The present collection brings together a number of studies interested in highlighting the role of reflexivity and sentiment in Kant's philosophy. If philosophy is by definition a reflective endeavor, Kant's writings document a particularly powerful philosophical enterprise; not only because he constitutes reflexivity itself into the cornerstone of philosophical method, but also because, in doing so, he unveils fundamental structures of human subjectivity. Authors in this volume have succeeded in highlighting how Kant's commitment to reflexivity represents a privileged gateway of (...) exploring the complexity and richness of human experience. Aesthetic and moral experiences are particularly eloquent in this regard: aesthetic and moral sentiments represent for Kant a particular site of human reflexivity, which bring to light a specifically human world, marked by different kinds of normativity, in the midst of which humans actually live. (shrink)

Do doctors fix patients? Or do they heal them? For all of modern medicine’s many successes, discontent with the quality of patient care has combined with a host of new developments, from aging populations to the resurgence of infectious diseases, which challenge medicine’s overreliance on narrowly mechanistic and technical methods of explanation and intervention, or “fixing’ patients. The need for a better balance, for more humane “healing” rationales and practices that attend to the social and environmental aspects of health and (...) illness and the experiencing person, is more urgent than ever. Yet, in public health and bioethics, the fields best positioned to offer countervailing values and orientations, the dominant approaches largely extend and reinforce the reductionism and individualism of biomedicine. The collected essays in To Fix or To Heal do more than document the persistence of reductionist approaches and the attendant extension of medicalization to more and more aspects of our lives. The contributors also shed valuable light on why reductionism has persisted and why more holistic models, incorporating social and environmental factors, have gained so little traction. The contributors examine the moral appeal of reductionism, the larger rationalist dream of technological mastery, the growing valuation of health, and the enshrining of individual responsibility as the seemingly non-coercive means of intervention and control. This paradigm-challenging volume advances new lines of criticism of our dominant medical regime, even while proposing ways of bringing medical practice, bioethics, and public health more closely into line with their original goals. Precisely because of the centrality of the biomedical approach to our society, the contributors argue, challenging the reductionist model and its ever-widening effects is perhaps the best way to press for a much-needed renewal of our ethical and political discourse. (shrink)

Mientras que la interpretación tradicional de Tomás de Aquino había mantenido durante siglos que la ética tenía un fundamento en la naturaleza, apostando, en consecuencia, por una ética secundum naturam, contemporáneamente, en parte por la influencia anglosajona, pero también por la avalancha de estudios históricos y críticos sobre la obra del Aquinate, la tendencia se ha invertido, y se ha considerado preciso interpretar la ética tomista como una ética secundum rationem, poniendo el acento en la racionalidad práctica y no tanto (...) en la naturaleza. La corrección tiene cierto sabor kantiano, pero en principio parece fiel al propio planteamiento tomista, y parece conjurar asimismo el peligro de transgredir la llamada «ley de Hume», que denunciaba como ilegítimo el tránsito de enunciados de hecho a enunciados de deber. A pesar de la justificable insistencia en lo secundum rationem, mi opinión es que asistimos a un nuevo desequilibrio, consistente en pasar por alto el efectivo fundamento natural de la moral tomista que, con mayor o menor acierto, destacaba la tradición. Ciertamente, sobre la naturaleza como criterio de moralidad pesan muchas objeciones, pero es dudoso que éstas afecten realmente a lo que Tomás de Aquino entendía por naturaleza. En este libro se examina este concepto en su pensamiento, así como la conexión entre la naturaleza y el obrar moral. (shrink)

The contemporary confluence of globalization and ethical pluralism is at the origin of many ethical challenges that confront business nowadays, both in practice and in theory. One of the challenges arising from the development of globalization has to do with respect for cultural diversity. It is often said that the success of economic globalization tends towards social and cultural homogeneity. To the extent that cultural diversity is usually seen as a valuable reality, that global trend seems to contradict our efforts (...) to respect ethical pluralism, both personal and cultural, within society. In this paper I argue that (a) ethical minimalism, despite its emphasis on tolerance and justice, does not take pluralism seriously into account in present-day society, and (b) ethical minimalism is not suited to balancing the homogenizing trend of globalization. Certainly ethical norms are necessary, but by no means are they sufficient in themselves to encourage either justice or tolerance; nor are they sufficient to inspire and encourage good practices and sound regulations. Instead, virtue-based ethics has the capacity of inspiring and encouraging good practices. Particularly, virtue-based ethics is able to inspire a serious dialogue about ethical and legal issues both in the public arena and within organizations. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to view Kant's approach to education in the broader context of Kant's philosophy of culture and history as a process whose direction should be reflectively assumed by human freedom, in the light of man's moral vocation. In this context, some characteristic tensions of his enlightened approach to education appear. Thus, while Kant takes the educational process to be a radically moral enterprise all the way through—and hence, placed in a relational context—he also aspires to (...) constitute education as a science, to be improved through experiments, thereby paving the way for a systemic approach to education; in spite of its moral inspiration, his systemic approach not only could enter into conflict with the moral demand of taking each individual subject as an end, but is also marked by an intrinsic paradox, already involved in the ambiguity of the term ‘humanity’, which might mean a) humanity as a moral disposition present in each individual human being or b) humanity as a whole, as the ‘human species’. (shrink)

