This paper aims to articulate the way in which Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jan Patočka revisit the figure of Socrates as a way of overcoming what they view as the “crisis of philosophy”, discussing both their points of convergence and divergence. To this end, the paper unfolds in three sections. The first section will address the general sense of historical crisis in which the said crisis of philosophy arises. The second section turns around Merleau-Ponty’s proposal of a return to Socrates as (...) a way out of this crisis, a solution based on the understanding that philosophy is actually fulfilled in a living relationship with men, and far from its reduction into a comprehensive system of thought. The third section will revolve around the Patočkian characterization of Socrates as a model of “spiritual man” and such characterization will be worked out through the existential dialectic that constitutes the “movement of life”. (shrink)

El Ser natural o salvaje que se resiste a ser capturado por las operaciones activas del yo implica el reconocimiento de una realidad opaca e inaprensible a la conciencia reflexiva, o más precisamente, el reconocimiento de “una conciencia arcaica o primordial”, una “arqueología” o “un contenido latente”. En virtud de ello, nos proponemos, en primer lugar, mostrar que la dimensión arqueológica puede ser elucidada desde dentro de la fenomenología, en la medida en que la perspectiva genética ya está presente en (...) los análisis realizados por Husserl acerca de la pasividad. Por su parte, continuando en la línea de estos análisis, Merleau-Ponty intentará capturar en “el ser primordial” aquello que desde un comienzo resiste a la reflexión, lo cual implica detenerse en la manera en que el fenomenólogo francés interpreta la reducción. Esto nos conduce al segundo punto, en el cual analizaremos la resistencia a la reflexión considerando, en primer lugar, el anonimato natural como es descrito en la Fenomenología de la percepción y el “ser natural” tratado en los últimos escritos. La elucidación acerca del ser natural nos permitirá explicitar algunos análisis sobre la pasividad y, en particular, la interpretación del inconsciente. (shrink)

El propósito de este trabajo apunta, en primer lugar, a dilucidar en la _Fenomenología de la percepción_, el marco a partir del cual el autor comprende la historia y, en particular, el acontecimiento histórico. Según mi opinión, la descripción de este marco, de fuerte carácter existencialista, nos permitirá, en un segundo momento, avanzar hacia los rasgos específicos del acontecimiento histórico: singularidad, generalidad y contingencia, que ofrecen la clave para comprender en qué medida el acontecimiento es, desde la mirada merleau-pontyana, enigma (...) y huella. Finalmente, una mirada prospectiva de la obra del autor nos permitirá ubicar la posición merleau-pontyana en el contexto de la discusión actual. (shrink)

La noción de sistema de equivalencias adquiere en la fenomenología merleaupon-tyana un lugar central, puesto que allí subyace una función general de transposición tácita. Se trata de un principio de comprensión sin explicación analógica, una síntesis sin análisis, tal como puede observarse, por ejemplo, en la plasticidad, la transferi-bilidad y la analogicidad que caracteriza a los hábitos. Sobre esta base, este artículo seguirá un camino regresivo a fin de desvelar que el sentido de las equivalencias y transposiciones está latente en (...) "las matrices simbólicas", que ofrecen una clave para comprender que los fenómenos de expresión, que tienen lugar en el mundo a través del cuerpo, del lenguaje, de la historia y del arte, deben ser vistos como nudos, emblemas de sentido en los que se hace visible una dimensión temporal. Las matrices simbólicas son "centros organizadores" y, por lo tanto, "centros de significación" que se retoman una y otra vez. The notion of a system of equivalences comes to have in Merleau-Ponty's phe-nomenology a central place because lying under there is a general function of tacit transposition. It is a principle for understanding without analogical explanation, i.e., a synthesis without analysis, as can be seen, for example, in the plasticity, transferability, and likeliness that characterizes habits. On this basis, the article will follow a regres-sive way in order to show that the meaning of the equivalences and transpositions is latent in "the symbolic matrixes" that offer a clue to understand that the phenomena of expression, which occur in the world by means of the body, language, history, and art, should be seen as nodes or emblems of meaning in which a temporal dimension shows itself. Symbolic matrixes are "organizing centers", and thus "centers of signi-ficance" that are taken up over and over again. (shrink)

