Based on a deliberative democracy, this book uses a hermeneutic-critical methodology to study bibliographical sources and practical issues in order to analyse the possibilities, limits and consequences of the digital transformation of democracy. Drawing on a two-way democracy, the aim of this book is intended as an aid for thinking through viable alternatives to the current state of democracy with regard to its ethical foundations and the moral knowledge implicit in or assumed by the way we perceive and understand democracy. (...) It is intended to stimulate reflection and discussion on the basis that, by addressing what we understand as democracy, we can inevitably influence the reality known as democracy. Democracy’s evident regression in today’s world makes this all too apparent: it has become a hostage to all kinds of autocracies and technopopulisms, which are supported to a greater or lesser extent by the current algorithmic revolution. (shrink)

. The aim of this paper is to put forward an ethical framework for the conceptualization and development of ethics audits, here understood as a catalyst for company dialogue and in general, for management of ethics in the company. Ethics auditing is understood as the opportunity and agreement to devise a system to inform on ethical corporate behavior. This system essentially aims to increase the transparency and credibility of the companys commitment to ethics. At the same time, the process of (...) elaborating this system allows us to introduce the moral dimension into company actions and decisions, thereby completing a key dimension of the production, maintenance and development of trust capital. To this end, the following four steps are taken. First, we analyze the relation between ethics auditing and trust as a basic moral resource in the dialogue between the company and its various stakeholders. Second, we examine the social balance sheet as a precursor to ethics auditing and focus on what prevents it from going further. Third, we attempt to reconstruct the basic moral assumptions underlying the companys social responsibility from the discourse ethics approach. Finally, we present a methodological framework from which to carry out our proposal, which embraces two basic theoretical perspectives stakeholder theory and the values derived from discourse ethics as a normative framework. (shrink)

Examining the theoretical and empirical status of applied ethics, this volume demonstrates how a pluralistic and democratic society can deal with ethical issues in the light of its moral conscience.

El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar las consecuencias prácticas de una autocomprensión positivista de la neuroética aplicada. Esta ética se ocupa de los impactos éticos y sociales derivados de la utilización de los hallazgos neurocientificos, en especial de las neurotecnologías. La intención es mostrar que para realizar esta tarea la neuroética debe superar el paradigma neuropositivista dominante que solo le conduce a la disolución del ámbito moral y, en el terreno práctico, al silencio cómplice ante los problemas surgidos en (...) la aplicación de las neurociencias. Para este fin daremos los siguientes pasos. En primer lugar, analizaremos los rasgos básicos de toda ética aplicada y desde ellos el origen y los objetivos de la neuroética aplicada. En segundo lugar, veremos cómo las investigaciones neuroéticas confunden el ámbito social con el ámbito moral, eliminando así de entrada toda perspectiva ética. Por último, ejemplificaremos las consecuencias prácticas de esta disolución en el caso de las políticas públicas, analizando el papel que puede cumplir y no cumple la neuroética aplicada frente al neuropoder generado por las neurotecnologías. (shrink)

Que las democracias deliberativas sean las que ocupan hoy el centro de la reflexión democrática se debe tanto a su potencial interno como al desgaste de una realidad política alejada cada vez más de lo que pensábamos –esperábamos- de la democracia. En este contexto se enmarca el presente artículo cuya propuesta de un enfoque mesodeliberativo pretende aportar a la discusión sobre la articulación institucional de las teorías deliberativas dos aspectos íntimamente vinculados: el valor de la sociedad civil y la perspectiva (...) de la ética en el diseño institucional. Ambos aspectos no acaban de encontrar su lugar en las diferentes iniciativas deliberativas actuales y, sin embargo, son piezas fundamentales para el logro de una teoría democrática completa y crítica. Para defender esta propuesta daremos los siguientes pasos. En primer lugar, se justifica la necesidad de este nivel mesodeliberativo dentro del llamado enfoque sistémico de las democracias deliberativas. A continuación, ante la pregunta de qué instituciones y por qué, se introduce un concepto ampliado de sociedad civil siguiendo la propuesta de una democracia de doble vía, en discusión con la concepción habermasiana. En tercer lugar, se despliegan algunas de las aportaciones básicas del diseño institucional para el desarrollo de este nivel mesodeliberativo y el papel que cumple y puede cumplir en él la perspectiva ética. Por último, se esboza este papel a partir del principio kantiano de publicidad como eje central para el desarrollo de la perspectiva ética en el diseño institucional. (shrink)

Presentación de la sección «Ética aplicada para una Inteligencia Artificial confiable» del número monográfico de Daimon Revista Internacional de Filosofía, nº 90 (septiembre - diciembre 2023).

