El presente texto tiene como propósito analizar teórico-conceptualmente las prácticas pedagógicas de la ética implementadas por los docentes en la universidad tradicional y la universidad popular en los años 2010 – 2020. Teniendo en cuenta, primero, las características inherentes de la universidad tradicional tanto en sus orígenes y principios fundamentales; segundo, las practicas pedagógicas de la ética en el rol docente; y tercero, el advenimiento, desarrollo y propuesta de la Universidad popular. Mediante este análisis fue posible develar los paralelismos entre (...) sus divergencias y puntos de encuentro con base en la ética-práctica del rol docente, para el mejoramiento continuo tanto de esta área del conocimiento como de los demás saberes en general. (shrink)

Literature reports that depressive symptoms may precede suicidal ideation. Several studies have identified social support and substance use as moderators of this relationship. However, no study has evaluated these variables together by testing how substance use can affect the moderating effect of social support in this relationship. The purpose of this article is to individually evaluate dimensions of social support (friends, family, significant others, and school) and substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs), as moderators of the relationship between (...) depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation; as well as analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderation exerted by social support in this relationship. This study, quantitative and cross-sectional, considered 775 adolescents [Average age = 15.48 (SD = 0.96), 45.9% women], from 20 randomly selected schools in Santiago de Chile. Simple moderation models were used to analyze possible moderators separately, and double moderation models were used to analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderating effect of social support. The results show that the four dimensions of social support moderate the relationship between depressive symptomatology and suicidal ideation, showing the strongest interaction in the case of family support, followed by support of a significant person, support at school, and support of friends, in that order. On the other hand, alcohol was the only drug that moderated the relationship in question. In addition, the results show that the use of alcohol limits the moderating effect of social support in the fields of family, significant person, and school support, but not in the case of support of friends. The use of marijuana and other illicit drugs did not affect the moderating effects of social support for any of the areas evaluated. The results are discussed according to the different roles that alcohol use can play in adolescence, and how these, together with perceived social support, are related to the emergence of suicidal ideation from depressive symptoms. (shrink)

The organizational account of biological functions interprets functions as contributions of a trait to the maintenance of the organization that, in turn, maintains the trait. As has been recently argued, however, the account seems unable to provide a unified grounding for both intra- and cross-generation functions, since the latter do not contribute to the maintenance of the same organization which produces them. To face this ‘ontological problem’, a splitting account has been proposed, according to which the two kinds of functions (...) require distinct organizational definitions. In this article, we propose a solution for the ontological problem, by arguing that intra- and cross-generation functions can be said to contribute in the same way to the maintenance of the biological organization, characterized in terms of organizational self-maintenance. As a consequence, we suggest maintaining a unified organizational account of biological functions. (shrink)

Se compara la doctrina de Suárez sobre la causalidad de la voluntad con la de Domingo de Soto. Esto implica compararla también con algunas de las tesis de santo Tomás y de Duns Escoto, pues estos autores medievales son las principales referencias de ambos autores al respecto. Se concluye que Suárez adhiere fundamentalmente a santo Tomás, pero de acuerdo a la interpretación que de él encuentra en Domingo de Soto.

Agroecology has been criticized for being more labor-intensive than other more industrialized forms of agriculture. We challenge the assertion that labor input in agriculture has to be generally minimized and argue that besides quantity of work one should also consider the quality of work involved in farming. Early assessments on work quality condemned the deskilling of the rural workforce, whereas later criticisms have concentrated around issues related to fair trade and food sovereignty. We bring into the discussion the concept of (...) contributive justice to welcome the added labor-intensity of agroecological farming. Contributive justice demands a work environment where people are stimulated to develop skills and learn to be productive. It also suggests a fairer distribution of meaningful work and tedious tasks. Building on the notion of contributive justice we explore which capabilities and types of social relationships are sustainably promoted and reinforced by agroecological farming practices. We argue that agroecological principles encourage a reconceptualization of farm work. Farmers are continuously stimulated to develop skills and acquire valuable experiential knowledge on local ecosystems and agricultural techniques. Further, generalized ecological studies recognize the significance of the farmer’s observations on natural resources management. This contributes to the development of a number of capabilities and leads to more bargaining power, facilitating self-determination. Hereby farm work is made more attractive to a younger generation, which is an essential factor for safeguarding the continuity of family farms. (shrink)