Resumen: Siguiendo la inspiración de Merleau-Ponty, B. Waldenfels se ocupa de la corporalidad y pone énfasis en su dimensión responsiva, es decir, en modos de comportamiento y experiencia corporales que responden a interpelaciones de lo extraño. Desde esta perspectiva, este trabajo aspira a elucidar el entrelazamiento cuerpo-Naturaleza con la intención de mostrar que la Naturaleza entendida como otro aspecto del hombre implica una alteridad que no se reduce ni a la lógica de la intencionalidad ni a la lógica de la (...) comunicación. La interpelación que proviene de la Naturaleza tiene, por una parte, el significado de una apelación, comprendida como alocución a alguien, y, por otra, el de una pretensión, en el sentido de una interpelación a algo. Con base en estos presupuestos, la segunda parte de la exposición apunta a ilustrar la manera como a través de la pintura se pone en marcha un actuar responsivo, que se orienta por los caracteres singularidad, ineludibilidad, posterioridad, asimetría e innovación que caracterizan a la lógica de la respuesta.: Following Merleau-Ponty´s inspiration, B. Waldenfels deals with embodiment emphasizing its responsive dimension, i.e., modes of bodily behavior and experience that respond to interpellations of the strange. From this view, the article aims to explaining the intertwining of body and nature with the intention of showing that nature, understood as another side of human being, implies an alterity that cannot be reduced to the logic of intentionality nor to the logic of communication. The interpellation that arises from Nature has, on the one hand, the meaning of appeal in the sense of an address to somebody, and, on the other, of pretention as an interpellation to something. Based on these presuppositions, the second part of the article tries to show how, by means of painting, a responsive action is set in motion. The features of singularity, unavoidableness, subsequence, asymmetry, and innovation that characterize the logic of the answer guiding this action. (shrink)

En este trabajo realizo un examen crítico del reciente libro de Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo sobre la crítica de Aristóteles a la teoría platónica de las Ideas. El libro de Di Camillo es un trabajo muy serio cuya lectura recomiendo ampliamente. Sin embargo, considero que cuatro de las principales tesis que la autora defiende tienen varias dificultades y mi objetivo aquí es presentar argumentos detallados en contra de ellas: la interpretación de la distinción entre argumentos más y menos rigurosos del (...) tratado Sobre las Ideas; la tesis de que la separación es el blanco esencial de las críticas aristotélicas a las Ideas; la interpretación de las opciones que Platón tiene para responder al argumento del tercer hombre, y la tesis de que la separación de las Ideas debe entenderse como homonimia. In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo's recent book on Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas. Di Camillo's book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle's criticisms against Plato's Ideas; the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy. (shrink)

En este artículo realizaremos una lectura crítica de la teoría de la dominación propuesta por Bourdieu en el capítulo octavo de El sentido práctico, titulado “Los modos de dominación”. Allí se distinguen con claridad dos modos de dominación: la violencia abierta y la violencia simbólica, aseguradas en su reproducción por el pasaje de las relaciones interpersonales en “la sociedad tradicional” a la institucionalización vía mecanismos objetivos en la sociedad capitalista. En ese sentido, mostraremos continuidades y diferencias relativas a la versión (...) inicial de esta teoría presente en La reproducción, y, luego, propondremos una revisión crítica de esta teoría y de la distinción, tan clásica como problemática, entre objetividad y subjetividad con el propósito de contribuir al desarrollo de una fenomenología social de la dominación con fundamento en la obra de Bourdieu. (shrink)

En este artículo realizaremos una lectura crítica de la teoría de la dominación propuesta por Bourdieu en el capítulo octavo de El sentido práctico, titulado “Los modos de dominación”. Allí se distinguen con claridad dos modos de dominación: la violencia abierta y la violencia simbólica, aseguradas en su reproducción por el pasaje de las relaciones interpersonales en “la sociedad tradicional” a la institucionalización vía mecanismos objetivos en la sociedad capitalista. En ese sentido, mostraremos continuidades y diferencias relativas a la versión (...) inicial de esta teoría presente en La reproducción, y, luego, propondremos una revisión crítica de esta teoría y de la distinción, tan clásica como problemática, entre objetividad y subjetividad con el propósito de contribuir al desarrollo de una fenomenología social de la dominación con fundamento en la obra de Bourdieu. (shrink)

