A widespread need to explain the behavior and outcomes of AI-based systems has emerged, due to their ubiquitous presence. Thus, providing renewed momentum to the relatively new research area of eXplainable AI (XAI). Nowadays, the importance of XAI lies in the fact that the increasing control transference to this kind of system for decision making -or, at least, its use for assisting executive stakeholders- already affects many sensitive realms (as in Politics, Social Sciences, or Law). The decision-making power handover to (...) opaque AI systems makes mandatory explaining those, primarily in application scenarios where the stakeholders are unaware of both the high technology applied and the basic principles governing the technological solutions. The issue should not be reduced to a merely technical problem; the explainer would be compelled to transmit richer knowledge about the system (including its role within the informational ecosystem where he/she works). To achieve such an aim, the explainer could exploit, if necessary, practices from other scientific and humanistic areas. The first aim of the paper is to emphasize and justify the need for a multidisciplinary approach that is beneficiated from part of the scientific and philosophical corpus on Explaining, underscoring the particular nuances of the issue within the field of Data Science. The second objective is to develop some arguments justifying the authors’ bet by a more relevant role of ideas inspired by, on the one hand, formal techniques from Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and on the other hand, the modeling of human reasoning when facing the explanation. This way, explaining modeling practices would seek a sound balance between the pure technical justification and the explainer-explainee agreement. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the potential danger to security and privacy, sharing and publishing data has become usual in Data Science. To preserve privacy, de-identification methodologies guided by risk estimation have been designed. Two issues associated with classical risk metrics are, on the one hand, the adequacy of the metric and, on the other hand, its static nature. In this paper, we present metrics for estimating risk based on the emerging semantics provided by Formal Concept Analysis. The metrics are designed to estimate the (...) a priori risk of compromised data deletion. Furthermore, by applying specialized variable forgetting methods for association rules, it is shown how to reflect the effect of deleting attributes belonging to potentially dangerous quasi-identifier sets. Additionally, a study of the role of the risk metric in confidence-based reasoning for re-identification is presented. (shrink)

Background:The high level of satisfaction of users of a health service is largely due to the fact that they receive excellent care from healthcare professionals. Compassionate care is an essential...

Literature reports that depressive symptoms may precede suicidal ideation. Several studies have identified social support and substance use as moderators of this relationship. However, no study has evaluated these variables together by testing how substance use can affect the moderating effect of social support in this relationship. The purpose of this article is to individually evaluate dimensions of social support (friends, family, significant others, and school) and substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs), as moderators of the relationship between (...) depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation; as well as analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderation exerted by social support in this relationship. This study, quantitative and cross-sectional, considered 775 adolescents [Average age = 15.48 (SD = 0.96), 45.9% women], from 20 randomly selected schools in Santiago de Chile. Simple moderation models were used to analyze possible moderators separately, and double moderation models were used to analyze the moderating role of substance use in the moderating effect of social support. The results show that the four dimensions of social support moderate the relationship between depressive symptomatology and suicidal ideation, showing the strongest interaction in the case of family support, followed by support of a significant person, support at school, and support of friends, in that order. On the other hand, alcohol was the only drug that moderated the relationship in question. In addition, the results show that the use of alcohol limits the moderating effect of social support in the fields of family, significant person, and school support, but not in the case of support of friends. The use of marijuana and other illicit drugs did not affect the moderating effects of social support for any of the areas evaluated. The results are discussed according to the different roles that alcohol use can play in adolescence, and how these, together with perceived social support, are related to the emergence of suicidal ideation from depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Suicide, as one of the leading causes of death for the adolescent population, both in Chile and globally, remains a complex and elusive phenomenon. This research studies the association between positive and negative affect in relation with suicidal ideation and suicidal attempt, given that affectivity is a fundamental basis on which people make evaluations on their satisfaction with life. First, it examines the reliability, structure, and validity of Watson’s positive and negative affect scale (PANAS) scale in a representative random sample (...) of Chilean high school students (N= 4,568). The scale evidences strong reliability coefficients and a confirmatory factor analysis, excluding one positive (excited) and one negative (nervous) item. The scale shows a satisfactory goodness of fit. Secondly, it investigates the association of PANAS positive and negative affect scores with suicidal ideation as well as reported attempt in adolescents, controlling for the potential effect of age and sex (N= 420 high school students). Low positive and high negative affect, but not sex and age, show a significant association with suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation totally mediates the association of affect with suicide attempt, as expected. Results are discussed regarding prevention and it considers how positive and negative affect can be relevant as indicators for prevention and treatment using widely available technology. (shrink)

