Should there be a female age limit on public funding for assisted reproductive technology (ART)? The question bears significant economic and sociopolitical implications and has been contentious in many countries. We conceptualise the question as one of justice in resource allocation, using three much-debated substantive principles of justice—the capacity to benefit, personal responsibility, and need—to structure and then explore a complex of arguments. Capacity-to-benefit arguments are not decisive: There are no clear cost-effectiveness grounds to restrict funding to those older women (...) who still bear some capacity to benefit from ART. Personal responsibility arguments are challenged by structural determinants of delayed motherhood. Nor are need arguments decisive: They can speak either for or against a female age limit, depending on the conception of need used. We demonstrate how these principles can differ not only in content but also in the relative importance they are accorded by governments. Wide variation in ART public funding policy might be better understood in this light. We conclude with some inter-country comparison. New Zealand and Swedish policies are uncommonly transparent and thus demonstrate particularly well how the arguments we explore have been put into practice. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit Gregory Kavka’s Toxin Puzzle and propose a novel solution to it. Like some previous accounts, mine postulates a tight link between intentions and reasons but, unlike them, in my account these are motivating rather than normative reasons, i.e. reasons that explain (rather than justify) the intended action. I argue that sensitivity to the absence of possible motivational explanations for the intended action is constitutive of deliberation-based intentions. Since ordinary rational agents display this sensitivity, when placed (...) in the toxin scenario they will believe that there is no motivational explanation for actually drinking the toxin and this is why they can’t form the intention to drink it in the first place. I thus argue that my Motivating-Explanatory Reason Principle correctly explains the toxin puzzle, thereby revealing itself as a genuine metaphysical constraint on intentions. I also explore at length the implications of my account for the nature of intention and rational agency. (shrink)

The 2013 Rostock Symposium on Systems Biology and Bioinformatics in Aging Research was again dedicated to dissecting the aging process using in silico means. A particular focus was on ontologies, as these are a key technology to systematically integrate heterogeneous information about the aging process. Related topics were databases and data integration. Other talks tackled modeling issues and applications, the latter including talks focussed on marker development and cellular stress as well as on diseases, in particular on diseases of kidney (...) and skin. (shrink)

In this chapter I survey the two main families of views about the moral psychology of moral responsibility, i.e., about the mental capacities or psychological functioning that distinguishes responsible agents from non-responsible agents. These are self-expression views, which maintain that responsible agency is essentially about being able to express one's practical stance or moral orientation in conduct; and reasons-responsiveness views, according to which responsible agency requires a suite of powers that make their possessors capable of detecting and responding apppropriately to (...) the moral considerations against their conduct (in the case of wrong actions). I explore different contemporary variants of each of these families of views and assess their weaknesses and strenghts. Finally, I sketch a methodology for settling this debate, the essence of which is to note that the debate about the moral psychology of moral responsibility is ancilliary to a broader debate about the nature of moral responsibility itself and, in particular, about the nature of blame and blaming reactions. On the basis of this methodology, I end up taking sides with a particular variant of the self-expression paradigm. (shrink)

Historically, taxonomy, which is the area responsible for describing new species, used a priori only morphological characteristics. Darwin already pointed out that there was a great divergence among taxonomists when they classified some organism as a species. When a new species is described, due to its historical weight, the morphological characters are considered as the first species demarcation criterion, however, with the advance of genetics and molecular biology, new methods are added. The use of multiple methods seems to be necessary (...) for us to develop a contemporary taxonomy, so, a little more than a decade ago, the “integrative taxonomy” emerged, which refers to a taxonomy that aims to integrate all available data sources to frame the data. species limits. Data integration is not possible, as we do not have the technological capacity to do so. In view of this, we can interact the data through interactive taxonomy, which suggests, a way of treating the data under the assumption of different lines of evidence, through which the explanations have logical consequences that can be tested, mitigating the subjectivity of the subject in the process. Data interactions can overlap taxonomic descriptions, as they could encompass different phenomena and problem solving, thereby mitigating subjectivism. Therefore, in different fields, at least two indications would be necessary, which could be contained in two different approaches, one hypothetical and one by estimation. Such interpellations would contain evidence with different assumptions and dissimilar data characteristics, thus increasing the number of evidence, as well as improving the reliability of the argument. In this way, we can bring new species to light with a more objective bias and with less likelihood of error. Keywords: Taxonomy. Cryptic species. Estimation. Hypothetical. (shrink)