The forfeiture thesis is posed as an independent thesis in moral philosophy according to which agents forfeit (or lose) rights if they perform certain act-types. According to many, this thesis plays a crucial role in the justification of (legal) punishment. In this paper, I argue that the forfeiture thesis is unnecessary – we can simply dismiss it without any substantive loss. Echoing an aspect of the specificationist approach to rights, the reason is that we may replace the forfeiture thesis with (...) an exception clause in the very content of the right not to be subjected to hard treatment: P has no right not to be subjected to hard treatment simpliciter, but a right not to be subjected to hard treatment unless P performs an act-type φ – e.g., murdering an innocent person. This alternative has substantive advantages over the forfeiture thesis, which, in turn, shows that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. (shrink)

Entre 1843 y 1844, uno de los conceptos centrales del pensamiento de Karl Marx es el de ser genérico. Es indudable en este concepto la herencia terminológica feuerbachiana, cuya principal referencia es el concepto de género. Sin embargo, este trabajo muestra que en su funcionamiento el ser genérico, lejos prolongar el concepto feuerbachiano, implica su refutación. Esto permite comprenderlo en una problemática más amplia de la obra de Marx: el proceso histórico de sustitución de las interrelaciones fundantes de los cuerpos (...) por su forma representada. (shrink)

In this paper a tentative explanation of the competence of argumentation from an evolutionary point of view is offered. Because in contemporary argumentation theory and the informal logic approach the evolutionary perspective has been neglected, this paper gives an initial overview on the matter with the hope that core aspects of the argumentative faculty—such as argumentative normativity, the function of arguments, or fallacious moves, among others—can be seen differently afterwards. In order to specify the proposal, the main concepts considered are (...) the notion of collective intentionality, cooperation, reputation, niche construction and, of course, basic evolutionary terms. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an organizational account that defines biological functions as causal relations subject to closure in living systems, interpreted as the most typical example of organizationally closed and differentiated self-maintaining systems. We argue that this account adequately grounds the teleological and normative dimensions of functions in the current organization of a system, insofar as it provides an explanation for the existence of the function bearer and, at the same time, identifies in a non-arbitrary way the norms that (...) functions are supposed to obey. Accordingly, we suggest that the organizational account combines the etiological and dispositional perspectives in an integrated theoretical framework. IntroductionDispositional ApproachesEtiological TheoriesBiological Self-maintenance Closure, teleology, and normativityOrganizational differentiationFunctions C1: Contributing to the maintenance of the organization C2: Producing the functional trait Implications and Objections Functional versus useful Dysfunctions, side effects, and accidental contributionsProper functions and selected effectsReproductionRelation with other ‘unitarian’ approachesConclusions. (shrink)

The platonic ideas attribution into God’s mind creates a problem, namely: how to speak about “divine attributes” without put multiplicity into the divine simple substance? From this problem, this paper aims to show how Luis de Léon is between Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus.

In contrast to the “normativist” view, “naturalist” theorists claim that the concept of health refers to natural or normal states and propose different characterizations of healthy and diseased conditions that are meant to be objectivist and biologically grounded. In this article, we examine the core concept of these naturalist accounts of disease, i.e., the concept of biological malfunction, and develop a new formulation of the notion of malfunction following the recent organizational approach to functions in the philosophy of biology. We (...) focus on the notions of adaptive regulation and functional presupposition to develop a new conceptual framework that justifies the ascription of malfunctional behaviors to biological systems according to the embodied normativity of biological organizations. (shrink)

