Durante el proceso independentista rioplatense, el ejemplo de los Estados Unidos, país también independizado de un imperio mediante una revolución, estuvo presente de modo permanente en la prensa y en los discursos de la dirigencia rioplatense, en particular la de Buenos Aires. Este artículo rastrea esas apreciaciones a lo largo del cuarto de siglo que siguió a la revolución de 1810, cuando fueron abrumadoramente positivas. Autonomistas e independentistas, republicanos, federales, proteccionistas, todos pudieron referenciarse en los Estados Unidos. Pero las miradas (...) de admiración fueron más allá: el caso norteamericano pudo ser utilizado a su favor por grupos diferentes y para proyectos políticos muy distintos. Incluso los centralistas enemigos del federalismo encontraron en la experiencia estadounidense argumentos útiles. En 1831, un incidente en las islas Malvinas produjo un quiebre diplomático y prefiguró miradas menos favorables sobre los Estados Unidos. (shrink)

Client participation in elderly care organizations requires shifting traditional power relations and establishing communicative action that involves the lifeworlds of clients and professionals alike. This article describes a particular form of client participation in which one client was part of a team of professionals in a residential care home. Their joint remit was to plan the implementation of a new personal care file for residents. We describe the interactions within this team through an ethnodrama, based on participant observations and the (...) embodied presence of the researcher (first author). The narratives and voices of all team members are dramatized in this ethnodrama. Throughout the project the team members experienced confusion relating to the confrontation between lifeworld and system, as experienced by the client and professionals in the team. We analyze these tensions by making use of a Habermasian theoretical framework. We conclude that forms for collective client participation in residential care homes should be developed based on communicative action between clients and professionals, with room for emotional engagement. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta-se como esboço de um estudo mais aprofundado do confronto teorético entre a filosofia de Kierkegaard e a do último Schelling. Depois de uma breve introdução de carácter histórico sobre as circunstâncias que levaram Kierkegaard a Berlin, onde haveria de permanecer entre Outubro de 1841 e Março de 1842, em ordem a poder assistir pessoalmente aos desenvolvimentos da "filosofia positiva" de Schelling (na qual esperava poder encontrar uma alternativa à lógica hegeliana) expressos nas lições sobre "Filosofia da (...) Revelação", o artigo concentra-se em particular sobre o tema da relação entre consciência e Revelação no primeiro capítulo das Migalhas Filosóficas de Kierkegaard e na lição IX da Filosofia da Revelação de Schelling. Mostra-se, assim, que apesar de nas duas obras ser possível encontrar uma relação particular entre a consciência humana e Deus ("condição" para acolher a Revelação), uma análise atenta dos textos mostra que na realidade as premissas teóricas dos dois autores são praticamente opostas. /// The article aims to present an outline of a theoretical comparison between the philosophy of Kierkegaard and the one of the latest Schelling. After a brief historical introduction about the circumstances that brought Kierkegaard to travel to Berlin (October 1841-March 1842) in order to personally follow the development of Schelling's "positive philosophy" (in which he hoped to find an alternative to the Hegelian logic), as particularly expressed in the lectures on the "Philosophy of Revelation", the article focuses on the relationship between Consciousness and Revelation in Kierkegaard's first chapter of Philosophical Fragments and Schelling's lecture IX in Philosophy of Revelation. However, if in both works it is possible to see how revelation constitutes a particular relationship between human consciousness and God (the so called "condition" to receive Revelation), the truth is that a close analysis of the texts shows how the theoretical premises of Kierkegaard and Schelling are almost opposite. (shrink)

Nanotechnologies are technologies applied to a molecular level, which can be embedded in materials including human cells and atoms of mineral, chemical, or physical substrates. Nanotechnologies have been used in attempts to foster interactions between a multitude of products, production processes, and social actors. Just like bio, info, and cognitive science, nanotechnologies belong to the so-called converging technologies, which are expected to change main societal paths toward a more functional and coarser mesh. However, research, development, and di fusion of converging (...) technologies depends on the adaptability of existing economic structures and on the social acceptance of products and services augmented by nanotechnologies. Because of these characteristics, externalities and the risk of systemic divergences caused by potentially noncontrollable or unwanted interactions between sectors, actors, and environments may arise and disturb the e ficiency of the innovation process. Converging institutions, however, aim to manage these market imperfections and social risks in the long run. (shrink)

According to «the emotional intentionality thesis», emotional experiences exhibit a sui generis intentional structure which consists in presenting the values of the objects they target. This paper examines the versions of this thesis put forward by Meinong and Scheler. While Meinong’s «emotional presentation account» maintains that emotions present values, Scheler’s «value-ception account» carefully dis-tinguishes between the apprehension of value in a feeling and the emotional response. The comparative study of both accounts is articulated around two issues central to contemporary emotion (...) research: 1) the «epistemic question» that examines which emotional experience is in fact responsible for the appre-hension of value; and 2) the «cognitive bases question» which explores the relation between emotional experiences and the cognitive states responsible for presenting the objects that the emotional experiences target. After introducing the emotional intentionality thesis and its historical roots in Brentano (sec-tion 1), the next two sections examine in turn the versions of this thesis provided by Meinong and Scheler (sections 2 and 3). The paper concludes by summarizing the results of the comparative study and extracting some teachings for current research (section 4). (shrink)

