René Descartes’ conception of the human will has important implications for his conception of human beings as rational and moral agents. Specifically, the will plays a significant role in his views on what control we have over our beliefs; what kind of freedom we enjoy; how our emotions affect our actions, and how we can moderate our emotions. I explore these issues in three contexts that arise throughout Descartes’ corpus, from his earliest significant work, Rules for the Direction of the (...) Mind (the Regulae, 1619-1628), to his last published work, The Passions of the Soul (1649). I begin with the question of why Descartes construes judgment as an operation of the will in the Meditations. This is a change in view from the Regulae. I argue that to understand this change, we need to consider his conceptions of error and activity in the Regulae. I trace the development in his philosophical views about error and activity from the Regulae to the Meditations and show that these commitments underpin his mature theory of judgment. I then turn to Descartes’ conception of freedom in the Fourth Meditation. Descartes’ conception of the will, I argue, figures centrally in his conception of freedom. I show that Descartes holds that freedom is compatible with determination and consists in the power of the will to determine itself. I show, further, that Descartes’ later correspondence helps to clarify and unify his characterization of freedom in the Fourth Meditation: freedom is proportional to the ease of self-determination. Lastly, I consider Descartes’ conception of the relationship between the will and the passions of the soul (the passions). I begin by addressing how the passions affect the will, and I argue for a “bifurcated” approach to the function of the passions. This interpretation holds that the passions affect the will differently depending on what kind of volition results—volitions involved in action or volitions involved in judgment. I then discuss several ways in which Descartes conceives of the passions as problematic. I conclude by exploring three means Descartes prescribes for controlling them: habituation, indirect control, and the regulation of desire. (shrink)

This paper identifies, develops, and argues for an interpretation of Mary Astell’s understanding of self-government. On this interpretation, what is essential to self-government, according to Astell, is an agent’s responsiveness to her own reasoning. The paper identifies two aspects of her theory of self-government: an ‘authenticity’ criterion of what makes our motives our own and an account of the capacities required for responsiveness to our own reasoning. The authenticity criterion states that when our motives arise from some external source without (...) validation by our own understanding of the reasons supporting them, then they are not our own. The capacities requisite for responsiveness to our own reasoning are those of examining and evaluating our own motives and of resisting the social pressure to conform to others’ opinions. An upshot of this interpretation of Astell’s theory of self-government is that it reveals her insights into the ways ‘custom’ can undermine an individual’s ability to govern oneself. (shrink)

Descartes claims that the passions of the soul are “all in their nature good” even though they exaggerate the value of their objects, have the potential to deceive us, and often mislead us. What, then, can he mean by this? In this paper, I argue that these effects of the passions are only problematic when we incorrectly take their goodness to consist in their informing us of harms and benefits to the mind-body composite. Instead, the passions are good in their (...) motivational function, which they carry out by representing objects and situations as having various properties and thereby appearing to be “reasons of goodness.” Further, I argue that the main way in which the passions are problematic is merely an occasional physiological byproduct of a well- functioning system. I show, therefore, that the passions’ motivational function, representationality, and accompanying physiology are all significant and interrelated aspects of their goodness. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a new account of the philosophical motivations for Descartes’s theory of judgment. The theory needs explanation because the idea that judgment, or belief, is an operation of the will seems problematic at best, and Descartes does not make clear why he adopted what, at the time, was a novel view. I argue that attending to Descartes’s conception of the will as the active, free faculty of mind reveals that a general concern with responsibility motivates his (...) theory of judgment. My account avoids some unappealing features of the standard interpretation, renders the theory more plausible than many have suggested, and explains why his theory does not fall neatly into any current-day position on the issue of the control we have over belief. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore René Descartes' conception of human freedom. I begin with the key interpretive challenges of Descartes' remarks and then turn to two foundational issues in the secondary literature: the philosophical backdrop of Descartes' remarks and the notions of freedom that commentators have used to characterize Descartes. The remainder of the paper is focused on the main current debate: Descartes' position on the relationship between freedom and determinism.