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar la actualidad de algunas de las aportaciones más importantes de K.O.Apel a la reflexión democrática, en concreto a la relación entre ética y democracia. Para este objetivo compararemos estas aportaciones con las de J.Habermas, compañero de viaje en la propuesta de la ética del discurso. Comprobaremos cómo nuestro autor supo avanzar y justificar la necesidad de una estrategia moral, más aún, de una arquitéctonica de la razón práctica que relacione fundamentación y aplicación. Solo (...) así se puede dar razón de la perspectiva crítica tanto en la fundamentación de la idea de democracia como en la aplicación del principio moral a las instituciones que componen el sistema democrático. The aim of this paper is to show the actuality of K.O. Apel's most important contributions to democratic reflection, specifically the relationship between ethics and democracy. For this purpose, we will compare these contributions with those of J. Habermas, his colleague in the discourse ethics approach. We will see how our author achieved an advance in the justification of the need for a moral strategy, even more so for an architectural theory of practical reason hich includes the conditions of its application. Only in this way we can give a reason for the critical perspective, both in the foundation of the idea of democracy and in the application of the moral principle to the institutions that make up the democratic system. (shrink)

RECERCA se presenta este año 2004, siguiendo la linea abierta en su nueva época, como espacio de análisis y reflexión filosófico-crítica del presente. Ninguna publicación actual se resiste a subrayar que si bien la filosofía ha estado siempre comprometida con su tiempo, tal compromiso ha variado en intensidad y métodos en las tres últimas décadas. El número que tiene en sus manos viene a confirmar estos cambios dado que todos los artículos, pese a que abordan problemas y esferas distintas —bioética, (...) interculturalidad, religión, solidaridad, ecología, empresa, ciudadanía-, ponen de manifiesto que ya no es la filosofia únicamente la que escoge los temas de análisis y reflexión, sino que es la propia realidad la que le pide que entre en cada una de las esferas, problemas y situaciones que vive la sociedad para tratar de poner "orden", orientar y ayudar a la solución de las dificultades con las que nos tenernos que ver. Y, es más, no se pide que sea "la filosofia" desde su espacio la que proporcione orientaciones distantes, más bien, lo que se reclama es una "filosofía desde las propias praxis", por tanto, una reflexión que se realice desde la filosofía pero en plena integración y conocimiento de la situación, por tanto, arremangándose en la praxis. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present a business ethics case from the viewpoint of discursive ethics. Dialogue and subsequent agreement constitute two key ideas of European identity and are two basic concepts of discursive ethics thinking. Our choice for this type of approach was determined by several reasons, of which there are three that should be pointed out, as they can be considered an heritage of the European way of thinking:1) the need for a rational dialogue, in which (...) all those affected -- or, failing that, the people acting in their name -- are represented, as a way to find solutions to conflicts;2) the importance of respecting a set of conditions ensuring equal opportunities and total symmetry among the participants; and3) obliged respect for the universalization principle, which establishes that a decision is morally correct when it can or could be accepted by all those whom it affects, present or future.In order to present this case, the following steps are taken. Firstly, a brief summary of the case will be provided, defining the different ways of approaching the problem and the resulting map of interests. Secondly, the different interests and values, which came into play, are analysed. Finally, we go over the different approaches that were made to reach a solution before considering dialogue, which turned out to be the most decisive. (shrink)

El artículo se centra en la relación entre los avances de la neuropolítica y una teoría de la democracia que tiene en la deliberación racional y en la búsqueda de acuerdos su eje central. El punto de partida para este diálogo interdisciplinar es la actual desafección que padecen nuestros sistemas democráticos. A partir de ahí se destacan tanto los peligros de una neuropolítica que comprende los procesos políticos como procesos mentales, como la necesidad de introducir la dimensión afectiva en la (...) política deliberativa. (shrink)

