Instead of the usual apologetic treatment found in legal doctrine, linked to the determinacy, immutability or predictability of norms, this book treats legal certainty innovatively, holistically and in depth. Using a method at once analytical and functional, Professor Ávila examines the structural elements of legal certainty, from its definition and foundations to its various dimensions, normative forces and efficacies, citing a wealth of examples from case law to support each of the theses defended. No subject is more important and topical (...) than legal certainty. Problems relating to lack of understanding, instability and unpredictability of law intensify day by day everywhere, in civil law and common law countries alike. Normative sources are increasingly diverse in origin and multiple in nature. They change constantly, and present increasingly frequent problems of ambiguity and vagueness that significantly hinder their comprehension. This state of affairs, which to a greater or lesser extent is true of any legal order, justifies a return to the subject of legal certainty. In this book, essential questions are answered such as: Legal certainty in what sense? Certainty of what, for whom, in whose vision and by whom? When, to what extent, and to what end? “ it is probably the most comprehensive and systematic study ever produced on this subject using the analytical method.”. (shrink)

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How (...) will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries. (shrink)

"Knowing how we know" is the subject of this book. Its authors present a new view of cognition that has important social and ethical implications, for, they assert, the only world we humans can have is the one we create together through the actions of our coexistence. Written for a general audience as well as for students, scholars, and scientists and abundantly illustrated with examples from biology, linguistics, and new social and cultural phenomena, this revised edition includes a new afterword (...) by Dr. Varela, in which he discusses the effect the book has had in the years since its first publication. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 1, Page 46-59, March 2022.

En este artículo postulamos que el trabajo de Kuhn es una revolución filosófica para la filosofía de la ciencia. La búsqueda de revoluciones filosóficas es una extensión de las ideas de Kuhn acerca de las revoluciones científicas. Las revoluciones filosóficas se distinguen de las revoluciones científicas en algunos aspectos que discutimos en este trabajo. Defendemos que la revolución kuhniana consiste en la naturalización de la filosofía de la ciencia que se desprende de sus trabajos y discutimos la analogía biológica que (...) Kuhn empleó como un ejemplo ilustrativo. (shrink)

Philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe and Donald Davidson have explained that we cannot derive predictions from judgments such as "he boasted from vanity." Such judgments are also the source of countless painful mistakes. However, are they necessarily unreliable? Often enough, even if only gradually and partially, we get people right. Assuming that we do is already assuming that there must be a connection, if not causal then at least casual, between what a person is, what she does, and how she (...) acts; and that we may describe it correctly. If no ironclad generalizations can be made that connect the way a person is, her reasons, and her actions, how might we describe correctness in judgments such as this?Anscombe... (shrink)

En la formación inicial docente, el estudio de la epistemología constituye una pieza fundamental para que los futuros profesores puedan filosofar sobre la realidad de los diversos contextos educativos y se pregunten cómo mejorarla desde los principios que rigen la investigación científica. De este modo, gracias al sustento epistemológico, los estudiantes de pedagogía pueden formarse como docentes investigadores capaces de analizar los cambios sociales propuestos por las múltiples realidades y conocer cómo se construye el conocimiento científico de una especialidad dada. (...) La finalidad de este trabajo, es presentar una reflexión filosófica-epistemológica sobre la imperiosa necesidad de desarrollar el conocimiento epistemológico en la formación inicial del profesorado de matemática e historia, considerando los fundamentos disciplinares, pedagógicos y cognitivos de dichas áreas. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se analiza la relación entre las memorias inscritas en el cuerpo, el trauma y los recursos corporizados subjetivos y colectivos con los que cuentan las mujeres víctimas de violencia para reconstruir y resignificarse como personas dignas de credibilidad y agentes de cambio. Se refieren casos específicos de violencia sexual en Colombia y se expone la importancia de la creación de comunidades de confianza que propicien espaclos para la narración y escucha de los testimonlos de víctimas, la tramitación de conflictos (...) y nuevas vías de afrontamiento, a partir de los recursos que brinda la reinvención de hábitos corporizados en el arte. ABSTRACT The article analyzes the relation among memories inscribed in the body, trauma, and the subjective and collective embodied resources available to women victims of violence in order to reconstruct and resignify themselves as persons worthy of credibility and as agents of change. It discusses specific cases of sexual violence in Colombia and the importance of creating communities of trust that foster spaces for narrating and listening to the testimonies of victims, as well as for handling conflicts and exploring new ways of coping, on the basis of the resources provided by the reinvention of habits embodied in art. (shrink)

