BACKGROUND: Health-based journal clubs have been in place for over 100 years. Participants meet regularly to critique research articles, to improve their understanding of research design, statistics and critical appraisal. However, there is no standard process of conducting an effective journal club. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify core processes of a successful health journal club. METHOD: We searched a range of library databases using established keywords. All research designs were initially considered to establish the body of evidence. (...) Experimental or comparative papers were then critically appraised for methodological quality and information was extracted on effective journal club processes. RESULTS: We identified 101 articles, of which 21 comprised the body of evidence. Of these, 12 described journal club effectiveness. Methodological quality was moderate. The papers described many processes of effective journal clubs. Over 80% papers reported that journal club intervention was effective in improving knowledge and critical appraisal skills. Few papers reported on the psychometric properties of their outcome instruments. No paper reported on the translation of evidence from journal club into clinical practice. CONCLUSION: Characteristics of successful journal clubs included regular and anticipated meetings, mandatory attendance, clear long- and short-term purpose, appropriate meeting timing and incentives, a trained journal club leader to choose papers and lead discussion, circulating papers prior to the meeting, using the internet for wider dissemination and data storage, using established critical appraisal processes and summarizing journal club findings. (shrink)

Patient outcome after serious brain injury is highly variable. Following a period of coma, some patients recover while others progress into a vegetative state (unresponsive wakefulness syndrome) or minimally conscious state. In both cases, assessment is difficult and misdiagnosis may be as high as 43%. Recent advances in neuroimaging suggest a solution. Both functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography have been used to detect residual cognitive function in vegetative and minimally conscious patients. Neuroimaging may improve diagnosis and prognostication. These techniques (...) are beginning to be applied to comatose patients soon after injury. Evidence of preserved cognitive function may predict recovery, and this information would help families and health providers. Complex ethical issues arise due to the vulnerability of patients and families, difficulties interpreting negative results, restriction of communication to “yes” or “no” answers, and cost. We seek to investigate ethical issues in the use of neuroimaging in behaviorally nonresponsive patients who have suffered serious brain injury. The objectives of this research are to: (1) create an approach to capacity assessment using neuroimaging; (2) develop an ethics of welfare framework to guide considerations of quality of life; (3) explore the impact of neuroimaging on families; and, (4) analyze the ethics of the use of neuroimaging in comatose patients. (shrink)

Ömer Naci Soykan'ın ülkemizde yayımlanan armağan kitaplar konusunda eleştirel bir yaklaşımı vardı. Bu eleştiri, armağan kitapların büyük çoğunluğunun "armağan" edildikleri düşünür ya da filozofla ilgili neredeyse hiçbir ciddi çalışmayı içermemesiyle ilgiliydi. Ona göre bir armağan kitabın öncelikli amacı "armağan" edildiği kişinin felsefi görüşlerine yer vermek olmalıydı. Dolayısıyla Soykan hayattayken kendisiyle ilgili bir armağan kitap çıkarmayı düşündüğümüzü dile getirdiğimizde ilk sözü "İçinde benim düşüncelerimle ilgili yazılar olacaksa olsun, yoksa istemiyorum!" olmuştu. "Sağdan soldan toplama yazılarla, tematik bütünlüğü olmayan yazıların art arda getirilmesiyle (...) oluşturulmuş bir armağan kitap olmaz. Armağan kitap, (bir "Festschrift") öncelikle o kişiyle, o kişinin düşünceleriyle ilgili yazılardan oluşması gerekir" diye de eklemişti. Bu kitabın gecikmesinin bir başka nedeni belki de Soykan'ın bu kadar açık biçimde dile getirdiği bu sözlerdi çünkü eleştirdiği türde bir armağan kitap hazırlamak görece kolay olabilirdi. Geç oldu ancak olması gereken gibi oldu! Kitaptaki her yazarın katkısı Soykan'ın görüşleri üzerine, onları açımlayan, değerlendiren, belki yer yer de eleştiren değerli çalışmalar olarak ortaya çıktı. Böylelikle onun isteğini de bir bakıma yerine getirmiş olduk. (shrink)