Thomas Hurka, in his book Virtue, Vice, and Value, and elsewhere, develops a recursive analysis of higher-order pleasures and pains. The account leads Hurka to some potentially controversial conclusions. For instance, Hurka argues on its basis that some states are both good and evil and also that the view he calls the conditionality view is false. In this paper, I argue that Hurka’s formulation of the recursive account is unusual and inelegant, and that Hurka reaches his conclusions only because of (...) its peculiar aspects. I provide an alternative recursive account which is similar in spirit to Hurka’s but which is theoretically elegant and does not entail those conclusions. (shrink)

En Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard defiende la conclusión de que el imperativo categórico rige la acción humana porque es el único principio que permite alcanzar la unidad psíquica plena, la cual, según Korsgaard, es un prerrequisito esencial para la acción efectiva. Para los agentes humanos, alcanzar esa unidad -que consiste en hacer coherentes distintos impulsos hacia la acción- es una actividad constante, denominada "autoconstitución". De acuerdo con Korsgaard, ésta es la fuente originaria de la normatividad y (...) de las identidades prácticas e incluso de la identidad personal. Después de exponer las ideas centrales del libro, presento dos objeciones: primero, critico la equiparación del imperativo categórico con la autoconstitución exitosa, pues no toda falla de auto-constitución es una falla moral. Segundo, argumento que la tesis de que la identidad personal es producto de la autoconstitución es problemática y que, al defenderla, Korsgaard confunde identidad práctica con identidad personal. In Self-Constitution. Agency, Identity, and Integrity (2009), Christine Korsgaard argues that the categorical imperative rules human action because it is the sole principle that allows us to reach the complete psychic unity that, Korsgaard thinks, is an essential prerequisite for effective action. Reaching this unity -which consists in making cohere diverging impulses for action- is for human agents a constant activity called "self-constitution." According to Korsgaard, this activity is the source of normativity, of human practical identities and even of personal identity. After explaining the main ideas of the book, I present two objections. First, I criticize the linkage of the categorical imperative to successful self-constitution, for not every failure of the latter counts as a moral failure. Second, I argue that the thesis that personal identity is a product of self-constitution is problematic and that it betrays a confusion between practical identity and personal identity. (shrink)

Gignac and Zajenkowski (2020) find that “the degree to which people mispredicted their objectively measured intelligence was equal across the whole spectrum of objectively measured intelligence”. This Comment shows that Gignac and Zajenkowski’s (2020) finding of homoscedasticity is likely the result of a recoding choice by the experimenters and does not in fact indicate that the Dunning-Kruger Effect is a mere statistical artifact. Specifically, Gignac and Zajenkowski (2020) recoded test subjects’ responses to a question regarding self-assessed comparative IQ onto a (...) linear IQ scale when a normal IQ scale would likely have been more appropriate. More generally, researchers studying self-assessed intelligence should be aware of potential measurement problems that may arise when transforming an ordinal scale onto an interval scale. (shrink)

An encyclopedia article on the epistemic or knowledge condition for moral responsibility, written for the SEP.

Ignorance usually excuses from responsibility, unless the person is culpable for the ignorance itself. Since a lot of wrongdoing occurs in ignorance, the question of what makes ignorance culpable is central for a theory of moral responsibility. In this article I examine a prominent answer, which I call the ‘volitionalist tracing account,’ and criticize it on the grounds that it relies on an overly restrictive conception of responsibility‐relevant control. I then propose an alternative, which I call the ‘capacitarian conception of (...) control,’ and on the basis of it I advance an account of culpable ignorance that avoids the skeptical upshots of the volitionalist proposal. If correct, my account establishes three important truths: agents can be directly in control of their ignorance, they can be directly responsible for more than actions and omissions, and their moral obligations extend beyond the performance of intentional actions and omissions. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate which of the main conditions proposed in the moral responsibility literature are the ones that spell trouble for the idea that Artificial Intelligence Systems could ever be full-fledged responsible agents. After arguing that the standard construals of the control and epistemic conditions don’t impose any in-principle barrier to AISs being responsible agents, I identify the requirement that responsible agents must be aware of their own actions as the main locus of resistance to attribute that kind (...) of agency to AISs. This is because this type of awareness is thought to involve first-person or de se representations, which, in turn, are usually assumed to involve some form of consciousness. I clarify what this widespread assumption involves and conclude that the possibility of AISs’ moral responsibility hinges on what the correct theory of de se representations ultimately turns out to be. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch a socially situated account of responsible agency, the main tenet of which is that the powers that constitute responsible agency are themselves socially constituted. I explain in detail the constitution relation between responsibility-relevant powers and social context and provide detailed examples of how it is realized by focusing on what I call ‘expectations-generating social factors’ such as social practices, cultural scripts, social roles, socially available self-conceptions, and political and legal institutions. I then bring my account (...) to bear on the debate about the exculpatory potential of moral ignorance. I show that a prominent position in this debate – the position that denies that moral ignorance exculpates – is grounded on an individualistic and acontextualist conception of moral capacities, moral cognition, and blameworthiness, and that this conception leads those philosophers who endorse it to make a number of questionable claims regarding the ability of ordinary agents to overcome their moral ignorance and the culpability they bear for the latter. I conclude by indicating how my socially situated account addresses the issue of moral ignorance. (shrink)

