Fundamentos da bioética -- Situações emergentes em bioética -- Situações persistentes em bioética.

This brief essay proposes to reflect on what could be Latin American bioethics, speculating about possible identity characteristics and operational limits of the idea of what constitutes Latin America, outlined conceptually by geographical, historical and cultural aspects. This attempt does not assume the task of defining exactly or definitively what Latin American bioethics is, but rather limits itself to the purpose of causing controversy in order to stimulate reflection on this topic to assess its usefulness.

ABSTRACT The bioethics of the so‐called ‘peripheral countries’ must preferably be concerned with persistent situations, that is, with those problems that are still happening, but should not happen anymore in the 21st century. Resulting conflicts cannot be exclusively analysed based on ethical (or bioethical) theories derived from ‘central countries.’ The authors warn of the growing lack of political analysis of moral conflicts and of human indignation. The indiscriminate utilisation of the bioethics justification as a neutral methodological tool softens and even (...) cancels out the seriousness of several problems, even those that might result in the most profound social distortions. The current study takes as a theoretical reference the fact that natural resources (which all of us are) are finite, and that corporeal, pleasurable and painful matters (which affect us all) are relevant. Based on these premises, and on the concept that equity means ‘treating unevenly the unequal’, a proposal of a hard bioethics (or intervention bioethics) is introduced, in defence of the historical interests and rights of economically and socially excluded populations that are separated from the international developmental process. (shrink)

This paper presents a new reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s famous (and controversial) rule-following arguments. Two are the novel features offered by our reconstruction. In the first place, we propose a shift of the central focus of the discussion, from the general semantics and the philosophy of mind to the philosophy of mathematics and the rejection of the notion of a function. The second new feature is positive: we argue that Wittgenstein offers us a new alternative notion of a rule (to replace (...) the rejected functions), a notion reminiscent of Category Theory’s notion of a morphism. (shrink)

The United States is one of the most charitable nations, yet comprises some of the most materialistic citizens in the world. Interestingly, little is known about how the consumer trait of materialism, as well as the opposing moral trait of gratitude, influences charitable giving. We address this gap in the literature by theorizing and empirically testing that the effects of these consumer traits on charitable behavior can be explained by diverse motivations. We discuss the theoretical implications, along with implications for (...) charitable organizations, and offer suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Conceptions of life. Chinese, Greeks, and Christians.--Conceptions of life. Modern rationalism and science.--The rights of human beings. Food; work; knowledge.--The rights of human beings. Sex and parenthood.--The rights of children.--Modern civilization.

Professional musicians are expected to perform at a very high level of proficiency. Many times, this high standard is associated with perfectionism, which has been shown to prompt both adaptive and maladaptive motivational dynamics and outcomes among music students. The question about how perfectionism interplays with motivational dynamics in music students is still unanswered and research within this line is scarce, especially in Latin America. In the light of Self-Determination Theory, this cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between the perceptions of (...) motivational context, basic psychological needs, perfectionism, and flourishing in University music students from Lima, Peru. We performed a path analysis testing a model in which motivational teaching styles predicted both, perfectionism and flourishing via need satisfaction and frustration. The model's fit indices were ideal [χ2 = 7.48, p = 0.300, CFI = 0.998, TLI = 0.992, RMSEA = 0.021, SRMR =0.040]. In this model, perceived autonomy supportive style predicted need satisfaction positively and need frustration negatively; perceived controlling teaching style did not predict need satisfaction nor frustration. In turn, need satisfaction positively predicted adaptive perfectionism and flourishing; whereas, need frustration predicted maladaptive perfectionism. These results shed light on the relevance of perfectionism in the psychology of higher music education students. Lastly, we highlight the importance of autonomy support in fostering adaptive high standards and flourishing in music learning. (shrink)

En el texto se llevan a cabo una serie de reflexiones en relación a la formación ética en las universidades para desde ahí edificar mejores ciudadanos. La relevancia de los estudios teóricos en la temática ética es crucial para apuntalar la comprensión de la ética y la ciudadanía en la vida práctica: sólo así podremos cambiar algo de este mundo. Además, la complejidad de nuestra realidad requiere de un pensar crítico para poder desbrozar tales complejidades, ayudándonos a comprender mejor nuestra (...) realidad y circunstancia. Sólo así podremos convertirnos en seres responsables de lo que nos toca hacer en nuestro mundo. La exigencia de un pensar ético crítico no puede dejarse de lado dado que será el único herramental que nos posibilite proyectarnos al futuro en la construcción de una mejor humanidad. (shrink)