Por medio de la siguiente lectura de poemas Latinoamericanos vinculados a la generación del ´50, intentaremos mostrar cómo los autores vuelcan la reflexión poética hacia su labor, valiéndose del metapoema como estrategia para inscribir en el espacio textual el distanciamiento con las poéticas precedentes, construyendo desde ahí su renovada visión, manifestando su propia mirada sobre la poesía y los elementos que circundan la práctica poética. Nuestro interés será delatar la existencia de una > en los autores, para lo cual se (...) asume la hipótesis de la existencia de un cierto proceso de transformación de la poesía, gestada por los autores de la llamada generación del ´50 y ´60´en Latinoamérica, producto de múltiples alteraciones globales y locales, con motivaciones tanto literarias como extraliterarias. Dichas transformaciones se manifiestan en el plano literario en nuevas fórmulas expresivas que se inscriben al interior de las textualidades, en giros tanto formales como temáticos, visibilizándose particularmente en los metapoemas publicados desde la segunda mitad del siglo XX. (shrink)

International research enrolling human subjects has raised an ethical concern regarding the just distribution of benefits between the countries that design the research and the host communities. Although several universal declarations have expressed this concern, a gap between theory and practice continues to exist, as well as a significant divergence between the design of the research protocol and the social context where it will be implemented. Although institutional review boards have made a valuable effort to evaluate international research, their sensitivity (...) to the just sharing of research benefits as well as their attention to the social context must be evaluated. This article analyzes the distribution of benefits in a review of international research in Mexico and produces an ethical reflection based on the results. (shrink)

Los sesgos cognitivos afectan negativamente la toma de decisiones en todas las esferas de la vida, incluyendo las decisiones de los jueces. La imposibilidad de eliminarlos por completo de la práctica del derecho, o incluso de controlar sus efectos, contrasta con el anhelo de que las decisiones judiciales sean el resultado exclusivo de un razonamiento lógico-jurídico correcto. Frente el efecto sistemático, recalcitrante y porfiado de los sesgos cognitivos, una posible estrategia para disminuir su efecto es enfocarse, no en modificar el (...) comportamiento de los agentes judiciales, sino en moldear su entorno para que los sesgos tengan menos oportunidades de aparecer. En particular, es más provechoso concentrar los esfuerzos en identificar aquellas reglas procesales que faciliten o limiten el efecto de los sesgos. En este ensayo propongo un diálogo fructífero entre el derecho y la psicología que puede llevar a mejorar la calidad de los sistemas judiciales. La propuesta está basada en la creación de guías de práctica judicial que puedan servir de base para la creación de protocolos procesales que limiten en la medida de lo razonable sus efectos negativos y conduzcan a mejores decisiones judiciales. (shrink)

Most non-human animals live in the wild and it is probable that suffering predominates in their lives due to natural events. Humans may at some point be able to engage in paradise engineering, or the modification of nature and animal organisms themselves, to improve the well-being of wild animals. We may, in other words, make nature 'red in tooth and claw' no more. We argue that this creates a tension between environmental ethics and animal ethics which is likely insurmountable. First, (...) we argue that concern for the environment can be compatible with helping individual wild animals but should see redesigning nature as morally impermissible. Second, we argue that if we are concerned with animal well-being, we may reject that we have a duty to help wild animals even to the point of redesigning nature, but we must nevertheless concede that it is permissible to do so under certain circumstances. We show how this permissibility can be derived from three animal rights views: Tom Regan's, a novel account inspired by Thomas Pogge and a libertarian approach to animal rights. (shrink)