This book attempts a conceptual clarification of Kant’s approach to culture, given the lack of systematic study of this aspect of his thought. At its origin there was only a thematic interest in the manifold meanings of the term “culture”, as well as the underlying persuasion that Kant’s moral philosophy could provide us with a systematic framework to understand the increasing relevance of “culture” in modern thought. Specifically, the hypothesis was that the emergence of culture as a relatively autonomous realm (...) was implied in Kant’s refusal to let nature play a role in the constitution of the moral norm, and his requirement that the moral norm be defined through pure reason alone. As a result, culture would appear as a middle terrain: being neither empirical nature nor pure morality. Accordingly, culture can be approached either from the perspective of nature, or from the perspective of morality. Both approaches represent what can be termed “Kant’s explicit account of culture”. Behind this explicit, two-fold account of culture, however, an implicit account of culture in terms of “projection of man’s subjectivity” can be discovered. This latter account, itself a consequence of the critical enterprise, constitutes Kant’s most original contribution to the philosophy of culture. (shrink)

Although Kant is not usually counted among the forerunners of social sciences, any look at the work of the most prominent social theorists of the past century shows the pervasive influence of Kant's philosophy. This influence is obvious and crucial at the epistemological level, if only because Kant himself set the frame for subsequent discussion of the difference between human and natural sciences. Yet, Kant's work is also rich in substantive contributions to social theory, which may be articulated around his (...) conception of culture and cultural progress. (shrink)

In Understanding Moral Obligation (2012), Robert Stern sets out to provide a fresh interpretation of the role of autonomy in Kant’s moral philosophy and attempts to rectify J. B. Schneewind’s standard account in The Invention of Autonomy (1998). While Stern agrees that Kant’s resort to autonomy is at the basis of a constructivist account of moral obligation, he claims that autonomy plays no role in Kant’s theory of value, such that, in this respect, Kant remains a realist. Accordingly, Stern characterizes (...) Kant’s moral philosophy as a “hybrid” view because he sees it as involving a compromise between realism with regard to value and constructivism with regard to obligation. Stern’s interpretation relies on a sharp distinction between value and obligation. The purpose of the present article is to question his reliance on that rigid distinction, which involves intermixing theoretical and practical reason and assumes a distorted view of human agency. (shrink)

The expression “a culture of freedom” is unmistakably modern. Yet its meaning is not immediately clear. My purpose in this paper is to clarify the possible meaning of this expression by taking Kant’s practical philosophy as a point of reference. In order to do so, I will depart from Kant’s explicit conception of culture, and try to relate it to his own distinction between external and internal freedom, especially as it appears in the Metaphysics of Morals.

In this article, I explore the way in which Korsgaard’s approach to obligation as springing from the reflective rejection of that which threatens one’s own identity can account for obligations towards others, without making the latter relative to obligations to oneself. To this end, I begin by stressing the role of reflexivity in ethical relationships, and show how this reflexivity is mediated by reference to law, which applies both to the self and to the other. On this basis, I then (...) argue that Korsgaard’s account of the interplay between practical and moral identity reflects the very structure of practical reason, which requires both a particular and a universal premise in order to issue practical reasons for action– and the corresponding obligations. Within this framework, I argue that Korsgaard’s solution to the problem outlined above lies in having stressed the shareable character of reasons such that it is neither your reason nor my reason that obligates me, but rather reason as such. This solution, however, requires a further argument aimed at clarifying what makes your reasons different from my own. (shrink)