Here they are revised notions of the Western tradition that conform the discourse of poetic reason, and the way that Maria Zambrano assumed them. Her thought examines the possibilities of the words, either poetic or philosophical, to allow persons to get conscience. She attempts to unify both types of words using a notion of love as essential intent for dealing with the otherness, allowing, also, the human being conscious reflection on the affectivity. To achieve this, she revises culture to find (...) ideas and examples to support the poetic reason as loving and hopeful reflection and as a possibility of the humanity to know about its own feelings. (shrink)

En este texto defendemos que todo lo que adquiere sentido, significado, es afectivo. Nuestras operaciones mentales y acciones en el mundo están orientadas afectivamente. En la primera sección discutimos la forma en que sentido y afecto han sido entendidos bajo las concepciones de mente y cuerpo en el debate tradicional. En la segunda, proponemos una concepción de sentido público, corporizado y constituido por el afecto. Para ello, nos apoyamos en la sintonía en torno a la concepción de sentido y afecto (...) que puede encontrarse en las propuestas filosóficas de L. Wittgenstein y M. Merleau-Ponty. Finalmente, en la tercera sección discutimos las implicaciones de nuestra propuesta; señalamos allí algunas diferencias importantes con propuestas cercanas a la nuestra, así como algunas objeciones a las mismas. (shrink)

En un contexto de transformaciones profundas en la sociedad boliviana, el autor plantea que más que una nueva teoría de la sociedad boliviana se requiere desarrollar otra mirada. En esta dirección, el presente artículo busca plantear un esquema renovado sobre las referencias desde las cuales deben encuadrar el debate los bolivianos y bolivianas. El texto aborda la construcción de matrices culturales, explicitando la moderna y la andina, y conecta matriz cultural con institucionalidad, para proponer una institucionalidad andina.

Latina immigrant women who work as nannies or housekeepers and reside in Los Angeles while their children remain in their countries of origin constitute one variation in the organizational arrangements of motherhood. The authors call this arrangement “transnational motherhood.” On the basis of a survey, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic materials gathered in Los Angeles, they examine how Latina immigrant domestic workers transform the meanings of motherhood to accommodate these spatial and temporal separations. The article examines the emergent meanings of motherhood (...) and alternative child-rearing arrangements. It also discusses how the women view motherhood in relation to their employment, as well as their strategies for selectively developing emotional ties with their employers' children and for creating new rhetorics of mothering standards on the basis of what they view in their employers' homes. (shrink)

We propose that to understand the biological and neurophysiological processes that give rise to human mental phenomena it is necessary to consider them as behavioral relational phenomena. In particular, we propose that: a) these phenomena take place in the relational manner of living that human language constitutes, and b) that they arise as recursive operations in such behavioral domain. Accordingly, we maintain that these phenomena do not take place in the brain, nor are they the result of a unique operation (...) of a human brain, but arise with the participation of the brain as it generates the behavioral relational dynamics that constitutes language. (shrink)

