This article deals with a subject that in spite of its familiarity has to date received little attention from scholars of Olivecrona’s work. Indeed, it is often common, when discussing Olivecrona’s legal theory, to mention that the latter makes use of the magical view to explain, from an empirical standpoint, the suggestive force of the law. The topic, however, is not usually examined in depth, with a small number of exceptions. In these lines, we will attempt to show how Olivecrona (...) develops this topic and emphasise the importance of this so as to, on the one hand, reach a proper understanding of his theory, and on the other, offer a critique of it. (shrink)

The Stoics considered that in order to die well, one must previously have lived and not merely existed, an assertion which will not be contested in this paper. The question raised here is whether an individual whose life expectancy is jeopardized by serious illness or whose life has not been lived to the ‘full’ for whatever reason should have to abandon all hope or, alternately, whether that life could still somehow be saved. One clear obstacle to achieving this stems from (...) moral character, given that moral character is an element which conditions an individual’s moral behaviour, as pointed out by Beauchamp and Childress and particularly Pellegrino and Thomasma. The transformation of moral character requires time and effort but the testimonies of patients who have given their lives a radical new direction upon being diagnosed with a serious illness seem to show the existence of a peculiar phenomenon of moral catharsis. In this paper we attempt to illustrate that this alleged phenomenon is not the result of a kind of cataleptic impression but rather the result of a dialectic and narrative process, during which a first hope of healing is dashed, unveiling a new sense in the illness. Its fulfillment provides the patient with a final hope. (shrink)

Even though it is not a methodology on the level of principlism or casuistry, narrative bioethics nonetheless contributes to and guides decision-making in the field of biomedical ethics. However, unlike other methodologies, the narrative approach lacks a set of specific patterns and formal rules for doing so. This deficiency leaves this approach more vulnerable to the influence of historical factors; in fact, the vital history of a person is made up of thousands of scenes, which one must select and group (...) under different norms. Yet the historicity of narrative does not destroy its normative value; rather, it gives rise to a confluence of stories that contradict one another on the basis of their practical consequences. This problem is less severe in traditional cultures, where some stories take precedence over others according to the normative value conferred through the supposed authority of their sources. But it manifests in an intense manner within current multicultural societies. It is imperative to find the thread that leads outside the labyrinth of subjectivity. This paper shows that the end of this thread lies, paradoxically, not in actions but in the subject-actors that perform them—specifically when such subjects are conceived as dramaturgical characters in narrative. (shrink)

This article deals with a subject that in spite of its familiarity has to date received little attention from scholars of Olivecrona’s work. Indeed, it is often common, when discussing Olivecrona’s legal theory, to mention that the latter makes use of the magical view to explain, from an empirical standpoint, the suggestive force of the law. The topic, however, is not usually examined in depth, with a small number of exceptions. In these lines, we will attempt to show how Olivecrona (...) develops this topic and emphasise the importance of this so as to, on the one hand, reach a proper understanding of his theory, and on the other, offer a critique of it. (shrink)

Dorian Gray pays a hefty price for years of sin and vice in this completely unabridged edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This study examines the influence of women on the boards of directors of National Health Service Foundation Trusts in England. FTs provide a public service where social performance is the primary objective, although financial constraints must be met. Female presence is higher for executive directors than non-executives, reflecting the high number of women employed in the sector. We find that a high female presence among executive and non-executive directorships does not result in significant differences either in financial return or service (...) quality. When gender diversity on boards is consistently high, the benefits on performance of having more women on the board may not be discernible. However, female Chairs or Chief Executives result in significant reductions in negative social outcomes, such as lower clinical negligence costs, without harming financial management. The findings of this study, carried out in a context of high female presence and where a woman frequently occupies one of the two most influential board positions, Chair and Chief Executive, have implications for gender diversity and gender targets on the boards of directors in business and other sectors. (shrink)

