative directions, albeit not all the fit scores turned out as satisfactorily. Apparently, the applied measures secure a good basis for measuring the attitudinal and behavioral framework, but will need further fine tuning to completely monitor the environmental preferences of Cuban adolescents. (shrink)

Hans Jonas developed in ‘Past and Truth’ (1991) a demonstration of the existence of God based on the ‘truth of past things’. And in ‘The Concept of God after Auschwitz’ (1984) he created a new myth of divine self-alienation in order to take away God’s responsibility for human misery. Both these texts were conceived as an alternative to a more Hegelian, objective idealist perspective on theology. This article shows that Jonas’s alternative does not fully succeed in this respect because his (...) arguments bring him back to an idealist perspective. His proof of God is revisited and explained using new insights recently developed by Robert Spaemann, whose interpretation of the proof makes it clear that many important critics of Jonas are too quick to reject his claims. The arguments of Jonas now seem to show a new strength even though they still fail to give an alternative to an objective idealist theological framework. (shrink)

Resumen El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar los testimonios materiales en contexto etrusco de una deidad femenina tocada con la piel de cabra e identificada con la Juno Sospita latina. Ante todo, se examinarán las escenas narrativas o con un carácter más complejo para tratar de desentrañar el contexto mítico en el que se inserta esta divinidad. Su iconografía destaca por una relación estrecha con Heracles/hercle en representaciones en las que prima el enfrentamiento con el héroe. A través del (...) análisis comparativo de los distintos testimonios disponibles, es posible vislumbrar la existencia de un relato o leyenda que vincula a estos personajes, pero cuya intención es subrayar la reconciliación entre ambos. Esta finalidad cuenta con paralelos en otras imágenes protagonizadas por la diosa Uni/juno y el héroe en ambiente etrusco, como es el caso de las escenas de amamantamiento. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for two main hypotheses. First, that self-control is not a natural mental kind and, second, that there is no dedicated mechanism of self-control. By the first claim, I simply mean that those behaviors we label as “self-controlled” are a somewhat arbitrarily selected hodgepodge that do not have anything in common that distinguishes them from other behaviors. In other words, self-control is a gerrymandered property that does not correspond to a natural mental or psychological kind. By (...) the second claim, I mean that self-controlled behaviors are not produced by a mechanism that is not utilized in the production of other behaviors. Not only is there no natural mental property of self-control, there is no mechanism that is dedicated to producing self-controlled behavior. I further evaluate whether this account of self-control has enough explanatory power to account for a range of phenomena related to self-control. I argue that my account does a better job of explaining these phenomena than accounts which appeal to a dedicated self-control mechanism. (shrink)

Situationism is, roughly, the thesis that normatively irrelevant environmental factors have a great impact on our behaviour without our being aware of this influence. Surprisingly, there has been little work done on the connection between situationism and moral luck. Given that it is often a matter of luck what situations we find ourselves in, and that we are greatly influenced by the circumstances we face, it seems also to be a matter of luck whether we are blameworthy or praiseworthy for (...) our actions in those circumstances. We argue that such situationist moral luck, as a variety of circumstantial moral luck, exemplifies a distinct and interesting type of moral luck. Further, there is a case to be made that situationist moral luck is perhaps more worrying than some other well-discussed cases of moral luck. (shrink)

Situations are powerful: the evidence from experimental social psychology suggests that agents are hugely influenced by the situations they find themselves in, often without their knowing it. In our paper, we evaluate how situational factors affect our reasons-responsiveness, as conceived of by John Fischer and Mark Ravizza, and, through this, how they also affect moral responsibility. We argue that the situationist experiments suggest that situational factors impair, among other things, our moderate reasons-responsiveness, which is plausibly required for moral responsibility. However, (...) even though we argue that situational factors lower the degree of our reasons-responsiveness, we propose that agents remain moderately reasons-responsive to the degree required for moral responsibility. Nonetheless, those affected by situational factors are arguably less morally responsible than those who are not subject to similar situational factors. We further evaluate an understanding of reasons-responsiveness which relativizes reasons-responsiveness to agents’ circumstances. We argue that the situationist data do not warrant this kind of divergence from Fischer’s and Ravizza’s account. We conclude by discussing what situationist experiments tell us about our relationship to non-reasons. (shrink)

