In four studies, we investigated the role of remembering, reflecting on, and mutating personal past moral transgressions to learn from those moral mistakes and to form intentions for moral improvement. Participants reported having ruminated on their past wrongdoings, particularly their more severe transgressions, and they reported having frequently thought about morally better ways in which they could have acted instead (i.e., morally upward counterfactuals; Studies 1–3). The more that participants reported having mentally simulated morally better ways in which they could (...) have acted, the stronger their intentions were to improve in the future (Studies 2 and 3). Implementing an experimental manipulation, we then found that making accessible a morally upward counterfactual after committing a moral transgression strengthened reported intentions for moral improvement—relative to resimulating the remembered event and considering morally worse ways in which they could have acted instead (Study 4). We discuss the implications of these results for competing theoretical views on the relationship between memory and morality and for functional theories of counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

Language and culture include a peculiar vision of the world. They also condition the behavior of what is SAID and what is DONE. This double tension makes one think, from the cultural and political perspective, about universalism or multiculturalism. From a cognitive and discursive semantic vie..

This article aims to explore the concept of victimless damage. This refers to paradoxical cases where a perpetrator and a moral wrong can be easily identified, but where somehow the role of the victim as such can be questioned. In order to explore this concept, I will first offer a typology of cases that could be labelled under this umbrella concept—namely, cases of deceased victims, biotechnological or no-identity cases, and the ones related to lack of awareness due to epistemic injustice. (...) Then, after highlighting the common traits and discussing some fuzzy cases, I will flesh out the main arguments for and against of the existence of and need for this concept, on the basis of both moral objectivism and subjectivism. In my view, delving into these arguments could shed some light on the metaethical debate on the sine qua non conditions of moral damage and its relation to moral wrongness. Finally, I will conclude by advocating for the need to introduce a gradational concept of moral damage and the second-person perspective into moral philosophy in order to take into account potential cases of victimless damage, but without having to accept the premises of moral realism. (shrink)

Considering the recent epigenetic studies on the transgenerational transmission of trauma, this article aims to 1) explore its ethical implications for the concept and nature of moral damage, and 2) offer normative suggestions on collective responsibilities both synchronic and diachronic. To do so, I first address recent epigenetic studies’ showing the crystallization of emotional information through generations, and second, defend that a unified approach to the concept of ghost damage may be useful to categorize this phenomenon, facilitate future research on (...) this type of moral damage, and recognize its importance in the identification of hermeneutical injustice. Finally, I suggest that granting a right to transgenerational information may help avoid the perpetuation of inherited damage that jeopardize mental and physical health in the offspring. (shrink)

While many have celebrated Black Panther, some have also criticized it – such as contemporary philosopher Christopher Lebron, who argues that Black Panther 's plot is centrally driven by anti‐Black stereotypes about Black Americans, and particularly about Black American men. Anti‐colonial theory emerges in situations of colonial domination. But there are different kinds of colonialism, and there are different manifestations of anti‐colonial resistance. The image of colonialism that Black Panther most directly invokes – stopping short, however, of openly recognizing it (...) – is really just one species of colonizatism. As previously noted, Black Panther rarely invokes the concepts of slavery and colonialism. In Black Panther, Killmonger is the very site at which the terror of colonial history is sutured – the anti‐heroic figure who must be depicted as a genocidal and misogynistic monster in order to dissipate the shame and the guilt he would otherwise elicit. (shrink)

El objeto del siguiente texto es la exposición y el análisis de la obra de las Disputaciones Metafísicas bajo la idea de medir el alcance que el pensamiento de Francisco Suárez pueda tener en la modernidad filosófica. Para cumplir con tal objeto me centraré en un pequeño pero significativo número de cuestiones: la noción de materia y de causalidad, en relación a los requisitos que ha de cumplir el entendimiento para captar la realidad particular; la concepción de lo individual, que (...) vemos repetirse continuamente en cada asunto abordado por Suárez; y por último, la teoría de la distinción modal, sin la cual no podría entenderse el tratamiento y la solución que el filósofo propone para las dos cuestiones anteriores. (shrink)