In this paper we present the main results of a pilot study undertaken in the Autonomous Region of Valencia, Spain, on the implementation of ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility in small shops. The study’s basic hypothesis is that CSR can become one of the distinctive features of small shops as well as an important value in terms of differentiation from their main competitors, namely, big chains and department stores. The study results confirm the original hypothesis. It shows that the specific (...) features of small shops can be regarded as sources of potential for making CSR a distinctive feature of small or traditional shops. We could also come to view CSR as a basic value for forging a common shop identity, which they currently lack. (shrink)

In recent years, applied ethics has taken on board the various dimensions of public reason that can no longer be reduced to the political construction of a common will. While the question of a just society has traditionally been found in the political dimension, the state and its institutions, current globalization has broken this state monopoly over what is public, opening the way for other institutional actors with the same or greater power to intervene in the public space, actors that (...) have little or nothing to do with representation, majority rule, etc. As the current financial downturn clearly demonstrates, states are pandering to the markets, striving to ‘get their houses in order’ to meet the demands imposed by the global financial magnates. It seems, at least to most citizens, that public politics, like the state’s capacity to deal with social and economic rights, no longer depends on either governments or their ability to govern. So should they be left out of a public reason that is capable of explaining whether they are just or otherwise? The ethical perspective –known to be a critical perspective– cannot remain silent about this new scenario. The present proposal attempts to combine applied ethics, which takes in the logic of social practices, with new contributions from institutional design theories that set out to analyse the power and responsibility of these institutions from ‘inside’, as institutional actors. In this short paper my analysis focuses on the ethical dimension of institutional design, specifically in a proposal for an institutional ethics that is a fundamental part of any applied ethics. The paper aims to explain in what way we can speak of an institutional morality to demonstrate that these civil society institutional actors hold some of the responsibility for facing the problems of defining and managing what is public. (shrink)

Teniendo en cuenta que la filosofía es hija de la polis, a primera vista, el tema de la filosofía de la ciudad puede no revelar nada nuevo. De hecho, la filosofía y la ciudad cuentan una historia paralela. Es en el ágora, un espacio privilegiado para el ejercicio de la ciudadanía, donde la filosofía se desarrolla como debate de argumentos. Pero, aunque a lo largo de la historia las ciudades puedan reflejar un deseo civilizatorio, lo cierto es que la ciudad (...) contemporánea refleja muy poco de la realidad política de la polis, de la indiferenciación medieval entre lo público y lo privado o de la racionalidad normativa de la ciudad moderna. Las ciudades en el siglo xx, y especialmente en el siglo xxi, tienen que ver más con las relaciones sociales y económicas de la ciudad industrial y posindustrial. La progresiva mecanización del siglo xix y su extensión, en el siglo xx, a la automatización y a la digitalización, cambian definitivamente la forma en que nos relacionamos, pensamos y trabajamos —en resumen, cómo vivimos—. Con el establecimiento de un capitalismo de orden económico que afecta a todas las dimensiones de la vida de la ciudad, esta queda delimitada por el poder, revela las contradicciones de las sociedades urbanas diseñadas por los mercados y da lugar, según David Harvey, a la apropiación privada de la vida y los espacios. (shrink)

