It is widely supposed that evolutionary debunking arguments against morality constitute a type of epistemological objection to our moral beliefs. In particular, the debunking force of such arguments is not supposed to depend on the metaphysical claim that moral facts do not exist. In this paper I argue that this standard epistemological construal of EDAs is highly misleading, if not mistaken. Specifically, I argue that the most widely discussed EDAs all make key and controversial metaphysical claims about the nature of (...) morality or the possibility of moral truth that belie their apparently epistemological character. I show that the debunking force of these EDAs derives largely from metaphysical claims about morality and their implications for the possibility of moral reduction, rather than from epistemological worries associated with the existence of an causal/non-moral explanation of our moral judgments. The paper briefly concludes with a dilemma that I believe confronts all EDAs such as those discussed in this paper: either such arguments are unsound, or else they prove too much, debunking our knowledge of science and the external world, as well as morality. (shrink)

A ‘companions in guilt’ strategy against moral error theory aims to show that the latter proves too much: if sound, it supports an implausible error-theoretic conclusion in other areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie [2016 Cowie, C. 2016. Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94/1: 115–30.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]] has recently produced what he claims is a ‘master argument’ against (...) all such strategies. The essence of his argument is that CG arguments cannot work because they are afflicted by internal incoherence or inconsistency. I argue, first, that Cowie's master argument does not succeed. Beyond this, I argue that there is no good reason to think that any such argument—one that purports to identify an internal incoherence in CG arguments—can succeed. Second, I argue that the main substantive area of disagreement between error theorists and CG theorists essentially concerns the conceptual profile of epistemic reasons—specifically, whether they are strongly categorical—not the ontological question of whether such reasons exist. I then develop an argument in favour of the CG theorist's position by considering the moral error theorist's arguments in support of the conceptual claim that moral reasons are strongly categorical. These include, notably, criticisms made by Joyce [2011] and Olson [2014] of Finlay's [2008] ‘end relational’ view of morality, according to which moral reasons are relative to some end or standard, hence not strongly categorical. Examining these criticisms, I argue that, based on what moral error theorists have said regarding the conceptual profile of moral reasons, there is a strong case to be made that moral reasons are strongly categorical if and only if epistemic reasons are. (shrink)

Within the climate justice debate, the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle holds that those who benefit from greenhouse emissions associated with industrialization ought to pay for the costs of mitigating and adapting to their adverse effects. This principle constitutes a claim of inter-generational justice, and it is widely believed that the non-identity problem raises serious difficulties for any such claim. After briefly sketching the rationale behind ‘beneficiary pays,’ this paper offers a new way of understanding the claim that persons in developed societies (...) have benefited from industrialization. It argues that when we think of the claim in this new way, it evades the non-identity problem entirely. Some objections to this approach are then considered and rebutted. The paper concludes by comparing the present, relatively modest solution to the nonidentity problem with a much more ambitious attempt from the recent literature. (shrink)

El presente ensayo reconsidera las críticas de John Dewey a Walter Lippmann tomando como eje los argumentos esgrimidos en las sucesivas reseñas que Dewey fue haciendo de las obras de Lippmann. Se sostiene que las críticas que Dewey lanzó en estas reseñas, así como luego en The Public and its Problems (1927) ya apuntaban en una dirección que quedó más explícita en los años treinta, cuando Dewey respondió con lenguaje socialista a un Lippmann que apelaba a algo más que a (...) la autoridad de expertos para contrarrestar las derivas de la democracia. En el debate que mantuvieron, no solo se pusieron en juego dos visiones de la relación entre democracia y voluntad popular, sino dos concepciones discrepantes sobre las bases económicas de una sociedad abierta y las condiciones necesarias para el ejercicio de la libertad. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Trata este trabajo de la actitud del presidente Barack Obama en relación con las rebeliones de la denominada Primavera Árabe, desvelando si los criterios de la guerra justa por él señalados y defendidos en sus discursos se compaginan con la real política bélica de Estados Unidos. Se insertan ambos planos en el escenario de las rebeliones acaecidas en tres países: Libia, Egipto y Túnez. La conclusión principal es que hay un largo, además de irregular, distanciamiento entre la teoría y (...) la práctica del presidente Obama, prevaleciendo los intereses de Estados Unidos por encima de la protección de los derechos humanos, que es uno de los vectores principales de su concepto de guerra justa.ABSTRACT: This work refers the attitude of the President Barack Obama concerning the rebellions of the so-called Arab Spring, revealing if the criteria of the just war defended in his speeches correspond to the real policy of the United States. Both planes are included in the scene of rebellions occurred in three countries: Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. The main conclusion is that there is a long, as well as irregular, distance between theory and practice of president Obama, prevailing the interests of United States respect to the protection of human rights, which is one of the main vectors of their concept of just war.PALABRAS CLAVE: primavera árabe, guerra justa, rebeliones árabes, Obama y política exterior, Obama y filosofía bélica.KEYWORDS: Arab spring, just war, Arab revolts, Obama and foreign policy, Obama and war philosophy. (shrink)