Di Massimo di Tiro si conoscono pochi dettagli biografici. Le fonti antiche, concordi nel ritenerlo ‘filosofo’ e ‘filosofo platonico’, affermano che le sue dissertazioni o indagini filosofiche sono da ricondursi al suo primo soggiorno a Roma, al tempo dell’imperatore Commodo. Le quarantuno dissertazioni filosofiche di Massimo di Tiro offrono una visione privilegiata della cultura imperiale del secondo secolo, epoca in cui, dominante l’eleganza stilistica, anche la filosofia non disdegnava di dispiegare i propri contenuti mediante il bello stilo dello strumento retorico. (...) Nello svolgimento dei temi, perlopiù platonici nell’ispirazione e orientati ad argomenti presenti al dibattito coevo, ma comunque non escludenti altre influenze filosofiche, Massimo di Tiro si mostra pensatore dalla non banale semplicità. Muovendosi fra filosofia e letteratura, fra Platone e Omero, egli calibra l’erudizione sul filtro di un’esigenza educativa di ampio respiro. Nel volume si presenta la prima traduzione italiana completa dal greco. Il commento critico, aggiornato al dibattito accademico internazionale, mira a mostrare come l’opera del pensatore meriti una rinnovata attenzione nell’ambito degli studi classici letterari e filosofici, giacché nel delineare il quadro culturale del tempo essa consente di meglio precisare alcuni non marginali aspetti del platonismo del secondo secolo. (shrink)

This article explores twelve short narrative films created by women and trans people living with disabilities and embodied differences. Produced through Project Re•Vision, these micro documentaries uncover the cultures and temporalities of bodies of difference by foregrounding themes of multiple histories: body, disability, maternal, medical, and/or scientific histories; and divergent futurities: contradictory, surprising, unpredictable, opaque, and/or generative futures. We engage with Alison Kafer's call to theorize disability futurity by wrestling with the ways in which “the future” is normatively deployed in (...) the service of able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, a deployment used to render bodies of difference as sites of “no future”. By re-storying embodied difference, the storytellers illuminate ongoing processes of remaking their bodily selves in ways that respond to the past and provide possibilities for different futures; these orientations may be configured as “dis-topias” based not on progress, but on new pathways for living, uncovered not through evoking the familiar imaginaries of curing, eliminating, or overcoming disability, but through incorporating experiences of embodied difference into time. These temporalities gesture toward new kinds of futures, giving us glimpses of ways of cripping time, of cripping ways of being/becoming in time, and of radically re-presencing disability in futurity. (shrink)

Client participation in elderly care organizations requires shifting traditional power relations and establishing communicative action that involves the lifeworlds of clients and professionals alike. This article describes a particular form of client participation in which one client was part of a team of professionals in a residential care home. Their joint remit was to plan the implementation of a new personal care file for residents. We describe the interactions within this team through an ethnodrama, based on participant observations and the (...) embodied presence of the researcher (first author). The narratives and voices of all team members are dramatized in this ethnodrama. Throughout the project the team members experienced confusion relating to the confrontation between lifeworld and system, as experienced by the client and professionals in the team. We analyze these tensions by making use of a Habermasian theoretical framework. We conclude that forms for collective client participation in residential care homes should be developed based on communicative action between clients and professionals, with room for emotional engagement. (shrink)

La pubblicazione di questo volume risponde a diverse esigenze. Prima fra tutto di stimolare un dibattito interdisciplinare intorno a uno fra gli argomenti che maggiormente suscitarono l'interesse di Francesco Iengo: il concetto di metropoli, o meglio la macroarea concettuale, a cui si collega la riflessione sulla società e sulla civiltà moderna e sull'idea stessa di modernità. Ulteriore preoccupazione è stata quella di di evitare il classico omaggio "alla memoria" confrontandoci con lavori scientifici di Iengo in modo interlocutorio, eludendo malinconiche (...) rimembrwnze e sterili piaggerie accademiche. Il risultato è un quadro collettivo movimentato e ampio che spazia storicamente e geograficamente, in una varietà di approcci e di spunti, tra estetica, filosofia, letteratura, antropologia, cinema. (shrink)

