This study explores the association between different types of morally challenging interactions during military deployment and response strategies, as well as the mediating role of moral emotions. Interviews with Dutch servicemen who participated in military operations were content coded. We found a relationship between local-cultural and team-related interactions and moral justification; these effects were mediated by other-condemning emotions. Similarly, other-condemning emotions mediated the relationship between local-cultural interactions and relativism. This study points at the importance of other-condemning emotions in shaping military (...) reactions to frequently occurring morally challenging interactions. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between moral intensity and the use of different sensemaking strategies in military critical incidents. First, narratives of military personnel were used to select prototypical high/low moral intensity critical incidents. In a follow-up, a scenario study was conducted with active duty military personnel to examine the relationship between moral intensity and the use of sensemaking tactics. This study offers three main conclusions. First, the use of sensemaking tactics is strongly tied to the level of moral intensity (...) in the situation. In high-intense situations, the servicemen draw on previous experiences, prediction of consequences, and help of others to recognize and interpret the situation. Less attention goes out to higher level critical thinking. Thus, it seems that in these critical incidents, the servicemen react without giving room for thorough consideration and deliberation. Second, the number of deployments a serviceman experienced influences the perceived seriousness and harmfulness of the situation negatively in low-intense situations. Finally, and in line with earlier studies, the results indicate that the concept of moral intensity is formed out of three rather than the six dimensions originally proposed by Jones. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Several social and cultural developments have led to a rethinking of the place and meaning of friendship within the life of the Church, not least its relation to family. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology has great potential for informing such renewed reflection. At face value, he appears to count both Church and family among the divine ‘mandates’, leaving friendship to a realm of ‘freedom’ outside the mandates. Yet closer reading of his writings—not least his correspondence with Bethge—reveals, first, a more singular role (...) of the Church vis-à-vis the mandates ; and secondly, congeniality between friendship and the ‘vicarious representative’ practices that lie at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s ecclesiology. Together, these findings allow us to recognise family and friendship as complementary expressions of discipleship, each supporting the other precisely by setting a limit to the specific type of ‘vicarious representative’ responsibility entrusted to each. (shrink)

This article addresses the apparent tension in O’Donovan’s overall argument in The Ways of Judgment (2005): a tension between his constructive account of judgement (central to Parts I and II), and his endorsement of Jesus’ injunction not to judge (central to Part III). After clarifying exactly what kind of judgement O’Donovan intends in identifying judgement as the core political practice, the article highlights a few key aspects of O’Donovan’s political theology that might mitigate, or even take away, the tension in (...) his argument. The article then goes on to address a remaining issue, namely that O’Donovan seems to imply that Christians are to judge only in private, thereby leaving all public judgement to the secular authorities. In response to this impression the article will affirm, in the light of Rom. 12:1-8, that the church does exercise public judgement, by corporately discerning, formulating and enacting the implications of God’s judgement in Christ. (shrink)

En este documento se parte de la resiliencia como componente que influye de manera positiva para el éxito escolar, se describen los elementos que la configuran, y se discuten con los rasgos particulares de jóvenes que asisten a una escuela secundaria inserta en un contexto considerado de alto riesgo social en México. Se trata de un trabajo cualitativo de perspectiva fenomenológica. El análisis de los datos permitió identificar que los estudiantes responden positivamente a algunos de los atributos que se necesitan (...) para el desarrollo de la resiliencia, mientras que la familia y escuela se convierten en espacios de tensión. (shrink)

Farmers’ decisions to conserve natural resources generally and soil and water particularly are largely determined by their knowledge of the problems and perceived benefits of conservation. In Ethiopia, however, farmer perceptions of erosion problems and farmer conservation practices have received little analysis or use in conservation planning. This research examines farmers’ views of erosion problems and their conservation knowledge and practices in the Beressa watershed in the central highlands of Ethiopia. Data were obtained from a survey of 147 farm households (...) managing 713 fields during the 2002/2003 cropping season. In-depth interviews and group discussions were also held with the farmers to obtain additional information. The results show that 72% of the farmers reported erosion problems, and they recognized that conservation was necessary. However, they considered erosion to be severe mostly when visible signs – rills and gullies – appeared on their fields. The majority of the farmers believe that erosion could be halted, and they use a range of practices for erosion control and fertility improvement. These include contour plowing (83%), drainage ditches (82%), and stone terraces/bunds (73%). Nevertheless, despite decades of conservation intervention in the area, it appears that most farmers have developed negative attitudes towards externally recommended measures. The research concludes that under the conditions present in the Ethiopian central highlands, soil and water conservation interventions should consider farmers’ conservation knowledge and practices to improve acceptance and adoption of the recommendations. (shrink)