Mimarlık diğer sanat dallarından iki bakımdan ayrılır. İlk olarak mimari yapıtlarla etkileşim kaçınılmazdır. Müzik dinlemeden, tiyatro veya sinemaya gitmeden, resim veya heykel sergilerini gezmeden yaşamımızı sürdürebiliriz ancak mimari yapılar olmadan bu olanaklı olmaz. Bu bakımdan mimarlık sanatlar içinde belki de insan yaşamını en fazla etkileyen daldır. İkinci olarak mimarlık bir yaşam gereksinimini karşılayan, böyle bir işlevi olan belki de tek sanat dalıdır. Örneğin resim, heykel, şiir, sinema veya tiyatro yapıtlarını sanatsal açıdan değerlendirirken hangi gereksinimimizi karşıladıkları sorusunu sormayız. Buna karşılık mimari (...) yapılar barınma başta olmak üzere bir dizi maddi gereksinimimizi karşılarlar. Hangi gereksinimi karşılamak amacıyla yapıldıkları sorusu onların sanatsal açıdan değerlendirilmesinde önem taşır. Bu yazıda mimarlığın sanatlar içindeki bu iki özgünlüğünü dikkate alan bir düşünürün, Ömer Naci Soykan'ın mimarlık konusundaki görüşlerini sırasıyla “mimarlıkta temel nitelikler”, “mimarlık etkinliği”, “mimarlık dili” ve “mimarlık estetiği” başlıkları altında ele alacağız. (shrink)

Early in his Essays on Intellectual Powers, Reid draws a distinction between mental power, mental operation, and mental capacity (EIP 21). To the untrained eye, these terms could probably be used interchangeably, and Reid believes this is correct, up to a point. He argues that, if we are interested in understanding exactly how the human mind works, we must use these terms with more precise meanings. This is part of his more general strategy of trying to always use the words (...) with their common meanings, as much as possible, but also pointing out that certain philosophical distinctions are needed to carry out the project of laying out the foundations of the science of the mind. This paper explains what the distinction between power, operation, and capacity is, according to Reid, with the goal of understanding why it is important to draw such a distinction, not only for the Reidian project, but for action theory, more generally. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Each of the following papers gives an account of a different UK clinical ethics committee. The committees vary in the length of time they have been established, and also in the main focus of their work. The accounts discuss the development of the committees and some of the ethical problems that have been brought to them. The issues raised will be relevant for other National Health Service (NHS) trusts in the UK that wish to set up such a committee.

Discuto neste artigo o fragmento de Protágoras sobre a existência dos deuses e a sua coerência teórica com outras teses do sofista. Primeiramente, utilizo dados históricos e biográficos para iluminar o subjetivismo da primeira linha do fragmento. Em seguida, discuto os obstáculos epistemológicos mencionados por Protágoras e sugiro uma nova tradução para o termo brachýs, um dos conceitos centrais que ele propõe. Na seção 2, analiso o ataque à transcendência que distingue suas ideias sobre a matemática e a percepção sensível. (...) Finalmente, na seção 3, mostro como a sua postura teológica está de acordo com a tese do homo-mensura e com a sua abordagem antilógica. A conclusão ressalta a unidade do pensamento de Protágoras e a sua posição no Iluminismo grego. (shrink)

In metaethics, evolutionary debunking arguments combine empirical and epistemological premises to purportedly show that our moral judgments are unjustified. One objection to these arguments has been to distinguish between those judgments that evolutionary influence might undermine versus those that it does not. This response is powerful but not well understood. In this paper I flesh out the response by drawing upon a familiar distinction in the natural sciences, where it is common to distinguish folk judgments from theoretical judgments. I argue (...) that this in turn illuminates the proper scope of the evolutionary debunking argument, but not in an obvious way: it is a very specific type of undermining argument that targets those theories where theoretical judgments are inferred merely from folk judgments. One upshot of this conclusion is that it reveals a verboten methodology in metaethics. The evolutionary debunking argument is therefore much less powerful than its proponents have supposed, but it nevertheless rules out what is perhaps a common way of attempting to justify moral judgments. (shrink)

The fact that the mystical experience is a repetitive phenomenon in different social, cultural and religious structures in different periods and has a mysterious element in it has caused that mysticism has taken its place among the basic subjects of the field since the first periods of psychology of religion. One of the sections of The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is regarded as the main source of the area, is mysticism. In general, "mystical experience" is considered as a subcategory (...) of "religious experience", which is a wider area. For this reason, it also carries the characteristics of religious experience. Due to these common features, it can be seen that they are used in place of each other in the literature. If