Considering the case of Juan de Vilanova y Piera, often celebrated as the first scientist to accept the prehistoric antiquity of palaeolithic paintings, we explore some of the problems related to the concept of ‘precursor’ in the field of the history of science. In the first section, we propose a brief history of this notion focusing on those authors who have reflected critically on the meaning of predecessors. In the second section, the example of Vilanova illustrates the ways in which (...) historians of science have created precursors. From the vantage of modern science, precursors have traditionally been defined as those who first indicated or announced ideas or theories later accepted by the scientific community. As a result, they have been represented as ‘heroes’ struggling hard to defeat the ignorance of their time. As the case of Juan de Vilanova illustrates, this traditional view is unsatisfactory in many ways. For this reason we consider in the third section a number of methodological strategies to promote a more adequate approach to pioneers. In particular, we suggest that the best way to surmount hagiographical approaches to past scientists is to put them in their own intellectual and historical contexts. (shrink)

The prestigious French publisher Presses Universitaires de France has recently brought out (November 1995) a new French edition of Elie Halévy's well known book "The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism", first published in France in three volumes as "La formation du radicalisme philosophique" (1901-1904) and translated into English in 1926. The prevailing opinion on this book is that it gives an excellent account of English utilitarianism. Thus, in the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Talcott Parsons speaks of it as the ‘virtually (...) definitive analysis of utilitarianism’. More recently Donald Winch, in his introduction to the Penguin edition of John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, describes Halévy's book as: ‘Still the best study of the ideas and activities of the school taken as a whole’. In this short essay I express a very different opinion. I show that Halévy, who qualifies utilitarianism (with obvious disgust) as ‘a plebeian or rather bourgeois morality’, as ‘much too simple’, completely misunderstood the writings of the English and Scottish utilitarian philosophers. (shrink)

El presente artículo, sin mayores pretensiones teóricas, intenta presentar tres coordenadas filosóficas sobre el sujeto moderno que se hicieron cargo de las consecuencias del debate en torno a la modernidad/postmodernidad desde Latinoamérica y Chile. Pablo Oyarzún, Martín Hopenhayn y Eduardo Sabrovsky, representan un intento por comprender esta situación en la perspectiva histórico- crítica de la filosofía contemporánea.

In attempting to debunk moral realism through an appeal to evolutionary facts, debunkers face a series of problems, which we label the problems of scope, corrosiveness, and post‐hoc justification. To overcome these problems, debunkers must assume certain metaphysical or epistemological positions, or otherwise pre‐establish them. In doing so, they must assume or pre‐establish the very conclusion they seek in advancing the argument. This means that such debunking arguments either beg the question against the moral realist or are undermined as standalone (...) metaethical arguments. (shrink)

Recent molecular evidence suggests that the body plans of insects and vertebrates may be dorsoventrally inverted with respect to one another. This poses a major challenge for comparative zoologists, either to explain how this came about or to offer alternative interpretations of the data. Dorsoventral inversion is most easily explained if the mouth of deuterostome metazoans (which would include vertebrates) is truly a secondary structure unrelated to the protostome mouth, located opposite to the latter on the dorsal surface of the (...) body. Two possibilities are (1) that the definitive deuterostome mouth has replaced a preexisting protostome‐type mouth, or (2) that ancestral deuterostomes lacked a protostome‐type mouth altogether, and formed a secondary dorsal mouth entirely de novo. Our current understanding of invertebrate embryogenesis and larval morphology provides at least as much support, if not more, for (2) as for (1). By implication, even if ancestral protostomes and deuterostomes shared common anteroposterior and dorsoventral patterning systems, they may still have differed significantly with respect to other aspects of body organization and been otherwise very dissimilar organisms. (shrink)