RESUMENEste trabajo describe y analiza el libro de Roberto Augusto En defensa del ateísmo, publicado en 2012 por la editorial Laetoli de Pamplona (Colección «Libros abiertos»). La lectura de este libro, de indiscutible valor intelectual y claridad expositiva, induce de modo difícil de evitar a una reflexión personal. Más allá de una defensa del ateísmo, y de un alegato contra la religión (casi en exclusiva, la cristiana), razonado y razonable, el libro lleva al lector al planteamiento de la pregunta por (...) la más grave de todas las cuestiones filosóficas, la «costa de la metafísica», y ello desde una perspectiva personal. Es lo que he tratado de plasmar en mis reflexiones, que no suponen tanto una crítica de la obra cuanto un intento de prolongar su meditación.PALABRAS CLAVEATEÍSMO, FILOSOFÍA DE LA RELIGIÓN, CREENCIA, ROBERTO AUGUSTOABSTRACTThis note describes and analyzes the book by Roberto Augusto En defensa del ateísmo (Laetoli: Pamplona, 2012). The reading of this undoubtedly clear and valuable book results in a hardly avoidable personal reflexion. Besides offering a defence of atheism and a reasonable and wellreasoned denounce of religion (although almost exclusively focused on the Christianity), the book leads the reader to the most fundamental philosophical questions, and this from a personal perspective. These reflexions are not as much a criticism of the theses of the book as an attempt to prolong the discussion.KEYWORDSATHEISM, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, BELIEF, ROBERTO AUGUSTO. (shrink)

Most nonhuman animals live on the terms imposed on them by human beings. This condition of being under the mastery of another, or domination, is what republicanism identifies as political unfreedom. Yet there are several problems that must be solved in order to successfully extend republicanism to animals. Here I focus on the question of whether freedom can be a benefit for individuals without a free will. I argue that once we understand the grounds that make freedom a desirable property (...) of choices, we can see how it is appropriate to predicate it of those made by any sentient agent. (shrink)

Wild animals probably have net negative lives. Christine Korsgaard rejects the view that we might engineer paradise by redesigning nature and animals so that they have the best possible existences. She believes the genetic changes required would not be identity-preserving, thereby causing animals to cease to exist. I argue, first, that paradise engineering is permissible. Many harms are caused by non-sentient natural entities and processes. Moreover, sentient animals can survive modifications compatible with their psychological persistence over time. Second, we are (...) required to re-engineer nature in order to satisfy animals' right to the resources necessary for a reasonable life. (shrink)

Esta breve introducción a la filosofía de la ciencia parte del hecho de que tanto la investigación científica como el razonamiento probatorio judicial tienen un carácter inductivo. En esa medida, comparten características esenciales que permiten que el derecho se nutra de muchas de las reflexiones de la filosofía de la ciencia. El capítulo se concentra en cuatro temas principales: los criterios de demarcación entre el conocimiento científico y la pseudociencia; el carácter derrotable de las conclusiones de la ciencia y el (...) derecho; la estructura corroborativa de la relación entre la evidencia y las hipótesis científicas y judiciales; y las teorías de la explicación tanto en el ámbito científico como en el judicial. (shrink)

Entre las teorías de Thomas Hobbes y Baruch de Spinoza hay destacadas coincidencias y también importantes diferencias. Inician y revelan cambios en la teoría y la práctica políticas que ocurren en corto espacio de tiempo pero que son decisivos. Antecesores del positivismo, ambos compartieron bases ontológicas y metodológicas, lo que suele interpretarse, por razones cronológicas, como una influencia de Hobbes en Spinoza. Las diferencias entre ambos versan sobre el sentido de la religión en relación con su papel en la política; (...) las relaciones entre la revelación divina, la ley y la razón naturales y el orden moral; el iusnaturalismo como fundamento del sistema jurídico-político; el sentido y contenido del contrato social como fundamento de la obligación civil. Todas estas divergencias conducen a la más importante de todas, y es que Hobbes se enroca en un absolutismo que desconoce los derechos de la conciencia, mientras que Spinoza se erige en defensor del fuero interno. (shrink)

