Ante el tema constituye necesidad de fuerza mayor apuntar los últimos avances y progresos en el debate liberalismo-comunitarismo.1 El presente artículo pretende llamar la atención sobre la riqueza e interés del mismo, rernitiendo a la bibliografia más reciente. La aparición en los dos últimos anos de obras como las de Rawls, Dworkin y Habermas,4 que prestan una indudable atención a las críticas y propuestas comunitaristas precisan de un proceso de asimilación y de reflexión serena.

En 1992 Charles Taylor escribiá un libra titulado Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Dos anos más tarde la misma editorial, Princeton University Press, publicá una reedicián. Se afiadía una leve variante en el título, la palavra examining: Multiculturalism. Examining the politics of recognition. La novedad de esta edicián fue que se afiadieran dos nuevos ensayos, uno de Jürgen Habermas, titulado Stmggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State y el otro por K. Anthony Appiah, afraamericano, con lo que se (...) afiade al libra una nota de color, en ese reclamo del recõnocimiento de la identidad. (shrink)

This paper deals with Hume's criticism to Cartesian self and his account of a social self discovered through emotions, pride and sympathy. It wants to give possible solutions to Hume's contradictions on personal identity.

El artículo versa sobre la necesidad de la filosofía del derecho en el presentey en el futuro. Se expone la perennidad de los temas sobre los que seocupa esta materia, definiéndola como ciencia de lo razonable. Entre lasmúltiples cuestiones para las que la filosofía del derecho es imprescindibleuna de ellas es la interpretación jurídica que realizan los jueces. Las distintasteorías que se han elaborado a lo largo de los dos últimos siglos, especialmentedesde la ilustración, han dado lugar a una reflexión (...) sobre la argumentaciónjudicial, que sigue desempeñando un lugar crucial en laenseñanza de estas materias en las facultades de derecho y en los operadoresjurídicos. De ahí que la filosofía del derecho siga siendo un instrumentoimprescindible en el presente y en el futuro de nuestras sociedades, quequeda corroborado por la experiencia de la autora, catedrática de filosofíadel derecho y juez durante estos cinco últimos años en el Tribunal Europeode Derechos Humanos en Estrasburgo. (shrink)

Este artículo demuestra de un modo fáctico la utilidad del test de proporcionalidad y la fórmula del peso del profesor Robert Alexy en la práctica de los tribunales constitucionales y de otros altos tribunales. Para ello se aplica detenidamente este modelo a la Decisión del Tribunal Constitucional alemán de 2015 en el que se falla a favor de la compatibilidad del uso del velo por profesoras funcionarias que trabajan en la enseñanza pública con la neutralidad del Estado. Se examinan los (...) tres pasos de la ponderación el principio de adecuación o idoneidad, el principio de necesidad y la proporcionalidad en sentido estricto, concluyendo que esta nueva decisión del primer senado del Tribunal Constitucional federal alemán de 2015 aplica correctamente el principio de la proporcionalidad estricta. Primero porque establece adecuadamente que el grado de insatisfacción de la paz escolar o de los derechos de los padres debe medirse y calificarse a la vista de conflictos reales. Segundo porque al examinar la importancia de satisfacer el derecho de libertad religiosa de las profesoras y las consecuencias negativas de la ley prohibitiva del Land juzga que ello supone una lesión grave y que es una medida desproporcionada e innecesaria. Una Ley prohibitiva general basada en un peligro abstracto es contraria a la LF y una injerencia desmedida en un DF porque no permite la ponderación del caso concreto. Por ello, en el tercer paso se concluye que la importancia de satisfacer los derechos de las profesoras justifica que ceda la libertad negativa religiosa de los alumnos y que prevalezca la liberta religiosa positiva. Con la excepción de casos en los que haya conflictos reales. En estos últimos, ponderadas las circunstancias cabría ciertas prohibiciones temporales transitorias del uso del velo en lugares concretos, un extremo que por nuestra parte no hemos considerado adecuado. (shrink)

