Online Public Shaming is a form of norm enforcement that involves collectively imposing reputational costs on a person for having a certain kind of moral character. OPS actions aim to disqualify her from public discussion and certain normal human relations. We argue that this constitutes an informal collective punishment that it is presumptively wrong to impose on others. OPS functions as a form of ostracism that fails to show equal basic respect to its targets. Additionally, in seeking to mobilise unconstrained (...) collective power with potentially serious punitive consequences, OPS is incompatible with due process values. (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)

Transnational effects are identified as those economic effects which cross state boundaries. Where these effects are negative, as illustrated by the ‘transnational case’, it is asked what the appropriate ethical analysis of such a case might be. If we leave aside a social distributive justice analysis, for reasons given, then a typical move is to claim that transnational economic effects are analysable as human rights violations. The paper examines this claim and identifies the specific view of human rights which motivates (...) it: the ‘outcomes view of human rights’. It is then shown how the outcomes view of human rights ultimately collapses into social distributive justice-type standards and so suffers from the same problems raised against using those standards for transnational effects. An alternative approach to human rights is sketched, although a complete theory of human rights is not offered. Finally, a different type of justice analysis for transnational cases is offered in which a form of international justice proper is proposed. (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)

A branch of political philosophy treats human rights as the output of democratic deliberations by a certain kind of polity. This school, represented by theorists like Benhabib and Besson, do not see detailed human rights as constraints on legitimacy but rather as the specification of abstract human rights (such as the "right to have rights") in terms of obligations and the distribution of burdens. This paper argues that the position is untenable as the notion of democratic decision-making depends on sufficiently (...) clear and specified human rights standards and the political respect they guarantee. Furthermore, the form that any democratic deliberation will take must express respect and reasonableness towards both rights recipients and burden-bearers. To do so, a clear sense of human rights must exist as a threshold, as must standards of societal justice and fairness. Human rights must come first, as a background condition of democracy. (shrink)

Toleration and neutrality are not always distinguished. When they are, they are often offered as two complementary solutions for the problem of achieving political unity and a degree of mutual acceptance within a pluralist liberal polity. The essay shows the concepts to be fundamentally distinct, and then argues that instead of being mutually supporting, they are mutually exclusive. Neutralist liberals, it is argued, must give up toleration in favour of the virtue of neutrality on the part of citizens.

The agency objection to applying distributive justice globally is that principles of distributive justice need to apply to the behaviour of a special kind of institutional agent of distributive justice because of the special powers of that agent. No such agent exists capable of configuring cooperative arrangements between all persons globally, and so distributive justice does not apply globally. One response to institutional views of this kind is that they do not rule out Natural Duties of Justice that fall on (...) all of us to bring about institutional agencies capable of global distributive justice. In this article I argue that this move presupposes a particular, teleological, conception of justice whilst institutional accounts most plausibly rest on a non-teleological one. I provide an argument for favouring the non-teleological conception. I also show why alternative ways of arguing for global Natural Duties of Justice do not get around this controversy. The debate is at the level of presuppositions about justice, and relying on a partisan conception is question begging. (shrink)

The debate over the applicability of the concept of (distributive) justice to the international sphere appears to focus on practicalities in the agent of redistribution. The agency objection says there is no appropriate agent of (the equivalent of societal distributive) justice and its aims for the international sphere. A common response is that the agency question is merely a matter of practicality, the concepts of justice and injustice can apply to circumstances in which distributive justice may not currently be practically (...) achievable. The paper argues that this response is based on a particular and contentious (in the debate) understanding of distributive justice as focused on outcomes rather than treatment by specific types of agents. A number of problems with that concept of justice are adduced and the alternative concept set out. Rejecting the agency objection based on an assumed concept of justice to which those making it would not obviously subscribed begs the question against them. (shrink)

A number of theorists have tried to resolve the tension between a western-oriented liberal scheme of human rights and an account that accommodates different political systems and constitutional ideals than the liberal one. One important way the tension has been addressed is through a “neutral” or tolerant, notion of human rights, as present in the work of Rawls, Scanlon and Buchanan. In this paper I argue that neutrality cannot by itself explain the difference between rights considered appropriate for liberal states (...) and rights considered to be human rights proper. The central arguments used by neutralist theorists presuppose, rather than justify, this differential treatment. Instead, that difference can be understood only by reference to the purpose of human rights as distinct from the constitutional rights of a liberal state. This requires us to reassess the point and purpose of a theory of international justice, in contrast to justice for a domestic and politically separate society. In the case of a theorist like Rawls, human rights represent guides to the foreign policy of a liberal state, rather than to principles by which all states are expected to abide. That is because of Rawls’ acceptance that no common, authoritative, third-party, institutions capable of imposing duties on all agents uniformly exist or can exist. This also makes his theory inherently conservative about human rights, given that they are simply to act as a guide to which states can be treated as legitimate when it comes to liberal foreign policy: those that possess institutions that can be said to represent a peoples, rather than being imposed through violence. This standard is lower than the ideal set of rights extended to all in a liberal society. (shrink)