R. Bemet has extended to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception a distinction that can be drawn in E. Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms between perception in a strict sense, which is expressive and is linked to myth, and perception in a broad sense, which is linked to language and exhibits a more elaborated structure. Firstly, this article attempts to establish how far the distinction can be applied to M. Merleau-Ponty's thought by drawing upon his acknowledgment that there are phenomenological and existential (...) analyses implied in Cassirer's work, and that the notion of "symbolic pregnancy" points to a shared end. Secondly, it is shown how quasi-linguistic perception compels us to approach one of Merleau-Ponty's fundamental problems, namely, that one of the relationship between a "natural expression" and a linguistic expression that takes up and enlarges the expression manifested in the "archeology of the perceptual world.". (shrink)

Puesto que la filosofía de Merleau-Ponty hasido presentada explícitamente como una filosofía de la ambigüedad, es necesario examinar el significado y el alcance de esta noción a lo largo de su desarrollo. En primer lugar, se contrapone la ambigüedad a la ambivalencia en razón de que ésta no nos permite alcanzar intelecciones claras, se diferencian sus dos sentidos -existencial y conceptual-, y se señala su asociación con la dialéctica. Luego el artículo continúa con el examen de las ambigüedades que caracterizaa (...) la relación entre cuerpo y espíritu,lenguaje y espíritu, e historia y coexistencia.Por último, se intenta mostrar la perspectiva para el humanismo que surge de una situación en que la contingencia tiene un papel decisivo, de modo que ningún principio explicativo puede eliminar las dificultades o la opacidad en la interacción social. (shrink)

Pessimism over a democracy’s ability to produce good outcomes is as longstanding as democracy itself. On one hand, democratic theorists consider democracy to be the only legitimate form of government on the basis that it alone promotes or safeguards intrinsic values like freedom, equality, and justice. On the other, skepticism toward the ordinary citizen’s cognitive capacities remains a perennial concern. Qualms about the epistemic value of democracy have only been made more pertinent by a fundamental problem of deep epistemic disagreement (...) which underlies the post-truth phenomenon. I argue that the democratic theorists who have sought to defend democracy on epistemic grounds have thus far neglected such deep and intractable disagreements. Without addressing this oversight, the epistemic democrat will find that collective decision-making processes quickly become paralyzed and will not be able to yield the epistemic benefits they promise. Hence, the work for epistemic democrats is to recognize and take into account the ramifications of epistemic disagreements so as to make a stronger case for epistemic democracy. (shrink)

The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects (...) or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span. Key Words: cognitive development; dynamical systems theory; embodied cognition; infant development; motor control; motor planning; perception and action. (shrink)

O presente estudo acerca das atividades praticadas por rezadeiras no Brasil teve o intuito de identificar as identidades étnicas e as etnociências que compõem a pluralidade dos grupos sociais nos quais elas atuam e qual a sua importância para os meios. O objetivo, portanto foi identificar as diferentes identidades étnicas que influenciam as práticas das rezadeiras. Para isso, foi adotada a metodologia da pesquisa bibliográfica de cunho exploratório descritivo e qualitativa a fim de obter uma visão sistemática do assunto. O (...) estudo se justifica devido a importância em conhecer as identidades éticas bem como a etnociência existente nas práticas das rezadeiras, resgatando conhecimentos históricos e uma riqueza cultural fundamental para boa parte da população brasileira uma vez que estudos na área são escassos. Foram analisados 15 artigos que pautam sobre as práticas das rezadeiras, e os resultados obtidos apontaram que há muitas semelhanças entre as práticas de rezadeiras em diferentes regiões do Brasil e suas diferenças estão relacionadas, provavelmente, às origens que esses povos possuem. Portanto, conclui-se que vieram de matrizes africanas e indígenas principalmente e que possuem ainda mais semelhanças devido ao intercâmbio realizado entre algumas dessas culturas no território brasileiro. (shrink)

In this commentary, we point to guidelines for performing human neuroimaging studies and their reporting in microbiota-gut-brain articles. Moreover, we provide a view on interpretational issues in MGB studies, with a specific focus on gut microbiota–derived metabolites. Thus, extending the target article, we provide recommendations to the field to increase reproducibility and relevance of this type of MGB study.