Is Leibnizian dynamics the New Physics sought in his youth to provide a solution to the problem of body unity/composition? This question can only be answered tentatively. The thesis that I will develop in this second part is that chemical-combinatoria project is not complete without some ideas of dynamics. The idea of form, which since the early Leibniz’s philosophy is projected to give a foundation to the corpuscular theory, only reaches this objective with the theory of conspiring movements that Leibniz (...) develops as the last phase of his dynamics. Within this general objective, this second part develops three secondary issues of importance: Leibniz’s emergent and realistic position, his theory of compounds and the interpretation of the Combinatoria or Characteristica project as a science of forms. (shrink)

Chemistry and dynamics are closely related in G.W. Leibniz's thinking, from the corpuscularism of his youth to the theory of conspiracy movements that he proposes in his later years. Despite the importance of chemistry and chemical thought in Leibniz's philosophy, interpreters have not paid enough attention to this subject, especially in the recent decades. This work aims to contribute to filling this gap in Leibnizian studies. In this first part of the work I will expose the theory of matter that (...) the young Leibniz conceives under the influence of chemical corpuscularism. Leibniz uses R. Boyle's interpretation of the Aristotelian idea of form in order to give an explanation of the unity and cohesion of bodies. As opposed to the Cartesians, Leibniz puts forth the idea of a dependence between the variables of extension, movement and figure, without losing analytical clarity and with the aim of extending the explanatory power of physics to natural phenomena difficult to approach by Cartesian mechanics. (shrink)

One of Leibniz’s most original ideas is his conception of the living individual as a hierarchical network of living beings whose relationships are essential to the proper functioning of its organic body. This idea is also valid to explain any existing order in nature that depends on the set of relationships of living beings that inhabit it. Both ideas are present in the conception of the natural world that Leibniz presents in his Monadology through his idea of biological infinitism. According (...) to this idea, nature consists of infinite theatres where living beings unfold their vital functions. Through this idea Leibniz defines both the biological complexity of nature and the living individual, which is in turn a portion of nature that unfolds from an infinite set of inferior living beings. The thesis that I defend in this work is that this Leibnizian understanding of the living individual and the natural complexity that includes infinite hierarchical levels of individuality has a marked ecological sense, as we would say today. This Leibnizian metaphysics of individuality that we could call biological is also interesting in light of the recent studies in the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Desde una lectura organicista mostramos que la concepción de la ontogenia que desarrolla Jan Swammerdam a través de su idea de la metamorfosis nos permite revelar la existencia de una continuidad entre el epigenetismo de W. Harvey y el preformacionismo de G.W. Leibniz. La concepción moderna de la epigénesis (Harvey) y la preformación (Leibniz) no implica tanto un posicionamiento antagónico respecto al problema del origen del embrión cuanto un esfuerzo por desarrollar un mismo modelo de ontogenia frente a las alternativas (...) mecanicistas o vitalistas. En línea con esta lectura, hacemos una valoración crítica de las diferentes interpretaciones preformacionistas de Swammerdam. (shrink)

Se plantea el problema de la influencia de Suárez en la concepción de la individualidad por Leibniz. Para ello se analiza principalmente la Disputatio Metaphysica de principio individui de Leibniz. Se diferencian tres posturas: tomista, scotista y suareziana. Se confronta la idea de ‘forma’ de Leibniz con la de Aristóteles y la idea de ‘forma sustancial’ con la escolástica y Suárez. La comparación de Leibniz con Suárez se centra en la noción clave de “forma sustancial” y se analizan sus diversos (...) significados. Se formula la coincidencia de ambos autores en torno a la tesis de que la individuación tiene lugar en virtud de la “entidad total”. Finalmente se analiza el significado exacto de esta expresión y se señalan las diferencias entre ambos autores, especialmente las que se producen en la evolución final de Leibniz. Ahí se introduce la concepción de la forma sustancial como principio vital que cohesiona los cuerpos. (shrink)