Come si può essere speranza nel tempo della tecnica? Forse può essere utile interrogare brevemente a tale proposito il pensiero, o meglio approfondire alcune riflessioni presenti nell’elaborazione filosofica di importanti pensatori del Novecento. Attraverso tale procedimento si aprirà forse una prospettiva, un piccolo spiraglio, una via d’uscita tanto per il pensiero, quanto per la comprensione contemporanea della pratica quotidiana dell’aver-cura. Non deve stupire se si rimanda a classici del pensiero filosofico, ciò che muove ogni azione, soprattutto in ambito clinico (...) e sanitario, non è forse una sempre personale visione del mondo, che ha scelto deliberatamente di aver-cura dell’altro opponendosi, per quanto possibile con tutti i mezzi della conoscenza e del cuore, ad un altrettanto diffusa visione dell’uomo che lo vede invece preda degli eventi e della caducità, al di là di ogni possibile e autentico intervento e soccorso dell’altro? Partendo dalle riflessioni circa le nozioni di “situazione-limite” e “aver-cura”, proposte rispettivamente da autori come Karl Jaspers e Martin Heidegger, è infatti possibile indicare una prospettiva teorico-pratica contemporanea circa il discorso sulla pratica di cura nel tempo della tecnica. Vedremo che i classici del pensiero del Novecento hanno ancora qualcosa da dirci, che una qualche comunicazione fra discipline differenti è ancora possibile; almeno ogni volta in cui, come nel caso della dimensione e rete di cure palliative e della presa in carico globale della persona sofferente, si avvicini l’uomo aperti alla sua realtà omnicomprensiva, soprattutto quando si parla di dolore e sofferenza, elementi comuni ad ogni uomo e ogni tempo. (shrink)

I propose a neo-Meinongian theory labelled as “Modal Meinongian Metaphysics” (MMM) to account for the ontology and semantics of fictional discourse. Several competing accounts of fictional objects are originated by the fact that our talking of them mirrors incoherent intuitions: mainstream theories of fiction privilege some such intuitions, but are forced to account for others via complicated paraphrases of the relevant sentences. An ideal theory should resort to as few paraphrases as possible. In section 1, I make the idea explicit (...) via two methodological principles, called the Minimal Revision and the Acceptability Constraint. In section 2, I introduce the standard distinction between internal and external fictional discourse. In sections 3 to 5, I discuss the approaches of traditional Meinongianism, Fictionalism, and Realism – and their main troubles. In section 6 I propose the MMM approach. This is based upon (1) a modal semantics including impossible worlds (sect. 6.1); (2) a Qualified Comprehension Principle for objects (sect. 6.2); (3) a notion of existence-entailment for properties (sect. 6.3). In section 7 I present a formal semantics for MMM based upon a representation operator. And in section 8 I show how MMM solves the problems of the three aforementioned theories. (shrink)

Durante il V secolo AC Parmenide ebbe molti e qualificati lettori, tra cui Zenone, Empedocle, Anassagora, Leucippo, Melisso, Protagora, Gorgia, Ippia. Tre di loro hanno cercato di fare molto di più di quello che è stato in grado di fare lui con l' ‘esercizio deduttivo’ che incontriamo in 28B8.1-33, e ci sono riusciti. In effetti, che si siano sforzati di superare l'elevato standard già raggiunto da Parmenide nell'invenzione dei passaggi strettamente deduttivi è sostanzialmente fuori discussione. Il mio articolo è dedicato (...) a rendere conto degli ambiziosi obiettivi che Zenone, Melisso e Gorgia raggiunsero, ciascuno in modi molto differenti. (shrink)

Julián Marías (1914-2005) è un pensatore ancora poco conosciuto al lettore italiano, spesso oscurato dall’ombra del suo celebre maestro, José Ortega y Gasset. Filosofo indipendente e coraggioso, offre una proposta più coerente rispetto a Ortega sul tema essenziale comune a entrambi: il poter “dare ragione” della vita evitando gli opposti scogli del razionalismo e del vitalismo. “Dare ragione” della vita significa comprenderla nella sua “condizione morale” che trova espressione nel desiderio di felicità, nell’esigenza di amore e di amicizia, nei differenti (...) vissuti di ciascuna età. Significa riconoscerne la dimensione elettiva: vivere è preferire, saper fornire ragioni per l’opzione di qualcosa rispetto a qualcos’altro. Per questo motivo, più che alla categoria del bene, l’attenzione è rivolta a quella del meglio, fondamentale per comprendere il senso pieno delle proprie scelte e dell’intera trama della propria biografia. (shrink)