the religious experience is defined as the experience of the individual at the time of encounter with the sacred, such experience can be obtained in two ways. In the “religion-based mystical experience”, which is the first way, institutional or established religious thoughts and understandings and holly writings are influential. The second way, “non-religious or natural mystical experience”, can be said to be spiritual quests that individual needs play an important role in them are effective. Personality is used as one of the basic variables in social and health sciences in general, and in psychology because it is among the main subjects in particular. The common emphasis of research on personality is that the phenomenon is extremely complicated. Despite its widespread use, the abstraction of the concept has been influenced by the diversity of the researchers' perspectives and this has led to a lack of clear consensus on the definition. However, in order to investigate the phenomenon in recent periods, dimensional approaches that their basic assumption is personality can be categorized under certain factors have begun to be preferred. In this study, HEXACO was used, because it was thought that it could make a more detailed measurement of personality. The sample of this study is composed of 345 students studying at Erciyes University Theology Faculty in 2017-2018 academic year. When looked at the gender distribution of the sample, the rate of male students was 21.2% (n=73); and the rate of female students was 78.8% (n=272). This reflects the current situation in the faculty. The average age was 21,13 (sd=1,761). The age range is 18-26. Class distribution was 23,5% (n = 81) in Preparatory class; 15.4% (n = 53) in first-grade; 19.4% (n = 67) in second-grade; 18.3% (n=63) in third grade (n = 63); and 23.5% (n = 81) in the fourth grade. It has been noted that distributions are homogeneous in terms of class variables. The "Mystical Experience Scale" which is developed by Ralph W. Hood to measure the criteria which are offered by Walter T. Stace and which must be in the mystical experience has been used in determining the tendency of mystical experience. Hood et al. have reported reasonable reliabilities for subscales based on 3-factor solution. Alpha coefficients of the original scale were ,76, ,69, and ,76 for the extrovertive mysticism, introvertive mysticism and religious interpretation respectively. The adaptation of the scale to Turkish culture and the validity and reliability study were carried out by Mehmet Süheyl Unal as a graduate thesis and it was stated that the Alpha coefficient was ,89. In this study, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of scale is ,91. HEXACO, developed by Lee and Ashton, was used to determine personality traits. The scale was adapted to Turkish by Wasti, Lee, Ashton and Somer. The scale consists of Honesty-humility (H), Emotionality (E), eXtraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to experience (O) factors. Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Analysis was performed to determine if there is a relationship between mystical experience tendencies and personality traits when the data were analyzed in accordance with the aim of the study. Later, it was tried to determine the power of explaining the variables with Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. In addition, One-way ANOVA was used to determine whether there was any relationship between significance levels. Moreover, descriptive statistics of relevant variables are included in the study. Findings show that participants have the highest average to Positive Affect (m=3,69; sd.=,77) and the lowest average to Temporal/Spatial Quality (m=2,94; sd.=,89) factor in terms of mystical experience. Additively, they obtained close values in Ego Quality, Noetic Quality and Ineffability factors. When the students were evaluated in terms of gender, it was seen that there was a difference in level of significance only in terms of Unifying Quality (t=1,770; p=,028). ANOVA analysis was carried out to determine whether there was any variation in class variable. As a result of this analysis, it is seen that all of the factors are significantly differentiated in terms of class variable. From the standing point of class variable, it is seen that the first grades differed negatively compared to the other classes. According to the data, the scores on the mystical experience scale for preparation and first grade are high while the averages for the next grade are falling. There is no difference on level of significance between age and mystical experience factors, the last independent variable. When looked at the correlations among mystical experience factors, it is understood that all of the factors are in a meaningful relationship with each other. The highest correlation is between Religious Quality and Ineffability (r=,661); the lowest correlation is between the Unifying Quality and the Temporal/Spatial Quality (r=,346). Among the six factors of HEXACO that have been developed to determine the personality traits, the students have the highest average on Humility-Honesty (m=3,76; sd.