International Human Rights Law is clear in holding only states or state-like entities responsible for human rights abuses, yet activists and philosophers alike do not see any rational basis for this restriction in responsibility. Multi-national corporations, individuals and a whole array of other 'non‐state actors' are capable of harming vital human interests just as much as states, so why single-out the latter as human rights-responsible agents? In this paper I distinguish two ways of looking at human rights responsibility. One is (...) simply in terms of the outcomes that are deemed desirable to avoid (or secure), and the other is in terms of the relationships one sees these moral standards as governing. I argue that the peculiar form of responsibility and responsiveness (the way of 'holding to account')inherent to human rights principles is directed at establishing a particular type of relationship: one in which individuals are empowered in the face of a very special form of communal power. Other kinds of relationship and potential transgression are more appropriately governed by different kinds of moral principles, such as those relating to criminality. The outcomes view fails to incorporate this insight and for that reason fails to see the distinct role played by human rights standards in our moral reasoning: they are precisely valuable because they provide a way to judge the relationship of individuals to the peculiar kind of power exercised by the state. Part of this project is a re-assessment of the methodology employed by philosophers in establishing moral principles and concepts, such as those relating to human rights standards. (shrink)

The paper engages the conceptual question of the nature of rights. First, moral methodology for developing criteria to judge the adequacy of theories for the concept of rights is discussed. Standard methodologies for conceptual theory, such as analysis of language practices, appealing to intuitions to test and correct hypotheses, and mixtures of these with appeals to substantive moral values, are shown to fail in important ways to give us reasons to adopt one or another view of the concept. An alternative (...) methodology is proposed which appeals to the distinct role of concepts in our value scheme (the added value of being able to employ such concepts in our moral judgments). This is then used to develop criteria for a successful theory of rights. Two existing theories are shown, as a matter of illustration, to fail to satisfy the criteria, and finally an alternative theory of rights which does satisfy these criteria is proposed and defended. (shrink)

Sue James recommends an 'enforcement account' of rights, where a right is to be understood simply as an enforceable claim. I show that adopting this analysis of rights implies giving up non-rhetorical, important, uses of the word 'right' which are possible on the best alternative theory of rights to James's position: the ability to deny a moral right's existence, even where claims are effectively enforced; the notion of a right's violation; and the idea that rights imply entitlement to make a (...) demand, and not just enforcement of demands. Thus, adopting James's position implies giving up much more than mere rhetoric about rights. (shrink)

This paper argues that Susan James' definition of rights as 'enforceable claims' suffers from key faults based in its descriptive approach to a normative and evaluative concept (rights). James cannot explain key and valuable functions of the concept of rights as action-guiding and reason-giving, and some upshots of the view are inconsistent with the reasons one would appeal to rights as a distinctive concept. On her view it is difficult to explain how a right can be violated, given that violation (...) appears to imply lack of effective enforcement. (shrink)

Sue James recommends an 'enforcement account' of rights, where a right is to be understood simply as an enforceable claim. I show that adopting this analysis of rights implies giving up non-rhetorical, important, uses of the word 'right' which are possible on the best alternative theory of rights to James's position: the ability to deny a moral right's existence, even where claims are effectively enforced; the notion of a right's violation; and the idea that rights imply entitlement to make a (...) demand, and not just enforcement of demands. Thus, adopting James's position implies giving up much more than mere rhetoric about rights. (shrink)