This paper investigates Descartes’s understanding of the imago Dei, that it is above all in virtue of the will that we bear the image and likeness of God. I challenge the key assumption of arguments that hold that Descartes’s comparison between the human will and the divine will is problematic—that in his conception of the imago Dei Descartes is alluding to Scholastic conceptions of analogy available to him at the time, which would place particular constraints on the legitimacy of the (...) comparison. I argue instead that Descartes is evoking a different tradition regarding the nature of image and imitation, stemming from Augustine and Aquinas, and thus, that those constraints do not apply. I then argue that Descartes thinks the likeness between the human will and God’s will is that both are infinite in “extent.” This means that human will can “extend itself” not only to things that can be the object of some other will, but to things that can be the object of God’s will. This is notable because Descartes famously thinks that absolutely anything can be the object of God’s will. I explain why this interpretation is not implausible, contrary to first appearances. (shrink)

The identification of additional subunits of the cGMP-gated cation channel suggests exciting questions about their regulatory roles and about structure/functional relationships. How do the different subunits interact? How is the complex assembled into the plasma membrane? Divalent cations have been implicated in the regulation of adaptation. One often overlooked cation is magnesium. Could this ion play a role in phototransduction?

Justice in the bible -- Plato's The Republic -- Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics -- Justice in Islamic law -- Saint Thomas Aquinas' summa theologica -- Confucius in china -- The conquest of America -- Machiavelli: "the end justifies the means" -- Jiirgen Habermas' theory of diskursethik -- John Rawls' Justice as fairness -- Ronald Dworkin's Taking rights seriously -- Robert N Ozick's Anarchy, state, and utopia -- Justice as "efficiency" -- Justice and "desert" -- Precedents -- Wojciech sadurski -- Marx's justice (...) as a "critique" -- Alasdair macintyre -- "Feminist" justice. (shrink)

Definición del derecho natural -- Definición del derecho de gentes -- Diferencia de otras ciencias -- Del derecho público -- De la política -- Necesidad y utilidad del derecho natural y de gentes -- Origen y antiguedad de este derecho -- Formación de esta ciencia -- Progresos y escritores principales. Hugo Grotius -- John Selden -- Thomas Hobbes -- Samuel Pufendorf -- Christian Thomasius -- Johann Gottlieb Heineccius -- Christian Wolff -- Emer de Vattel -- Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui. Fortunato Bartolomeo De (...) Felice -- Otros escritores en com un -- Montesquieu -- Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- Escritos modernos detestables -- Vicios y defectos de muchos modernos -- Modo para conocer los autores sospechosos -- Autores católicos con que se refutan -- Precaución para establecer las reglas del derecho natural -- Falsa preocupaci on de buscar un primer principio -- Métodos que se proponen -- No son necesarios -- Del método escolástico -- Universidades en que se enseña este derecho. (shrink)

Cyclin-dependent kinase 5 has been implicated in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis. Here, we demonstrate that overexpression of p25, an activator of cdk5, led to increased levels of BACE1 mRNA and protein in vitro and in vivo. A p25/cdk5 responsive region containing multiple sites for signal transducer and activator of transcription was identified in the BACE1 promoter. STAT3 interacts with the BACE1 promoter, and p25-overexpressing mice had elevated levels of pSTAT3 and BACE1, whereas cdk5-deficient mice had reduced levels. Furthermore, mice with a (...) targeted mutation in the STAT3 cdk5 responsive site had lower levels of BACE1. Increased BACE levels in p25 overexpressing mice correlated with enhanced amyloidogenic processing that could be reversed by a cdk5 inhibitor. These data demonstrate a pathway by which p25/cdk5 increases the amyloidogenic processing of APP through STAT3-mediated transcriptional control of BACE1 that could have implications for AD pathogenesis. (shrink)