Background:The global COVID-19 pandemic has imposed challenges on healthcare systems and professionals worldwide and introduced a ´maelstrom´ of ethical dilemmas. How ethically demanding situations are handled affects employees’ moral stress and job satisfaction.Aim:Describe priority-setting dilemmas, moral distress and support experienced by nurses and physicians across medical specialties in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Norway.Research design:A cross-sectional hospital-based survey was conducted from 23 April to 11 May 2020.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval granted by the Regional Research Ethics Committee in (...) Western Norway (131421).Findings:Among the 1606 respondents, 67% had experienced priority-setting dilemmas the previous two weeks. Healthcare workers who were directly involved in COVID-19 care, were redeployed or worked in psychiatry/addiction medicine experienced it more often. Although 59% of the respondents had seen adverse consequences due to resource scarcity, severe consequences were rare. Moral distress levels were generally low (2.9 on a 0–10 scale), but higher in selected groups (redeployed, managers and working in psychiatry/addiction medicine). Backing from existing collegial and managerial structures and routines, such as discussions with colleagues and receiving updates and information from managers that listened and acted upon feedback, were found more helpful than external support mechanisms. Priority-setting guidelines were also helpful.Discussion:By including all medical specialties, nurses and physicians, and various institutions, the study provides information on how the COVID-19 mitigation also influenced those not directly involved in the COVID-19 treatment of patients. In the next stages of the pandemic response, support for healthcare professionals directly involved in outbreak-affected patients, those redeployed or those most impacted by mitigation strategies must be a priority.Conclusion:Empirical research of healthcare workers experiences under a pandemic are important to identify groups at risks and useful support mechanisms. (shrink)

’Autobiography di J.S. Mill, pubblicata postuma nel 1873, apparse a molti come un freddo esercizio intellettuale, il resoconto del severo processo di educazione cui l’autore fu sottoposto dal padre James Mill. La pubblicazione a distanza di decenni dell’early draft di quel testo ha permesso di focalizzare meglio le circostanze in cui l’opera fu concepita. Riletto alla luce delle testimonianze coeve, in particolare il carteggio con la moglie Harriet Taylor e il diario composto da Mill nei primi mesi del 1854, (...) l’abbozzo dell’Autobiography apre nuove prospettive per inquadrare i saggi della maturità di Mill sull’etica, la religione e la società. (shrink)

Excerpt from Frammenti di Estetica e Letteratura Venne, dopo un paio d' anni, una memoria di Bene detto Croce dal titolo: La storia ridotta sotto il concetto generale dell' arte' memoria ardita nella tesi enunciata fin dal titolo, stringata ne' ragionamenti, breve, ta gliente, piena d' osservazioni acute; che, come avviene delle scritture di singolar merito, mise il campo a ru more. Piovvero le critiche, e il Croce rispose in una se conda memoria di Discussioni; che poi riun alla prima (...) e ripubblic con due nuovi scritterelli, i quali miravano a lumeggiare ancor meglio il tema contrastato, in un libro, sul quale anch' io ebbi a scrivere e contro il quale tornarono ad aguzzare le armi i critici, special mente studiosi di storia, scandalezzati, del concetto, cui si voleva ridurre la loro scienza. Uno storico tedesco giunse ad affermare nella Historz'sche Zeitschrift del Sybel, concludendo una sua recensione molto severa, che l'n nico merito delle memorie del Croce era quello di aver dato occasione a un certo libro, che io ho dovuto giudi care, a malincuore, assai duramente per voler essere giusto; dove io afi'ermerei, che l'unico merito di questo libro ' di esser nato in occasione di quegli scritti suggestivi del Croce. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to obtain an increased understanding of the experiences of elderly people in geriatric care, with special reference to integrity. Data were collected through qualitative interviews with elderly people and, in order to obtain a description of caregivers’ integrity-promoting or non-promoting behaviours, participant observations and qualitative interviews with nursing students were undertaken. Earlier studies on the integrity of elderly people mainly concentrated on their personal and territorial space, so Kihlgren and Thorsén opened up the possibility (...) of considering the concept of integrity from a broader view by recognizing its relationship to the larger framework of the self-concept. Based on this, findings in the present study indicate that elderly people’s integrity relating to their corporal self were the least violated. On the other hand, their psycological, information and cultural selves were the most exposed. The study also identified a further dimension (i.e. one relating to social self), which should be included in the concept of integrity because respecting elderly people’s social self reduces their feelings of loneliness, isolation and seclusion. In summary, the results indicate that the concept of integrity is complex and has several dimensions. (shrink)

This article reveals a 91-year-old cognitively intact man’s lived experiences of being cared for in a geriatric context in which the majority of the patients were cognitively impaired. A narrative patient story was analysed phenomenologically. The findings indicate that this patient’s basic needs for ethical care were not met. The staff did not see him as a unique individual with his own preferences, resources and abilities to master his life. In order to survive this lack of ethical care, he played (...) the role of an ‘old cognitively impaired man’, which provided him with at least the understanding and attention the cognitively impaired patients received from the staff. The findings also indicate that ethical care is independent of whether or not older cognitively intact and impaired patients stay or live in the same unit, but it is more dependent on a caregiver’s ability to respect and confirm each and every patient for who he or she is and would like to be. (shrink)