In this article I discuss David Shoemaker’s recently published piece “Responsibility: The State of the Question. Fault Lines in the Foundations.” While agreeing with Shoemaker on many points, I argue for a more unified diagnosis of the seemingly intractable debates that plague (what I call) “responsibility studies.” I claim that, of the five fault lines Shoemaker identifies, the most basic one is about the role that the notion of deserved harm should play in the theory of moral responsibility. I argue (...) that the deep divide between those theorists who affirm and those who deny that moral responsibility is essentially about the justification of desert thus understood can be traced to the disagreement about whether the focus on the reactive attitudes by itself entails that moral responsibility has nothing to do with traditional questions about desert and free will. I then show that the seeming intractableness of the other four fault lines Shoemaker identifies is expectable and explicable in light of this more basic disagreement. After this diagnostic work, I conclude by suggesting a solution to the “morass” that has taken over responsibility studies: theorists working in the field should acknowledge that it has effectively bifurcated into two discrete subareas, which I suggest calling “retribution studies” and “interpersonal studies.” -/- . (shrink)

Many philosophers think that a necessary condition on moral blameworthiness is that the wrongdoer can reasonably be expected to avoid the action for which she is blamed. Those who think so assume as a matter of course that the expectations at issue here are normative expectations that contrast with the non-normative or predictive expectations we form concerning the probable conduct of others, and they believe, or at least assume, that there is a clear-cut distinction between the two. In this paper (...) I put this widespread assumption under scrutiny and argue that it’s mistaken: although predictive and normative expectations are indeed distinct, there is no sharp separation between them. On the contrary, predictive expectations can have a substantial bearing on normative expectations in two related ways: they can recalibrate what is reasonable to expect of agents when responsibility attributions are at stake and they can help to uncover previously undetected excusing conditions. I illustrate my claims with the famous bystander effect from social psychology and show that it yields predictive expectations that affect normative expectations in these two ways. (shrink)

I examine the question of whether people are sometimes morally blameworthy for what I call ‘slips’: wrongful actions or omissions that a good-willed agent inadvertently performs due to a non-negligent failure to be aware of relevant considerations. I focus in particular on the capacitarian answer to this question, according to which possession of the requisite capacities to be aware of relevant considerations and respond appropriately explains blameworthiness for slips. I argue, however, that capacitarianism fails to show that agents have responsibility (...) level control over their slips and, consequently, fails to show that it is reasonable to expect agents to avoid this kind of wrongdoing. I conclude that people are typically not blameworthy for their slips, but only regarding the backward-looking, desert-entailing type of blame that has been at issue in this debate. I suggest that ordinary intuitions about blameworthiness for slips can be accommodated by appealing to other types of responsibility and blame. (shrink)

This paper discusses the commitment account of assertion, according to which two necessary conditions for asserting that p are the speaker's undertaking a commitment to justify her assertion in the face of challenges and the speaker's licensing the audience to defer justificatory challenges back to her. Relying on what I call the "cancellation test," and focusing on Robert Brandom's version of the CAA, I show that the latter is wrong: it is perfectly possible to assert that p even while explicitly (...) disavowing the justificatory commitment and while refusing to issue a deferring license. Then I sketch an alternative to the CAA, the trust account of assertion, according to which speakers necessarily present themselves as trustworthy concerning p's truth whenever they assert p. I explain why this is different from undertaking a justificatory commitment, and offer some reasons for thinking that this is a more promising account. (shrink)