This paper takes an organicist perspective of W. Harvey’s conception of epigenesis in his work Exercitationes de generatione animalium (1651). In line with this reading, I provide a critical assessment of the different interpretations (mechanistic or vitalist) of Harvey’s idea of epigenesis. The English physician develops his conception of embryogenesis as a process that cannot be understood from the categories of human art, as is apparent in his criticisms towards his teacher, Fabricius. Nor is it accurate to say that his (...) position is animistic. An immersion in this last question will show us his organic conception of the soul, as an extension of the Aristotelian-Galenic tradition. (shrink)

The management of commons is now at the centre of researchers’ attention in many branches of science, particularly those related to the human or social sciences. This paper seeks to demonstrate how civil society participation in common goods or resources is not only possible but is also desirable for society because of the medium and long-term benefits it offers involved and/or affected parties. To this end, we examine the falsity of the discourse underlying the supposed incompetence of civil society to (...) cooperate interpersonally in the pursuit of common objectives, and also analyse a specific example of the necessary and possible participation of civil society in managing common goods through biobanks.La gestión del bien común se ha convertido actualmente en centro de atención para diferentes ramas de la ciencia, especialmente aquellas vinculadas con lo humano y lo social. El presente estudio busca mostrar cómo la participación de la sociedad civil en la gestión de este tipo de bienes o recursos no sólo es posible, sino deseable para la sociedad por los beneficios que reporta a las partes implicadas y/o afectadas a medio y largo plazo. Para ello, se atenderá la falsedad del discurso sobre el cual se asienta la supuesta incompetencia de la sociedad civil para poder cooperar interpersonalmente en busca de objetivos comunes, así como se analizará un ejemplo concreto de la necesaria y posible participación de la sociedad civil en la gestión del bien común a través de los centros de recursos biológicos (brcs). (shrink)

La ciencia económica preponderante descuidó el estudio de la cooperación humana. Esto se debe a que hay una contradicción entre ser seres racionales con propensión a maximizar el bienestar, por un lado, y la posibilidad de concretar objetivos de beneficiocomún e implementar procesos relacionales no coercitivos, por el otro lado. Sin embargo, la economía experimental se ha preocupado por hallar explicación a la actitud de reciprocidad que muestran los agentes en distintos juegos de estrategia, ya que posibilita concretar acciones colectivas (...) en las que subyace una intencionalidad compartida que permite cumplir objetivos mutuamente dispuestos. Se busca mostrar cuándo y por qué los seres humanos empiezan a relacionarse con sus semejantes y cuáles el fundamento normativo que logra orientar estos comportamientos. (shrink)

Mimesis as Make-Believe is important reading for everyone interested in the workings of representational art.

This paper argues that racism should not only be conceived as a moral concept whose main aim is to condemn severe wrongs in the domain of race. The paper advances a complementary interpretation of racism as an explanatory concept--one that plays a key role in explaining race-based social problems afflicting members of subordinate racialized groups. As an explanatory concept, the term 'racism' is used to diagnose and highlight the causes of race-related social problems. The project of diagnosing race-based social problems (...) contributes to the pragmatic anti-racist end of developing better political and policy strategies for solving these social problems. The paper defends this interpretation of racism as an explanatory concept through a critical engagement with Urquidez's moral-philosophical account of racism. (shrink)

I defend impact-based accounts of institutional racism against the criticism that they are over-inclusive. If having a negative impact on non-whites suffices to make an institution racist, too many institutions (including institutions whose affirmative action policies inadvertently harm its intended beneficiaries) would count as racist. To address this challenge, I consider a further necessary condition for these institutions to count as racist—they must stand in a particular relation to racist ideology. I argue that, on the impact-based model, institutions are racist (...) if they have a negative racial impact AND this impact is legitimized by racist ideology. Racist ideologies limit social criticism of and collective action against institutions that have a negative racial impact, and in so doing, lend stability to systems of racial domination. (shrink)