In this paper, I make three points. The first is that there is indeed a distinctive approach to moral methodology, different from standard moral reasoning, that can be described as “practice-dependence”. I argue that its distinctness lies in recommending an aptness claim , namely that moral principles for regulating social practices must be principles for better fulfilling the point of those practices, a point discoverable in shared understandings of the practice. Participants treat domestic political societies as having a different point (...) to the practice of international relations. On this approach, then, different moral principles apply in each case: principles of distributive justice between citizens in the former and principles of cooperative fairness between states in the latter. My second point is that this approach fails, however, an important test which I call the justifiability constraint . Any formulation of a moral principle assigning rights and duties, benefits and burdens, to people should be justifiable to those persons by reference to a moral value. Yet, as I show, the practice-dependence view cannot offer any justification based on moral value for the aptness claim. My last point is that both endorsers and critics of practice-dependence have mistakenly attributed this approach to theorists who restrict the scope of justice on the basis of moral justification. Such views are, in fact, incompatible with the aptness claim given that they offer plausible independently derived moral grounds for restricting the scope of justice. They are also compatible with the justifiability constraint. For these reasons, I conclude that practice-dependence is a red herring for debates on global justice. (shrink)

What is the appropriate legal response to terrorist threats? This question is discussed by politician Tony McWalter, The Philosophers' Magazine editor Julian Baggini, and philosophers Catherine Audard, Saladin Meckled-Garcia, and Alex Voorhoeve.

There are limits to what can be achieved using the means and medium of international law. This article explores those limits by providing an innovative theory of the nature of international law and how we should understand its limits in terms of value theory. A "four functions" theory is proposed, and these functions are used to interpret areas of international law in terms of their distinctive and valuable contribution to a specific area of human relations. On the basis of this (...) analysis of international law and international legal interpretation, the paper argues that the cosmopolitan aims of a number of moral cosmopolitan scholars fail to taken into account the value limits of international law. This is presented as a value problem, not a problem of feasibility or practicality. (shrink)

This chapter considers the key values underlying and explaining important features of international law as a system of law. It uses that value analysis as a way of interpreting international law and of asking whether, within those values, international law can be made to serve certain 'global cosmopolitan' re-distributive aims. The chapter argues that the constraints of international law mean that it is not an appropriate medium for global re-distributive goals commonly associated with theories of societal justice. Because those features (...) and constraints are based in values that international law distinctly serves, those constraints cannot simply be ignored, overridden, or changed judicially. (shrink)

Despite receiving high praise from Professors Barry, Narveson, Flew, and Gray (see the first page of the paperback), the Saladin Meckled-Garcia review (M-G) puts the level of Escape from Leviathan (EFL) as “undergraduate” and rates it one star. While undergraduates may profit from reading EFL, it is not mainly at their level. M-G either applies unusually high standards of philosophical argumentation or is simply philosophically perplexed.

Despite receiving high praise from Professors Barry, Narveson, Flew, and Gray (see the first page of the paperback), the review puts the level of Escape from Leviathan (EfL) as “undergraduate” and rates it one star. While undergraduates may profit from reading EfL, it is not mainly at their level. Norman Barry specifically warns “this book is not to be recommended to beginners”. The review either applies unusually high standards of philosophical argumentation or is simply philosophically perplexed.

« À la fin de son œuvre Les Aventures d’Alice aux pays des merveilles, Lewis Carroll dévoile en un bref paragraphe la nature onirique de l’histoire vécue par la fillette et y souligne le rôle spécifique joué par les bruits alentour ayant accompagné son assoupissement. Ainsi les sons du vent, de l’étendue d’eau voisine, des animaux et de la vie sociale alimentaient incidemment le récit hallucinatoire, œuvrant, dans le brouillard du signifiant propre au sommeil, à la reconfiguration du sens par (...) le non-sense. Ce que donne à lire la conclusion de l’œuvre est un cas typique de paréidolie noise, ce processus d’identification formelle chimérique, où les bruits devenus informes s’avèrent enfin disponibles pour y projeter d’autres formes. Un tel phénomène se retrouve sans doute dans la traque des EVP ( electronic voice phenomena ) qui hante l’histoire des médias et des technologies de reproduction sonore, soit ces voix fantomatiques supposément entendues dans la friture hertzienne d’un poste de radio ou tapies dans le bruit de fond d’un enregistrement. Qu’entendons-nous alors dans ces bruits? Et plus particulièrement, que nous disent ces voix du processus même de la pensée philosophique, lorsque la clarté censée la définir s’abandonne aux lignes de fuite de son brouillage? ». (shrink)

How do we build up our institutional reality? What do we need in order to construct such things as universities, law firms, banks, retail stores, factories, leg.