Este artículo plantea que ciertas situaciones en las que nos vemos obligados a prestar atención a los riesgos que tomamos al confiar, como la amenaza de violencia o la ruptura de la confianza, motivan una forma particular de confianza en la cual nos interesa tomar consciencia de las creencias, valoraciones e intenciones prácticas implicadas al confiar. Tras describir fenomenológicamente, desde una perspectiva husserliana, la estructura de esta forma de confianza, denominada confianza reflexiva o racional, se expone por qué su análisis (...) filosófico puede contruibuir a aclarar problemáticas epistemológicas y éticas que se desprenden del carácter social de nuestra existencia. En la parte final del artículo se sugiere que el concepto de confianza reflexiva o racional puede servir para entender problemáticas relacionadas con la posverdad y para discernir algunas formas básicas de dominación y de complicidad con la dominación. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se propone un estudio comparativo de las producciones de algunos referentes de la Investigación Participativa. Se revisan algunos de los textos de Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, João Bosco Guedes Pinto, Michel Thiollent, María Teresa Sirvent y Joel Martí. Este trabajo se inscribe en el proceso reciente de transformación universitaria en Uruguay, en particular, en una de sus iniciativas: la de la integración curricular de la extensión a través de lo que se ha denominado “prácticas universitarias (...) integrales”. En este marco, la reflexión teórico-metodológica sobre la extensión crítica y las prácticas de investigación-acción conectadas con ella resultan fundamentales para dotar las iniciativas en curso de mayor pertinencia académica y potencial transformador. (shrink)

Na medida em que o termo espiritualidade é em si mesmo ambíguo, o desafio específico da pesquisa em espiritualidade e saúde enquanto campo é definir de que maneiras o conceito ‘espiritualidade’ pode ser frutiferamente aplicado à saúde física e mental. Uma vez que a relatividade hermenêutica de um conceito humanístico tem de se relacionar com os resultados mensuráveis das ciências empíricas, algumas dificuldades inevitavelmente surgem. Isso não impediu, contudo, a formação de duas abordagens claramente definidas na pesquisa em espiritualidade e (...) saúde; uma a que poderíamos chamar hermenêutica-existencial e a outa mais relacionada às ciências da natureza. Por falharmos em distinguir essas opções, muitas das interações entre a ciência da religião ou os estudos da religião e a pesquisa em espiritualidade e saúde é prejudicada ao ponto da quase ausência de diálogo. Nosso intuito aqui é apresentar e conceituar as duas alternativas nos termos das ciências humanas. (shrink)

Neste artigo, objetivamos investigar os desafios da compreensão da complexidade imanente às múltiplas realidades. Metodologicamente, dada a natureza teórica do ensaio, fomos acompanhados pelas reflexões de Edgar Morin sobre "O Método". Tomamos como ponto de partida a ruptura entre as ciências da natureza e as ciências do espírito que, por consequência, encerraram a ciência e a filosofia em compartimentos disciplinares aparentemente incomunicáveis. Com vistas à superação deste isolamento, reivindicamos uma hermenêutica da complexidade de modo que possamos compreender as relações, colaborações (...) e complementações intrínsecas aos diferentes conhecimentos e saberes. (shrink)

Diante das presentes dificuldades de fundamentação da ética, ocasionadas pelas cisões necessárias, mas logo extrapoladas, entre natureza e subjetividade, conhecimento e ação, muitos pensadores têm se voltado para a grande síntese tomasiana do pensamento ocidental. Com numerosas releituras nos campos da ética, do direito, da epistemologia e da metafísica, o pensamento tomasiano vive sem exageros uma pequena renascença, particularmente em língua inglesa, ensejando inúmeras abordagens revisionistas, históricas ou adaptações às pesquisas da filosofia e da teologia analíticas. Mais como informativo deste (...) processo do que como análise sistemática, elencamos aspectos centrais da ética tomasiana e seus fundamentos metafísicos de acordo com autores contemporâneos que participam desta renovação do tomismo, buscando evidenciar a importância da disposição natural do ser humano para moralidade neste quadro teórico. (shrink)

En este breve comentario discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación de la epistemología de Davidson que sugiere Willian Duica en su reciente libro. Luego de una presentación somera del libro me centro en tres asuntos centrales de la interpretación de Duica. En primer lugar, argumento que su lectura de la crítica de Davidson al dualismo esquema/contenido es muy restrictiva y deja abierta la posibilidad de un realismo directo empirista. En segundo lugar, argumento que en su lectura el propio Duica se (...) compromete inadvertidamente con un empirismo de este tipo y, de este modo, su interpretación entra en tensión con el coherentismo de Davidson. Finalmente, discuto algunos aspectos de la interpretación que hace Duica de la tesis davidsoniana de la triangulación. (shrink)

