El presente artículo trata de recuperar, a través de la obra El cosmopolita de Fougeret de Monbron, un cosmopolitismo ilustrado de talante cínico. Un cosmopolitismo menos preocupado por el concierto de las naciones y más centrado en el viaje, en el derecho a curiosear y construirse en la atención a aquellos que son diferentes a nosotros a los que muchas veces no comprendemos, pero que, por el hecho de que constituyen el lugar del viaje, son fundamentales para configurar nuestra propia (...) identidad. (shrink)

Educar... ¿Cómo? ¿Qué implica hoy el mero hecho de que la ciudadanía pueda ser educada? Y, realmente, ¿podemos hoy educar a nadie? Éste es el lugar hacia el que se dirige la presente obra. El lugar de la discusión en filosofía moral y política se sitúa hoy en el ámbito de las virtudes cívicas y la educación de la ciudadanía. Pero aparte de dar cuenta de la necesidad de algún elenco de virtudes para sostener nuestro mundo y para poder vivir (...) en democracia, poco más allá se suele ir en la discusión. Por otro lado, ante el mundo de una ciudadanía que ha de ser enseñada para serlo, los pedagogos tampoco tienen muy claro cuál es su trabajo, qué deben enseñar ni cómo. El propósito de este libro es analizar qué supone apostar por ese ámbito de virtudes cívicas y cómo se puede educar en el mismo. (shrink)

Hoy vivimos en un mundo emocionalizado donde las discusiones éticas, políticas o culturales y estéticas se ofrecen siempre en forma de emociones (y se legitiman por ser sentimientos o afectos) y es difícil encontrar un espacio para la reflexión razonada. Creo que atender a la reflexión de Hume sobre la estética nos puede ayudar aquí, pues aunque comienza su conocido ensayo “Of the Standard of Taste” con la asunción de que sobre gustos nada hay escrito, Hume permite construir un espacio (...) de discusión (aunque no enteramente racional) acerca de cuestiones evidentemente sentimentales. Un espacio que se distingue por la conversación y la sociabilidad que supone esta: lo bello, como cualquier emoción, se educa en la charla que establecemos con quienes conversamos. No hay nada previo a la misma. (shrink)

Hutcheson es el teórico del sentido moral. y por tal se entiende una concepción de nuestro comportamiento ético y político que, a la par que sienta las bases de 10 que se ha instituido como concepción liberal de la política, es incapaz de considerar nuestro laborar en el mundo sin referirlo directamente a las imágenes comunitarias de 10 que sea el bien. Lo que Hutcheson nos puede enseñar es que nuestras discusienes actuales en filosofía política malentienden nuestra tradición y son (...) incapaces de leerla al completo: precisamente a poco que se mire en nuestro pasado se comprenderá que nunca han caminado por separado las concepciones entre un estricto y autónomo sentido moral que juzga desde sí y una benevolencia comunitaria que le da los significados con los que juzgar. (shrink)

My aim is to present the work of Jean Meslier and to give some keys, so that the reading of said work may be interesting for our time. My idea is that our reading should not be a study on Meslier, but on the way in which pain, hatred and anger forge his work – and what this entails when one attempts to write against injustice and inequality. In the first place, it implies a given speechlessness, lacking the words with (...) which we usually speak in our unfair and unequal world, since they become illegitimate precisely in our sharing such world. (shrink)

My aim is to present the work of Jean Meslier and to give some keys, so that the reading of said work may be interesting for our time. My idea is that our reading should not be a study on Meslier, but on the way in which pain, hatred and anger forge his work – and what this entails when one attempts to write against injustice and inequality. In the first place, it implies a given speechlessness, lacking the words with (...) which we usually speak in our unfair and unequal world, since they become illegitimate precisely in our sharing such world. (shrink)

La historicidad, la adaptación continua de la vida humana a problemas puntuales es el marco –antropológico– en el que la Ilustración escocesa inscribe su reflexión moral. Un trabajo continuo de adecuación al medio generalmente expuesto a través de una concepción por etapas de la historia, cuyo fruto, objetivado como leyes, normas o morales, no es nunca buscado y sí producto de las consecuencias inesperadas de decisiones que se toman sin referentes seguros en su diseño inicial. Esa contextualización, cuyo motor es (...) la perfectibilidad humana, en último término supone la atención a los distintos intereses y esferas de la vida, lo cual hace que la reflexión moral quede parcelada en las pequeñas esferas donde aparecen esos intereses; este será el motivo que llevará a la Ilustración escocesa a buscar algún tipo de universalidad que se complaciera de forma natural en el resultado de aquel artificial proceso de adaptación histórica al medio. (shrink)