In the Sheeb area in eastern Eritrea a Participatory Rural Appraisal(PRA) was carried out in two villages, one upstream and one downstreamof the ephemeral rivers Laba and Mai-ule. The objectives of the studywere to obtain a better understanding of farmer-managed spate irrigationsystems and to enable the local people to perform their own farmingsystem analysis. This paper describes the various PRA activities, suchas mapping, diagramming and ranking of problems, that were undertakenwith the participation of local people. The resource mapping revealedthat lack (...) of water and not scarcity of land is the main constraintaffecting the development of the spate irrigation system in the Sheebarea. When there is a lack of rainfall in the highlands of Eritrea,there are only few floods per year in the Sheeb area. The developmenttrend diagrams showed that the number of floods, the food production andthe prevalence of pests vary considerably over time. The livelihooddiagrams indicated that food, fodder, and water were only availableduring part of the year. In search of these resources, the farmers havedeveloped a livelihood strategy of seasonal migration to the highlandsof Eritrea. The PRA data collected in the two villages appeared to bevery useful for the preparation of community action plans in the entireSheeb area. (shrink)

En la tesis de Luca Fantini "El conocimiento de sí en Leonardo Polo: un estudio del hábito de sabiduría publicada por la Pontificia Universidad de la Santa Cruz en Roma en el año 2007, el tema central es introducido haciendo referencia a la discusión contemporánea sobre la cuestión de la identidad, de especial relevancia en Antropología. Diversas corrientes de pensamiento modernas y posmodernas han llevado a una escisión entre objetividad y subjetividad provocando así una mirada del sujeto limitada y parcial. (...) La filosofía moderna de la subjetividad fracasa porque es pensada en simetría con la metafísica. Frente a esta cuestión Fantini se pregunta si es posible hoy un modo alternativo de pensar el tema del sujeto moderno. Se pregunta también acerca de la validez de Tomás de Aquino hoy, después de la modernidad. Propone en cambio a Leonardo Polo como el pensador contemporáneo que replantea estas cuestiones de un modo radical. Polo acepta la antropología tradicional pero propone su antropología trascendental como innovación que pretende perfeccionar nuestro conocimiento del ser personal. La filosofía clásica es continuada y la filosofía moderna es rectificada. Así, Leonardo Polo ofrece un nuevo método para hacer filosofía: el abandono del límite mental el cual consiste en la ampliación de la metafísica clásica con la antropología trascendental. Luca Fantini brinda con esta tesis un aporte significativo a la difusión del método poliano. (shrink)

Nowadays many debates are going on that relate to the agricultural and food sector. It looks as if present technological and organizational developments within the agricultural and food sector are badly geared to societal needs and expectations. In this article we briefly present a toolkit for moral communication within the food chain. This toolkit is developed as part of a European research project. Next, we discuss what such a toolkit can bring about, given the characteristics of the present day agricultural (...) and food sector and its wider context. We defend that the toolkit can be seen as one of the mechanisms that can help enterprises in the agricultural and food sector to be accountable. It should, however, be complemented with other mechanisms, first, to empower the wider public and, second, to stimulate a dialogue, on a more equal footing, between public authorities, citizens, and economic actors. (shrink)

After 50 years of materialist culture, people are desperately seeking answers to such questions as the proper sharing of the bounty of the planet and also the human economy. Who should have and who should have not and can inequality ever be justified. Should humans take every last benefit from the planet or do we need other species and do we need to learn to share and to respect nature. We are not alone on this planet but we might be (...) a very short lived species if we dont get a grip on our proper role. This unique book brings texts and discussion from some of the founders of the green movement and makes todays' philosophy accessible and usable for everyone! The main features of philosophical possibilities for the 21st century and brings the light of Green Movement thinking to bear on todays issues. The Green Movements' original philosophical questions and conundrums in the light of todays' challenges. Shinning a very modern light on Classical texts This book introduces the philosophical basis and understanding of the Green Movements' amazingly accurate predictions on climate and global environmental physical and political change to a broader group of readers, students, policy makers, academics and campaigners in this ground breaking volume. (shrink)

This title opens the debate about what an ethics for the 21st century would look like and the role of corporations and how to work to ensure they produce results which benefit society as a whole.

In Luca Fantini’s doctoral dissertation, a central question is introduced in reference to actual theories of identity. Many modern and posmodern philosophers introduce a division between objectivity and subjectivity conceiving the human subject in a partial way. Modern subjective philosophy fails because it is made in symmetry with metaphysics. Fantini asks if it is possible to understand the modern subject in another way. He asks is Aquinas is a valid answer today, after modernity. He proposes Polo as a contemporary philosopher (...) that examines this questions in a radical way. Polo accepts traditional anthropology but proposes his transcendental anthropology as innovative pretending to improve our understanding of personal being. Classic philosophy is thus enlarged and modern philosophy rectified. Polo offers a new method: the abandonment of mental limit, that consists in amplifying classical metaphysics with a transcendental anthropology. Fantini offers with this an important contribution to the diffusion of this method. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una revisión crítica de la noción de injusticia hermenéutica de Miranda Fricker a partir de dos elementos de la obra de Frantz Fanon: 1) la «historicidad» como una carga cultural en las categorías sociales que es productiva, lo que exige cuestionar la definición de injusticia hermenéutica como ausencia o tergiversación de categorías; 2) la redefinición que Fanon hizo del «esquema corporal» de Merleau Ponty: la experiencia vivida del cuerpo, lo que muestra que los recursos hermenéuticos no (...) son solo categorías mentales, sino que están imbricados con la dimensión material. Nuestro objetivo es mostrar cómo estos dos elementos de la teoría fanoniana hacen una contribución a la noción de injusticia hermenéutica y por qué esta es relevante para entender la injusticia estructural del racismo. (shrink)