There is a need for empirically based research on social and ethical challenges related to informed consent processes, particularly in studies focusing on adolescent sexual and reproductive health. In a pilot study of a school-based pregnancy prevention intervention in rural Zambia, the majority of the guardians who were asked to consent to their daughters’ participation, refused. In this paper we explore the reasons behind the low participation in the pilot with particular attention to challenges related to the community engagement and (...) informed consent process. The pilot was implemented in two schools and examined the acceptability of a package of interventions including economic support to families to keep their girls in school, pocket money for girls, youth club meetings on reproductive health, and community meetings to sensitize the community. Focus group discussions were conducted with girls who participated in the pilot, boys in their class and with parents. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers, peer educators and community health workers involved in the coordination of the intervention as well as with religious and traditional leaders. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings indicate that inadequate use of recognized community communication channels during the community engagement process and dissemination of information about the pilot resulted in limited understanding of the pilot concept by the community. This surfaced through uncertainty and fear that the intervention may result in loss of control over daughters, worries about why money was provided unconditionally to girls, and suspicion of links to satanism. The sense of insecurity appeared to be exacerbated by low literacy levels, poverty, fear of loss of bride wealth, perceived disregard for local perceptions of social status, and scanty trust in the actors implementing the pilot. Inadequate use of locally appropriate channels in the dissemination of information created room for interpretation and facilitated development of mistrust, undermining the conditions for community engagement and actual informed consent. A key lesson learnt is the importance of taking seriously the complexity of local values and structures that may impact people’s capability to consent or not consent to a study in an informed manner. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 3-7.

We applaud Ray and Cooper (2024) for emphasizing environmental health as a bioethics issue. As a team of interdisciplinary pediatric researchers and providers who are part of an institutional clima...

Analyses of environmental DNAs have provided tantalizing evidence for “rozellida” or “cryptomycota”, a clade of mostly undescribed and deeply diverging aquatic fungi. Here, we put cryptomycota into perspective through consideration of Rozella, the only clade member growing in culture. This is timely on account of the publication in Nature of the first images of uncultured cryptomycota from environmental filtrates, where molecular probes revealed non‐motile cyst‐like structures and motile spores, all lacking typical fungal chitinous cell walls. Current studies of Rozella can (...) complement these fragmentary observations from environmental samples. Rozella has a fungal‐specific chitin synthase and its resting sporangia have walls that appear to contain chitin. Cryptomycota, including Rozella, lack a cell wall when absorbing food but like some other fungi, they may have lost their “dinner jacket” through convergence. Rather than evolutionary intermediates, the cryptomycota may be strange, divergent fungi that evolved from an ancestor with a nearly complete suite of classical fungal‐specific characters. (shrink)

All contemporary frameworks of mental capacity stipulate that we must begin from the presumption that an adult has capacity. This presumption is crucial, as it manifests respect for autonomy and guards against prejudice and paternalism on the part of the evaluator. Given its ubiquity, we might presume that we all understand the presumption’s meaning and application in the same way. Evidence demonstrates that this is not the case and that this has led to harm in vulnerable persons. There is thus (...) strong reason to question our presumptions about the presumption of capacity. We distinguish between two main ways of understanding and applying the presumption of capacity, and advocate for the one that we argue mitigates risk of harm. Our proposed interpretation offers many advantages in that it is consonant with actual practice of capacity evaluations, precludes confused and abusive avoidance of needed evaluations, and preserves the respect for autonomy motivating the presumption in the first place. (shrink)