This paper develops a Humean environmental meta-ethic to apply to the animal world and, given some further considerations, to the rest of nature. Our interpretation extends Hume’s account of sympathy, our natural ability to sympathize with the emotions of others, so that we may sympathize not only with human beings but also animals, plants and ecosystems as well. Further, we suggest that Hume has the resources for an account of environmental value that applies to non-human animals, non-sentient elements of nature (...) as well as nature as whole even without the appeal to sympathy. One consequence of this approach is that the reasons for promoting animal welfare need not be restricted to sentientist reasons. (shrink)

Non‐reflectivist real self views claim that people are morally responsible for all and only those bits of conduct that express their true values and cares, regardless of whether they have endorsed them or not. A phenomenon that is widely cited in support of these views is inverse akrasia, that is, cases in which a person is praiseworthy for having done the right thing for the right reasons despite her considered judgment that what she did was wrong. In this paper I (...) show that non‐reflectivist real self views are problematic by focusing on the related but neglected phenomenon of inverse enkrasia, which occurs when an agent commits wrongdoing by following a mistaken evaluative judgment that, unbeknownst to her, runs contrary to her true values and cares. Intuitively, inverse enkratics are blameworthy for their actions although the latter don't express their real selves; therefore, non‐reflectivist real self views are false. I assess the implications of this result for the viability of the quality of will paradigm and conclude that the latter survives unscathed to the problems besetting real self views. The lesson is that defenders of the quality of will paradigm should stop talking about real selves altogether. (shrink)

Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher, a parent, or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book explains why it is important to allow young children access to philosophy during primary-school education. Wartenberg also gives advice on how to construct a "learner-centered" classroom, in which children discuss philosophical issues with one another as they respond to open-ended questions by saying whether they agree (...) or disagree with what others have said. (shrink)

Several philosophers claim that the greenhouse gas emissions from actions like a Sunday drive are so miniscule that they will make no difference whatsoever with regard to anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) and its expected harms. This paper argues that this claim of individual causal inefficacy is false. First, if AGCC is not reducible at least in part to ordinary actions, then the cause would have to be a metaphysically odd emergent entity. Second, a plausible (dis-)utility calculation reveals that such (...) actions have a not-insignificant amount of expected harm. One upshot is that the near-exclusive focus in the literature on AGCC as a collective action problem is too restricted. The paper also provides several moral psychological explanations of why it is so difficult to comprehend individual responsibility with regard to global phenomena, including a reappraisal of Thomas Nagel’s view of the absurd. (shrink)

Introducing Dialogic Pedagogy presents some of the ideas of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin concerning dialogism in a way that will engage and inspire those studying early childhood education. By translating the growing body of dialogic scholarship into a practical application of teaching and learning with very young children, this book provides readers with alternative ways of examining, engaging and reflecting on practice in the early years to provoke new ways of understanding and enacting pedagogy. This text combines important theoretical ideas (...) with a practical application to support practitioners who are keen to promote creativity and agency through ethical self-other relations. It provides unique insights into the amazing world of the youngest child, and offers enriched understandings of the profound impact of adults in their journey of becoming (or bildung). Key points covered include: Investigating dialogic philosophy and its application to early childhood education, with an emphasis on notions of justice, democracy, ethics and answerability Considering the relationship between dialogism and pedagogical approaches Theorising a range of approaches to relevant early childhood practice, as pedagogy This accessible and readable guide offers sound theoretical principles with practical suggestions for early years' settings. The book is supplemented by an extensive online video resource website that will bring these revolutionary ideas to life.. (shrink)

An important recent debate in the philosophy of action has focused on whether there is a persistence requirement on intention and, if there is, what its proper formulation should be. At one extreme, Bratman has defended what I call Strong Persistence, according to which it’s irrational to abandon an intention except for an alternative that is better supported by one’s reasons. At the other extreme, Tenenbaum has argued that there isn’t a persistence requirement on intention at all. In the middle, (...) philosophers like Broome, Ferrero, and Paul have defended persistence requirements with varying degrees of stringency while agreeing that Bratman’s proposed requirement is too strong. In this paper I side with Bratman in defending Strong Persistence. I argue, however, that Bratman’s own argument in favor of it is defective and an easy prey to the multiple objections that have been leveled against it. I thus offer in its place a “first-personally addressed constitutivist argument” whose aim is to show to the minimally reflective agent the kind of commitment involved in deciding and forming an intention in situations of incomparability—which are taken to be the litmus test for persistence requirements—and the persistence rational requirement governing it. Along the way I respond to the objections against Strong Persistence and explain why my argument represents an improvement over Bratman’s. (shrink)