The central thesis developed in this paper is that sexual violence is a possibility founded in the — historical — constitutive conditions of the female body, which means that sexual violence against women is possible because of the availability of their bodies. The availability of the female body as a condition for rape is established in three principal moments: 1) The historical and spiritual determination of the subjective female identity as founded in the materiality of her own body —or her (...) reproductive specificity—. 2) The socially ambiguous configuration of the «femenine-I can» derived from the reproduction/sensuality difference; and, 3) The sexual rape as a reassertion of the gender availability in such a way that the rape sexualizes the gender as vulnerable, establishing or adding a wrapping meaning of feminity as something vulnerable. Being an other-body is being, originally, an available body, violable in essence, sexually vulnerable. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that some intentional actions are not triggered by proximal intentions; i.e. there are actions which are intentional, but lack relevant proximal intentions in their immediate causal history. More specifically, I first introduce various properties of intentions. I then argue that some actions (such as some spontaneous actions) are triggered by mental states which lack properties typically ascribed to intentions, yet these actions are still intentional. The view that all intentional actions are triggered by proximal intentions (...) is thus false. (shrink)

I argue that we do not intentionally and rationally shape our character and values in major ways. I base this argument on the nature of transformative experiences, that is, those experiences which are transformative from personal and epistemological points of view. The argument is roughly this. First, someone who undergoes major changes in her character or values thereby undergoes a transformative experience. Second, if she undergoes such an experience, her reasons for changing in a major way are inaccessible to her (...) beforehand. Third, if such reasons are inaccessible beforehand, she cannot act on them and thus cannot rationally and intentionally shape her character or values. I also explore some consequences of my argument, especially those related to control and responsibility. (shrink)

Self-control is a fundamental part of what it is to be a human being. It poses important philosophical and psychological questions about the nature of belief, motivation, judgment, and decision making. More immediately, failures of self-control can have high costs, resulting in ill-health, loss of relationships, and even violence and death, whereas strong self-control is also often associated with having a virtuous character. What exactly is self-control? If we lose control can we still be free? Can we be held responsible (...) for loss of self-control? -/- In this thorough and clearly written introduction to the philosophy of self-control, the authors examine and assess the following topics and questions: • The importance of self-control • What is self-control? • Self-control and the law of desire • Mechanisms of self-control • How is it possible to lose self-control? • Blameworthiness and (the loss of) self-control • Externalist self-control • Pathologies of self-control. -/- Combining philosophical analysis with surveys of the latest psychological research, and including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary of key terms, Self-Control is essential reading for students of philosophy of mind and psychology, moral psychology, free will, and ethics. It will also be of interest to those in related fields such as psychology and cognitive science. (shrink)

Alfred Mele presents an influential argument for incompatibilism which compares an agent, Ernie, whose life has been carefully planned by the goddess Diana, to normal deterministic agents. The argument suggests both that Ernie is not free, and that there is no relevant difference between him and normal deterministic agents in respect of free will. In this paper, I suggest that what drives our judgement that Ernie is not free in the Diana case is that his actions are merely an extension (...) of Diana's—he is akin to a tool, which she uses solely for her own purposes, and his behaviour occurs only because of the interest Diana takes in its occurring. This contrasts with normal deterministic universes, in which normal agents are not such tools. (shrink)

Libet’s timing experiments have resulted in some strong and unsavoury claims about human agency. These range from the idea that conscious intentions are epiphenomenal to the idea that we all lack free will. In this paper, I propose a new type of response to the various sceptical conclusions about our agency occasioned by both Libet’s work and other experiments in this testing paradigm. Indeed, my argument extends to such conclusions drawn from fMRI-based prediction experiments. In what follows, I will provide (...) a brief description of these experiments, sketch arguments one may be tempted to draw on their basis, and argue that such arguments rely on a questionable premise: that experimental subjects have relevant proximal intentions. (shrink)