Discourses and the ideas, perceptions and templates upon which they are based exert a powerful influence on law-making, push policy-making in a precise direction and determine operational action and outcomes. British counterterrorist law and policy post 9/11 is heavily mediated through a conceptual filter that evokes a siege mode of democracy, which deliberately displaces the traditional rights-based model, and a security narrative based on a double asymmetry. By blending a discursive theoretical approach with an institutionalist perspective, the discussion examines the (...) siege mode of democracy and its implications and the double asymmetry underpinning the Government's framing of the threat and of the means to counter it. Both features of the Government's security discourse are critical in explaining not only British counter-terrorist legislation and policy evolution in the 21st century and the controversial operation ‘Kratos’ adopted by ACPO in 2002, but also their official depiction as necessary, and singular, responses to some structured necessity and the associated logic of ‘no alternative’. (shrink)

v. 1. Nae Ionescu -- v. 2. Mircea Eliade -- v. 3. Octav Onicescu -- v. 4, pt. 1-2. Noica şi Securitatea.

In this piece, I propose a reading of Plato’s Gorgias that pays special attention to the role that the fictional audience plays in the unfolding of the dialogue. To this end, I use some of the insights that Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts–Tyteca conveyed in their seminal work, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation in order to argue that thinking about the way in which Socrates’ arguments are shaped by the different audiences that Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles aim to (...) address and represent provides us with a new hermeneutical understanding of what is at stake in each of the different interactions Socrates engages in throughout the dialogue. In unpacking the way in which Socrates appropriates Gorgias’ particular audience, transforms Polus’ universal audience, and challenges Callicles’ elite audience, I provide an outline of the difficulties that Plato’s Socrates has to overcome in order to achieve the ‘community of minds’ that Perelman and Olbrechts–Tyteca identify as the bedrock of fruitful argumentation. Having done this, in the last section I turn to Plato’s Phaedrus, for the purpose of making evident that thinking about Plato’s deployment of rhetorical audiences is a crucial step in the effort to expose the implicit continuity that links the discussion of rhetoric delivered by the Gorgias to that of the Phaedrus. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is a general-purpose technology (GPT), term given to technologies that shape an entire era and reorient innovations by reconfiguring the economy’s logic and functioning and bringing in new business models. AI offers unprecedented opportunities and risks. The benefits of AI are extraordinary, as are its potential harms. Potential damage does not have the same degree of problematization, since the intensity and extent of the damage varies according to the domain and the object of application. To address the scale (...) of this challenge, regulation is necessary but not sufficient. Standards, unwritten codes of compliance and arbitration procedures, supervision and auditability, AI governance, international agreements, compliance with current local and global standards and laws. All of this needs to be integrated. Society seems to have no alternative to facing the challenges of at least mitigating the damage already identified and trying to predict future damage in advance. The purpose of this article is to encourage reflection regarding the main initiatives that are available to society to protect its citizens and organizations from the potential harm caused by AI models, vis-à-vis the technology’s own limits to act in ethical and legal compliance. (shrink)

Notwithstanding universities’ many laudable aims, incidents of serious bullying, academic harassment and sexual harassment in academic settings are reported with increasing regularity globally. However, the human rights violations involved in bullying and academic harassment have not received attention by the literature. In this article, we pierce the veil of silence surrounding university environments and provide a systematic account of the breaches of international and European human rights law involved in academic bullying and harassment. By adopting a socio-legal lens, we shed (...) light onto such practices and tactics, the breaches of specific human rights and norms and the reluctance of states and regulators to intervene in what is perceived to be universities’ ‘sovereign’ sphere of jurisdiction in order to prevent human rights’ violations and to protect the victims of human rights abuse. We call for a multi-faceted and multi-agency approach to tackle academic bullying and harassment, and make a number of institutional and policy recommendations to ensure universities’ compliance with human rights standards and the effective protection of academics under attack. (shrink)

The proposal of the work centers on pointing out some of the relationships between the concepts that refer to the processes of socialization and subjectivation in its articulation with the understanding. For this end, a brief reference to them is made from a multidisciplinary and transversal approac..