El presente artículo parte de la convicción de que no hay posibilidad de propuestas novedosas y críticas desde una idea de nuestro presente y de nuestra historia como la que habitualmente sostenemos convencidos como estamos de que pasado y presente están unidos de un modo que nuestra razón siempre puede llegar a comprender. De esta manera la posibilidad de cambio o alternativa a nuestro presente siempre queda enmarcada dentro de un cuadro de comprensión coherente y que es muy lejano a (...) la novedad que se puede encontrar en el absurdo y el capricho. La obra de Diderot nos presenta la posibilidad de poder conversar incluso con aquello que nos parece absurdo e ininteligible y con ello ofrece una oportunidad a poder concebirnos de manera novedosa e incluso impensada: al contrario que el diálogo, la conversación siempre termina configurándose incluso con momentos absurdos y no completamente comprendidos. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene como objetivo desarrollar el pensamiento crítico y actitudes cívicas sobre los derechos humanos en la infancia con el álbum ilustrado. Para ello, se explica la conjunción entre lenguaje textual y visual del álbum y su aprovechamiento para desarrollar la educación literaria, plástica y en valores. Se analizan cuatro títulos con los que realizar mediación educativa en Educación Infantil relacionada con los derechos humanos. Finalmente, se concluye que el álbum es una herramienta pedagógica idónea para fomentar la lectura (...) literaria, la alfabetización visual y la creación de una futura ciudadanía crítica, empática y consciente de los derechos humanos. (shrink)

Resumen La educación superior se ha constituido en un objeto de creciente interés en la literatura especializada. A pesar de lo anterior, la mayor parte de la investigación disponible se concentra en estudios de corte descriptivo y evaluativo, sin conectar sus desarrollos con las reflexiones de la teoría sociológica. El presente ensayo identifica las principales posibilidades teóricas y epistemológicas de la teoría de sistemas sociales para el análisis de la educación superior, examinando los rendimientos de la noción de diferenciación de (...) planos de formación sistémica (interacción, organización y sociedad) y la idea de diferenciación de sistemas parciales especializados. Abstract Higher education has become an object of growing interest in the specialized literature. Despite this, most of the available research concentrates on descriptive and evaluative studies, without connecting its developments with the reflections of general sociological theory. This essay identifies the main theoretical and epistemological possibilities of social systems theory for the analysis of higher education, examining the uses of the notion of differentiation of systemic formation planes (interaction, organization, and society) and the idea of differentiation of specialized partial systems. (shrink)

Uterus transplantation (UTx) research has been introduced in several countries, with trials in Sweden and the United States producing successful outcomes. The growing interest in developing UTx trials in other countries, such as Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, and Australia, raises important questions regarding the ethics of surgical innovation research in the field of UTx. This paper examines the current state of UTx in the context of the surgical innovation paradigm and IDEAL framework and discusses the ethical challenges faced by those (...) considering the introduction of new trials. We argue that UTx remains an experimental procedure at a relatively early stage of the IDEAL framework, especially in the context of de novo trials, where protocols are likely to deviate from those used previously and where researchers are likely to have limited experience of UTx. We conclude that countries considering the introduction of UTx trials should build on the strengths of the reported outcomes to consolidate the evidence base and shed light on the uncertainties of the procedure. Authorities responsible for the ethical governance of UTx trials are advised to draw on the ethical framework used in the oversight of surgical innovation. (shrink)

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words’ emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present paper, we show how attentional cueing (both exogenous and endogenous) to each conceptual dimension succeeds in modifying both the manifestation and the symmetry of the effect. The theoretical implications of this (...) finding are discussed. (shrink)

My starting point in this article is that investigating the ethics of autonomous vehicles through the lens of the trolley problem is not only limited but also unethical. I construct my case by aligning myself with Niklas Toivakainen, who argues against David Gunkel’s reading of Levinasian ethics as an answer to the “Machine Question”. I adumbrate Toivakainen’s critique that the attempt to give a Levinasian face to the machine is an example of a compensatory logic – a way to avoid (...) a deeper exploration of the moral dynamics from which our technologies emerge. I offer an extended reading of Levinas’s formulation of the face of the other to argue that while the machine cannot signify as a face, the machine can announce or anticipate the signification of the face which the self is infinitely responsible to. I reach this conclusion through focusing on the uncertainty and ambiguity of the signification of the face. I then argue that current approaches to the ethics of autonomous vehicles, based on variations of the trolley problem, fail to locate ethical responsibility to the other, precisely in its attempts to evade uncertainty. I demonstrate how an embrace of uncertainty can make the ethics of autonomous vehicles more ethical through a consideration of the concept of shared space and naked streets in the work of the late Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman. (shrink)