=,55); the lowest average on eXtraversion (m=3,04; sd.=0,65). In terms of gender, there is a statistically significant difference in factors of Humility-Honesty (t=,606; p=,004), Emotionality (t=,334; p=,000), and Constientiousness (t=,022; p=,033). There is no significant difference between class and age variables and personality traits. According to Linear Regression analysis, Agreeableness, Constientiousness and Openness to Experience factors of personality traits are predictive of mystical experience in a significant level statistically. Personality dimensions that are most related to mystical experience as a result of analysis are Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience. When the mystical experience is compared with the personality traits, it is concluded that Openness to Experience factor is related to all the factors of the mystical experience except for the Ineffability. Although the relationship is regarded as weak in terms of correlation, it is an important finding that there are positive relations in between. In other words, as personality traits evolve, the mystical experience level also increases. The lack of a similar work in the literature in this respect removes the possibility of making comparisons. (shrink)

This study has focused on the mystical experience which is one of the most important topics of psychology of religion, but it is a subject not examined enough in Turkey and also tried to determine the relationship between personality traits and personality. Data were collected from 345 students who were studying at Erciyes University Faculty of Theology by questionnaire method. “The Mysticism Scale”which is developed by Ralph Hood and widely used in international literature to measure the mystical experience and “HEXACO (...) Personality Inventory”were used to measure the personality traits of students. In addition to descriptive statistics of demographic characteristics of the sample, The Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Analysis, Independent Sample t-Test and One-Way ANOVA techniques were used in the analysis. Findings show that participants have the highest average to Positive Affect and the lowest average to Temporal/Spatial Quality factor. In addition, they obtained close values in Ego Quality, Noetic Quality and Ineffability factors. When the students were evaluated in terms of gender, it was seen that there was a difference in level of significance only in terms of Unifying Quality. ANOVA analysis was carried out to determine whether there was any variation in class variable. As a result of this analysis, it is seen that all of the factors are significantly differentiated in terms of class variable. There is no difference in level of significance between age and mystical experience factors, the last independent variable. When looked at the correlations among mystical experience factors, it is understood that all of the factors are in a meaningful relationship with each other. Among the six factors of HEXACO, the students have the highest average on Humility-Honesty; the lowest average on eXtraversion. In terms of gender, there is a statistically significant difference in the level of Humility-Honesty, Emotionality, and Conscientiousness. There is no significant difference between class and age variables and personality traits. According to Linear Regression analysis, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience factors of personality traits are predictive of mystical experience in a statistically significant level. Summary: The fact that the mystical experience is a repetitive phenomenon in different social, cultural and religious structures in different periods and has a mysterious element in it has caused that mysticism has taken its place among the basic subjects of the field since the first periods of psychology of religion. One of the sections of The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is regarded as the main source of the area, is mysticism. In general, "mystical experience" is considered as a subcategory of "religious experience", which is a wider area. For this reason, it also carries the characteristics of religious experience. Due to these common features, it can be seen that they are used in place of each other in the literature.If the religious experience is defined as the experience of the individual at the time of encounter with the sacred, such experience can be obtained in two ways. In the “religion-based mystical experience”, which is the first way, institutional