The debate about how neurotechnologies impact authenticity has focused on two inter-related dimensions: self-discovery and self-creation. In this paper, we develop a broader framework that includes the experimental and relational dimensions of authenticity, both understood as decisive for shaping one’s narrative identity. In our view, neurointerventions that alter someone’s personality traits will also impact her very own self-understanding across time. We argue that experimental authenticity only needs a minimum conception of narrative coherence of the self and that reversibility should remain (...) a key feature in the ethical assessment of neurotechnologies. The relational dimension of authenticity derives from the fact that a process of self-constitution is never a solitary business. The significant others act not just as subsequent judges of one’s life decisions, but as real co-authors of one’s self. We discuss relevant cases in which others are actively contributing to the meaning-making process, as to the direction one’s life is taking. We also claim that the experimental and the relational dimensions of authenticity should aim to correct each other. The relational dimension introduces socially approved standards as well as limitations to the array of available possibilities of self-fashioning or human enhancement. The experimental side enables us to avoid confusing one’s personal identity with a social and narrative construct that only bears the mark of social pressure and conformism. (shrink)

Having an adequate and extensively recognized resource governance system is essential for the conservation and sustainable use of crop genetic resources in a highly populated planet. Despite the widely accepted importance of agrobiodiversity for future plant breeding and thus food security, there is still pervasive disagreement at the individual level on who should own genetic resources. The aim of the article is to provide conceptual clarification on the following concepts and their relation to agrobiodiversity stewardship: open access, commons, private property, (...) state property and common heritage of humankind. After presenting each property regime, we will examine whether and how these incentivize the conservation, improvement and sharing of crop genetic resources, and conclude by defending a mixed property regime. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the process of mutual understanding from the perspective of Discursive Neurolinguistics. As a methodology, a case study was carried out on a child with a linguistic profile of verbal restriction, which concerns the dimension of utterances involving words and their morphology. Data interpretation was based on the Bakhtinian perspective, which addresses ‘understanding’ as an active-responsive process and meaning as emerging from the relationship between utterances. The results showed that the interlocutors’ common ground allowed the (...) joint construction of meaning even in the face of verbal restrictions, and aspects such as nonverbal elements and the recognition of the child’s active-responsive role also favored mutual understanding. As a conclusion, the attention to different multimodal resources as legitimate modes of expression allows children with verbal restrictions to fulfill the role of “speakers” regardless of their modes of expression. (shrink)

I examine the current state of the debate on the metaphysics of science. In 1, I identify some of the main questions belonging to the MS, looking into the relationship between science and metaphysics. In 2, I expound the rise of the old wave in the MS, which endorses the belief that metaphysics is a guide to, or a heuristic for, science and outlines the stronger idea that metaphysics makes science possible. In 3, I examine the maximalist MS. This is (...) a contemporary revival of the old wave, reformulating the claim that metaphysics makes science possible. In 4, I look into the new wave in the MS, which argues that science is a guide to metaphysics and, more radically, that metaphysics is to be motivated by, and restricted to, science. In 5, I briefly introduce my own minimalist MS, which contends that science sets the epistemic, methodological and ontological criteria which should work as desiderata of the MS. I close this chapter in 6 with some concluding remarks. (shrink)

Extreme inequality of opportunity leads to a number of social tensions, inefficiencies and injustices. One issue of increasing concern is the effect inequality is having on people’s fair chances of attaining meaningful work, thus limiting opportunities to make a significant positive contribution to society and reducing the chances of living a flourishing life and developing their potential. On a global scale we can observe an increasingly uneven provision of meaningful work, raising a series of ethical concerns that need detailed examination. (...) The aim of this article is to explore the potential of a normative framework based upon the idea of contributive justice to defend a fairer provision of meaningful work. (shrink)

What are the main conditions that any theory of human rights should satisfy to guide action? If agents must take action for a fairer world as human rights discourse suggests, this is a crucial question to reflect upon. In this paper, I make a proposal. I argue that any theory of (moral) human rights that guides action on the basis of correlative duties must satisfy three key conditions. The first condition is focused on the specification of act-types, the second concerns (...) the distribution of correlative duties, and the third is focused on the resolution of (resolvable) conflicts of human rights. I show that this proposal has substantive implications because it implies to reject, challenge and, in some cases, resist ideas that are commonly accepted in the literature on human rights. (shrink)