Excerpt from La Filosofia di Giambattista Vico Per quali ragioni a me sia sembrata necessaria una nuova esposizione della filosofia del Vico, potra agevolmente desumersi dai cenni sulla fortuna di questo scrittore e dalle notizie bibliografiche, che si leggono nella seconda e terza appendice del presente volume. Qui occorre avvertire soltanto che la mia esposizione non vuol essere un riassunto libro per libro e parte per parte degli scritti del Vico; e, anzi, presuppone la conoscenza di questi scritti e, ove (...) manchi, vuol eccitare il lettore a procacciarsela per meglio seguire, e per controllare, le interpetrazioni e i giudizi che gli vengono da me offerti. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

L’obiettivo che questo lavoro si propone è quello di rintracciare nella prosa appassionante e appassionata di Michele Federico Sciacca tracce che rimandano alla speculazione filosofica di Bernardo di Chiaravalle. Divisi nel tempo, ma compartecipi di un modo comune di intendere la categoria mistica, i due filosofi appaiono uniti nella condivisione di una stessa sensibilità. È una filiazione che accoglie più interrogativi che certezze, primo tra tutti, il perché Sciacca non citi mai direttamente Bernardo, cosa che invece ripetutamente fa con Agostino, (...) Tommaso, Bonaventura, e altre colonne portanti del pensiero. Sono molte in tal senso le ipotesi che vengono prese in considerazione, tra queste l’idea che per il filosofo di Giarre, Bernardo fosse non una semplice fonte, ma una lente attraverso la quale guardare meglio e più lontano. Un legame taciuto dunque, tenuto a riparo dalla vista dei più, quello che Sciacca ha lasciato crescere tra le pieghe dei suoi scritti. I due filosofi sfidano il tempo e si trovano, o ri-trovano dentro una sincronicità filosofica che li vede messaggeri dagli stessi valori. In questo forse “immaginario” dialogo tra un pensatore che ha saputo sporgere lo sguardo oltre il suo secolo, e uno che non ha mai perso occasione per riflettere e riflettersi attraverso il passato, è possibile ritrovare e godere della tensione emotiva dell’essere umano che pretende di ricongiungersi con l’Assoluto. The aim of this paper is to find in Michele Federico Sciacca’s fascinating and passionate prose traces that refer to Bernard of Clairvaux philosophical speculation. Distant in time, but sharing a common way of understanding the mystical category, the two philosophers appear united in having the same sensitivity. It is a filiation that welcomes more questions than certainties. First of all, why Sciacca never quotes Bernard directly, something that instead he repeatedly does with Augustine, Thomas, Bonaventure, and many others. In this sense, many hypotheses are taken into consideration, including the idea that for the philosopher of Giarre, Bernard was not just a source, but a lens through which to look better and further awy. A silent relationship, therefore, kept away from the sight of most, that which Sciacca has allowed to grow between the folds of his writings. The two philosophers defy time and find themselves, or refind within a philosophical synchronicity that sees them as messengers of the same values. In this perhaps “imaginary” dialogue between a thinker who has been able to look beyond his century, and one who has never missed an opportunity to reflect and reflect through the past, we can find and enjoy the emotional tension of the human being who claims to reconnect with the Absolute. (shrink)

En quoi le corps participe-t-il de l'entente que l'homme a du monde? Que signifie dès lors écouter? Comment établir un rapport juste à l'animal? Quel sens prêter aux couleurs? Pourquoi la tonalité décisive de notre rapport au monde peut-elle advenir à la faveur d'expériences olfactives et gustatives? En quoi la tactilité incite-t-elle à considérer le corps vif comme une donnée originaire et à reconnaître qu'il est bien une vulnérabilité dotée d'aptitudes qui nous dispose au monde? Comment l'angoisse, révélée et cachée (...) tout à la fois par la maladie, est-elle chevillée au corps de l'être-au-monde, le Dasein? Qu'en est-il du corps dans la nostalgie, dans la mélancolie, dans l'ennui et dans la joie? Pourquoi la coexistence, supposant relations et rencontres, implique-t-elle l'articulation des corporéités vives comme dans le tact sensitif ou dans la jalousie amoureuse et dans l'amour pensé en terme de tonalité érotique? Comment comprendre la mobilité et parvenir ainsi jusqu'à l'éminente dignité ontologique du mouvement? De quoi la pensée est-elle redevable au corps? Telles sont les questions qui jalonnent cet ouvrage. Par son orientation résolument phénoménologique, l'Intelligence du corps entend renouveler l'entente du phénomène le plus proprement humain et, cependant, le plus malmené par la métaphysique. Prenant librement appui sur les vues inouïes de Martin Heidegger, consciente de l'actuelle soumission du corps de l'homme à l'arraisonnement technique, Ingrid Auriol ouvre une voie d'accès à l'intelligence du corps libérée de cette violence. (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of Martha Nussbaum’s description of the capability approach, and offers an alternative. I will argue that Nussbaum’s characterization of the capability approach is flawed, in two ways. First, she unduly limits the capability to two strands of work, thereby ignoring important other capabilitarian scholarship. Second, she argues that there are five essential elements that all capability theories meet; yet upon closer analysis three of them are not really essential to the capability approach. I also offer (...) an alternative description of the capability approach, which is called the cartwheel view of the capability approach. This view is at the same time radically multidisciplinary yet also contains a foundationally robust core among its various usages, and is therefore much better able to make the case that the capability approach can be developed in a very wide range of more specific normative theories. Finally, the cartwheel view is used to argue against Nussbaum's claim that all capabilitarian political theory needs to be politically liberal. (shrink)

A IDENTIFICAÇÃO DO DIREITO AMBIENTAL MARÍTIMO.