or established religious thoughts and understandings and holly writings are influential. The second way, “non-religious or natural mystical experience”, can be said to be spiritual quests that individual needs play an important role in them are effective.Personality is used as one of the basic variables in social and health sciences in general, and in psychology because it is among the main subjects in particular. The common emphasis of research on personality is that the phenomenon is extremely complicated. Despite its widespread use, the abstraction of the concept has been influenced by the diversity of the researchers' perspectives and this has led to a lack of clear consensus on the definition. However, in order to investigate the phenomenon in recent periods, dimensional approaches that their basic assumption is personality can be categorized under certain factors have begun to be preferred. In this study, HEXACO was used, because it was thought that it could make a more detailed measurement of personality.The sample of this study is composed of 345 students studying at Erciyes University Theology Faculty in 2017-2018 academic year. When looked at the gender distribution of the sample, the rate of male students was 21.2% (n=73); and the rate of female students was 78.8% (n=272). This reflects the current situation in the faculty. The average age was 21,13 (sd=1,761). The age range is 18-26. Class distribution was 23,5% (n = 81) in Preparatory class; 15.4% (n = 53) in first-grade; 19.4% (n = 67) in second-grade; 18.3% (n=63) in third grade (n = 63); and 23.5% (n = 81) in the fourth grade. It has been noted that distributions are homogeneous in terms of class variables.The "Mystical Experience Scale" which is developed by Ralph W. Hood to measure the criteria which are offered by Walter T. Stace and which must be in the mystical experience has been used in determining the tendency of mystical experience. Hood et al. have reported reasonable reliabilities for subscales based on 3-factor solution. Alpha coefficients of the original scale were,76,,69, and,76 for the extrovertive mysticism, introvertive mysticism and religious interpretation respectively. The adaptation of the scale to Turkish culture and the validity and reliability study were carried out by Mehmet Süheyl Unal as a graduate thesis and it was stated that the Alpha coefficient was,89. In this study, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of scale is,91. HEXACO, developed by Lee and Ashton, was used to determine personality traits. The scale was adapted to Turkish by Wasti, Lee, Ashton and Somer. The scale consists of Honesty-humility (H), Emotionality (E), eXtraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to experience (O) factors.Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Analysis was performed to determine if there is a relationship between mystical experience tendencies and personality traits when the data were analyzed in accordance with the aim of the study. Later, it was tried to determine the power of explaining the variables with Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. In addition, One-way ANOVA was used to determine whether there was any relationship between significance levels. Moreover, descriptive statistics of relevant variables are included in the study.Findings show that participants have the highest average to Positive Affect (m=3,69; sd.=,77) and the lowest average to Temporal/Spatial Quality (m=2,94; sd.=,89) factor in terms of mystical experience. Additively, they obtained close values in Ego Quality, Noetic Quality and Ineffability factors. When the students were evaluated in terms of gender, it was seen that there was a difference in level of significance only in terms of Unifying Quality (t=1,770; p=,028). ANOVA analysis was carried out to determine whether there was any variation in class variable. As a result of this analysis, it is seen that all of the factors are significantly differentiated in terms of class variable. From the standing point of class variable, it is seen that the first grades differed negatively compared to the other classes. According to the data, the scores on the mystical experience scale for preparation and first grade are high while the averages for the next grade are falling. There is no difference on level of significance between age and mystical experience factors, the last independent variable. When looked at the correlations among mystical experience factors, it is understood that all of the factors are in a meaningful relationship with each other. The highest correlation is between Religious Quality and Ineffability (r=,661); the lowest correlation is between the Unifying Quality and the Temporal/Spatial Quality (r=,346).Among the six factors of HEXACO that have been developed to determine the personality traits, the students have the highest average on Humility-Honesty (m=3,76; sd.