I address the objection that the concept of racism has become overly inflated. Critics of the conceptual inflation of “racism” argue that theories of institutional racism engage in untoward conceptual inflation insofar as they undermine our moral understanding of racial phenomena, hinder our ability to explain the causes of racial inequality, and even undercut struggles for racial justice. I develop an original account of institutional racism and show that it is immune to all three versions of the conceptual inflation challenge.

Justice for children and during childhood and the particular political, social and moral status of children has long been a neglected issue in ethics, and in social and political philosophy. The application of general, adult-oriented theories of justice to children can be regarded as particularly problematic. Philosophers have only recently begun to explore what it means to consider children as equals, what goods are especially valuable to them, and what are the obligations of justice different agents have toward children. In (...) addition, while philosophers have extensively written about global poverty and inequality, the issue of disadvantages during childhood, especially child poverty, has only been superficially addressed. This also applies to the Capability Approach (CA) as a normative theory. Although the socio-scientific and economic literature on how to conceptualize capabilities and functionings of children and how to measure them in the context of poverty and wellbeing is steadily growing, the normative aspects of these issues are still under-theorized. The CA offers a unique framework to engage with both the topic of justice for children and questions concerning what justice implies and demands with regard to children living and growing up in disadvantaged circumstances. Furthermore, justice and disadvantage during childhood is a compellingly interdisciplinary topic that invites the combination of ethical and philosophical reasoning together with socio-scientific theories and empirical knowledge. In this special issue of Ethical Perspectives we bring together theoretical and empirically informed discussions that explore the CA in relation to children and the many disadvantages they can face in their lives. (shrink)

Children are affected by poverty more often than adults, and growing up in poverty has severe and long-lasting negative consequences for a child’s well-being. How-ever, children are also in a very weak position, both to escape poverty on their own and to publicly and politically enforce their claims to a better life. Accordingly, children living in poverty are victims of two intersecting forms of powerlessness: they are children and they are poor. In this article, we analyze this particular type of (...) powerlessness from a children’s rights perspective and argue that, in order to effectively restore justice to children in pov-erty, the State has to implement a comprehensive children’s rights regime. We argue that the State is obliged to consider children’s best interests in all its policies – even those that are not directly related to children – in order to compensate for the lack of political agency during childhood. This demand reflects the particular social and political status of children, namely: that they are dependent on others for their well-being, that childhood is a phase of particular vulnerability and that (young) children lack certain competencies that are needed to enforce their claims. (shrink)

We propose expanding the authors’ shared novelty-seeking basis for creativity and curiosity by emphasizing an underlying computational principle: Minimizing prediction errors (mismatch between predictions and incoming data). Curiosity is tied to the anticipation of minimizing prediction errors through future, novel information, whereas creative AHA moments are connected to the actual minimization of prediction errors through current, novel information.

Health is certainly a valuable asset in the life of every human being and of particular relevance for a flourishing childhood. As empirical research concerning the social determinants of health shows, its distribution can, at least to a certain extent, be influenced by the way a society is arranged. Many philosophers now acknowledge that a fair distribution of health has to be a central part of a just society and they discuss to what extent a right to health can be (...) justified. However, they do not typically distinguish between physical and mental health and neglect the special problems arising from these distinct, though related, perspectives. In this paper, we argue in favour of such a distinction and ask whether a minimally just society ought to include mental health among the goods that are to be distributed in a fair way among its children. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between mental health and happiness and ask whether making mental health a subject of justice implies that children are entitled not only to a healthy but also to a happy childhood. Despite the positive impact of happiness on the lives of children, we conclude that happiness cannot be incorporated into a functional theory of justice, since it does not fully meet the criteria of objectivity, measurability and influenceability. (shrink)