This article is intended to present a proposal for dialogic digital ethics on a critical reading of the European Commission's independent high-level expert group’s document Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI (2019). These would be digital ethics with a normative horizon for action and criteria for justice based on dialogue and possible agreement between all agents involved and affected by the digital reality. The aim is to show that the participation of all parties involved is not merely advisable but morally required (...) as part of the Commission’s effort to generate common European willingness and governance to deal with the fourth industrial revolution now going on. The acknowledgement of equal dignity implied by people-centric artificial intelligence (AI) is utterly unthinkable without this possibility of equal participation. Without it, trust cannot be generated or guaranteed. As we intend to show, the new principle of explicability plays a decisive role in this objective as a principle with a moral as well as an instrumental. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los rasgos básicos de una ética digital dialógica a partir de una lectura crítica del documento elaborado por grupo independiente de expertos de alto nivel para la Comisión Europea Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI (High-level expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, 2019). Una ética digital que tiene en el diálogo y acuerdo posible de todos los agentes implicados y afectados por la realidad digital su horizonte normativo de actuación, su criterio de justicia. La finalidad es mostrar que, en su esfuerzo por generar una voluntad común y una gobernanza europeas ante la actual revolución industrial, la participación de todas las partes implicadas no solo es recomendable sino moralmente exigible. El reconocimiento de la igual dignidad que implica una Inteligencia Artificial centrada en las personas no es ni siquiera pensable sin el horizonte de una participación igual. Sin ella, la confianza no puede generarse ni garantizarse. Como pretendemos mostrar, en este objetivo juega un papel decisivo el nuevo principio de explicabilidad, principio que posee un valor moral y no solo instrumental. (shrink)

El objetivo del artículo es reflexionar acerca del funcionamiento de los sentimientos morales y su papel en la comprensión del ámbito moral. Se pretende mostrar que los sentimientos tenen una dimensión cognitiva que posibilita su selección y los procesos de aprendizaje correspondientes. los trabajos de Strwson, Tugendhat y Hebermas nos permitirán aclarar en qué sentido es posible hablar de sentimientos virtuosos.

Este artículo se propone confrontar el concepto de opinión pública con la realidad y las expectativas de una sociedad digitalizada para analizar si la actual colonización algorítmica exige un nuevo cambio estructural de la opinión pública o más bien la retirada de este concepto. Los datos y metadatos masivos se han vuelto un arma de doble filo para la sociedad democrática digitalmente hiperconectada. Mientras que, por un lado, el increíble potencial que atesora el _big data_ y sus diferentes técnicas y (...) tecnologías de explotación de los datos y metadatos lo convierten en un producto codiciado por sistema de instituciones que componen tanto el estado como la sociedad civil; por otro, los altos impactos negativos que su uso instrumental e irresponsable está produciendo y puede llegar a producir, hacen del _big data_ una herramienta controvertida y altamente criticada por alejarnos de cualquier intento de construir una ciudadanía digital. Si bien la democracia algorítmica no se apoya solo en la opinión pública, el objetivo es mostrar la incompatibilidad entre opinión pública artificial y democracia. Nuestro hilo conductor es el concepto habermasiano de opinión pública, puesto que será precisamente la fuerza de la sociedad civil, a través del diseño en su seno de espacios de participación, de donde podemos extraer el potencial necesario para enfrentarnos a la actual colonización algorítmica, para recuperar una deliberación autónoma y crítica sin la cual no existe opinión pública alguna y, por tanto, tampoco democracia. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Untersuchung stellt die Frage nach der Gerechtigkeit des Rechts, wobei sich das Wort "Recht" sowohl auf das Ganze der Rechtsordnung als auch auf einzelne Rechtsnormen beziehen kann. Dabei wird ausgelotet, was eine rechtsethische Rechtfertigung des Rechts überhaupt zu leisten vermag und welches ihre Grenzen sind. Die Untersuchung geht systematisch vor. Es erfolgt in erster Linie eine Auseinandersetzung mit problembezogenen Lösungsvorschlägen. Historische Positionen sowie philosophiegeschichtliche Betrachtungen dienen der Abrundung. Der Aufbau des Werkes erfolgt in Form einer Stufenpyramide, wobei auf (...) jeder Stufe die Problembehandlung immer weiter konkretisiert wird. So wird die Bandbreite möglicher Antworten auf die Frage nach der Gerechtigkeit des Rechts Schritt für Schritt eingegrenzt. Der Lösungsvorschlag des Autors geht am Ende dieser Stufenpyramide hin zu einer materialen Gerechtigkeitstheorie. Diese sogenannte "Dreizonentheorie politischer Gerechtigkeit" wird im zentralen Teil der Untersuchung ausführlich behandelt und dargestellt. Inhalt: Recht und Moral - Formale Positionen zum Verhältnis Rechtsethik - Recht - Materiale Rechtsethik/Politische Gerechtigkeit - Kritik des normativen Individualismus - Die Dreizonentheorie politischer Gerechtigkeit. (shrink)