In what way do the corporatist and authoritarian legacies that modelled some Latin American labor institutions influence the opportunities for and restrictions on organizing workers in a new context? To what extent did institutional designs, together with other economic and political factors, influence the characteristics that currently distinguish the union organizations in the countries of the region? Taking into consideration the existence of a broader debate about the consequences of globalization and political democratization for unions, the contribution of historical institutionalism (...) and previous research, in this Article I compare the institutional and organizational dynamics of unions in four countries with authoritarian legacies and corporatist traditions. The Article argues that in spite of these shared traditions, the differences in the institutional designs — which have scarcely been considered in the specialized literature — have historically imposed distinctive features on the associational power of workers and unions. These features not only persist to the present day, but also translate into dissimilar trajectories of the labor movement and opportunities for organizing workers in the last decade. (shrink)

Notion complexe et problématique objet de crainte et de crispation, la stásis renvoie tout autant à la discorde, à la sédition, à la guerre civile, qu'à la division. Loin de lire dans cette équivocité le signe de son indétermination, cette enquête se propose de mettre en lumière l'unité et la cohérence de ce concept dans la philosophie pratique d'Aristote. Sans être banalisée, comment la stásis devient-elle le corrélat direct et explicite de la cité? En quel sens la théorie aristotélicienne rompt-elle (...) avec la tradition grecque, pour laquelle la stásis, figure du mal absolu, constituait pourtant un impensé de la cité grecque? (shrink)

Whether mathematical truths are syntactical (as Rudolf Carnap claimed) or empirical (as Mill actually never claimed, though Carnap claimed that he did) might seem merely an academic topic. However, it becomes a practical concern as soon as we consider the role of questions. For if we inquire as to the truth of a mathematical statement, this question must be (in a certain respect) meaningless for Carnap, as its truth or falsity is certain in advance due to its purely syntactical (or (...) formal-semantical) nature. In contrast, for Mill such a question is as valid as any other. These differing views have their consequences for contemporary erotetic logic. (shrink)

Does avoiding biased responding to reasoning problems and grasping the ­correct solution require engaging in effortful deliberation or can such solution insight be acquired more intuitively? In this study we set out to test the impact of deliberation on the efficiency of a de-bias training in which the problem logic was explained to participants. We focused on the infamous bat-and-ball problem and varied the degree of possible deliberation during the training session by manipulating time constraints and cognitive load. The results (...) show that the less constrained the deliberation, the more participants improve. However, even under extremely stringent conditions (high time-pressure and dual task load), participants still show a significant improvement. Critically, this “intuitive” insight effect persists over two months. This suggests that deliberation helps reasoners benefit from the training, but it is not indispensable. We discuss critical applied and theoretical implications. (shrink)

Las redes sociales pueden promover una estigmatización, cuando las usuarias comparten sus ideas, opiniones, manifestaciones y cuerpos. El estigma crea una “burbuja de la melancolía”, concepto original de esta propuesta: consumen publicaciones con problemas similares, no denuncian el odio, no piden ayuda y no perciben los peligros de las redes. Los algoritmos no ayudan y sugieren contenidos negativos y pesimistas, que las mantienen en una esfera de tristeza. Este artículo realiza una exploración deontológica de las normas comunitarias de las redes (...) sociales Facebook, YouTube, Instagram y TikTok, para saber si se contempla este problema y de ser así, cómo se combate. (shrink)

Relacionar la educación y el trabajo infantil resulta una alternativa para lograr mejorarlos procesos de formativos de los docentes contemporáneos. Este reto actual demanda centrar esfuerzos por parte de distintos actores involucrados, quienes deben colaborar en e l diseño de nuevas estrategias integrales y fundamentadas, que a largo plazo contribuyan a la erradicación del problema.El contexto experiencias dentro del estado de Hidalgo México, expone como el converger de distintas variables puede resultar en una disminución significativa del trabajo infantil en este (...) contexto. (shrink)