A IMPORTÂNCIA DE TRATAMENTO DE ÁGUAS RESIDUAIS ATRAVÉS DA BIORREMEDIAÇÃO: UMA ANÁLISE PRINCIPIOLÓGICA.

During the past decade, screening tests using computed tomography have disseminated into practice and been marketed to patients despite neither conclusive evidence nor professional agreement about their efficacy and cost-effectiveness at the population level. This phenomenon raises questions about physicians' professional roles and responsibilities within the setting of medical innovation, as well as the appropriate scope of patient autonomy and access to unproven screening technology. This article explores how physicians ought to respond when new screening examinations that lack conclusive evidence (...) of overall population benefit emerge in the marketplace and are requested by individual patients. To this end, the article considers the nature of evidence and how it influences decision-making for screening at both the public policy and individual patient levels. We distinguish medical and ethical differences between screening recommended for a population and screening considered on an individual patient basis. Finally, we discuss specific cases to explore how evidence, patient risk factors and preferences, and physician judgment ought to balance when making individual patient screening decisions. (shrink)

Ethical dilemmas are part of medicine, but the type of challenges, the frequency of their occurrence and the nuances in the difficulties have not been systematically studied in low-income settings. The objective of this paper was to map out the ethical dilemmas from the perspective of Ethiopian physicians working in public hospitals. A national survey of physicians from 49 public hospitals using stratified, multi-stage sampling was conducted in six of the 11 regions in Ethiopia. Descriptive statistics were used and the (...) responses to the open-ended question “If you have experienced any ethical dilemma, can you please describe a dilemma you have encountered in your own words?” were analyzed using a template analysis process. A total of 587 physicians responded, and 565 met the inclusion criteria. Twelve of 24 specified ethically challenging situations were reported to be experienced often or sometimes by more than 50% of the physicians. The most frequently reported challenge concerned resource distribution: 93% agreed that they often or sometimes had to make difficult choices due to resource limitation, and 83% often or sometimes encountered difficulties because patients were unable to pay for the preferred course of treatment. Other frequently reported difficulties were doubts about doing good or harming the patient, relating to conflicting views, concern for family welfare, disclosure issues and caring for patients not able to consent. Few reported dilemmas related to end-of-life issues. The 200 responses to the open-ended question mirrored the quantitative results. Ethiopian physicians report ethical challenges related more to bedside rationing and fairness concerns than futility discussions and conflicts about autonomy as described in studies from high-income countries. In addition to the high report of experienced challenges, gravity of the dilemmas that are present in their narratives are striking. Recognition of the everyday experiences of physicians in low-income settings should prompt the development of ethics teaching and support mechanisms, discussion of ethical guidelines as well as increase our focus on how to improve the grave resource scarcity they describe. (shrink)

Continuing medico-technical progress has led toan increasing medicalisation of pregnancy andchildbirth. One of the most common technologiesin this context is ultrasound. Based on someidentified `pro-technology feminist theories',notably the postmodernist feminist discourse,the technology of ultrasound is analysedfocusing mainly on social and political ratherthan clinical issues. As empirical researchsuggests, ultrasound is welcomed by themajority of women. The analysis, however, showsthat attitudes and decisions of women areinfluenced by broader social aspects. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the visualtechnology of ultrasound, in addition to otherreproductive technology (...) in maternity care, islinked to the `personification' of the foetusand has therefore contributed to a new image ofthe foetus. The exploration of these issueschallenges some arguments of feministdiscourse. It draws attention to possibleadverse implications of the technology forwomen's reproductive freedom and indicates theimportance of the topic for politicaldiscussions. (shrink)

This study investigated attitudes toward the use of deception in negotiation, with particular attention to the distinction between deception regarding the informational elements of the interaction (e.g., lying about or misrepresenting needs or preferences) and deception about emotional elements (e.g., misrepresenting one's emotional state). We examined how individuals judge the relative ethical appropriateness of these alternative forms of deception, and how these judgments relate to negotiator performance and long-run reputation. Individuals viewed emotionally misleading tactics as more ethically appropriate to use (...) in negotiation than informational deception. Approval of deception predicted negotiator performance in a negotiation simulation and also general reputation as a negotiator, but the nature of these relationships depended on the kind of deception involved. (shrink)

La construcción de la nación y la transformación de lo político / Ingrid Johanna Bolívar.