Since the publication of Hartry Field’s influential paper “Tarski’s Theory of Truth” there has been an ongoing discussion about the philosophical import of Tarski’s definition. Most of the arguments have aimed to play down that import, starting with that of Field himself. He interpreted Tarski as trying to provide a physicalistic reduction of semantic concepts like truth, and concluded that Tarski had partially failed. Robert Stalnaker and Scott Soames claimed then that Field should have obtained a stronger conclusion, namely that (...) Tarski’s failure in his allegedly intended physicalistic reduction was total. From another front, Hilary Putnam argued for an even more sweeping thesis: “[a]s a philosophical account of truth, Tarski’s theory fails as badly as it is possible for an account to fail.” Scott Soames followed suit also on this count, endorsing Putnam’s argument in section iii of the aforementioned paper; and John Etchemendy used a very similar argument to contend that “a Tarskian definition of truth [...] cannot possibly illuminate the semantic properties of the object language.” The paper argues that these contentions are based on several misunderstandings about the nature of a definition like Tarski’s. Regarding the Putnam-Soames-Etchemendy argument, we must apply a distinction Frege found natural to draw—and is natural to draw anyway—between what he called “constructive” definitions, definitions properly so called, which are mere stipulations, and what he described as “analytic” definitions, definitions which aim to make explicit the meaning of a term already in use. Regarding the Field-Soames-Stalnaker criticism, the paper contends that the true aims of a Tarskian truth definition are perfectly well fulfilled without Field’s amendments. (shrink)

The technical possibilities of biomedicine open up the opportunity to intervene in ageing itself with the aim of mitigating, reducing or eliminating it. However, before undertaking these changes or rejecting them outright, it is necessary to ask ourselves if what would be lost by doing so really has much value. This article will analyse the desirability of ageing from an individual point of view, without circumscribing this question to the desirability or undesirability of death. First, we will present the three (...) most widely used arguments to reject biomedical interventions against ageing. We will argue that only the last of these arguments provides a consistent answer to the question of the desirability of ageing. Second, we will show that the third argument falls prey to a conceptual confusion that we will call the paradox of ageing: although ageing entails negative health effects, it leads to a life stage with valuable goods. Both valuations, one positive and the other negative, refer to two different dimensions of ageing: the chronological and the biological. We will defend that, by not adequately distinguishing these two types of ageing, it does not become apparent that all the valuable goods exclusive to ageing derive only from its chronological dimension. Third, we will argue that, if we just conceive ageing biologically, it is undesirable. We will elaborate on the two kinds of undesirable effects biological ageing has: direct and indirect. Finally, we will respond to potential objections by adducing that these are insufficient to weaken our argument. (shrink)

For the philosopher of Rotterdam, religious coercion has two essential sources of illegitimacy: the linking of religious and ecclesiastical belief and the use of politics for religious purposes. Bayle responds to it, with his doctrine of freedom of conscience, on one hand and by means of the essential distinction between voluntary religious affiliation and political obligation, on the other hand. From my perspective, his doctrine of tolerance does not involve an atheist state, nor does it mean the rejection of the (...) presence of religion in the public space or its displacement to the intimate sphere of the conscience. This paper proposes a reading of Baylean tolerance as a political doctrine that allows the articulation between freedom of conscience, minority confessions, and official religion. Thus, the Baylean theoretical model could be considered a proposal to provide a normative form to the practice of toleration present in the seventeenth -century Netherlands. (shrink)

Cosmopolitan critics attack the scope-limitation of justice of egalitarian liberal theorists to states. They treat justice as the production of a given set of outcomes for people regardless of location or relationship. However, in doing so they either ignore the relevant agent towards whom principles of justice are addressed or see the question of agency as a practical, derivative question, of a secondary character. This paper argues that a principle of justice without a clearly justified agent is not a genuine (...) principle at all. This is what writers like Rawls mean by the "subject" of justice (analogous to the grammatical subject of a sentence, i.e.,the agent). We should reflect on agents and why they would or would not justifiably carry certain burdens for others and what kind of benefits or goods they are able to secure. The answers to those questions explain why the idea of cosmopolitan global justice is incomplete, either requiring a global basic structural agency or not applying because no relevant agent is present that can create cooperative arrangements between individual persons across the globe. Other moral principles will still apply globally, but they will be distinct from those that apply to basic-structural agencies. This account is not a practice dependence account, as it bases the distinctness of moral and political principles on purely moral and value-based considerations. (shrink)