Very large databases are a major opportunity for science and data analytics is a remarkable new field of investigation in computer science. The effectiveness of these tools is used to support a “philosophy” against the scientific method as developed throughout history. According to this view, computer-discovered correlations should replace understanding and guide prediction and action. Consequently, there will be no need to give scientific meaning to phenomena, by proposing, say, causal relations, since regularities in very large databases are enough: “with (...) enough data, the numbers speak for themselves”. The “end of science” is proclaimed. Using classical results from ergodic theory, Ramsey theory and algorithmic information theory, we show that this “philosophy” is wrong. For example, we prove that very large databases have to contain arbitrary correlations. These correlations appear only due to the size, not the nature, of data. They can be found in “randomly” generated, large enough databases, which—as we will prove—implies that most correlations are spurious. Too much information tends to behave like very little information. The scientific method can be enriched by computer mining in immense databases, but not replaced by it. (shrink)

Currently, humanity is experiencing an explosive growth in technological objects designed to improve the body and mind. The main objective of this article is to review two recent classificatory and explanatory systems to cognitive enhancement cybernetic technologies, including both wearable and implantable artifacts that reorganize human embodiment or extend the mind. I argue that an outdated model of the cognitive sciences serves as the basis for these revised systems and taxonomies. Taking an embodied approach to the cognitive sciences, I propose (...) an alternative focus to classify cognitive enhancement cybernetic technologies. Specifically, by adopting a non-orthodox enactive approach to embodied cognition, I propose a new classificatory system that redefines the notion of the cybernetically enhanced human, restricting it to a purely cognitive context. Finally, I evaluate some philosophical implications of my system. (shrink)

Archaeology, like most sciences that rely on stratigraphic excavation for studying the past, tends to conceptualize this past as lying deep underneath the ground. Accordingly, chronologies tend to be depicted as a movement from bottom to top, which contrast with sciences that illustrate the passage of time horizontally. By paying attention to the development of the visual language of disciplines that follow stratigraphy, I show how chronologies get entangled with other temporalities, particularly those of writing. Relying on recent ethnographic work (...) with archaeologists, the analysis reveals that excavation emerges as a double vertical movement of downward destruction and upward reconstruction that coincides with a systematic dissociation of time and space that has important effects for the understanding of the formation of sites. I conclude by looking at some of the implications of this dissociation for contemporary theoretical discussions, particularly those that emerged after the phenomenological push to horizontalize the discipline. Challenging this dissociation, I argue that the conceptualization of time in science should be understood as a process that depends on the body and unfolds in movement. (shrink)

Taking people’s longevity as a measure of good life, humankind can proudly say that the average person is living a much longer life than ever before. The AIDS epidemic has however for the first time in decades stalled and in some cases even reverted this trend in a number of countries. Climate change is increasingly becoming a major challenge for food security and we can anticipate that hunger caused by crop damages will become much more common. -/- Since many of (...) the challenges humanity faced in the past were overcome by inventive solutions coming from the life sciences, we are compelled to reconsider how we incentivize science and technology development so that those in need can benefit more broadly from scientific research. There is a huge portion of the world population that is in urgent need for medicines to combat diseases that are currently neglected by the scientific community and could immensely benefit from agricultural research that specifically targets their environmental conditions. At the same time efforts have to be made to make the fruits of current and future research more widely accessible. These changes would have to be backed by a range of moral arguments to attract people with diverging notions of global justice. This article explores the main ethical theories used to demand a greater share in the benefits from scientific progress for the poor. Since life sciences bring about a number of special concerns, a short list of conflictive issues is also offered. (shrink)