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) debate is gaining ground in contemporary evolutionary biology. In parallel, a number of philosophical standpoints have emerged in an attempt to clarify what exactly is represented by the EES. For Massimo Pigliucci, we are in the wake of the newest instantiation of a persisting Kuhnian paradigm; in contrast, Telmo Pievani has contended that the transition to an EES could be best represented as a progressive reformation of a prior Lakatosian scientific research program, with the extension (...) of its Neo-Darwinian core and the addition of a brand-new protective belt of assumptions and auxiliary hypotheses. Here, we argue that those philosophical vantage points are not the only ways to interpret what current proposals to ‘extend’ the Modern Synthesis-derived ‘standard evolutionary theory’ (SET) entail in terms of theoretical change in evolutionary biology. We specifically propose the image of the emergent EES as a vast network of models and interweaved representations that, instantiated in diverse practices, are connected and related in multiple ways. Under that assumption, the EES could be articulated around a paraconsistent network of evolutionary theories (including some elements of the SET), as well as models, practices and representation systems of contemporary evolutionary biology, with edges and nodes that change their position and centrality as a consequence of the co-construction and stabilization of facts and historical discussions revolving around the epistemic goals of this area of the life sciences. We then critically examine the purported structure of the EES—published by Laland and collaborators in 2015—in light of our own network-based proposal. Finally, we consider which epistemic units of Evo-Devo are present or still missing from the EES, in preparation for further analyses of the topic of explanatory integration in this conceptual framework. (shrink)

Se examina en qué medida las ciencias cognitivas iluminan aspectos cruciales del hecho religioso. Según George Lakoff y Mark Johnson, la teoría de las metáforas esclarece cómo la corporalidad determina estructuralmente las representaciones religiosas, lo que permite sustentar una "espiritualidad encarnada". Se busca mostrar que la propuesta requiere superar al menos dos tendencias para lograr un juicio crítico sobre la religión: una, reducir la religión a un asunto de sistemas conceptuales; otra, restar importancia a la cuestión hermenéutica para la valoración (...) de la experiencia religiosa. (shrink)

Over de bijdrage van Hegel's filosofie aan onze kennis van de wereld.

An individual's health, genetic, or environmental-exposure data, placed in an online repository, creates a valuable shared resource that can accelerate biomedical research and even open opportunities for crowd-sourcing discoveries by members of the public. But these data become “immortalized” in ways that may create lasting risk as well as benefit. Once shared on the Internet, the data are difficult or impossible to redact, and identities may be revealed by a process called data linkage, in which online data sets are matched (...) to each other. Reidentification, the process of associating an individual's name with data that were considered deidentified, poses risks such as insurance or employment discrimination, social stigma, and breach of the promises often made in informed-consent documents. At the same time, re-ID poses risks to researchers and indeed to the future of science, should re-ID end up undermining the trust and participation of potential research participants. The ethical challenges of online data sharing are heightened as so-called big data becomes an increasingly important research tool and driver of new research structures. Big data is shifting research to include large numbers of researchers and institutions as well as large numbers of participants providing diverse types of data, so the participants’ consent relationship is no longer with a person or even a research institution. In addition, consent is further transformed because big data analysis often begins with descriptive inquiry and generation of a hypothesis, and the research questions cannot be clearly defined at the outset and may be unforeseeable over the long term. In this article, we consider how expanded data sharing poses new challenges, illustrated by genomics and the transition to new models of consent. We draw on the experiences of participants in an open data platform—the Personal Genome Project—to allow study participants to contribute their voices to inform ethical consent practices and protocol reviews for big-data research. (shrink)

Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and (...) the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes), in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the “externalism–internalism” debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology. (shrink)

A recent paper by Shu et al.(1) reinterprets the fossil Vetulicola and related forms, all from the Lower Cambrian, as basal deuterostomes, assigning them their own phylum, Vetulicolia. Their conclusion is based on the presence of structures resembling gill slits and a trunk‐like region that shows evidence of segmentation. This report summarizes the fossil evidence for their interpretation and evaluates a possible alternative, that vetulicolians may instead be tunicate‐like chordates. Implications for our understanding of the nature of the primitive deuterostome (...) (and chordate) body plan are discussed. BioEssays 24:208–211, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.; DOI 10.1002/bies.10064. (shrink)

This article presents the findings of an audience research conducted with 86 young Spanish people aged 15 to 29 years. The investigation examines the modes of reception of television fiction, and the impact of the shows on the viewers. Friends’ influence on the choice of program, and the tendency to use social networks to comment on the shows and to talk about themselves, underline the crucial role played by TV fiction and new technologies in socialization processes. While most participants criticized (...) the propensity of television fiction to build extreme stereotypes, they also showed a clear predilection for Spanish programs, and admitted that their characters often offer inspiration to face everyday problems. (shrink)