Dennett (1988) provides a much discussed argument for the nonexistence of qualia, as conceived by philosophers like Block, Chalmers, Loar and Searle. My goal in this paper is to vindicate Dennett's argument, construed in a certain way. The argument supports the claim that qualia are constitutively representational. Against Block and Chalmers, the argument rejects the detachment of phenomenal from information‐processing consciousness; and against Loar and Searle, it defends the claim that qualia are constitu‐tively representational in an externalist understanding of this. (...) The core of the argument is contained in section 3. In the first part, I contrast a minimal conception of qualia, relative to which their existence is not under dispute, with the sort of view to which I will object. In the second part I set the stage by presenting the facts about (minimal) qualia on which a Dennett‐like argument can be based. (shrink)

"Epistola a Memeceo, Maximas capitales, Sentencias vaticanas, fragmentos y testimonios; texto griego y traduccion": p. [87]-161.

The paper examines an alleged distinction claimed to exist by Van Gelder between two different, but equally acceptable ways of accounting for the systematicity of cognitive output (two “varieties of compositionality”): “concatenative compositionality” vs. “functional compositionality.” The second is supposed to provide an explanation alternative to the Language of Thought Hypothesis. I contend that, if the definition of “concatenative compositionality” is taken in a different way from the official one given by Van Gelder (but one suggested by some of his (...) formulations) then there is indeed a different sort of compositionality; however, the second variety is not an alternative to the language of thought in that case. On the other hand, if the concept of concatenative compositionality is taken in a different way, along the lines of Van Gelder's explicit definition, then there is no reason to think that there is an alternative way of explaining systematicity. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone determinar un criterio con que interpretar de modo global el desarrollo del pensamiento de Giovanni Gentile. Su caracterización como pensador neohegeliano no da razón del sentido global de su filosofía ni de sus efectivos puntos de partida ni de los pensadores con los que directamente se midió. El trabajo hace ver que, con Donato Jaja, su maestro universitario, la tradición idealista iniciada por Bertrando Spaventa se separa definitivamente de la interpretación de Hegel y se constituye (...) como tradición autónoma. En ese sentido, buscamos precisar los rasgos característicos de la personalidad filosófica de Gentile dentro de dicha tradición y concluimos que Vico ocupó un papel nuclear en ella. (shrink)

Either a person's claim to subsistence goods is held against institutions equipped to distribute social benefits and burdens fairly or it is made regardless of such a social scheme. If the former, then one's claim is not best understood as based on principles setting out a subsistence goods entitlement, but rather on principles of equitable social distribution — a fair share. If, however, the claim is not against a given social scheme, no plausible principle exists defining what counts as a (...) reasonable burden for any of the available agents to secure subsistence. No justifiable principle exists implying generalised perfect duties any agent could clearly follow or clearly breach that secure subsistence conditions for others. At best we can justify rescue duties under very specific conditions, or general but imperfect duties to improve arrangements. Neither of these obviously correlates with human rights standards. Attempts in the literature to overcome the dilemma by claiming basic rights can correlate with imperfect duties or can generate duties to work towards institutions that ‘perfect’ our imperfect duties, are faulty. I then show how the dilemma can be avoided by accounts of human rights focusing on minimum respectful treatment rather than goods or interests. (shrink)

I argue racial injustice undermines the reliability of news source reports in the information domain of racial injustice. I argue that this in turn undermines subjects’ doxastic justification in inferences they base on these news sources in the racial injustice information domain. I explain that racial injustice does this undermining through the effect of racial prejudice on news organizations’ members and the effect of society's racially unjust structure on non-dominant racial group-controlled news sources.