La trilogía Estado, mercado, familia debe de introducir la perspectiva de género, como una dimensión transversal porque el modo de organizar la sociedad, el mercado y la familia establece una estructura que será la causa de una mayor o menor igualdad con respecto al papel y funciones que desempeñan hombres y mujeres en esos tres ámbitos. En este artículo, después de analizar los modelos liberales y marxistas, se propone como más igualitario entre los sexos, el modelo socialdemócrata de Estado que (...) establece una estrecha relación entre Estado, mercado y familia, entre lo privado y lo público. Se mantiene que la legislación laboral, las políticas fi scales y la organización de los derechos sociales incide directamente en las elecciones y el modo de organización de vida que realizan los ciudadanos. Las decisiones tomadas en el ámbito familiar sobre el tiempo dedicado a las tareas productivas y reproductivas no son autónomas sino que dependen de las políticas laborales y fiscales. La verdadera igualdad entre los sexos se fundamenta en la conciliación entre vida personal, familiar y laboral, que incluye todo lo referente a las tareas de cuidado de personas y el autocuidado, de ahí la importancia del estudio con métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos de las tareas de cuidado y de la incidencia del sistema tributario desde una perspectiva de género. (shrink)

En reseña de:Elósegui Itxaso, María (coord.), Los principios y la interpretación judicial de los derechos fundamentales. Homenaje a Robert Alexy en su 70 Aniversario. Zaragoza y Madrid, Fundación Manuel Giménez Abad y Marcial Pons, 2016.

Razón, poesía, historia.--La cuestión del estoicismo español.--El querer.

Dibujar el pensamiento de Seneca es dibujar su figura viva, trazar el esquema de su persona. Seneca es un mediador que para alzarse sobre nosotros necesita de nuestra necesidad, pues solo apoyado en nuestra indigencia tiene sentido. Maria Zambrano lleva a cabo un lucido estudio de la figura y significacion del pensador cordobes y presenta una seleccion de sus escritos.

Positive reappraisal strategies have been found to reduce negative affect following the recall of negative personal events. This study examined the restorative effect of two mood-repair instructions (self-compassion vs benefit-focused reappraisal) and a control condition with no instructions following a negative Mood Induction Procedure by using the guided recall of a negative autobiographical event. A total of 112 university students participated in the online study (81% women, Mage: 21.0 years). Immediately following the negative memory recall, participants were randomised to each (...) condition [(self-compassion: n = 36, benefit-focused: n = 39) or a control condition (n = 37)]. Repeated measures ANOVAs 3 (Repair condition) × 3 (Time of mood assessment: pre-recall, post-recall, post-regulation) showed that, as expected, negative mood (sadness, shame, and guilt) worsened significantly after the guided recall in all groups (p <.001). After the mood-repair intervention, participants in the self-compassion and benefit-focused conditions showed a significant reduction in negative mood (p <.019), while such improvement was not observed in the control group. Self-compassion and benefit-focused reappraisal functioned similarly as mood repair strategies after experiencing negative affect induced by the recall of negative personal memories. Implications in the context of autobiographical memory biases are discussed. (shrink)

In their paper titled _Choosing death in unjust conditions: hope, autonomy and harm reduction,_ Wiebe and Mullin argue against the stance of diminished autonomy in chronically ill, disabled patients living in unjust sociopolitical environments who pursue medical assistance in dying (MAiD). They suggest that it would be paternalistic to deny these people this choice and conclude that MAiD should actually be seen as a form of harm reduction for them. This response to their article argues that basing discussions surrounding this (...) important topic on a single bioethical concept does not address the needs of this cohort and is restrictively siloed. The discussion should include considerations of human rights and the need for legislative reforms to address social conditions, in addition to traditional bioethical principles. Work in this area needs to become interdisciplinary and collaborative as well as integrate input from the patients themselves. The concept of the dignity of these patients, in its broadest sense, needs to be infused into the discussion in order to optimise the exploration for solutions for this cohort. The stance of MAiD as harm reduction, in this context, does not meet the definition of harm reduction, nor does it represent a commitment to the best interests of these patients. (shrink)