Reconstruction is a central notion in Dewey’s account of inquiry and in his metaphilosophical commitments. In his work, Dewey made a call for reconstruction of philosophy, in the reconstruction of central notions of the discipline, like knowledge, logic, truth, the good, reason, and experience. Inquiry itself is reconstructive, according to Dewey, involving the transformation of an indeterminate situation into one which is determinate and understood. Dewey’s philosophical views should therefore be of interest to those taking part in the recent turn (...) towards revisionary philosophical methodologies, like conceptual engineering, explication, and amelioration. In light of the recent developments in revisionary methodologies, I aim to explore Dewey’s conception of concepts in relation to the conceptual engineering literature, suggesting that it provides a useful conception of concepts for conceptual engineering, and to suggest a Deweyan model of philosophical inquiry where concepts are the objects of inquiry. In both cases, I hope to show a productive interaction between Dewey’s ideas and contemporary discussions of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Insofar as development implies economic growth, the term 'sustainable development' appears to some as a contradiction in terms. However, such conclusions still lack a thorough examination of the conceptual structure of the two terms between which there is a purported contradiction. In order to address this issue, the present paper scrutinises some of the assumptions which underwrite the ideologies of sustainability and of development. It is argued that there are key assumptions which both ideas have in common, and that sustainable (...) development is thus perfectly coherent on a conceptual level. It is alternatives which retain either term (such as 'sustainable degrowth') that are embroiled in paradox. The paper then examines two concepts for criticising the ideology of economic growth in other terms: dépense and conviviality. It is argued that the latter is preferable to the former for the purpose of developing post-sustainable critiques of growth. (shrink)

This book presents an original thesis about the notion of sensory experience and of the mind’s architecture, which is grounded in current trends in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Presented in the form of a dialogue, the book explores some of the psychological and philosophical consequences that the author derives from his proposal.

I argue against the Standard View of ignorance, according to which ignorance is defined as equivalent to lack of knowledge, that cases of environmental epistemic luck, though entailing lack of knowledge, do not necessarily entail ignorance. In support of my argument, I contend that in cases of environmental luck an agent retains what I call epistemic access to the relevant fact by successfully exercising her epistemic agency and that ignorance and non-ignorance, contrary to what the Standard View predicts, are not (...) modal in the sense that knowledge is. After responding to objections, I conclude by sketching an alternative account of ignorance centered on the notions of epistemic access and epistemic agency. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are instances in which tobacco control litigation is strengthening the justiciability of the right to health and health-related rights. This is happening in different parts of the world, but in particular in Latin America. In part this is because, to a certain extent, tobacco control litigation based on fundamental rights overcomes the traditional arguments against economic, social and cultural rights adjudication: the anti-democratic argument, the lack of technical competency argument, the problem of the misallocation of (...) scarce public resources and the problem of the implementation of judicial decisions. As we analyzed in this paper, tobacco control cases based on fundamental rights are allowing courts to elaborate on broader standards of judicial adjudication of social rights, e.g., expand notions of standing, progressive realization, and state obligations enshrined in the right to health. Key to this judicial trend is the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which provides a legal standard — supported by scientific evidence — defining concrete measures states should take to address the tobacco epidemic, and thus giving content to the right to health as it relates to tobacco control. (shrink)

There is perhaps no area of law that so effectively protects human health and thereby advances the right to the highest attainable standard of health, as tobacco control. Globally, tobacco is responsible for 1 in 10 adult deaths, and is on track to kill 10 million people per year, mostly in developing countries, representing a US$200 billion drain on the global economy. Yet experience in recent decades has shown that a range of tobacco control measures, such as comprehensive bans on (...) smoking in public places, tobacco taxes, and limits on tobacco advertising, can greatly reduce smoking prevalence. These measures have slowly curtailed the epidemic, despite strong opposition from various sectors led by the tobacco industry. It is fitting that tobacco control is the focus of a recent, widely ratified global treaty and of increasing national litigation, often directly linked to countries’ human rights commitments. (shrink)