In euthanasia and/or assisted suicide of persons with dementia, the controversy has mostly focused on decisionally incapable persons with very advanced dementia for whom the procedure must be based on a written advance euthanasia directive. This focus on advance euthanasia directive-based EAS has been accompanied by scant attention to the issue of decision-making capacity assessment of persons with dementia who are being evaluated for concurrent request EAS. We build on a previous analysis of concurrent request EAS cases from the Netherlands, (...) which showed that many such cases involve persons with significant cognitive impairment. We use illustrative cases to describe the difficulty of determining decisional capacity in persons whose stage of dementia falls between severely impaired and mildly impaired. We show that the Dutch practice of capacity assessment in such dementia cases is difficult to reconcile with the widely accepted functional model of capacity—a model explicitly endorsed by the Dutch euthanasia review committees. We discuss why such deviations from the standard functional model might be occurring, as well as their ethical implications for dementia EAS policy and practice. (shrink)

Challenges to Legal Theory offers the reader a fascinating journey though a variety of multi-disciplinary topics, ranging from law and literature, and law and religion, to legal philosophy and constitutional law. The collection reflects some of the challenges that the field of legal theory currently faces. It is compiled by a selection of international and Spanish scholars, whose essays are made available in English translation for the first time. The volume is based on a collection of essays, published in Spanish, (...) in honour of Professor José Iturmendi Morales, of Complutense University, Madrid, and brings the rich scholarship of pre-eminent Spanish scholars of law and legal theory to an international audience. (shrink)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) est une auteure majeure de la fin du dix-huitième siècle et on se réjouit de voir la première traduction en français de ses Lettres de Scandinavie, plus de deux siècles après leur parution en 1796. L’ouvrage se présente sous la forme d’une narration épistolaire. Wollstonecraft y fait le récit du séjour de trois mois qu’elle passa en Scandinavie durant l’été de 1795. Elle y avait été envoyée par son amant, que l’on supposait être son mari, un homme (...) d’affaires am... (shrink)

Presenting evidence from the social brain, we argue that neural reuse is a dynamic, socially organized process that is influenced ontogenetically and evolutionarily by the cultural transmission of mental techniques, values, and modes of thought. Anderson's theory should be broadened to accommodate cultural effects on the functioning of architecturally similar neural systems, and the implications of these differences for reuse.

Proceedings of a forum held in Austin, Tex., on Mother's Day, 1996.

l presente texto propone un recorrido por la obra de Gilbert Simondon a partir de una pregunta acerca de la piel y el contacto. Su conceptualización del límite y de la relación en La individuación a la luz de las nociones de forma y de información permite trazar líneas conceptuales para pensar el contacto en un diálogo con prácticas corporales y artísticas del campo de las técnicas somáticas y de la danza. La lectura de Simondon en diálogo con experiencias sensibles (...) permite entender algunos de los conceptos centrales de su obra y conceptualizaciones originales que se elaboran en el cruce. (shrink)

Dentro de la tradición de la hermenéutica filosófica y, más específicamente, de la ontología hermenéutica del filósofo alemán H.G. Gadamer, "Interpretar y argumentar" constituye una indagación en el modelo de racionalidad propio ...

Obtener el consentimiento válido, libre e informado no siempre es fácil. Presupone, por un lado, la divulgación de información justa, clara y apropiada, y, por otro, la capacidad de comprenderla lo más adecuadamente posible y luego tomar una decisión. Entonces, cuando un paciente tiene impedimentos cognitivos en el largo plazo y carece de la capacidad independiente para tomar o comunicar una decisión, y cuando esta decisión se trata del final de su vida, el consentimiento puede ser muy complejo. ¿Cómo hacerlo (...) bien? El presente artículo no ofrece «la» solución, pero analiza el tema en el marco legal y ético francés. El desafío es encontrar una línea divisoria entre la beneficencia, el respeto a la autonomía y el rechazo de la «obstinación irrazonable» (que define lainutilidad en la legislación francesa). La beneficencia podría significar retirar (o retener) los tratamientos médicos en curso (quimioterapia, radioterapia, etcétera) cuando se vuelven cada vez más ineficaces y, además, son agresivos e intrusivos para el paciente (lo que conlleva una disminución de su calidad de vida). Pero cuando el paciente no puede consentir o parece estar en desacuerdo, ¿cómo podemos seguir adelante? La contribución examinará, primero, el valor de la toma de decisiones y del consentimiento del paciente en la atención médica y, luego, el papel que la familia y los cuidadores pueden desempeñar para apoyarlos. Dado que la muerte es un momento único y definitivo, no debemos olvidar que, a menudo, la experiencia de los familiares con el paciente condiciona tanto el proceso de toma de decisiones como su proceso de duelo. Finalmente, se examinarán y discutirán tres situaciones clínicas específicas, en las que se debe tomar una decisión con respecto a la retención y retirada de los tratamientos: cuando un paciente está consciente, cuando está inconsciente y no tiene instrucciones anticipadas, cuando rechaza el tratamiento a sabiendas. La lucha consiste en saber qué es lo que realmente le importa a la persona moribunda, para poder respetar sus deseos. (shrink)