The article examines H.L.A. Hart's most important texts on classical natural law theory in order to assess his understanding of that theory. The author considers first the way of presenting the two meanings of the theory of natural law (namely, moral objectivity and the union of law and morals). Afterwards, he analyzes Hart's thought on the first thesis, especially on the teleology of human nature; then on the second one, especially on the meaning of the invalidity of unjust laws. In (...) both cases, the author compares Hart's understanding with the self understanding of natural lawyers, referring preferably to Aquinas and Finnis. The conclusion is that Hart misunderstood classical natural law theory in such a way that it warranted the suspicion that he did not have a first hand acquaintance with that theory. (shrink)

Any system for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) has three main kinds of distributive effects. It will determine or influence: (a) the types of objects that will be developed and for which IPRs will be sought; (b) the differential access various people will have to these objects; and (c) the distribution of the IPRs themselves among various actors. What this means to the area of pharmaceutical research is that many urgently needed medicines will not be developed at all, (...) that the existing medicines will not be suitable for countries with a precarious health infrastructure or not target the disease variety that is prevalent in poorer regions. Such effects are commonly captured under the rubric of the “10/90 gap” in biomedical research. High prices will also restrict access to medicines as well endanger compliance to treatment schemes. IPRs are mainly held by multinational corporations situated in the developed world, which not only raises egalitarian concerns, but also severely limits the possibilities of companies in poorer countries to realize improvements on existing inventions, as they cannot financially afford to secure freedom to operate, which systematically shrinks the number of potential innovators. Those inequities lead to an enormous burden for the global poor and since no institution is willing to assume the responsibility to fulfil the right to health and the corresponding right of access to essential medicines, we have to analyse alternatives or additions to the actual intellectual property regimes in order to create new incentives to fill this gap. (shrink)

El presente trabajo de investigación tiene como objeto el estudio de la legislación penal en la República de Colombia desde 1890 hasta la actualidad con la ley 599 de 2000, este último conocido como el vigente Código Penal. Lo anterior, conforme a la siguiente pregunta problémica ¿se ha dado un desarrollo oportuno de la legislación penal colombiana que otorgue soluciones fehacientes a las necesidades de una política criminal sólida desde sus inicios hasta la actualidad? Con ello, se pretende analizar las (...) diversas escuelas que han influido en los legisladores a la promulgación y tipificación de los delitos y sus penas en el marco jurídico penal colombiano. Se destaca ante todo, el análisis que a lo largo del desarrollo del ordenamiento jurídico colombiano abarca el contexto constitucional, doctrinal y jurisprudencial, los cuales, han logrado evidenciar el carácter de un óptimo “derecho penal” a lo largo del contexto histórico del país en mención. Se destaca así, la gran influencia de las Escuelas Clásica, Positivista y Finalista, que a hoy han venido a establecerse con fuerza en Colombia a lo largo de su codificación, desde 1980 hasta la actual ley 599 del año 2000. (shrink)

En este artículo se discute la visión de la teoría de la argumentación como una forma de epistemología aplicada. El punto de partida es la descripción de cuatro perspectivas que se consideran fundadoras de la teoría moderna de la argumentación, para desde allí observar si en ellas hubo un concepto s..

This paper argues for a revised concept of authenticity entailing two demands that must be balanced. The first demand moves authenticity from the position of a strictly self-regarding virtue towards the position of a fully social virtue, acknowledging the crucial feature of steadiness, i.e. self-consistency, as being precisely what we ‘naturally’ lack. Nevertheless, the value of personal authenticity in a modern, open society comes from the fact that it brings about not only steadiness, but also the public development of a (...) variety of existential options that can be understood as Millian ‘original experiments in living’. Thus the second demand of authenticity is a demand for ‘experimental’ authenticity which covers the whole spectrum of technologies of the self, from Nietzschean ‘brief habits’, to the use of enhancement technologies. (shrink)