The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency -- the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources (...) while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action ; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action -oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. Contributors: Fred Adams, Jesús H. Aguilar, John Bishop, Andrei A. Buckareff, Randolph Clarke, Jennifer Hornsby, Alicia Juarrero, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Josef Perner, Johannes Roessler, David-Hillel Ruben, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Rowland Stout The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

editorial changes not yet reviewed by author Purpose My intent in this essay is to reflect on the history of some biological notions such as autopoiesis, structural coupling, and cognition, that I have developed since the early 1960’s as a result of my work on visual perception and the organization of the living. No doubt I shall repeat things that I have said in other publications (Maturana and Varela 1980 and 1988), and I shall present notions that once they are (...) said appear as obvious truisms. But the reader it is not invited to attend to the truisms, rather he or she is invited to attend to the consequences that they entail for the understanding of biological processes. After all, explanations or demonstrations always become self evident once they are understood and accepted. KEYWORDS Autopoiesis, structural coupling, cognition, explanations, self consciousness, 1. Autopoiesis 1.1 Origins of the notion In November 1960, a first year medical student asked me the question “What began three thousand eight hundred million years ago so that you can say now that living systems began then?” I realized that I could not properly answer that question, so I said “I cannot answer this question now, but if you come back next year I shall propose an answer then.” Thus I accepted the question of the student to be answered later, and as I did so, I accepted also the question for myself. I realized that to answer this question I had to create a living system, either conceptually or practically, because I had to be able to say what kind of systems were living system to be able to say how they began. While in the attempting to answer the dual questions of what kind of systems are living systems, and of how did they begin so that I could now speak of their origin, it became obvious to me that living systems exist as autonomous entities in the form of self contained closed molecular dynamics of self production, open to the flow of molecules through them. Indeed, one can say that living systems arose in the history of the earth in the moment in which some spontaneous networks of molecular autocatalytic processes became closed upon themselves.. (shrink)

A abordagem deste artigo trata de uma busca pelo sentido ontológico da vida humana em relação ao seu modo de ser e estar no mundo e com o mundo. Partindo de uma breve contextualização sobre a vastidão do cosmos, mostramos, direta e indiretamente, o paradoxal legado da ciência moderna que, de um lado, hoje evidencia nossa insignificância diante da infinitude do universo e, de outro, promoveu antinomias sociais por sua incansável busca pela dominação da natureza. O resultado desse processo é (...) um antropocentrismo desastroso em relação às questões ambientais. O ensaio, eminentemente teórico, promove um diálogo, a múltiplas vozes, na tentativa de angariar fundamentos éticos e epistemológicos para a Educação Ambiental. Trata-se de um estudo de metodologia bibliográfica. Destarte, em nossa abordagem, a filosofia figura com seu papel de buscar permanentemente pelo sentido e significado da vida, dos fenômenos humanos e não humanos. Defenderemos a tese de que é necessário e emergente o reconhecimento da esfera noológica da humanidade, pois se continuarmos a negligenciá-la incorreremos no risco de mantermos sufocado o lado demens do ser humano. Amparados pelas contribuições do pensador francês Edgar Morin, buscamos fundamentos filosóficos para a Educação Ambiental por querermos afirmá-la como campo de saberes e conhecimentos que promovem a busca pelo sentido da vida e a compreensão sobre a condição humana nacontemporaneidade. A ciência moderna promoveu a matematização e o desencantamento do mundo, fazendo com que o epíteto sapiens de nossa nomenclatura taxonômica ganhasse a companhia do epíteto degradandis. Para que seja possível a revitalização dos sentidos sobre a existência humana, é necessário que o epíteto sapiens seja acompanhado, metaforicamente, da desinência demens. Palavras-chave: Educação Ambiental. Ética. Epistemologia. Filosofia. (shrink)