As a continuation of the previous paper,Praying for a Miracle – Negative or Positive Impacts on Health Care, published in this research topic, this second paper aims at delving deeper into the same theme, but now from a simultaneously practical and conceptual approach. With that in mind, we revisit three theoretical models based on evidence, through which we can understand the role of a miracle in hospital settings and assess its impact in health contexts. For each of the models described, (...) we seek to illustrate the possible outcomes of belief in miracles as a modality of religious coping in situations of stress and suffering experienced by patients and caregivers in the face of gloomy diagnoses on coming across the limits of medicine to revert certain illnesses (e.g., child cancer) or biological conditions (e.g., fetal malformation). We posit that the judgment about how such a mechanism is healthy or not for each of the people involved (patient, caregiver, and/or health professional) depends on the modulation between the conception of the miracle adopted by the patient and/or caregiver and the concrete outcomes of the way of responding to the situations that accompany the gravity of the illness or condition. To better understand this process of psychological modulation that accompanies belief in miracles, we revisit the concepts of spirituality, religiosity, and religion, pointing out the connections and distinctions between them from a phenomenological perspective. We then present a conceptual model that takes these connections and distinctions into consideration to foster an understanding of miracles, their relations with the diversity of experiences of people who meet in hospital settings (patients, caregivers, and health professionals), and their respective impacts on healthcare. (shrink)

Economic and social activities are undergoing radical changes, which can be labelled as ‘knowledge economy and/or society’. In this sense, intellectual capital, or knowledge assets, as the fourth factor of production, is replacing the other ones – job, land and capital. This article tries to offer the origins and nature of the firm’s IC that can be labelled as ‘An Intellectual Capital-Based View of the Firm Competition’. This framework tries to highlight the strategic role of different intangible assets like talented (...) and committed workers, cultural values, or long-term relationships among the firm and its stakeholders – customers, allies, suppliers and society in general – in gaining and sustaining competitive advantages, being the management of IC a key issue in the management agenda. (shrink)

The belief in miracle, as a modality of spiritual/religious coping strategy in the face of stress and psychic suffering, has been discussed in psychological literature with regard to its positive or negative role on the health and well-being of patients and family members. In contemporary times, where pseudo-conflicts between religion and science should have been long overcome, there is still some tendency of interpreting belief in miracle – as the possibility of a cure granted by divine intervention, modifying the normal (...) course of events in a bleak medical diagnosis – as having unhealthy impacts in the care and treatment of health. This position seeks to find a base in the three characteristics of hoping in a miracle, frequently pointed out by psychological literature: it would imply a negation of reality instead of its confrontation; it would be a coping strategy focused on emotion instead of the problem; it would imply seeking to modify the supposed desire of God by extra-natural facts. In this study, we shall critically discuss this position and the dangers of its crystallization by the use of SRC scales in which the act of praying for a miracle is previously classified as a negative strategy. We revisit some tendencies in psychological literature about the subject, taking into consideration the various facets of miracle, sociocultural facts, elements of idiographic nature, and their profound outcomes in the lives of people especially in health contexts. We illustrate the dangers of a hasty generalization of the results of nomothetic studies about the role of belief in miracle with two examples of research in the Brazilian context: one carried out with pregnant women with fetal malformation and the other with family members caring for children and adolescents with cancer under chemotherapeutic treatment. In both studies, the results do not confirm the predominance of the negative aspects associated with the act of praying for a miracle, which we discuss and analyze in light of the phenomenological perspective. In this perspective, “pray for a miracle”, as experienced by patients and caregivers, can be recognized as an act of openness to life, bolstering hope, and the resignification of reality in the psyche. (shrink)

O texto Influência hegeliana no pragmatismo de John Dewey: alguns apontamentos tem como finalidade, exibir as decorrências da Filosofia hegeliana, no pragmatismo deweyano; entendendo-se que Hegel é um filósofo reconhecido como: idealista, célebre, e seus argumentos permeiam os conhecimentos úteis, para se explicar o mundo, e que o mesmo, na sua dialética, é aquele verdadeiramente universal; já a Filosofia de Dewey é respeitada em seu alcance global, e impactou as teorias psicológicas, com influência nessa ciência, e “seus escritos sobre a (...) teoria e a prática democráticas, entusiasmaram profundamente os debates acadêmicos e também práticos. Dewey desenvolveu visões extensas e frequentemente sistemáticas, na ética, epistemologia, lógica, metafísica, estética e filosofia da religião; costumava adotar uma abordagem genealógica que expressava sua própria visão, na História mais ampla da Filosofia; também se pode encontrar uma metafilosofia totalmente desenvolvida em seu trabalho[1]”. Dito isso, a produção em tela se baseia nos estudos da Literatura, e as notas a respeito do tema têm, também, o intuito de colaborarem com as discussões, adicionando-se às produções já existentes, em torno dos dois grandes filósofos. [1] Disponível em: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Acesso em: 15/11/2021. (shrink)