The Anthropocene is seen by many scholars across the sciences and the humanities as a tool for political action. Yet the validation process for this term appears to be extremely conservative. According to geologists’ leading efforts to formalize the term, signals need to petrify in stratigraphic sequences in order to become candidates to mark the start of the Anthropocene. I argue that this emphasis results from a fossilized view of becoming, where time is seen as a punctuated accumulation of solid (...) surfaces that are accessible only in retrospect. I show that this petrified view of change relates to a tendency to divorce earth and sky, which currently divides the practices of humanities scholars and geologists, as well as those of earth system scientists and stratigraphers collaborating on the formalization of the Anthropocene. Challenging this tendency, I conclude, requires opening up earth’s history to the more-than-solid flows of environmental change. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine the problematic frontier that separates the phenomenology of the body and the phenomenology of animality. The main difficulty is to differentiate phenomenologically not only between embodiment and animality, but also between specifically human embodied experience and what is accessible to us through empathy in relation to the corporeality of the animal. I will tackle these questions by considering relevant textual material from the writings of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. On the one (...) hand, I will show that although embodiment and animality are convergent on the level of the naturalistic attitude in Husserl’s Ideas II, they are divergent as soon as we place ourselves in the personalistic attitude, where the body enters into a different conjunction—namely, with the idea of person and of the spiritual world. On the other hand, Heidegger claims that, in spite of the abysmal bodily kinship with the animal, there is an essential difference between the human body and the animal organism, thus opposing the tendencies to humanize the animal and to animalize the human. (shrink)

Kitcher has proposed an ideal-theory account—well-ordered science (WOS)— of the collective good that science’s research agenda should promote. Against criticism regarding WOS’s action-guidance, Kitcher has advised critics not to confuse substantive ideals and the ways to arrive at them, and he has defended WOS as a necessary and useful ideal for science policy. I provide a distinction between two types of ideal-theories that helps clarifying WOS’s elusive nature. I use this distinction to argue that the action-guidance problem that WOS faces (...) remains even under the aims/means distinction, because the WOS’s failure is more basic than critics have suggested. (shrink)

Este artículo se basa en la problematización del concepto marxiano de alienación, interpretándolo a partir del problema más amplio del proceso histórico de sustitución creciente de las relaciones fundantes de los cuerpos por su forma representada. En primer lugar, se abordará el filosofema de la alienación, fundamentalmente en las concepciones de Hegel y Feuerbach, para mostrar, sobre fondo de esa relación, cuál es la diferencia específica de la perspectiva marxiana. A continuación, se seguirá paso a paso el desarrollo del concepto (...) de alienación del propio Marx, desde la concepción del trabajo alienado hasta la separación de los individuos de su ser genérico como una existencia contradictoria. Estos resultados se prolongarán en el apartado siguiente, para mostrar cómo la contradicción que implica separar al sujeto de su ser genérico solo se hace posible al recorrer el camino inverso de su reunificación en el dinero, que opera así como sustitución representada del ser genérico. (shrink)

As a policy instrument that is deeply rooted in technology assessment, the precautionary principle examines the effects of a given object on humans and the environment. In practice the principle is rarely used to analyze the effects of our safety measures on the object itself or the way it is produced. Yet it is exactly in the effect on the blood procurement system that blood safety regulations based on the precautionary principle have to be particularly careful, as the vast majority (...) of blood products in the Global North are obtained through donations. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 48, Issue 1, pp 57 - 76 The aim of this article is to address the question of the anthropological difference by focusing on the intersubjective relation between the human and the animal in the context of a phenomenological analysis of violence. Following some Levinasian and Derridian insights, my goal is to analyze the structural differences between interspecific and intraspecific violence by asking how the generic phenomenon of violence is modalized across various levels: from human to human, (...) from human to animal, from animal to human, from animal to animal. I will address questions of incarnated vulnerability and altered states of affectivity, and I will relate the various forms of violence emerging in the context of the anthropological difference to the question of territoriality, arguing that violence is structurally modified in relation to particular articulations of our worldly spatiality. (shrink)