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)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

English summary: Within the span of a single century (from the mid-15th to the mid-16th centuries), the Greek language, which was well on its way to oblivion, became the focus of one of the most heated debates of the Renaissance period. Greek was accused by what was then a Catholic and Latin Europe of being a vehicle for ancient paganism, Byzantine schism, and even Lutheran heresy. The Council of Trent, which deemed that Roman authority was being undermined by the Vulgate's (...) philological criticism, went so far as to confirm the obvious collusion that existed between Greek and heresy. In fact, behind such accusations can be discerned the power struggles that were taking place between ecclesiastical, academic and political factions. Analysis of such confrontations and of the difficulties that Humanists had in circumventing them, infers that, despite its ultimate success, Greek literature remained suspect in Europe throughout the Counter-Reformation. In this very meticulous study, based on previously unpublished texts, of what was at stake in this anti-Greek movement (a resistance actually based on free, progressive and critical thought), the author combines the thoroughness of an historian with a mine of true anecdotes about the moral standards of that era : the censure practices, legal disputes, self-serving denouncements, etc. That, indeed, were the most evident driving forces behind the intellectual and power struggles. French description: Le grec, disparu d'Europe depuis les Grandes Invasions, fit un retour spectaculaire au XVe siecle. Mais l'enthousiasme des humanistes pour la langue d'Homere a fait oublier la violence des resistances que lui opposerent les maitres scolastiques. Lorsque Erasme osa contester la Vulgate latine au nom de la verite grecque (1516), le scandale eclata publiquement et Luther en prit argument pour contester l'autorite de Rome, si bien que les hellenistes furent accuses de faire le jeu de la Reforme. Le statut du grec se vit etroitement lie a celui de l'hebreu, l'autre langue sacree rivale du latin (l'Affaire Reuchlin). Pour extirper le mal a sa racine, le concile de Trente decida finalement d'imposer la legitimite du latin biblique (1545) et d'interdire l'acces aux sources grecques et hebraiques, puis de mettre a l'index les principaux hellenistes et leurs imprimeurs. Les etudes grecques allaient en rester durablement affaiblies dans l'Europe de la Contre-Reforme. En faisant revivre les oeuvres et les hommes qui en furent les acteurs, et en devoilant ses veritables enjeux, ce livre retrace les deux siecles de cette bataille du grec, restee un point aveugle dans l'histoire de la culture occidentale. Jean-Christophe Saladin est docteur en Histoire. (shrink)

This chapter shows that reflecting on Hidden Mickeys can take people at least part of the way to a solution to the problem of divine hiddenness. Here is the basic idea: it is often ambiguous whether some constellation of shapes is a Hidden Mickey, and similarly, it is often ambiguous whether some experience is an experience of God's presence and love. In order to develop this idea, the chapter steps away from Hidden Mickeys in order to develop the problem of (...) divine hiddenness in a bit more detail. There is a crucial disanalogy between the problem of divine hiddenness and Hidden Mickeys. One way to bridge the divide is to try out the idea that God simply cannot make his existence as apparent to people as the Disney corporation can make it apparent that it is run by agents acting intentionally. (shrink)

There seems to be a distinction between primary and secondary properties; some philosophers defend the view that properties like colours and values are secondary, while others criticize it. The distinction is usually introduced in terms of essence; roughly, secondary properties essentially involve mental states, while primary properties do not. In part because this does not seem very illuminating, philosophers have produced different reductive analyses in modal terms, metaphysic or epistemic. Here I will argue, firstly, that some well-known examples fail, and (...) also that there are deep reasons why such approaches should do so. Secondly, I will argue that it is acceptable to remain satisfied with the non-reductive account in terms of essence. To that end, I will indicate how such an explication could be put to use to support the claim that properties like colours and values are secondary. In a series of recent writings, Kit Fine has argued that essence cannot be reductively analysed in modal terms. Fine offers some examples to motivate his claim. I suggest that the primary/secondary distinction constitutes a philosophically interesting illustration. (shrink)

This article treats recent bioethical discussions of double effect reasoning (DER), offering a summary account of DER and construing it as rooted in a sensible view of what is central to someone's identity as a moral agent. It then treats objections raised in recent years by Judith Thomson, Alison McIntyre, and Frances Kamm against familiar ways of applying DER to certain controversies within medical ethics, especially, that over physician-assisted suicide. After detailing, interpreting, and attempting to rebut the challenges from these (...) philosophers, who are especially interesting because their criticisms of DER come from allies in DER's struggle against consequentialist reasoning, the essay engages DER's contribution to a recent dispute over treatment of patients in what is called ‘persistent vegetative state.' Near its end, the paper sketches several possible points of entry to DER and sources of justification for it. The essay concludes by indicating a connection between these paths and its opening idea of moral identity. (shrink)