Taking as its starting point the article by Hans Jonas entitled “Gnosticism, Existentialism and Nihilism” (1952), as well as the main ideas of Hans Blumenberg’s The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966), this article proposes to reveal both the systematic and historical similarities which can be traced between the basic postulates and metaphors of the various religious currents of the first two centuries of our era grouped under the name of Gnosticism and certain aspects, such as the cosmology and the (...) anthropology, of Pascal’s apologetics. It postulates that this apologetics represents the very last Gnostic crisis, in response to which the Enlightenment has constituted itself as an epoch. (shrink)

In this article, we re-examine Pascal’s Mugging, and argue that it is a deeper problem than the St. Petersburg paradox. We offer a way out that is consistent with classical decision theory. Specifically, we propose a “many muggers” response analogous to the “many gods” objection to Pascal’s Wager. When a very tiny probability of a great reward becomes a salient outcome of a choice, such as in the offer of the mugger, it can be discounted on the condition that there (...) are other symmetric, non-salient rewards that one may receive if one chooses otherwise. (shrink)

There is some consensus that for S to know that p, it cannot be merely a matter of luck that S’s belief that p is true. This consideration has led Duncan Pritchard and others to propose a safety condition on knowledge. In this paper, we argue that the safety condition is not a proper formulation of the intuition that knowledge excludes luck. We suggest an alternative proposal in the same spirit as safety, and find it lacking as well.

_Seeing the World through Children’s Eyes_ brings an overarching emphasis on ‘seeing’ to early years research and provides an opportunity to see and hear from leading researchers in the field concerning how they work with visual methodologies in their early years research.

Standard models of adolescent risk taking posit that the cognitive abilities of adolescents and adults are equivalent, and that increases in risk taking that occur during adolescence are the result of socio emotional differences in impulsivity, sensation seeking, and lack of self-control. Fuzzy-trace theory incorporates these socio emotional differences. However, it predicts that there are also cognitive differences between adolescents and adults, specifically that there are developmental increases in gist-based intuition that reflects understanding. Gist understanding, as opposed to verbatim-based analysis, (...) generally has been hypothesized to have a protective effect on risk taking in adolescence. Gist understanding is also an essential element of informed consent regarding risks in medical decision- making. Evidence thus supports the argument that adolescents’ status as mature minors should be treated as an exception rather than a presumption, because accuracy in verbatim analysis is not mature gist understanding. Use of the exception should be accompanied by medical experts’ input on the bottom-line gist of risks involved in treatment. (shrink)

The foundation of the Christian counselling movement -- Christian counselling in the UK -- The aims of Christian counselling -- Integrating psychological and biblical truth -- Sigmund Freud--the founding father of psychotherapy -- The individual psychology of Alfred Adler -- Abraham Maslow--the man with new age tendencies -- Carl Rogers--a man who believed in himself -- Albert Ellis--the aggressive atheist -- The Bible's verdict on psychological 'truth' -- The case against Larry Crabb -- Self-esteem: the secular foundation -- Self-esteem and (...) the Christian counselling movement -- Self-esteem dogma in the light of scripture. (shrink)

The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Models, Methods, and Findings comprehensively reviews the research on psychotherapy to dispute the commonly held view that the benefits of psychotherapy are derived from the specific ingredients contained in a given treatment (medical model). The author reviews the literature related to the absolute efficacy of psychotherapy, the relative efficacy of various treatments, the specificity of ingredients contained in established therapies, effects due to common factors, such as the working alliance, adherence and allegiance to the therapeutic protocol, (...) and effects that are produced by different therapists. In each case, the evidence convincingly corroborates the contextual model and disconfirms the prevailing medical model. (shrink)