O cinema, na mesma maneira da televisão, da prensa, e outros meios de comunicação, contribui na construção de imaginários sociais e culturais, como mostrou claramente o Bourdieu em Langage et pouvoir simbolique e o Chomsky em A Fabricação do Consenso. Contudo, o cinema a retratar fenômenos sociais, não somente constrói imaginários sino também constrói a criação de arquivos fílmicos e com eles permite construir e reconstruir uma parte da história. Essa é nossa posição, adoptando os postulados do Ferro, do Kracauer (...) e do Billard. Através a prisma da filosofia da história, o artigo pretende analisar em quê medida o cinema centro-americano contemporâneo pode ser considerado como uma forma de construção e reconstrução da memória e a história das migrações centro-americanas nas primeiras duas décadas do século XXI? (shrink)

El uso prolongado de la voz es un factor de riesgo para el desarrollo de patologías vocales en docentes. Actualmente, estos profesionales se ven obligados a usar mascarilla para dictar sus clases, lo que puede resultar en alteraciones vocales. Durante la virtualización de las clases los docentes debieron adaptar algún espacio doméstico para desempeñar sus funciones frente a un computador, disminuyendo la actividad física y fomentando un estilo de vida sedentario, lo que pudo ocasionar algún trastorno músculo-esquelético. Con este panorama, (...) el propósito del estudio es identificar efectos en la voz por la mascarilla y lesiones músculo-esqueléticas en docentes. (shrink)

Our concern is with the ethical issues related to girlhood and bodily integrity—the right to be free from physical harm and harassment and to experience freedom and security in relation to the body. We defend agency, positive self-relations, and health as basic elements of bodily integrity and we advocate that this normative concept be used as a conceptual tool for the protection of the rights of girls. We assume the capability approach developed by Martha Nussbaum as an ethical framework that (...) enables us to evaluate girls’ well-being and well-becoming in relation to the potential, and often subtle, threats they face. The capability approach can be understood as a theory of justice, and, therefore, as an ethical and political approach. An enriched concept of bodily integrity can help in the design of better policies to address gender biases against girls because it could contribute to seeing them as active agents and valid participants. (shrink)

Our commentary articulates some of the commonalities between Baumeister et al.'s theory of socially differentiated roles and Strategic Differentiation-Integration Effort. We expand upon the target article's position by arguing that differentiating social roles is contextual and driven by varying ecological pressures, producing character displacement not only among individuals within complex societies, but also across social systems and multiple levels of organization.

RESUMEN El artículo analiza el complejo tema del derecho a la memoria como derecho humano de carácter cultural así como su consagración en el ordenamiento jurídico chileno. El trabajo alude a la problemática del reconocimiento de los nuevos derechos fundamentales y el modo de hacerlos efectivos, para lo cual se analizará la estructura de dicho derecho en cuanto a su contenido esencial, titularidad y garantías. Finalmente, se plantea el tema de la protección de los derechos implícitos a través de una (...) interpretación sistemática del sistema constitucional chileno. (shrink)

This article explores the nature and consequences of being a successful child YouTuber as a new form of both child labor and play in the social media era. This new child activity can in principle act as an enhancer of child autonomy, creativity, and some specific goods of childhood, such as play, and exploration. However, the impact of becoming a micro-celebrity as a video blogger at a young age is to some extent underexplored. Thereby, I bring into the ethical discussion (...) the specific conditions of this activity, such as overexposure, and adultization. By doing so, I show how it can turn out to be a threat to child’s well-being and well-becoming, especially in relation to the identity construction and intrafamily dynamics. I highlight its double role as both an enhancer of childhood’s specific goods and child vulnerability, especially when it becomes a silent form of subjugation. Thereby, I suggest that the strong version of the precautionary principle could be a normative guide to balance the children’s need to explore and autonomy without jeopardizing other specific goods of childhood and their well-becoming. (shrink)