Leibniz claims that for every possible substance S there is an individual concept that includes predicates describing everything that will ever happen to S, if S existed. Many commentators have thought that this leads Leibniz to think that all properties are had essentially, and thus that it is not metaphysically possible for substances to be otherwise than the way their individual concept has them as being. I argue against this common way of reading Leibniz’s views on the metaphysics of modality. (...) I develop a model in which individual concepts are innocent; that is, individual concepts are divine ideas that permit God to know everything that will ever happen to all possible substances, if created, but these individual concepts neither require that all properties are had essentially nor require that it is metaphysically necessary for substances to be the way their individual concepts have them as being. (shrink)

I defend the view that circular definitions can be useful and illuminating by focusing on the fitting-attitudes analysis of value. This definition states that an item has value if and only if it is a fitting target of attitudes. Good items are the fitting targets of positive attitudes, and bad items are the fitting targets of negative ones. I shall argue that a circular version of this definition, defended by Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2006), is preferable to its non-circular counterpart and (...) upholds reasonable standards of acceptability. The standards I will be discussing come from Humberstone (1997), who claims that definitions cannot be informative as long as they are inferentially circular. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a version of a sense-data approach to perception, which differs to a certain extent from well-known versions like the one put forward by Jackson. I compare the sense-data view to the currently most popular alternative theories of perception, the so-called Theory of Appearing (a very specific form of disjunctivist approaches) on the one hand and reductive representationalist approaches on the other. I defend the sense-data approach on the basis that it improves substantially on those alternative (...) theories. (shrink)

Das Buch behandelt die Theologie des brasilianischen Jesuiten und Fundamentaltheologen João Batista Libanio. Der Autor präsentiert dessen Bibliografie und Biografie, nimmt eine Einordnung der Theologie Libanios vor und arbeitet als Leitfaden dieser das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil heraus.

Drawing on phenomenological aesthetics and on the haptic aesthetics of eating as a form of everyday aesthetics, I examine the phenomenon of eating our own as meaningful in three dimensions: vital/natural, somatic/individual, and cross-cultural. Usually conceived as a concrete, rare, and foreign practice, I show how cannibalism is present in our daily lives, both symbolically and as a liminal possibility towards which – as Freud noticed in 1913 – we all tended as children. Cannibalism is present not only in cinematic, (...) literary, or visual art, and in anthropological research that situates it far from “us,” but through narratives and carnal dispositifs of differentiation/assimilation of the Same and the Other, fundamental for our subjective constitution. I conclude with a reflection on how the classical aesthetics of the sovereign subject develops towards alternative models like Pelluchon’s gourmet ego that re-establish the connexion and moral engagement lost by solipsism by means of alimentary metaphors, but also romanticizing them, failing to address the problem of voracity and overconsumption, both at a social and at an individual level. This is more suitably addressed by Viveiros de Castro’s idea of a cannibal cogito, but even better understood by Emmanuel Levinas’ enjoyment-contact model of subjectivity. (shrink)

The Greek word mētis (μῆτις) traditionally refers to a particular form of wily intelligence associated with the arts of deception (dolos) and the knowledge of tricks (kerdē), subterfuges, and traps. Mētis evokes innovative and ground-breaking solutions, based on the capability to understand, anticipate, and possibly violate the others’ expectations. Most importantly, mētis presupposes practical wisdom, or prudence (phrόnesis), a dispositional quality that underpins all the virtues that deserve to be cultivated by sportspersons and that is pivotal to perfect sportspersons’ moral (...) character. Not only is prudence required to apply mētis profitably for winning a game, but it is also indispensable to perform consistently with the game’s norms—cognizant of sport values. This analysis of mētis is key to illuminate the embodied dimension of tactical and moral reasoning in contemporary sport practice. In this paper, we first argue that the strategic effectiveness of mētis proves that not only sensorimotor control but also higher forms of intelligence, like strategic reasoning, are embodied and inform skilful performance; second, we argue that relying on mētis is necessary not only to interpret the rules of the game in one’s own favor but also to respect the shared values that these rules uphold in the sport practice. (shrink)