To what extent do we value future generations? It may seem from our behavior that we don’t value future generations much at all, at least in relation to how much we value present generations. However, in his book _Death and the Afterlife_, Samuel Scheffler argues that we value the future even _more_ than we value the present, even though this is not immediately apparent to us. If Scheffler’s argument is sound, then it has important ramifications: It would give us a (...) strong motivation to put more energy into abating environmental crises like climate change, and it supports at least a limited form of ethical _longtermism_. However, in this paper, I show that Scheffler’s argument is fallacious. Scheffler claims that we do not regard the fact that we in the present generation will all die relatively soon as a catastrophe, but we do regard the non-existence of future generations as a catastrophe. But the particular scenario used by Scheffler to illustrate this point—the plot of the book _The Children of Men_—is one in which _both_ the present generation will perish _and_ there will be no future generations, and it is this _conjunction_ that is catastrophic, thus giving no information about which is worse. I suggest other ways to compare our valuations of present and future generations, and recommend that philosophers who are interested in the moral psychology of how we value future generations ought to engage with social science, as it is an empirical issue. (shrink)

Catherine Malabou's concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contributors to _Plastic Materialities_—whose fields include political philosophy, critical legal studies, social theory, literature, and philosophy—use Malabou's innovative combination of post-structuralism and neuroscience to evaluate the political implications of her work. They address, among other things, subjectivity, science, war, the malleability of sexuality, neoliberalism and economic theory, indigenous and racial politics, and the relationship between the human and non-human. _Plastic Materialities_ also includes three essays by Malabou (...) and an interview with her, all of which bring her work into conversation with issues of sovereignty, justice, and social order for the first time. Contributors. Brenna Bhandar, Silvana Carotenuto, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Jairus Victor Grove, Catherine Kellogg, Catherine Malabou, Renisa Mawani, Fred Moten, Alain Pottage, Michael J. Shapiro, Alberto Toscano. (shrink)

In the wake of the most recent financial crisis, corporations have been criticized as being self-interested and unmindful of their relationship to society. Indeed, the blame is sometimes placed on the corporate legal form, which can exacerbate the tension between duties to shareholders and interests of stakeholders. In comparison, the Benefit Corporation (BC) is a new legal business entity that is obligated to pursue public benefit in addition to the responsibility to return profits to shareholders. It is legally a for-profit, (...) socially obligated, corporate form of business, with all the traditional corporate characteristics combined with societal responsibilities. Considering the history and perception of shareholder primacy in United States law, it is argued that this new business structure is an ethical step toward empowering socially committed commercial entities. The contribution of this research is to provide a fundamental base of knowledge about the new legal form of business, the BC, upon which further study may rely. First, the legal history of the corporation is briefly reviewed in order to provide context to the relationship of the corporate form to society, including exploration of the premise that shareholder wealth maximization is its best and only purpose. Second, the BC is described in detail, and state statutes are compared. Third, the BC is placed within the context of corporate social responsibility. Finally, opportunities for future research are discussed. (shrink)

El presente escrito se enmarca en un proyecto de investigación que propone abordar el complejo mundo del trabajo petrolero que se desarrolla en la Cuenca del Golfo San Jorge, en la Patagonia argentina, desde una perspectiva de género. La hipótesis de sentido que guía la investigación indica al universo hidrocarburífero de la región como un entretejido social sumamente heterogéneo. Dicha heterogeneidad se plasma también (quizás paradigmáticamente) en la participación femenina en el sector. A partir de entrevistas en profundidad, reconstruimos las (...) trayectorias laborales de mujeres vinculadas a la industria de los hidrocarburos en Comodoro Rivadavia.En una industria percibida como predominantemente masculina, no es fácil delimitar quiénes pueden entenderse como trabajadoras del petróleo, cuando el calificativo de “petroleros” suele reservarse a los varones. Para ello, en este texto compartimos los desafíos metodológicos de abordar el complejo petrolero en búsqueda de sus trabajadoras. Así, presentamos dilemas, reflexiones y hallazgos de un trabajo de campo atravesado por la reflexividad. Identificar a esas mujeres, caracterizar sus trabajos, prácticas y desplazamientos conllevó reconocer nuestras propias posiciones en el espacio social.Se indican tres perfiles típicos hallados entre nuestras entrevistadas para interrogar sobre su representatividad y provisoriedad, en tanto el análisis en profundidad nos orienta a la identificación de rasgos comunes entre aquellas que en un principio parecen muy diferentes. (shrink)