Da ficção científica para a ficção religiosa: ideias para pensar o cinema de ficção científica como o culto da religião vivida (From Science Fiction to Religious Fiction: ideas to think on Science Fiction cinema as the cult of lived religion). DOI - 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2012v10n26p552 Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre a chamada religião vivida como uma forma de repensar o papel da teologia e das ciências da religião na contemporaneidade. O estudo da religião vivida será investigado na relação entre o (...) cinema de ficção científica e a religião, propondo que, nesta relação, há uma forma de religião vivida intensa e viva. Sugere-se, assim, que o cinema seja hoje uma forma de culto e ritual, cumprindo parte do papel que os mitos e ritos sagrados desempenham na vida das pessoas, ao longo dos tempos. O artigo contém quatro partes: introdução sobre a religião vivida; religião vivida no caso específico do cinema; o cinema de ficção científica como uma forma de religião; aplicação da teoria no filme “Contato” (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1997); conclusões sobre a vivência religiosa em forma de mito e rito nos filmes de ficção científica e as consequências disso para a teologia e as ciências da religião. Palavras-chave : Cinema de ficção científica. Religião. Culto e rito. Religião vivida.: This article aims at reflecting about the so-called lived religion as a way of rethinking the role of theology and religion in contemporary society. The study of the lived religion will investigate the relationship between the cinema of science fiction and religion, suggesting that, in this relation, there is particular and intensive form of lived religion. The present article suggests that cinema today is a form of cult and ritual which performs part of the role that sacred rites play in the lives of people along the time. The article contains four parts: introduction about the lived religion; lived religion in the specific case of cinema; the cinema of science fiction as a form of religion; the application of theory in the movie “Contact” (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1997); conclusions on the religious experience in the form of myth and rite in science fiction movies as well as the consequences for theology and religious studies. Keywords : Science fiction cinema. Religion. Cult and rite. Lived religion. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical dilemma of conflicting loyalties found in whistleblowing. Central to this dilemma is the internal/external disclosure dichotomy; disclosure of organisational wrongdoing to an external recipient is seen as disloyal, whilst disclosure to an internal recipient is seen as loyal. Understanding how the organisation and society have dealt with these problems over the last 30 years is undertaken through an analysis of Vandekerckhove’s project, which seeks to place the normative legitimisations of whistleblowing legislation and organisational whistleblowing policies (...) within a globalisation semantic able to contain this conflict between society and the organisation. This project fails, it is argued, because of Vandekerckhove’s particular understanding of the organisation as an autopoietic system, i.e. an operationally closed system. A case is made to understand organisations as complex systems, i.e. operationally open systems. Critical Complexity theory sees the identities of systems and components as coterminous. In the context of the organisation, this means that the identities of the corporation and its corporate members arise and die together. The whistleblower’s disclosure reconfigures the organisation by forcing the organisation to open up and make its boundaries flexible, making the designation ‘internal’ or ‘external’ to the organisation, and, therefore, who qualifies as a recipient of a disclosure of wrongdoing, flexible. The organisation is restrained from retailing against the whistleblower, because its identities are coterminous. Furthermore, as the disclosure cannot be categorically defined as either internal or external, the question of whether an external disclosure can qualify as an act of organisational loyalty becomes moot. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of recent contributions to the debate on the ethical use of previously collected biobank samples, as well as a country report about how this issue has been regulated in Spain by means of the new Biomedical Research Act, enacted in the summer of 2007. By contrasting the Spanish legal situation with the wider discourse of international bioethics, we identify and discuss a general trend moving from the traditional requirements of informed consent towards new models more (...) favourable to research in a post‐genomic context. (shrink)

O presente estudo busca examinar alguns dos debates socrático-platônicos sobre a opinião pública diante da busca da verdade, e seu impacto político, particularmente para a democracia, que depende da noção de liberdade. Depois de se entender o avanço da visão de Platão sobre o problema da opinião e a impossibilidade de seu sobrepujamento geral, discute-se a visão do autor sobre o regime que dá poder ao demos e, ao final, que tipo de aprendizado se pode daí extrair para as democracias (...) contemporâneas. (shrink)

This article has as its theme the democracy as fundamentalism, or the democratic fundamentalism. Its main objective is the recognition that the thinking about democracy can itself be fundamentalist, implying that not only religious fundamentalisms are a threat to contemporary democracy. Its method and object are the interpretation of texts by two contemporary philosophers who do not usually talk to each other, the Italian Gianni Vattimo and the French Jean-Luc Nancy. The essay's thesis is the affirmation of democratic thinking as (...) a form of fundamentalism, insofar as it fulfills certain conditions established by the two thinkers analyzed. These conditions are, in the language of the aforementioned philosophers, the framing of democracy under the so-called strong thought, or its subsumption to a metaphysical way of thought, so that it becomes incapable of self-criticism and its necessary reinvention. Thus, it is expected to contribute to the construction of a self-critical vision of democracy through dialogue with aspects of thought little known of important philosophers and also through the dialogue between philosophy and theology as emancipatory ways of knowing. (shrink)