A partir de El Conocimiento del Amor, Martha Nussbaum emprendió un novedoso proyecto teórico, el de construir una vinculación productiva y no colonizadora entre la literatura y la reflexión moral. Una de las tesis que aúnan sus múltiples textos sobre este proyecto es que la lectura de textos literarios puede ser un componente no solo importante, sino necesario en el desarrollo moral de los sujetos. Por medio de una determinada forma de lectura y de un lector activo y crítico al (...) mismo tiempo, el sujeto podría desarrollar en mayor grado una capacidad empática que le permita reconocer injusticias, afectos y vulnerabilidades en situaciones allende la propia y en otros individuos (Nussbaum, 1997a, p. 111). El objetivo de esta presentación es contrastar esta tesis con un texto central de la literatura argentina moderna, El Juguete Rabioso2 de Roberto Arlt. Escritor, periodista e inventor, Roberto Arlt (1900-1942) es considerado como uno de los primeros escritores modernos de Argentina que incorporó materiales heterogéneos para su obra literaria –textos periodísticos, manuales químicos, etcetera– y que ofreció una interpretación particularísima de la vida urbana cambiante, desigual y políticamente movilizada de las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Construida como una novela de iniciación, el texto arltiano acompaña las desventuras existenciales de Silvio Astier, un joven marginado de los años 30 del siglo pasado que, a pesar de buscar el éxito a cada paso, solo encuentra el fracaso. El punto central de nuestro interés estará colocado en que el acto trascendental de su vida, una acción cruel y vil contra un amigo es llevada a cabo y justificada como producto de leer determinadas novelas literarias. La cuestión problemática de esta contrastación será cómo interpretar esta acción de Astier. ¿Es una refutación parcial de la tesis de Nussbaum, ya que las lecturas de Astier guían esta acción moralmente incorrecta?, ¿o es solo una advertencia contra las esperanzas exageradas de Nussbaum en la capacidad transformadora de la literatura?, ¿o, por el contrario, es una confirmación de la tesis, ya que esa acción no se seguiría del tipo específico de lectura que propone Nussbaum?, ¿o es, en este mismo sentido, una advertencia de que las condiciones capitalistas e individualistas representan obstáculos para el tipo de lectura que promueve Nussbaum?. En este artículo, defenderé que la interpretación más adecuada de la acción trascendental de Astier es que ella no surge de una experiencia lectora demasiado empática, sino de una experiencia lectora que rechaza la empatía, ya que implica la fusión total entre el personaje ficticio arltiano y aquellas novelas que conforman su experiencia literaria. La estructura del trabajo es la siguiente: En la primera sección, reconstruiré lo que Nussbaum denominó la promesa política de la literatura y cómo ella se basa en el mayor desarrollo de las capacidades empática y compasiva que puede ofrecer, en especial cuando se la compara con las teorías éticas generales tradicionales. En la segunda sección, confrontaré dos tipos de respuesta moralizante que la teoría de Nussbaum podría dar frente al “caso Astier” y mostraré que existe una respuesta no-moralizante y que refuerza la teoría de la filósofa. (shrink)

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) are an essential element of transport in industry 4.0. Although they may seem simple systems in terms of their kinemat.

Based on qualitative interviews with online media professionals conducted in several Spanish online newsrooms, this article explores the ethical issues that are debated by digital journalists, following the implementation of convergence and multiplatform production. Through the journalists' perceptions about the challenges of convergence and the demands of online news production, the main areas of ethical conflicts are examined. Building on Alasdair MacIntyre's theory about communities of practice, I argue that the standards and practices currently being developed in online newsrooms provide (...) a valid framework for ethical decision making. Finally, the premises for constructing online journalism ethics in these communities of practice are discussed. (shrink)

The contents of linguistic and mental representations may seem to be individuated by what they are about. But a problem arises with regard to representation of the non-existent - words and thoughts that are about things that don't exist. Fourteen new essays get to grips with this much-debated problem.

In Charles Mills’ essay, “White Ignorance,” and his trail-blazing monograph, The Racial Contract, he developed a view of how Whiteness or anti-Black-Indigenous-and-Latinx racism causes individuals to hold false beliefs or lack beliefs about racial injustice in particular and the world in general. I will defend a novel exegetical claim that Mills’ view is part of a more general view regarding how racial injustice can affect a subject’s epistemic standing such as whether they are justified in a belief and whether their (...) degree of confidence in the belief is rational given their evidence. Then, in light of this novel exegetical claim, I show how this interpretation of Mills’ view that racial injustice causes ignorance relates to how epistemically justified philosophers and social scientists are in the views that dominate their respective scholarly literature. (shrink)