This paper discusses the meaning of an image rarely used within the religious and philosophical corpus of ancient India in order to describe the ultimate nature of God and the human being: a wall or canvas (Sanskrit, bhitti). The usage of such a peculiar image belongs to Abhinavagupta, the great exegete of the Tantric tradition who lived in Kashmir between the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. After presenting some antecedents, the paper focuses on key passages taken fromAbhinavagupta’s work and shows (...) how, far from being secondary, the image of a wall possesses a remarkable consistency and expressive power in accordance withAbhinavagupta’s doctrinal presuppositions, in particular his commitment to a dynamic and ultimately paradoxical view of the divine realm, the universe and salvation. (shrink)

I argue that a standard formulation of hinge epistemology is host to epistemic relativism and show that two leading hinge approaches (Coliva’s acceptance account and Pritchard’s nondoxastic account) are vulnerable to a form of incommensurability that leads to relativism. Building on both accounts, I introduce a new, minimally epistemic conception of hinges that avoids epistemic relativism and rationally resolves hinge disagreements. According to my proposed account, putative cases of epistemic incommensurability are rationally resolvable: hinges are propositions that are the objects (...) of our belief-like attitudes and are rationally revisable in virtue of our overarching commitment to avoid systematic deception in our epistemic practices. (shrink)

More than five hundred years after Machiavelli wrote The Prince, his landmark treatise on the pragmatic application of power remains a pivot point for debates on political thought. While scholars continue to investigate interpretations of The Prince in different contexts throughout history, from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento and Italian unification, other fruitful lines of research explore how Machiavelli’s ideas about power and leadership can further our understanding of contemporary political circumstances. With Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict, David Johnston, Nadia (...) Urbinati, and Camila Vergara have brought together the most recent research on The Prince, with contributions from many of the leading scholars of Machiavelli, including Quentin Skinner, Harvey Mansfield, Erica Benner, John McCormick, and Giovanni Giorgini. Organized into four sections, the book focuses first on Machiavelli’s place in the history of political thought: Is he the last of the ancients or the creator of a new, distinctly modern conception of politics? And what might the answer to this question reveal about the impact of these disparate traditions on the founding of modern political philosophy? The second section contrasts current understandings of Machiavelli’s view of virtues in The Prince. The relationship between political leaders, popular power, and liberty is another perennial problem in studies of Machiavelli, and the third section develops several claims about that relationship. Finally, the fourth section explores the legacy of Machiavelli within the republican tradition of political thought and his relevance to enduring political issues. (shrink)

Philosophical intervention in the dialogue between science and theology: an analysis of the concept of consonance In the last decades, a strong debate on the relationship between science and theology has taken place. In the early 1980, Ernan McMullin introduced the notion of “consonance”, defined as the spontaneous convergence of the conclusions presented by the natural sciences and theology on certain features or properties of the universe. In this paper, I shall try, first and foremost, to carefully look into the (...) meaning that has been attributed to this relationship. Thus, I shall examine the possible implications derived from specific cases of consonance; I shall consider the connection between consonance and truth ; I shall expand on the proposal for a dialogue based on different attitudes regarding consonance ; I shall evaluate the thesis that understands consonance as a cultural construction or an a priori accepted in certain contexts; finally, I shall mention certain variations of this concept, such as strong and weak consonance, or hypothetical consonance. Then, I shall explain the assumptions on which the idea of consonance rests: the unity and intelligibility of reality, the diversity of formal objects and the realism of knowledge. All these assumptions are comprehensive proof of the indispensable intervention of philosophy, as wisdom, in any kind of exchange that occurs between science and theology. And it is only from them that criticism regarding this issue is vested authority. Finally, I suggest a series of critical proposals on the notion of consonance. I shall stress, on the positive side, the opportunity that it offers to move towards a greater disciplinary integration and foster, at the same time, the ordering mission of philosophical wisdom. On the negative side, I shall point out the confusion between religion and theology, the tendency towards a kind of epistemic naturalism of theology, the uncertain creation of the idea of scientific realism and the aspiration to an excessive interference among disciplines. (shrink)