My dissertation, “Love, Self-Constitution, and Practical Necessity,” offers an interpretation of love between people. Love is puzzling because it appears to involve essentially both rational and non-rational phenomena. We are accountable to those we love, so love seems to participate in forms of necessity, commitment, and expectation, which are associated with morality. But non-rational attitudes—forms of desire, attraction, and feeling—are also central to love. Consequently, love is not obviously based in rationality or inclination. In contrast to views that attempt to (...) fit love into existing models of practical reasoning, I argue that love participates in a unique form of practical necessity, different from both moral and psychological necessity, yet bearing resemblances to each. Distinctive to this type of practical necessity is a direct appeal to another particular person that cannot be delivered in third-personal terms—that is, a non-moral yet normative type of expectation on another person. This type of expectation is predominant in loving relationships, but can also make better sense of the experiences of humor and beauty, as well as attitudes like forgiveness, gratitude, and agent-regret. I treat Immanuel Kant’s discussion of the experience of beauty in the Critique of Judgment and Christine Korsgaard’s work on self-constitution as fruitful starting points for this account of love. I conclude that our loving relationships enable us to have distinctive personal selves, and provide support for this account of love by offering a complementary theory of grief. In Part One of the dissertation, I focus on two prominent approaches to love characteristic of the sentimentalist and rationalist traditions. I begin with the work of David Hume, which treats desire (understood as something like a simple impulse or craving) as the paradigmatic mental state, and emphasizes our personal and affective dimensions. Hume has the valuable insight that loving someone affects our sense of ourselves. But Hume’s view becomes unsatisfying when he claims that love is essentially enfeebling, implying that to love is to be passive toward and readily overcome by another person. While this indicates Hume’s awareness that love involves being open and receptive to another person, the problem is that love is also a demanding attitude. Hume lacks the conceptual resources to offer a nuanced view of the self, in which we can—with one attitude—be both demanding of and vulnerable to another person. Hume’s model of a desire-based deliberative process has recently been revived in Harry Frankfurt’s discussions on love and rationality. Frankfurt, however, goes beyond Hume’s picture of the self by introducing a notion of “identification,” which he offers to make sense of our apparent ability to commit ourselves decisively to certain projects or people. I argue that active powers like identification and commitment cannot be accommodated within any basically Humean moral psychology. Such abilities, and with them the possibility of love, depend on something closer to a Kantian conception of rational agency. I next focus on the work of Kant, who provides the substantial counterpart to Humean-inspired moral theories, but is not known for his insight into our emotional lives. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant divides love into “practical love”—what we experience when we are morally motivated to help someone—and “pathological love”—what we experience when we feel fond of something. But in reality, we experience love neither as a mere preference for another person, nor as something that generates the kind of demands that would be binding on any rational creature. David Velleman attempts to remedy the deficiency of Kant’s dichotomy. Velleman offers a Kantian theory in which he describes love and respect as two ends of a continuum of attitudes that it is morally appropriate to have toward people. Velleman’s view has the peculiar implication that everyone deserves the love of everyone else, and I argue that this is a fatal flaw. Like Kant and Velleman, Korsgaard characterizes personal love as involving the treatment of other people as Kantian ends-in-themselves to a heightened degree. Korsgaard, though, also contends that our individual identities depend upon our personal relationships, and I take this position seriously for the remainder of the dissertation. Ultimately, however, characterizations of loving relations as subsets of moral relations can account for the authority of the demands of love, but not its particularity. The major conclusion of Part One is that any attempt to understand love primarily on a model of practical reasoning with which we are already familiar is doomed to fail. Our experience of love calls for a theory of a unique type of practical necessity. In Part Two I take seriously the possibility that love is simultaneously inescapable (in something like the way morality is supposed to be), and yet ineluctably personal. In love, we experience an engagement with a person as essentially particular, rather than as an instance of a rational agent in general. To make sense of this direct attachment to an individual, I argue that love involves distinctive forms of expectation and disappointment. When those we love let us down, they hurt our feelings, which is not a response to a failed prediction, but nor is it a reaction to a moral insult or offense. According to Peter Strawson and Stephen Darwall, second-personal moral reactive attitudes (such as resentment) always have third-personal analogues (such as indignation). In contrast, I argue that the type of hurt feelings associated with love is a second-personal reactive attitude that does not have a third-personal corollary. I take this as evidence that the expectations involved in love are not objective in the way that the moral is objective. Nor, however, is love a matter of mere preference. On my interpretation, Kant introduces this different type of expectation in the Critique of Judgment. Whereas he characterizes moral judgments as universally communicable, judgments of beauty implicitly involve only second-personal address: I appeal to your direct experience with a particular object. This provides the conceptual space for an account of love according to which it involves a uniquely second-personal form of practical necessity. I contend that the second-personal addresses we make in love are appeals to strengthen the intimacy implicit in the loving relationship, and I identify three interrelated dimensions of that intimacy. First, those we love have the standing to interpret us in a constitutive manner. We fine-tune and make determinate the character of our concerns and interests in part by accepting the interpretations provided by those we love. In that way, the people we love have the normative power to constitute who we are. Second, we share a perspective with those we love in a way that is not reducible to or derivative of our independent perspectives. Loving someone centrally involves the activity of forming concerns together, and we do this in a mode best understood on the model of playing a spontaneous game or improvising music. Finally, being loved enables us to see ourselves as distinctive and special, because the concern those who love us have for us does not track the objective merit of our characteristics. These dimensions of the intimacy that characterizes a loving relationship reveal what it is that we appeal for in love, and how we are hurt when our appeals are rebuffed. In broad terms, this dissertation advocates the recognition of a non-moral yet normative type of expectation, which is predominant in loving relationships. Humor and beauty, too, make more sense when understood in terms of this non-moral yet normative type of expectation, as they involve appeals to others that are more than mere predictions of, but less than rational demands for, a certain kind of response. Introducing this alternative notion of expectation into the discourse of moral philosophy can shed light on other common attitudes that are clearly normative, but defy translation into objective, third-personal terms. Such attitudes include certain experiences of pride and shame, apology and forgiveness, the bestowing of mercy, gratitude, agent-regret, and perhaps a basic sense of trust we have in others. Ultimately, I situate love in respect to grief, which demonstrates my theory’s ability to make sense of related dimensions of our emotional lives. The people we love and grieve over give us a sense of who we are as distinctive, particular individuals, as the three interrelated dimensions of intimacy in loving relationships reveal. Consequently, grief is best understood as a type of practical disorientation—namely, a disorientation that involves the loss of the personal self. I present my account of grief against the type of account that would draw philosophical conclusions about the nature of love and grief from empirical psychological data alone. In particular, these data indicate that we recover quickly from the deaths of loved ones, and Dan Moller draws the philosophical conclusion that those we love fulfill certain roles in our lives and are replaceable. In contrast, I contend that while we should acknowledge the truth of the objective judgment, made in the third-person, that we will likely recover after the deaths of those we love, it does not follow that we must affirm such a claim from the internal perspective of one person who loves another. As a result, the case of love and grief supports a general claim concerning the proper work of moral philosophy, which is that the understanding of ourselves gained through empirical data is not a substitute for the normative conclusions that are revealed through first-personal reflections on our relationships. (shrink)