Qué es la ética, cuál es su objeto, en qué relación se encuentran moralidad y felicidad, qué diferencia hay -si es que la hay-, entre ética y moral, así como el recorrido histórico que permite comprender la frecuente diferenciación de ambos términos, o de qué modo cabe plantear la enseñanza de la ética en una sociedad pluralista, son cuestiones que, de un modo u otro, gravitan sobre nuestras discusiones éticas. -/- Si, como ya viene siendo habitual observar, nuestros conflictos y (...) desacuerdos éticos obedecen en gran medida a que ni siquiera estamos en claro acerca de la naturaleza de nuestros desacuerdos, explorar cuestiones como las que acabo de indicar es una tarea inexcusable. A este respecto, y en abierto contraste con una visión muy extendida, que tiende a presentar la ética como si fuera un recetario o un prontuario para resolución de conflictos morales, los estudios recogidos en este volumen nos recuerdan que la ética es ante todo una disciplina filosófica, y, por tanto, una tarea reflexiva, que partiendo de la experiencia del obrar humano, no persigue otra cosa que comprenderla mejor, con el fin de contribuir a la consistencia y dirección del obrar humano. (shrink)

This article explores one aspect of Kant's crucial contribution to the philosophy of culture. It does so by analysing two different approaches to the notion of culture, which are explicit in his work. The first, which may be called "genetical", presents culture almost as a result of a natural dialectic. The second, which I call "practical", regards culture as a task for the human being.

RESUMEN:En este trabajo se analiza el modo en que Kant distingue entre sentimiento y emoción, por un lado, y emoción y pasión, por otro, para mostrar: 1) que bajo el término “emoción” Kant entiende principalmente la afección orgánica privada de contenido cognitivo, aunque precedida y seguida de representaciones; 2) que la emoción constituye un elemento integral de lo que Kant denomina “sentimiento”, término del que se sirve para designar la dimensión subjetiva de la experiencia en sentido amplio, no limitado a (...) la afección empírica; 3) que su concepción negativa de la pasión justifica la posterior distinción entre emoción y pasión introducida en los estudios científicos. ABSTRACT:In this article I analyze Kant’s distinction between feeling and emotion, on the one hand, and emotion and passion, on the other. The objective is to show: 1) that by the term “emotion” he understands organic affection, deprived of cognitive content, although preceded and followed by representations; 2) that emotion so understood constitutes for Kant an integral part of “feeling”, by which Kant designates the subjective dimension of experience, in a broad sense, which is not limited to empirical affection; 3) that his negative approach to passion justifies the sharp distinction between emotion and passion introduced in scientific studies of emotion. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 106 Heft: 1 Seiten: 145-148.

In this article I argue the relevance of natural law for framing and addressing ethical issues raised by the practice of business in a global context. There are historical, as well as systematic reasons for this. On the historical side, it can be argued that the origin of modern economics is linked to a cultural context, still influenced by modern natural law theories. Thus, even if Hume’s moral theory is everything but a natural law theory, either in the traditional or (...) the modern sense, his “laws of nature” (fixation of property, rules for its transference, and promises) represent a systematization of the rules of justice necessary to preserve the space of economic freedom required for development of a commercial society. This systematization is in line with the classical approach to natural law, which nevertheless presents further advantages for developing an ethical approach to economic activity, since it brings with itself a conception of economic agency richer than that of Hume: a conception that is not necessarily linked to pursuit self-interest, but rather is inspired by ethical motives right from the start. Indeed, on the systematic side, the classical natural law is seen as the law of practical reason: a set of principles in charge of inspiring both virtuous action and legal practice, so that we can realize the human good. Assuming the embodied and social nature of human beings, as well as the various cultural realizations of humanity, a natural law approach to ethics is in a position to stimulate a dynamic and bottomup articulation of the personal and common good, concern for progress and sustainable development, universal principles and cultural variations. (shrink)

Populism’s Challenges to Political Reason can be seen as a consequence of social and cultural trends, the so called ‘emotional culture’, that have been accentuated in recent decades. By considering those trends, this article aims at shedding light on some distinctive marks of contemporary populism in order to argue for a reconfiguration of the public sphere that, without ignoring emotion, recovers argumentation and persuasion based on facts and reason.

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. Populism’s Challenges to Political Reason can be seen as a consequence of social and cultural trends, the so called ‘emotional culture’, that have been accentuated in recent decades. By considering those trends, this article aims at shedding light on some distinctive marks of contemporary populism in order to argue for a reconfiguration of the public sphere that, without ignoring emotion, recovers argumentation and persuasion based on facts and reason.