This paper raises three questions regarding the attribution of beliefs, desires, and intentions to robots. The first one is whether humans in fact engage in robot mindreading. If they do, this raises a second question: does robot mindreading foster trust towards robots? Both of these questions are empirical, and I show that the available evidence is insufficient to answer them. Now, if we assume that the answer to both questions is affirmative, a third and more important question arises: should developers (...) and engineers promote robot mindreading in view of their stated goal of enhancing transparency? My worry here is that by attempting to make robots more mind-readable, they are abandoning the project of understanding automatic decision processes. Features that enhance mind-readability are prone to make the factors that determine automatic decisions even more opaque than they already are. And current strategies to eliminate opacity do not enhance mind-readability. The last part of the paper discusses different ways to analyze this apparent trade-off and suggests that a possible solution must adopt tolerable degrees of opacity that depend on pragmatic factors connected to the level of trust required for the intended uses of the robot. (shrink)

Nonhuman animals are unable to exert any direct control over the functioning of democratic institutions –the decisions of which, nevertheless, have a pervasive impact on their lives. Their interests are therefore likelier to be set back or unfairly discounted, and their choices are more vulnerable to arbitrary interference. Because of this, some authors have suggested that we ought to redesign our political institutions so that they are more responsive to the interests of animals. We argue that this strategy fails to (...) address the root of the problem, which is animals’ lack of robust political agency. We defend that, should it become technologically feasible, we have a pro tanto obligation, derived from the values that underpin democracy, to uplift, or radically enhance, the political agency of nonhuman animals, so that they can better participate in mass democratic politics, express their interests as they see them, self-organise to defend them, and hold their representatives accountable. Finally, we explain how our argument manages to resist the most important objections against animal enhancement and, in some cases, it does so better than alternative proposals based on the value of animal well-being. (shrink)

On expectation, most wild animals have lives of net suffering due to naturogenic causes. Some have claimed that concern for their well-being gives us reasons to intervene in nature on their behalf. Against this, it has been said that many interventions to assist wild animals would be wrong, even if successful, because they would violate their freedom. According to the Freedom-based Approach I defend in this paper, this view is misguided. Concern for wild animal freedom does indeed gives us reasons (...) to secure these animals against control-undermining interferences, but also to intervene in nature in order to enrich their choices. (shrink)

Interest in ethical leadership from academics and practitioners has grown enormously in recent years. This article addresses this literature through a framework that identifies three interlocking questions. First, who are ethical leaders and what are their characteristics? Second, how do ethical leaders do what they do? Third, why do leaders do as they do and what are the outcomes of ethical leadership? Different dimensions to ethical leadership are examined and presented as three interlocking circles; Virtues, Purposes and Practices. This framework (...) presents an integrated approach to ethical leadership and argues that future research take this holistic framework and apply it to different sectors or contexts. (shrink)

Explanation and understanding are intimately connected notions, but the nature of that connection has generally not been considered a topic worthy of serious philosophical investigation. Most authors have avoided making reference to the notion of understanding in their accounts of explanation because they fear that any mention of the epistemic states of the individuals involved compromises the objectivity of explanation. Understanding is a pragmatic notion, they argue, and pragmatics should be kept at a safe distance from the universal features of (...) explanation. My main contention in this dissertation is that there is a sense in which it is meaningful and useful to talk about objective understanding, and that to characterize this notion it is necessary to formulate an account of objective explanation that makes reference to the beliefs and epistemic goals of the participants in a cognitive enterprise. ;My account of explanation is based on the belief-doubt model of inquiry first proposed by Peirce. Using the tools provided by decision theory, and the models of belief revision developed by Isaac Levi and by Alchourron, Gardenfors, and Makinson, I analyze the objective and pragmatic conditions that a piece of information must fulfill to be both explanatory and epistemically useful to an inquiring agent. The objective basis for an explanation is provided by the relation of probabilistic relevance that the fact described by the explanans bares to the fact described by the explanandum. But an explanation is much more than its foundation. As an epistemological notion, a potential explanation can only be a bona fide explanation if it becomes part of inquiry, that is, if an agent or a group of agents can see any value in it for their cognitive purposes. I provide a way to evaluate an explanation in terms of its credibility, its content, and its explanatory value. I argue that although an objective measure of the credibility and content of an explanation can be established, in many cases a complete determination of its explanatory value will ultimately depend on the interests and goals of the individual inquirers. (shrink)