Political membership refers to the condition of being a member of a particular political community. It is a relational concept by virtue of the fact that it presupposes a political relation shared by several individuals. Thus, a simple way to think about political membership is in terms of the rights and duties common to all full members of a specific community that it enforces. Those privileges and obligations are commonly delimited by political boundaries which regulate the relations among members and (...) aliens. (Published: 27 February 2012) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 5 , No. 1, 2012, pp. 57-69. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v5i1.14926. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine to what extent can a more or less uncontroversial list of human rights ground a liberal notion of toleration that would have as its object nonliberal states. Although it is sometimes taken for granted that respect for human rights should draw the limits of toleration, I argue that the Rawlsian argument for it does not fully work. More exactly, I defend the idea that, although he tries to warrant positive toleration for non-liberal peoples, the concept (...) of human rights can provide an argument only for a negative type of toleration. According to his reasoning, positive toleration would require an argument from the 'primacy of peoples', which unfortunately is implausible. Last but not least, I raise the question regarding the grounding of human rights as a vindicating tool for toleration. Here I argue that such an argument is necessary and propose one to the effect that human rights proper can justify toleration in the same way the harm principle does. Since the harm principle can justify non-interference only, the notion of human rights can ground a negative type of toleration. (shrink)

The concept of food sovereignty is becoming an element of everyday parlance in development politics and food justice advocacy. Yet to successfully achieve food sovereignty, the demands within this movement have to be compatible with the way people are pursuing consumer sovereignty, and vice versa. The aim of this article is to examine the different sets of demands that the two ideals of sovereignty bring about, analyze in how far these different demands can stand in constructive relations with each other (...) and explain why consumers have to adjust their food choices to seasonal production variability to promote food sovereignty and so secure future autonomy. (shrink)

One of the most attractive, but nevertheless highly controversial proposals to alleviate the negative effects of today’s international patent regime is the Health Impact Fund (HIF). Although the HIF has been drafted to facilitate access to medicines and boost pharmaceutical research, we have analysed the burdens for the global poor a similar proposal designed to promote the use and development of climate-friendly technologies would have. Drawing parallels from the access to medicines debate, we suspect that an analogous “Climate Impact Fund” (...) will increase the already very high scientific and technological supremacy of the developed world over the Global South. We advocate countering this dominance on the ground that countries with scarce research and development capacities will be in a difficult position to reject technologies and will not have a say on how such technologies should look like. Further, addressing global hazards should be an inclusive endeavour and not only a privilege reserved for the developed world. Incentivizing grassroots innovation would be a major step to promote scientific and technological inclusion. (shrink)

Die Diversität von Nahrungspflanzen, ein Ergebnis Jahrtausende langer Zuchtbemühungen, ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten dramatisch zurückgegangen. Schätzungen zufolge machen von den über 7000 Nahrungspflanzenarten ganze 103 Sorten 90% der Nahrungsmittelproduktion aus. Dieser Verlust könnte in Zukunft gewaltige negative Auswirkungen auf die Nahrungsmittelsicherheit haben, da die Biodiversität eine zentrale Rolle bei der Absorbierung biotischer und abiotischer Stressfaktoren spielt, die auf die Pflanzen wirken. Darüber hinaus stellt der Verlust eine bedeutende Verarmung nicht nur des Pools genetischer Ressourcen dar, die zukünftigen Generationen zur (...) Verfügung stehen, sondern auch der kulturellen Diversität, indem die Nahrungsmittelvielfalt der Landesküchen eingeschränkt und sowohl Kulturlandschaften als auch Stadtgärten vereinheitlicht werden. Wegen der grundlegenden Funktion, die die Agrobiodiversität in der menschlichen Gesellschaft erfüllt, werden wir im Folgenden verschiedene Schwierigkeiten bei der Pflege der Agrobiodiversität als ein gemeinsames Erbe der Menschheit in einer stark ungleichen Welt erörtern. Zuvor jedoch möchten wir untersuchen, was Agrobiodiversität eigentlich ist und welche Funktion sie für das menschliche Wohlbefinden erfüllt. Ziel dieses Artikels ist zu zeigen, inwieweit sich verschiedene Anreizsysteme unterschiedlich auf den Erhalt von Agrobiodiversität auswirken. (shrink)