Vaccines and vaccination are richly explored areas of study within the history of science and medicine, connecting related fields of the history of science and technology, and spanning across subfields such as biomedical sciences, animal studies, colonial and postcolonial history, and the history of global health. Vaccination is a thoroughly political act that is at once an intimate and local issue and a transnational one, with its particular set of politics connecting stakes for the individual and the community. Vaccination also (...) maps on narratives and temporal frameworks of disease with an ultimate goal of ending epidemics. Therefore, the essay takes these three analytical entry points to discuss the historiography of vaccination: the geographical, the political, and the temporal. We argue that through these lenses we can gain a more nuanced understanding of historical narratives we privilege, and in return, this understanding can enable us to explore past and current questions of health inequalities, validation practices, power relations and resistance and vaccine diplomacy. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to try to elucidate Wittgenstein’s ex-travagant thesis that each and every mathematical advancement involves some “semantical mutation”, i.e., some alteration of the very meanings of the terms involved. To do that we will argue in favor of the idea of a “modal incompati-bility” between the concepts involved, as they were prior to the advancement, and what they become after the new result was obtained. We will also argue that the adoption of this thesis profoundly (...) alters the traditional way of con-struing the idea of “progress” in mathematics. (shrink)

The relationship between food and religion is a lived activity formed by the dynamics of both tradition and adaption. Religious commitments to food are influenced by various factors, ranging from personal spirituality and experiences to social patterns of belonging, ethical, polit­ical and doctrinal convictions. _Challah_, _gefilte_ _fish_, _blintzes_ – these are just a few of the traditional Finnish Jewish meals that are still prepared by members of the community. The originally Eastern European dishes are one of the last living links (...) that connect assimilated Finnish Jews with their Orthodox Jewish ancestors mainly from Russia, Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania. The current paper aims to present the conceptions and reflections relating to boundaries of identity connected with the multi-ethnic culinary traditions of Jews living in Finland as well as their ways of coping with the requirements of _kashrut_. The article is based on ethnographic data from interviews as well as personal encounters, informal conversations and home visits. (shrink)

The ‘reinvention’ of nationhood in theory and the reform of British naturalization rules in praxis have been unable to address satisfactorily the issue of unjust exclusion and to make naturalization law and citizenship more compatible with democratic ideals. This has much to do with the fact that the discourse of new patriotism and the reconfiguration of national citizenship have inbuilt limits. In examining the ‘new’ discourse of patriotism in its various shades, I argue that it is inconsistent and unpersuasive. Neither (...) the rehabilitation of civic nationalism under ‘republican patriotism’, nor ‘constitutional patriotism’, nor ‘rooted patriotism’ succeed in transforming the nationality model of citizenship in order to render it more compatible with contemporary developments and with cultural pluralism. Similarly, the three models of citizenship developed by the literature, namely, postnational, transnational and multicultural citizenship remain rooted within the civic nationalist trajectory. Instead of arguing for the liberalization of naturalization requirements and the ensuing pluralization of citizenship, I put forward an argument as to how the nationality model of citizenship might be transcended by developing a model of civic registration. By contrasting this model with the Labour Government’s reforms in the fields of naturalization and citizenship, I argue that the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 places too much emphasis on social cohesion, thereby overlooking that a sense of belonging to community develops with inclusion in society and politics rather than as a result of citizenship ceremonies and language proficiency tests. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation for Wittgenstein`s treatment of mathematical identities. As it is widely known, Wittgenstein`s mature philosophy of mathematics includes a general rejection of abstract objects. On the other hand, the traditional interpretation of mathematical identities involves precisely the idea of a single abstract object – usually a number –named by both sides of an equation.

The authors, both child psychiatrists, discuss some of the ethical problems that arise in their practice, in relation to advice given in the British Medical Association's Handbook of Medical Ethics. They find that the main problems occur when multidisciplinary cooperation is needed. Their concern about confidentiality is shared in the papers by Kenny, Pheby and their commentators, which follow this one.