This volume frames the question of responsibility as a problem of agency in relation to the systems and structures of globalization. According to Ricoeur responsibility is a “shattered concept” when considered too narrowly as a problem of act, agency and individual freedom. To examine this Esther Reed develops a short genealogy of modern liberal and post-liberal concepts of responsibility in order to understand better the relationship dominant modern framings of the meanings of responsibility. Reed engages with writings by major (...) modern (Schleiermacher, Hegel, Marx, Weber) and post-liberal (Buber, Levinas, Derrida, Badiou, Butler, Young, Critchley) theorists to illustrate the shift from an ethnic responsibility built on notions of accountability and attributions to an ethic responsibility that starts variously from the 'other'. Reed sees Dietrich Bonhoeffer as the most promising partner of this theological dialogue, as his learning of responsibility from the risen Christ present now in the (global) church is a welcome provocation to new thinking about the meaning of responsibility learned from land, distant neighbour, (global) church and the bible. Bonhoeffer's reflections on the centre, boundaries and limits of responsibility remain helpful to Christian people struggling with an increasingly exhausted concept of accountability. (shrink)

Ramsey famously condemned discounting “future enjoyments” as “ethically indefensible”. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian, implies giving equal weight to all individuals’ utilities. By contrast, Arrow (Contemporary economic issues. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1999a; Discounting and Intergenerational Effects, Resources for the Future Press, Washington DC, 1999b) accepted, perhaps reluctantly, what he called Koopmans’ (Econometrica 28(2):287–309, 1960) “strong argument” implying that no equitable preference ordering exists for a sufficiently unrestricted domain of infinite utility (...) streams. Here we derive an equitable utilitarian objective for a finite population based on a version of the Vickrey–Harsanyi original position, where there is an equal probability of becoming each person. For a potentially infinite population facing an exogenous stochastic process of extinction, an equitable extinction biased original position requires equal conditional probabilities, given that the individual’s generation survives the extinction process. Such a position is well-defined if and only if survival probabilities decline fast enough for the expected total number of individuals who can ever live to be finite. Then, provided that each individual’s utility is bounded both above and below, maximizing expected “extinction discounted” total utility—as advocated, inter alia, by the Stern Review on climate change—provides a coherent and dynamically consistent equitable objective, even when the population size of each generation can be chosen. (shrink)

Ramsey famously condemned discounting “future enjoyments” as “ethically indefensible”. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion which, when social choice is utilitarian, implies giving equal weight to all individuals’ utilities. By contrast, Arrow accepted, perhaps reluctantly, what he called Koopmans’ :287–309, 1960) “strong argument” implying that no equitable preference ordering exists for a sufficiently unrestricted domain of infinite utility streams. Here we derive an equitable utilitarian objective for a finite population based on a version of the Vickrey–Harsanyi original position, where there is (...) an equal probability of becoming each person. For a potentially infinite population facing an exogenous stochastic process of extinction, an equitable extinction biased original position requires equal conditional probabilities, given that the individual’s generation survives the extinction process. Such a position is well-defined if and only if survival probabilities decline fast enough for the expected total number of individuals who can ever live to be finite. Then, provided that each individual’s utility is bounded both above and below, maximizing expected “extinction discounted” total utility—as advocated, inter alia, by the Stern Review on climate change—provides a coherent and dynamically consistent equitable objective, even when the population size of each generation can be chosen. (shrink)

El Psicoanálisis freudiano, ya se lo considere como un método para la investigación del inconsciente, una psicoterapia o una teoría psicológica, se sustenta en una concepción metafísica y antropológica. Dichos fundamentos filosóficos no fueron asumidos por S. Freud, lo cual no implica, sin embargo, que no estén en la base de esta cosmovisión que revolucionó la cultura del siglo XX. Se analizan sucesivamente: A. La relación personal de S. Freud con la filosofía. Asume un carácter paradójico y conflictivo, ya que (...) a veces ella aparece como su máxima aspiración y, en otras ocasiones, se considera a sí mismo constitucionalmente incapaz de comprenderla. B. Su actitud hacia los filósofos, francamente ambigua, en tanto entabla con ellos una polémica constante y, al mismo tiempo, admira la filosofía de Platón, Nietzsche y Schopenhauer, entre otros. C. La fundamentación psicoanalítica de la filosofía como institución cultural. Al igual que la religión, la moral y el derecho, es producto de la sublimación que sustituye el objeto y el fin del instinto, y logra su satisfacción en una función no sexual y más elevada desde el punto de vista social o ético. La metapsicología será el intento científico de reinterpretar la metafísica que es producto de las fuerzas inconscientes. D. Explicitación de algunas de las ideas filosóficas subyacentes en el Psicoanálisis, limitadas a sus conexiones con A. Schopenhauer. El Psicoanálisis se apoya en una concepción materialista y positivista de lo real y sostiene una antropología pandeterminista en la que afloran las ideas del filósofo de Danzig. A él debe la noción de represión, la valoración de los impulsos sexuales, la idea de inconsciente, el peso del instinto de muerte, el fatalismo y la convicción de que la esencia de las relaciones humanas es el conflicto. A pesar de su cosmovisión reduccionista, Freud sigue siendo cimiento y referencia obligada de todo planteo psicológico, psicopatológico o psicoterapéutico. (shrink)