Además del concepto explícito de cultura como perfeccionamiento de la naturaleza, que podemos reconocer en muchos lugares del corpus kantiano, la entera empresa crítica puede considerarse cultura en un sentido más profundo: cultura como proyección de una subjetividad que busca en la naturaleza los indicios del destino racional y moral del hombre. Según esto, la filosofía kantiana puede verse como una filosofía de la cultura, posible, en última instancia, por la reflexividad de la razón, que advierte sus propios intereses, y (...) configura el mundo conforme a ellos. (shrink)

Las primeras teorías sociológicas son deudoras de las filosofías ilustradas de la historia, las cuales aparecieron para proporcionar un marco de sentido a la acción moral, una vez que la teoría moral renunció a los compromisos metafísicos de la filosofía moral premoderna. Al tiempo que defendió la autonomía de la sociología frente a la filosofía, Durkheim le prescribió a aquélla una tarea específica: realizar una ciencia moral que atendiendo a dos rasgos con los que los hechos morales se muestra a (...) la conciencia —solidaridad y coerción— pueda dar cuenta del sentido moral de la división del trabajo, hasta entonces considerado un proceso casi natural. El propósito de este artículo es mostrar cómo el enfoque durkheimiano permite descubrir una semejanza estructural entre el análisis sociológico y la tradicional perspectiva filosófico-moral de las obligaciones mutuas. (shrink)

In the light of the variety of approaches to the study of emotions, the purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, to draw attention to the cultural assumptions of experimental approaches to emotion, and, on the other, to show the relevance of resorting to philosophical tradition in order to conceptually clarify the difference between cognitive and non-cognitive approaches to emotions, as well as the constitutive elements of a cognitive approach to emotion, which I describe as «practicallycognitive» in (...) order to differentiate it from the rationalist one, which was criticized by James. (shrink)

This cross-disciplinary collection of essays focuses on gender from multiple perspectives. The main themes include human rights, political economy, cultural diversity, democracy, immigration, dignity, care, and shifts in hegemonic male models of societies.

This book joins the contemporary recovery of Kant’s empirical works to highlight the relevance of his concept of culture for understanding the sources of various characteristic modern dilemmas, such as the tension between culture and happiness, the morally ambivalent nature of cultural progress, or the existing conflicts between a factual plurality of cultures and the historical forces pressing toward a universal civilization. The book will be of special interest for Kantian scholars, moral and political philosophers, as well as philosophers of (...) culture. (shrink)

El uso habitual del lenguaje reconocía hasta hace todavía relativamente poco tiempo un sentido ético-normativo en los términos "natural" y "naturaleza". De un tiempo a esta parte, sin embargo, ha penetrado profunda¬mente en el sentido común epocal la idea de la diferenciación del hombre con respecto a la naturaleza. De ahí que, ante la invitación a secundar la naturaleza, no sea infrecuente escuchar la respuesta: "¿por qué? ¡si yo soy un ser racional, una persona!". Esta mentalidad coexiste culturalmente con la (...) cre¬ciente conciencia ecológica, que puede interpretarse como una invitación a considerarnos de nuevo como seres naturales. La invitación nos llega cuando ya hemos aprendido a vernos como seres libres, y a defender nuestra libertad; cuando en el discurso ético, términos como "dignidad" y "persona" han pasado a desempeñar el papel privilegiado que en otro tiempo desempeñaba el término "naturaleza": la fuerza retórica que en otro tiempo tenía el término "naturaleza", la tiene hoy el término "libertad". El reto es ahora conciliar el logro principal de la filosofía moderna –somos libertad– con la herencia clásica -somos naturaleza-. La tesis que se defiende en este trabajo es que, lejos de representar un obstáculo para la dignidad y la libertad real del hombre, la apelación a la naturaleza es lo único que garantiza que el término dignidad sea algo más que una palabra cargada de fuerza retórica para los occidentales. (shrink)

This book brings together a number of contributions dealing with certain fundamental structures of practical rationality, as they are presented in the areas of the philosophy of action and normative ethics, namely: intentionality, normativity, and reflexivity. With the term “intentionality,” is meant a set of problems that are linked not only with the teleological structure of praxis-oriented rationality, but also with its temporal structure. “Normativity”, in turn, refers to a distinct set of problems, which cannot simply be reduced to those (...) entailed in the intentional nature of human action, even if this notion incorporates a reference to the good or value in its very structure. Finally, with the term “reflexivity” we point at the linkage between the normative dimension of reason with both the contingent circumstances of action and the moral receptivity of the agent, as it is experienced in moral judgment. (shrink)

Polo's anthropology differs both from aristotelian and modern anthropology in his concept of person. In this paper, I explore the ethical relevance of this concept and its conection with the concept of "human nature", which Polo assumes making a distinction between "essence" and "type". This distinction is important in order to focus the ethical aspect of the relationship between nature and culture correctly.