Drawing on recent findings, this study examines whether valence concordant electromyography (EMG) responses can be explained as an unconditional effect of mere stimulus processing or as somatosensory simulation driven by task-dependent processing strategies. While facial EMG over the Corrugator supercilii and the Zygomaticus major was measured, each participant performed two tasks with pictures of album covers. One task was an affective evaluation task and the other was to attribute the album covers to one of five decades. The Embodied Emotion Account (...) predicts that valence concordant EMG is more likely to occur if the task necessitates a somatosensory simulation of the evaluative meaning of stimuli. Results support this prediction with regard to Corrugator supercilii in that valence concordant EMG activity was only present in the affective evaluation task but not in the non-evaluative task. Results for the Zygomaticus major were ambiguous. Our findings are in line with the view that EMG activity is an embodied part of the evaluation process and not a mere physical outcome. (shrink)

The study of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder addresses variables related to three core symptoms: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. However, it has been suggested that in recent years emotional difficulties and subsequent social challenges have not received sufficient attention. This study had two objectives: 1) to compare the performance of participants (age range: 8-14 years) on facial emotion recognition tasks using the Affect Recognition subtest of the Children Neuropsychological Battery II; and 2) to assess the perceptions of family members in relation (...) to variables associated with emotional problems, difficulty in regulating emotions, and anger management using the Spanish Assessment System for Children and Adolescents. Assessments were conducted before and after applying an emotion regulation intervention designed for this study. Following the intervention, there was a significant decrease in scores associated with emotional regulation, and an improvement in the identification of affect on facial recognition tasks. The results suggest that despite Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder children and adolescents having social and emotional deficits secondary to the core symptom triad, emotional regulation in this group can be improved by the application of socio-emotional intervention programs. (shrink)

_Jane and Louise Wilson_ With Essays by Jeremy Millar and Claire Doherty London: Ellipsis, 2000 ISBN 1-84166-027-2 84 pp., inc. 120 b/w photograph.

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

The purpose of this article is to argue for a position holding that epigenetic responsibility primarily should be a political and not an individual responsibility. Epigenetic is a rapidly growing research field studying regulations of gene expression that do not change the DNA sequence. Knowledge about these mechanisms is still uncertain in many respects, but main presumptions are that they are triggered by environmental factors and life style and, to a certain extent, heritable to subsequent generations, thereby reminding of aspects (...) of Lamarckism. Epigenetic research advances give rise to intriguing challenges for responsibility relations between the society and the individual. Responsibility is commonly understood in a backwards-looking manner, identifying causally responsible actors to blame for a bad outcome. If only a backwards-looking responsibility model is applied, epigenetics might give rise to arduous responsibility ascriptions to individuals for their health and the health of their future descendants. This would put heavy responsibility burdens on actors constrained by unequal social and economic structures. In contrast, a forward-looking responsibility notion takes account of structural conditions and pay attention to who is best placed to do something about conditions contributing to bad outcomes. A forward-looking responsibility notion would partly free disadvantaged individuals from responsibility, and identify actors with power and capacity to do something about structural factors constraining genuine choice. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the responsibility of AI experts for guiding the development of AI in a desirable direction. More specifically, the aim is to answer the following research question: To what extent are AI experts responsible in a forward-looking way for effects of AI technology that go beyond the immediate concerns of the programmer or designer? AI experts, in this paper conceptualised as experts regarding the technological aspects of AI, have knowledge and control of AI (...) technology that non-experts do not have. Drawing on responsibility theory, theories of the policy process, and critical algorithm studies, we discuss to what extent this capacity, and the positions that these experts have to influence the AI development, make AI experts responsible in a forward-looking sense for consequences of the use of AI technology. We conclude that, as a professional collective, AI experts, to some extent, are responsible in a forward-looking sense for consequences of use of AI technology that they could foresee, but with the risk of increased influence of AI experts at the expense of other actors. It is crucial that a diversity of actors is included in democratic processes on the future development of AI, but for this to be meaningful, AI experts need to take responsibility for how the AI technology they develop affects public deliberation. (shrink)

We argue that philosophers are competent to facilitate public discussion concerning restrictions on human migration across political borders. We also argue that presenting public audiences with a prima facie case for open borders offers a unique opportunity to elucidate important aspects of philosophical reasoning. Finally, we share resources and a lesson plan for those keen to examine the case for open borders with students, or to facilitate public discussion on these issues.