Our purpose in this essay is to introduce new concepts in a wide and recursive view of the systemic consequences of the following biological facts that I and we have presented that can be resumed as: that as living systems we human beings are molecular autopoietic system; that living systems live only as long as they find themselves in a medium that provides them with all the conditions that make the realization of their living possible, that is, in the continuous (...) conservation of their relation of adaptation to the circumstances in which they find themselves; that as a living system exists only in a relation of adaptation with the medium that operates as its ecological niche, its reproduction necessarily occurs as a process of systemic duplication or multiplication of the ecological organism-niche unity that it integrates; that the worlds of doings that we generate as languaging beings in our conversations, explanations, reflections and theories are part of our ecological niche; and that we human beings as living beings that exist in languaging, are biological–cultural beings in which our cultural and our biological manners of existences can be distinguished but cannot be separated. Of the systemic consequences of these biological facts that we consider in this essay, we wish to mention two as the principal: that the diversification of manners of living produced in biological evolution is the result of differential survival in a changing medium through the conservation of adaptation, and not through competitive survival of the best; and that we in our living as languaging human beings are the epistemological fundament of all that we do and know as such. (shrink)

El paciente en estado crítico reviste una especial importancia al desarrollar investigaciones, debido a que ha perdido o visto reducida su autonomía. El objetivo del presente estudio fue identificar el uso de los principios éticos de Ezequiel J. Emanuel, como guía en el desarrollo de investigaciones en pacientes críticos. Se realizó una revisión integrativa en las bases de datos WoS, PUBMED, SCOPUS y SciELO, y se encontraron 545 artículos de los cuales ocho cumplieron con los criterios previamente definidos. En estos (...) se identificó la descripción de los ocho principios de Emanuel, los cuales demostraron constituir un marco integral y sistemático de utilidad para orientar la conducta ética en la población analizada, siendo la ‘validez científica’ el principio más descrito en la investigación del paciente crítico, seguido del principio de ‘consentimiento informado’. (shrink)

En el marco de estas conferencias conmemorativas del cuatricentenario del nacimiento de René Descartes, quisiera aproximarme al pensamiento de este gran filósofo francés, preguntando qué relación guarda con el escepticismo.No se trata de una pregunta del todo novedosa, pero su significación es indiscutible tanto para comprender el sentido como para discutir el alcance y las limitaciones del proyecto cartesiano de fundamentación del conocimiento.

La respuesta a la pregunta del título se ofrece en tres niveles. A veces las diferencias se deben a las limitaciones del equipo empleado, deficiencias en el muestreo o preferencias en la interpretación de los datos. Otras veces se deben a que los investigadores operan en base a paradigmas diferentes..

El presente texto es una indagación del concepto de utopía propuesto por el filósofo colombiano Darío Botero Uribe, en relación con el concepto de disenso expuesto por el filósofo francés Jacques Ranciére. El pensamiento político de los dos autores toma como centro de las transformaciones políticas el movimiento individual ético en forma de acción política en vía de trasformación de diferentes formas de dominación presentes en las sociedades actuales. La intención entonces se centra en la estética como disputa de la (...) reformulación del campo social, económico y político, que coloca lo político en permanente contingencia y devenir, por lo que nunca existe un proyecto político último o ‘verdadero’ esencial, a manera de los grandes movimientos del siglo XX, sino que en eco de la propuesta foucaultiana los dos autores sostienen una forma de estética de la existencia en cuanto acción política. (shrink)

As scholars anticipate the structural reconfigurations arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, resistance to pandemic measures remains a site of rich discussion. While previous researchers have studied anti-mask, anti-vaccine, and anti-lockdown action, here called anti-restriction movements, as a series of actions informed by individual characteristics like psychological profiles, political leanings, or gender, this paper emphasizes how anti-restriction actions evolved into social movements articulating the antagonisms between state and subject. This paper applies Jürgen Habermas’s theory of New Social Movements (NSMs) to theorize (...) anti-restriction movements as reactions to bureaucratic and economic regulation in cultural and private life. Habermas’s original theory assigned NSMs a radical potential in reinvigorating public political discourse and democratic processes which remains to be seen today. By contrasting the discourses of anti-restriction movements in Indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico and suburban communities in Orange County, California, this paper describes how profit-driven market algorithms steer social movements away from their radical potential towards sensationalism and misinformation. Not only do social media platforms “colonize” communication on the national level, but western countries’ control of social media platforms “digitally colonizes” peripheral countries by redirecting subaltern social movements with the hybridized discourses of imperial nations. (shrink)