To verify the occurrence of a singular instance of testimonial injustice three facts must be established. The first is whether the hearer in fact has an identity prejudice of which she may or may not be aware; the second is whether that prejudice was in fact the cause of the unjustified credibility deficit; and the third is whether there was in fact a credibility deficit in the testimonial exchange. These three elements constitute the facts of the matter of testimonial injustice. (...) In this essay we argue that none of these facts can be established with any degree of confidence, and therefore that testimonial injustice is an undetectable phenomenon in singular instances. Our intention is not to undermine the idea of testimonial injustice, but rather to set limits to what can be justifiably asserted about it. According to our argument, although there are insufficient reasons to identify individual acts of testimonial injustice, it is possible to recognize recurrent patterns of epistemic responses to speakers who belong to specific social groups. General testimonial injustice can thus be characterized as a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer. (shrink)

Este ensayo trata de un tema esencial en el surgimiento de la conciencia moderna: la cuestión litigiosa entre la libertad y la gracia, en «La controversia entre Erasmo y Lutero acerca del libre albedrío», —asunto poco estudiado pese a su alcance en la historia de las ideas religiosas y morales—. Analiza con detalle la tensión entre el humanismo moderno y la religión reformada, y la desarrolla en los diversos planos implicados en la misma: en la metafísica, el conflicto entre predestinación (...) y libertad; en teología, la relación entre razón y fe, en antropología, la oposición entre la carne y el espíritu, y en moral, el problema del mal y la liberación de la servidumbre. Sostiene, además, como conclusión, que la recta comprensión de esta controversia y su superación constituye la médula del humanismo cristiano, tal como se acuñó en el Renacimiento. (shrink)

La Guerra Civil fue una experiencia decisiva en la evolución del pensamiento de María Zambrano. Entendida y vivida como una tragedia cuyo sujeto es el pueblo, personificación de lo más elemental de la condición humana en su lucha contra el fascismo, esa experiencia abolió cualquier razón en clave idealista y reductora de la vida. En su lugar y en diálogo íntimo con la poesía de Antonio Machado, Zambrano elaborará una razón amorosa que retoma su reflexión anterior a la guerra y (...) la proyecta hacia una razón poética que, ya en el exilio y ante la imposibilidad de una redención de la tragedia, tendrá que orientarse hacia una interioridad radical. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the search for explainable models and interpretable decisions in AI must be reformulated in terms of the broader project of offering a pragmatic and naturalistic account of understanding in AI. Intuitively, the purpose of providing an explanation of a model or a decision is to make it understandable to its stakeholders. But without a previous grasp of what it means to say that an agent understands a model or a decision, the explanatory strategies will (...) lack a well-defined goal. Aside from providing a clearer objective for XAI, focusing on understanding also allows us to relax the factivity condition on explanation, which is impossible to fulfill in many machine learning models, and to focus instead on the pragmatic conditions that determine the best fit between a model and the methods and devices deployed to understand it. After an examination of the different types of understanding discussed in the philosophical and psychological literature, I conclude that interpretative or approximation models not only provide the best way to achieve the objectual understanding of a machine learning model, but are also a necessary condition to achieve post hoc interpretability. This conclusion is partly based on the shortcomings of the purely functionalist approach to post hoc interpretability that seems to be predominant in most recent literature. (shrink)

La pérdida inesperada de nuestro amigo Pablo Posada Varela el pasado doce de septiembre representa una tragedia a duras penas expresable. Escribir sobre algo o alguien implica un ejercicio de distancia; consiste, ante todo, en buscar, escoger y tomar una perspectiva (o varias, acaso unidas todas ellas en la concreción de un espectro, del espectro fenomenologizante, figura conceptual acuñada por Pablo). Si escribir se ha, que ocurra entonces desde la cercanía, que hoy más que nunca llega transverberada de desgarro, incredulidad (...) y estupor. (shrink)