During the past decade, a small but rapidly growing number of Law&Tech scholars have been applying algorithmic methods in their legal research. This Article does it too, for the sake of saving disclosure regulation failure: a normative strategy that has long been considered dead by legal scholars, but conspicuously abused by rule-makers. Existing proposals to revive disclosure duties, however, either focus on the industry policies (e.g. seeking to reduce consumers’ costs of reading) or on rulemaking (e.g. by simplifying linguistic intricacies). (...) But failure may well depend on both. Therefore, this Article develops a `comprehensive approach', suggesting to use computational tools to cope with linguistic and behavioral failures at both the enactment and implementation phases of disclosure duties, thus filling a void in the Law & Tech scholarship. Specifically, it outlines how algorithmic tools can be used in a holistic manner to address the many failures of disclosures from the rulemaking in parliament to consumer screens. It suggests a multi-layered design where lawmakers deploy three tools in order to produce optimal disclosure rules: machine learning, natural language processing, and behavioral experimentation through regulatory sandboxes. To clarify how and why these tasks should be performed, disclosures in the contexts of online contract terms and privacy online are taken as examples. Because algorithmic rulemaking is frequently met with well-justified skepticism, problems of its compatibility with legitimacy, efficacy and proportionality are also discussed. (shrink)

En el texto se llevan a cabo una serie de reflexiones en relación a la formación ética en las universidades para desde ahí edificar mejores ciudadanos. La relevancia de los estudios teóricos en la temática ética es crucial para apuntalar la comprensión de la ética y la ciudadanía en la vida práctica: sólo así podremos cambiar algo de este mundo. Además, la complejidad de nuestra realidad requiere de un pensar crítico para poder desbrozar tales complejidades, ayudándonos a comprender mejor nuestra (...) realidad y circunstancia. Sólo así podremos convertirnos en seres responsables de lo que nos toca hacer en nuestro mundo. La exigencia de un pensar ético crítico no puede dejarse de lado dado que será el único herramental que nos posibilite proyectarnos al futuro en la construcción de una mejor humanidad. The responsibility of educators in Mexico today: theoretical knowledge as the underpinnings of ethical and civic practice.This text holds a series of reflections on ethical education in universities to build a better citizenship. The relevance of the theoretical literature on the subject is essential to underpin an understanding of ethics and citizenship in practical life; only then can we change something in this world. Moreover, the complexity of our reality requires critical thinking to clear such complexities, helping us better understand our situation and circumstance. Only then can we become responsible human beings for what we must do in our world. The need for critical ethical thinking cannot be ignored, as it will be the only tool that will enable us to project ourselves into the future construction of a better humanity. (shrink)

A life colonization is produced due to systemic demands that as a sign of the present-day life invades it with its logical functioning throwing moral and ethical values out either in private life or in public opinion. It is also important to point out a great increase of many pathologies in private..

The framing of the debate concerning sovereignty in terms of the dualism of retention or rejection conceals the floating character of sovereignty and constrains the capacity of the state to mutate, adapt and respond adequately to the diverse and complex processes which range in, through and above it. The paper develops the idea of floating sovereignty by putting forward four main propositions: (i) sovereignty's historical entanglement with statehood makes it unsuitable for non‐state political organisations; (ii) although the state has been (...) the necessary condition for sovereignty, the latter is no longer necessary for the evolution of the state; (iii) the traditional ideological function performed by sovereignty, namely the legitimation of state power, could be performed by other organizing principles which prioritize governmental efficiency over territorial extent and democratic criteria over nationalist ones; (iv) this means that the state will no longer be in a position to command the loyalty of its citizens but it would have to purchase it through its capacity to meet social needs, to fulfil its basic functions and through the normative qualities of its institutions and policies. Three institutional designs in core areas of ‘high politics’, that is, the fields of determination of nationality, immigration policy and foreign and security policy show how floating sovereignty could be implemented. (shrink)

Populistic political discourse often portrays ethnic minorities as threats to the majority society. However, the deeper characteristics of perceived threats have not been sufficiently empirically investigated. The goal of this study is to identify the similarities and differences in intergroup threats perceived by Slovak majority from Roma, Muslims, and ethnic Hungarian minorities. The participants included 1244 adults who were instructed to write the first five associations that came to mind when thinking about one of the minorities. Our findings indicate that (...) power threat was dominant from the Hungarian minority and safety threat from the Roma and Muslim minorities. Moreover, the safety threat from the Roma minority related mainly to theft and violence, while from Muslims it was terrorism. Mapping and addressing specific threats associated with different minorities can help explain misperceptions and reduce prejudice against them. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como tema as extensas discussões de Wittgenstein sobre uma das formas mais simples e elementares de infinitude em matemática: as dízimas periódicas. Tentamos organizar os vários argumentos do autor em uma única exposição continuada. No final do artigo, introduzimos, ainda que de forma breve, o famoso argumento sobre “execução de regras” de Wittgenstein, bem como a idéia de interpretações nãostandard de processos infinitos.