=,55); the lowest average on eXtraversion (m=3,04; sd.=0,65). In terms of gender, there is a statistically significant difference in factors of Humility-Honesty (t=,606; p=,004), Emotionality (t=,334; p=,000), and Constientiousness (t=,022; p=,033). There is no significant difference between class and age variables and personality traits. According to Linear Regression analysis, Agreeableness, Constientiousness and Openness to Experience factors of personality traits are predictive of mystical experience in a significant level statistically.Personality dimensions that are most related to mystical experience as a result of analysis are Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience. When the mystical experience is compared with the personality traits, it is concluded that Openness to Experience factor is related to all the factors of the mystical experience except for the Ineffability. Although the relationship is regarded as weak in terms of correlation, it is an important finding that there are positive relations in between. In other words, as personality traits evolve, the mystical experience level also increases. The lack of a similar work in the literature in this respect removes the possibility of making comparisons. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that both defence and criticism of the claim that humans act ‘under the guise of the good’ neglects the metaphysical roots of the theory. I begin with an overview of the theory and its modern commentators, with critics noting the apparent possibility of acting against the good, and supporters claiming that such actions are instances of error. These debates reduce the ‘guise of the good’ to a claim about intention and moral action, and in so (...) doing have become divorced from the theory's roots in classical and medieval philosophy. Aristotle and Aquinas’ ‘guise of the good’ is primarily a metaphysical claim resting on the equivalence between actuality and goodness, from which conclusions about moral action are derived. I show the reasoning behind their theory and how it forms the basis for the claims about intention and action at the centre of the modern debate. Finally, I argue that the absence of its original foundation is apparent in recent attacks on the ‘guise of the good’. It is unsurprising that modern action theory and ethics have not always been able to comfortably accommodate the ‘guise of the good’; they are only telling half of the story. (shrink)

Rad razmatra predavanja o globalnoj etici koje je držao John Dewey tijekom svojih međunarodnih putovanja, posebno tijekom dvije godine koje je proveo u Kini . Tvrdim da je Deweyev naturalizam, utemeljen na uvažavanju načina na koje se djelo Charlesa Darwina može primijeniti u humanističkim disciplinama, pruža modele za međukulturalnu etičku diskusiju. Smatram da se neke prepreke uvažavanju Deweyevog doprinosa globalnoj etici mogu naći u pogrešnim čitanjima i krivim interpretacijama njegovog djela, poput onih koje je razvio Roberto M. Unger. Naposljetku, smatram (...) da postoji mala vjerojatnost pojave globalne etike sve dok ljudi ne nadiđu uske nad-naturalističke i ne-naturalističke dogme i ne prihvate naturalističke svjetonazore. (shrink)

En 1806, es decir, hace m s de doscientos a¤os, naci¢ John Stuart Mill. Su padre, el fil¢sofo radical utilitarista James Mill, lo someti¢ a un programa educativo que hizo de ‚l una especie de ni¤o prodigio. Este ni¤o prodigio desarroll¢ una intensa labor intelectual, sin descuidar su actividad profesional privada, e incluso particip¢ en la vida pol¡tica de su tiempo. A pesar de la diversidad de temas que abord¢ y de los mbitos por los que se interes¢, John Stuart (...) Mill nos leg¢ un conjunto de escritos sobre la llamada democracia liberal, de los que tambi‚n la socialdemocracia sac¢ provecho. En esos escritos ya se apuntaban algunos de los problemas a los que seguimos enfrentados en la actualidad: la tensi¢n entre las masas y las elites, la perversi¢n del inter‚s general por la presencia de intereses siniestros, la desigualdad social que lleva a la marginaci¢n pol¡tica por raz¢n de sexo, clase, raza o procedencia, los sofismas del discurso pol¡tico que permiten la manipulaci¢n de la opini¢n p£blica, el tama¤o y la composici¢n de los grupos humanos de cara a su organizaci¢n pol¡tica, o la discusi¢n en torno a la pol¡tica econ¢mica m s adecuada a la democracia. De tales problemas tratan los textos reunidos en el presente libro, cuyo punto de partida lo constituye el an lisis cr¡tico de los textos de John Stuart Mill. Este ejercicio comparativo pretende poner de manifiesto, precisamente, qu‚ queda en la actualidad, o que se puede esperar que quede, de la democracia que ‚l preconizaba. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)