The phenomenon of moral transformation, though important, has received little attention in virtue ethics. In this paper we propose a virtue-ethical model of moral transformation as character transformation by tracking the development of new identity-defining (‘core’) character traits, their expressions, and their priority structure, through the change in what appears as possible or impossible to the moral agent. We propose that character transformation culminates when what previously appeared as morally possible to the agent now appears impossible, i.e. unconceived and unthinkable, (...) moving through stages of transformation where some possibilities gradually disappear while others open up. While we show an example of moral transformation towards virtue, we allow that such transformation can occur in the opposite direction, hence we make claims about ‘character traits’ rather than virtues of vices. Through the example of former slave-trader Rodrigo’s transformation in the film The Mission, we follow the parallel development of new objects of value and ways of valuing (with respect to a group of indigenous people of South America) with the closing down of the possibility of disrespecting and harming them, to the end-point of transformation, where allowing their capture is for Rodrigo both unconceived and, when conceived, unthinkable. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to argue for a position holding that epigenetic responsibility primarily should be a political and not an individual responsibility. Epigenetic is a rapidly growing research field studying regulations of gene expression that do not change the DNA sequence. Knowledge about these mechanisms is still uncertain in many respects, but main presumptions are that they are triggered by environmental factors and life style and, to a certain extent, heritable to subsequent generations, thereby reminding of aspects (...) of Lamarckism. Epigenetic research advances give rise to intriguing challenges for responsibility relations between the society and the individual. Responsibility is commonly understood in a backwards-looking manner, identifying causally responsible actors to blame for a bad outcome. If only a backwards-looking responsibility model is applied, epigenetics might give rise to arduous responsibility ascriptions to individuals for their health and the health of their future descendants. This would put heavy responsibility burdens on actors constrained by unequal social and economic structures. In contrast, a forward-looking responsibility notion takes account of structural conditions and pay attention to who is best placed to do something about conditions contributing to bad outcomes. A forward-looking responsibility notion would partly free disadvantaged individuals from responsibility, and identify actors with power and capacity to do something about structural factors constraining genuine choice. (shrink)

This special focus issue brings to the Journal of Religious Ethics fresh considerations of moral anthropology as practiced by four emergent voices within the field. Each of these essays, in varying ways, seeks not only to advance an understanding of ethics in a particular time, place, and context, but to draw our attention to shared aspects of the human condition: its discontinuities and fractures, its practices of perception and attention, its interplays of emotion, intuition, and reason, and its thoroughly intersubjective (...) nature. To learn something of Thai Buddhist life-worlds, contemporary Russian modes of being, or the experience of immorality in today's China, each essay argues in turn, is to gain new insight into ourselves. (shrink)

In this conceptual article, we argue that defining corporate social responsibility and corporate social irresponsibility as opposite constructs produces a lack of clarity between responsible and irresponsible acts. Furthermore, we contend that the treatment of the CSR and CSI concepts as opposites de-emphasizes the value of CSI as a stand-alone construct. Thus, we reorient the CSI discussion to include multiple aspects that current conceptualizations have not adequately accommodated. We provide an in-depth exploration of how researchers define CSI and both identify (...) and analyze three important gray zones between CSR and CSI: the role of harm and benefit, the role of the actor and intentionality, and the role of rectification. We offer these gray zones as factors contributing to the present lack of conceptual clarity of the term CSI, as a concept in its own right, leading to difficulties that researchers and managers experience in categorizing CSI acts as distinct from CSR. (shrink)

Certain emotional processes “bypass the will” and even awareness, whereas others arise due to the deliberative evaluation of objects, states, and events. It is important to differentiate between the automatic versus reflective origins of emotional processes, and sensory versus conceptual bases of diverse negative and positive emotions. A taxonomy of emotions based on different origins is presented. This taxonomy distinguishes between negative and positive automatic versus reflective emotions. The automatic emotions are connected with the (a) homeostatic and (b) hedonistic regulatory (...) mechanisms. The reflective emotions—uniquely human—are described in reference to deliberative processes and appraisals based on two types of conceptual and verbalized evaluative standards: (a) ideal self-standards and (b) general, axiological standards of good and evil. (shrink)