Human embryos produced in labs since the 1970s have generated layers of uncertainty for law and policy: ontological, moral, and administrative. Ontologically, these lab-made entities fall into a gray zone between life and not-yet-life. Should in vitro embryos be treated as inanimate matter, like abandoned postsurgical tissue, or as private property? Morally, should they exist largely outside of state control in the zone of free reproductive choice or should they be regarded as autonomous human lives and thus entitled to constitutional (...) protection like full-fledged citizens? Administratively, if they deserve protection, what institutional and policy mechanisms are best suited to carrying out the necessary oversight? Using a method termed comparative problematization, this article traces divergent answers to these questions produced in three countries—the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany—across the last twenty-five years. Comparison reveals distinct bioconstitutional foundations that give rise to systematically different understandings of each state’s responsibilities toward human life and hence its particular treatment of claims on behalf of embryonic lives. (shrink)

Journal of Economic Methodology, Volume 19, Issue 2, Page 159-163, June 2012.

For many, the Holocaust made thinking about ethics in traditional ways impossible. It called into question the predominance of speculative ontology in Western thought, and left many arguing that Western political, cultural and philosophical inattention to universal ethics were both a cause and an effect of European civilization's collapse in the twentieth century. Emmanuel Levinas, Elie Wiesel and Richard Rubenstein respond to this problem by insisting that ethics must be Western thought's first concern. Unlike previous thinkers, they locate humanity's source (...) of universal ethical obligation in the temporal world of experience, where human suffering, rather than metaphysics, provides the ground for ethical engagement. All three thinkers contend that Judaism’s key lesson is that our fellow human is our responsibility, and use Judaism to develop a contemporary ethics that could operate with or without God. _Ethics and Suffering since the Holocaust_ explores selected works of Levinas, Wiesel, and Rubenstein for practical applications of their ethics, analyzing the role of suffering and examining the use each thinker makes of Jewish sources and the advantages and disadvantages of this use. Finally, it suggests how the work of Jewish thinkers living in the wake of the Holocaust can be of unique value to those interested in the problem of ethics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Presenting a thorough investigation of the work of Levinas, Wiesel and Rubinstein, this book is of key interest to students and scholars of Jewish studies, as well as Jewish ethics and philosophy. (shrink)