El mérito principal de este libro es la audacia de la perspectiva escogida: la disyuntiva, por decirlo sumariamente, “entre Dios y la nada”. Fiel a ella, y elevándola a condición de eje hermenéutico, Vicente Serrano reconstruye los hitos fundamentales del proceso, atendiendo especialmente al propio Jacobi, pero también a los “grandes” del Idealismo Alemán, así como a Nietzsche, a Heidegger, a Michel Foucault, a las diversas teorizaciones “posmodernas” —o no— de los últimos tiempos. Es posible, en efecto, que haya más (...) teología en la filosofía contemporánea, allí donde su presencia lo es bajo la forma de una abrasadora ausencia, que allí donde se ofrece a rostro abierto… ese es, en cualquier caso, el desafío hermenéutico de este trabajo memorable. Memorable también por su materialismo crítico de fondo. (shrink)

This study explores the perceptions of Norwegian nurses who have received assisted dying requests from terminally ill patients. Assisted dying is illegal in Norway, while in some countries, it is an option. Nurses caring for terminally ill patients may experience ethical challenges by receiving requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide. We applied a qualitative research design with a phenomenological hermeneutic approach using open individual interviews. A total of 15 registered nurses employed in pulmonary and oncology wards of three university hospitals (...) and home care in one municipality were recruited. Four themes emerged from the analysis: (1) unprepared for the request; (2) meeting direct, indirect, and nonverbal requests; (3) working in a gray zone, and (4) feeling alone and powerless. The study found that nurses were unsure how to handle such requests due to professional uncertainty about assisted dying. Working in an environment where the topic is taboo made nurses morally uncertain, and some perceived this as moral distress. The hospital chaplain played a significant role in providing support to these nurses. (shrink)

Marie-José Mondzain, philosophe, est directrice de recherche au CNRS. Elle a publié des livres sur l’image, entre autres, Image, icône, économie (Seuil, 1996), L’image peut-elle tuer? (Bayard, 2002), Le Commerce des regards (Seuil, 2003) ; des livres sur la peinture : Van Gogh ou la Peinture comme tauromachie (Éd. de l’Épure, 1996), Henri Cueco, vol. 2 (Cercle d’Art, 1997), L’Arche et l’Arc-en-ciel, Michel-Ange – la voûte de la chapelle Sixtine (Le Passage, 2006). Sa réflexion sur l’image l’a conduite à (...) collaborer avec des gens de théâtre et de cinéma, et à participer à des ouvrages collectifs : L’Assemblée théâtrale, 1 (Éd. de l’Amandier, 2002) et 2 ( La Représentation, Éd. de l’Amandier, 2004), Voir ensemble. Autour de Jean-Toussaint Desanti (Gallimard, 2003, coll. « Réfléchir le cinéma »), Le Cinéma et la Shoah. Un art à l’épreuve de la tragédie du xx e siècle (sous la dir. de J.-M. Frodon, Cahiers du Cinéma, 2007). Elle vient de publier Homo spectator (Bayard, 2007). (shrink)