Amidst prevailing debates that construe rationality and emotionality as polar opposites, this book explores the manner in which emotions shape not only prevailing conceptions of rationality, but also culture in general terms, making room for us to speak of an 'emotional culture' specific to late-modern societies. Presenting case studies involving cultural artefacts, narratives found in fictional and non-fictional literature and television programs, speech patterns and self-talk, fashion, and social networking practices, The Emotions and Cultural Analysis sheds light on the relationship (...) between emotion and culture and the ways in which emotion can be harnessed for the purposes of cultural analysis. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to understand the historical origins of the conceptual distinction between "ethics" and "morals" -as we can find it, for instance, in Habermas. I show also how such a distinction works on the contemporary ethical discussion, not only framing the controversy between liberals and communitarians, but also limiting our possibilities to overcome that controversy.

RESUMEN Una vez que el foco de la reflexión pasa de las teorías ideales a la aplicación de la justicia social, centrada en las instituciones de las sociedades democráticas, se requiere prestar especial atención a los estilos de vida. Estos tienen una alta incidencia en cómo la justicia es realizada y afectan tanto a la desigualdad económica como a la disponibilidad de los recursos naturales. En nuestras sociedades es posible establecer restricciones a los estilos de vida, especialmente en aquellos casos (...) en que, por el efecto de algunas dinámicas sociales, aquellos se desacoplan de las concepciones del bien. Se defiende que, en tales casos, la base normativa que permite exigir el respeto a los estilos de vida se disuelve y por ello es posible justificar su restricción. ABSTRACT Now that the focus of reflection has shifted from ideal theories to the application of social justice, centered on the institutions of democratic societies, it is necessary to pay special attention to lifestyles, since they not only influence the realization of justice, but also have an effect on economic inequality and the availability of natural resources. In our societies, it is possible to place restrictions on lifestyles, especially in those cases in which, influenced by certain social dynamics, they disengage from conceptions of the good. The article argues that, in those cases, the normative base grounding the demand that lifestyles be respected is dissolved, thus justifying their restriction. (shrink)

After many years drawing attention to the differences between Aristotelian and Kantian Ethics, recent scholarship tends to stress their commonalties instead. Among the authors representing this trend of contemporary moral philosophy, Christine Korsgaard has undoubtedly a leading role. Without denying the differences existing between them, Korsgaard has been particularly keen on calling our attention to their shared views.Yet Korsgaard herself has acknowledged an obvious difference between Aristotle and Kant, regarding their approach to emotions : unlike Kant, Aristotle does not think (...) of inclinations and emotions as mere feelings, but rather as valuable sources of information about morally salient aspects of our situation. In other words : they provide us with (germinal) reasons for action. Korsgaard, however, keeps this difference at the level of moral psychology, arguing that it does not make a great difference at the level of ethical theory. Now, this is precisely what I find controversial. My point is that this sort of difference imports a more fundamental one about practical reason in its entirety, a difference which used to be preserved in Kant’s own reference to a “pure practical reason” – against which Aristotle’s might be called “impure practical reason”. (shrink)

In the following pages, our specific aim is to show how Hume’s analysis of justice provides the occasion for the gradual display of some key elements of a psychosocial action theory, which lay the foundations for later social thinking. -/- RESUMEN: En lo que sigue, nuestro objetivo específico es mostrar cómo el análisis que realiza Hume de la justicia proporciona la ocasión para introducir de manera gradual elementos clave para el desarrollo de una teoría psico-social de la acción, presupuesta en (...) buena parte del pensamiento social posterior. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the difference between deliberate action and spontaneous action, and see how Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume and Kant approach this topic.

This book is a major contribution to the renewed interest in natural law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of natural law, both from a historical and a systematic point of view. It ranges from the mediaeval synthesis of Aquinas through the early modern elaborations of natural law, up to current discussions on the very possibility and practical relevance of natural law theory for the contemporary mind.

Se explora la justificación que ofrece Hume del gobierno en dos momentos, y, a partir de ahí, los argumentos con los que pretende salvar la posibilidad de la resistencia civil sin afirmar tajantemente un derecho a la resistencia. Para ello pone en juego su distinción entre obligación natural —u obligación de interés—y obligación moral —-avalada por el sentimiento. Al hilo de esta distinción puede señalarse un criterio para distinguir normalidad y excepción, y, eventualmente, el tipo de situación que podría respaldar (...) acciones de resistencia civil. (shrink)