Zimbabwean literature produced after the attainment of independence has been predominantly engrossed with thematisation of the postcolonial subaltern subjects’ existential conditions, enunciated together with gender politics, religion and socio-economic environment that frame politics of difference, and sites of suffering or resistance. These tropes remain absorbing and critical even in contemporary female-authored novels that also engage with a deeply fractured modern-day Zimbabwe. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, This Mournable Body, offers important site to debate the enduring concerns of gender inequalities, politics, and religion. (...) A stylistic approach is adopted to identify the semiotic construction of the text and discuss the different styles that are deployed to foreground central tropes in the novel. The adoption of stylistics as an underlying conceptual model locates this current study in the interdisciplinary research which brings together gender, applied linguistics, poetics, politics, and religion, in order to provoke new ways of reading the dialogic and polyphonic elements of the text. The study contends that the politics of difference is an unsettling subject that profoundly impacts on gender relations and religio-political practices in a milieu where precarity is a major defining feature of the subaltern sections comprising women and the marginalised poor. Thus, the novel’s title figuratively foregrounds the (un)mournable bodies of the people, who are both dehumanised and heavily burdened by surviving at the margin.Contribution: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, This Mournable Body demonstrates a deep concern with the plight of the subaltern people in a gendered society and how their conditions of the Othered bodies are further amplified by both religion and politics in present-day Zimbabwe. Thus the study contributes to the mounting discourses about politics of fragmentation and binary practices, and the ensuing agony suffered by the sidelined persons. The adopted stylistic reading of the focus novel underscores the interdisciplinary urgency to literary interpretative process. (shrink)

Ramsey famously pronounced that discounting “future enjoyments” would be ethically indefensible. Suppes enunciated an equity criterion implying that all individuals’ welfare should be treated equally. By contrast, Arrow accepted, perhaps rather reluctantly, the logical force of Koopmans’ argument that no satisfactory preference ordering on a sufficiently unrestricted domain of infinite utility streams satisfies equal treatment. In this paper, we first derive an equitable utilitarian objective based on a version of the Vickrey–Harsanyi original position, extended to allow a variable and uncertain (...) population with no finite bound. Following the work of Chichilnisky and others on sustainability, slightly weakening the conditions of Koopmans and co-authors allows intergenerational equity to be satisfied. In fact, assuming that the expected total number of individuals who ever live is finite, and that each individual’s utility is bounded both above and below, there is a coherent equitable objective based on expected total utility. Moreover, it implies the “extinction discounting rule” advocated by, inter alia, the Stern Review on climate change. (shrink)

In a recent article, Wilkinson puts forward the notion of identity-relative paternalism. According to Wilkinson’s final formulation of this principle, ‘[i]ndividuals should be prevented from doing to future selves (where there are weakened prudential unity relations between the current and future self) what it would be justified to prevent them from doing to others’.1 In medical ethics, it is usually assumed that hard paternalism, that is, acting against a competent person’s wishes for their own benefit, is not justified. According to (...) Mill’s harm principle, we may only limit people’s freedom if they cause harm to others.2 Harm to self is not a sufficient reason for overriding competent persons’ decisions. Wilkinson, however, draws on Parfit’s reductionist view of personal identity to argue that sometimes, patients’ future selves are sufficiently disconnected from their present selves to treat future selves like different persons. If a competent person’s medical decision negatively affects a future self, this should be treated like a case of harm to others. Thus, overriding competent persons’ decisions in such cases—and treating them against their will—could be justified. In this commentary, I point out two problems with this approach. First, I demonstrate that the cases Wilkinson’s argument is based on are not examples of harm to others but rather cases of surrogate decision making gone wrong, …. (shrink)