Formal models of argumentation have been investigated in several areas, from multi-agent systems and artificial intelligence (AI) to decision making, philosophy and law. In artificial intelligence, logic-based models have been the standard for the representation of argumentative reasoning. More recently, the standard logic-based models have been shown equivalent to standard connectionist models. This has created a new line of research where (i) neural networks can be used as a parallel computational model for argumentation and (ii) neural networks can be used (...) to combine argumentation, quantitative reasoning and statistical learning. At the same time, non-standard logic models of argumentation started to emerge. In this paper, we propose a connectionist cognitive model of argumentation that accounts for both standard and non-standard forms of argumentation. The model is shown to be an adequate framework for dealing with standard and non-standard argumentation, including joint-attacks, argument support, ordered attacks, disjunctive attacks, meta-level attacks, self-defeating attacks, argument accrual and uncertainty. We show that the neural cognitive approach offers an adequate way of modelling all of these different aspects of argumentation. We have applied the framework to the modelling of a public prosecution charging decision as part of a real legal decision making case study containing many of the above aspects of argumentation. The results show that the model can be a useful tool in the analysis of legal decision making, including the analysis of what-if questions and the analysis of alternative conclusions. The approach opens up two new perspectives in the short-term: the use of neural networks for computing prevailing arguments efficiently through the propagation in parallel of neuronal activations, and the use of the same networks to evolve the structure of the argumentation network through learning (e.g. to learn the strength of arguments from data). (shrink)

The answers to these two questions would have been obvious years ago: Human beings, of course, machines are instruments of human design! But now days when we speak so much of progress, science and technology as if progress, science and technology were in themselves values to be venerated, there are many people that think that machines as they become more and more complex and intelligent through human design, may in fact become alive so that they may supplant us as a (...) natural outcome of that very venerated progress and expansion of intelligence. Also many people seems to think that evolution is changing its nature so that technology is becoming the guiding force in the flow of the cosmic change in relation to us. I do not hold this view. I do not look at progress, science or technology as if they were values in themselves, nor do I think that biological or cosmic evolution is changing its nature or character. I think that the question that we human beings must face is that of what do we want to happen to us, not a question of knowledge or progress. The question that we must face is not about the relation of biology with technology, or about the relation between art and technology, nor about the relation between knowledge and reality, nor even about whether or not metadesign shapes our brains. I think that the question that we must face at this moment of our history is about our desires and about whether we want or not to be responsible of our desires. (shrink)

Natura 2000 is a network of natural sites whose aim is to preserve species and habitats of relevance in the European Union. The policy underlying Natura 2000 has faced widespread opposition from land users and received extensive support from environmentalists. This paper addresses the ethical framework for Natura 2000 and the probable moral assumptions of its main stakeholders. Arguments for and against Natura 2000 were analyzed and classified according to “strong” or “weak” versions of the three main theories of environmental (...) ethics – anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. Weak (intergenerational) anthropocentrism was found to underlie the Natura 2000 network itself and the positions of environmentalists, while strong (traditional) anthropocentrism pervaded the positions of economic developers. Land users seemed to fall somewhere between weak and strong anthropocentrism. The paper discusses the relation between ethics and different attitudes towards Natura 2000, highlighting some of the implications for the network’s ongoing implementation. It is shown that Natura 2000 achieves a strong reversal of the burden of proof from conservation to economic development and land use change under anthropocentrism. It is argued that the alleged theoretical divide between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism in relation to the burden of proof does not seem to hold in practice. Finally, it is predicted that the weak versions of anthropocentrism, biocentrism, and ecocentrism, are likely to converge extensively in respect to nature conservation policy measures. (shrink)