This paper explores some parallels between the concept of action as it is deployed in two theoretical projects: constructing a virtue-ethical account of right action; and explaining human actions in causal terms. Although one project is normative and the other non-normative, I argue that they face essentially the same fundamental challenge: both have a difficult time dealing with the familiar fact that persons have the ability to act out of character. For virtue ethics, this fact threatens to undermine its most (...) distinctive account of what makes an action right, one that grounds rightness in virtuous character. For causal theories of action, it makes trouble for the idea that all human actions can be explained adequately within an event-causal framework. (shrink)

A logic in a finite language is said to be finitely presentable if it is axiomatized by finitely many finite rules. It is proved that binary non-indexed products of logics that are both finitely presentable and finitely equivalential are essentially finitely presentable. This result does not extend to binary non-indexed products of arbitrary finitely presentable logics, as shown by a counterexample. Finitely presentable logics are then exploited to introduce finitely presentable Leibniz classes, and to draw a parallel between the Leibniz (...) and the Maltsev hierarchies. (shrink)

A logic is selfextensional if its interderivability (or mutual consequence) relation is a congruence relation on the algebra of formulas. In the paper we characterize the selfextensional logics with a conjunction as the logics that can be defined using the semilattice order induced by the interpretation of the conjunction in the algebras of their algebraic counterpart. Using the charactrization we provide simpler proofs of several results on selfextensional logics with a conjunction obtained in [13] using Gentzen systems. We also obtain (...) some results on Fregean logics with conjunction. (shrink)

El tratamiento dispensado al hecho religioso en nuestro país y en general en las sociedades avanzadas es discriminatorio respecto a otros colectivos y grupos sociales. Discriminatorio en una dimensión interna y externa. Internamente, porque no todos los grupos religiosos reciben el mismo trato jurídico. Externamente, porque otros grupos sociales distintos a los religiosos, que buscan otros fines, no reciben el mismo trato que los grupos religiosos, sino más desfavorable. Junto a una primera discriminación en el ámbito extraeclesial -el de las (...) confesiones religiosas en su relación con las demás asociaciones del país-, hay otros dos supuestos en el ámbito intraeclesial -el de las relaciones de los grupos religiosos entre sí-, el contraste de las opciones fideístas y las no fideístas críticas y el de las confesiones religiosas mayoritarias y minoritarias. En uno y otro caso, interna y externamente, el hecho religioso se convierte en un criterio de discriminación, sin que en mi opinión existan razones objetivas suficientes. (shrink)

Book Information World Poverty and Human Rights. World Poverty and Human Rights Thomas Pogge Cambridge Polity Press 2002 vii + 284 Paperback US$28, £18 By Thomas Pogge. Polity Press. Cambridge. Pp. vii + 284. Paperback:US$28, £18.

E l auto r de f iend e un a democraci a a r mónica , qu e n o e s u n model o nu ev o d e democracia sin o l a relació n equilibrad a d e la s do s modalidade s clásica s d e democracia , l a representat iv a y l a directa , a la s qu e s e añadirí a l a democraci a pa r ticipat iv (...) a prom o vid a po r lo s ciudadanos, ind i vidualment e o e n gr upo , a l ma r ge n d e lo s pa r tido s políticos . L a resultant e serí a un nu evo marc o polític o co n meno s democraci a representat iva (l a d e lo s pa r tido s político s y lo s representante s electos) , q u e actualment e e s l a democraci a e xclus iva y e xclu y ent e en la s sociedade s política s a v anzadas , má s democraci a direct a (l a d e lo s ciudadano s qu e sin inte r mediario s v otaría n política s y n o sól o a su s representantes ) y u n nu evo espaci o polític o ocupad o po r lo s ciudadanos-actore s político s si n militanci a pa r tidista . E n cad a uno d e esto s tre s modelo s democrático s s e analiz a l a de f inició n de l modelo , e l escenari o que actualment e atr a vies a y la s propuesta s concreta s d e cambio. (shrink)

Belief merging aims at combining several pieces of information coming from different sources. In this paper we review the works on belief merging of propositional bases. We discuss the relationship between merging, revision, update and confluence, and some links between belief merging and social choice theory. Finally we mention the main generalizations of these works in other logical frameworks.

Computer simulations have conventionally been understood to be either extensions of formal methods such as mathematical models or as special cases of empirical practices such as experiments. Here, I argue that computer simulations are best understood as instruments. Understanding them as such can better elucidate their actual role as well as their potential epistemic standing in relation to science and other scientific methods, practices and devices.