It’s a common assumption in psychiatry and psychotherapy that mental health conditions are marked out by some form of epistemic irrationality. With respect to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the mainstream view is that OCD causes irrational beliefs. Recently, however, this ‘doxastic view’ has been criticized from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Instead a more promising ‘zetetic view’ has been proposed which locates the epistemic irrationality of OCD not in irrational beliefs, but in the senseless inquiries it prompts. Yet, in this paper (...) I present a special class of cases—sexual obsessive-compulsive disorder (S-OCD)—which cannot be explained by existing doxastic and zetetic accounts of the epistemic irrationality of OCD. In addition, some people with S-OCD appear to be adhering too well to a plausible set of norms for inquiry. Their suffering seems to be partially caused by an excess of rationality, and not a lack thereof. They seem, if anything, too rational. This shows firstly that it’s unlikely that there is one form of epistemic irrationality common to all persons living with OCD. Secondly, it should lead us to rethink the epistemic categories we use in classifying mental health conditions such as OCD. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim that we have a duty to know our motives. However, prominent theories of the mind suggest that we can’t. Such scepticism about knowledge of one’s motives is based on psychological evidence. I show that this evidence only mandates scepticism about knowledge of one’s motives if we rely on a mistaken assumption which I call ‘the myth of the one true motive’. If we reject this myth, we see that there is space to plausibly interpret the empirical data (...) such that knowledge of one’s motives is difficult, but not impossible. (shrink)

What happens when we are uncertain about what we want, feel or whish for? How should we understand uncertainty in introspection? This paper reconstructs and critically assess two answers to this question frequently found in the secondary literature on Wittgenstein: indecision and self-deception (Hacker 1990, 2012; Glock 1995, 1996). Such approaches seek to explain uncertainty in introspection in a way which is completely distinct from uncertainty about the ‘outer world’. I argue that in doing so these readings fail to account (...) for the substantial role the intellect seems to play in the process of resolving such uncertainties. I then attempt to show that Wittgenstein’s remarks connecting psychological vocabulary, behaviour and public criteria (e. g. PI 2009: 580) provide alternative ways for thinking about uncertainty in introspection which allow for a substantial role of the intellect. (shrink)

“But surely if it's not irrational, it can’t be OCD!” my friend exclaimed, when I told them about the paper Carolina Flores and Brent Kious provided their excellent comments for. In all fairness, my friend is not working in philosophy, or psychiatry, or in psychology. Still, I take their sentiment to be expressive of a widely held view: if you have a certain mental illness, then you must be irrational. Conversely, rationality guarantees mental health; the sane life is the rational (...) life. -/- In my paper, I attempted to complicate this picture. My main line of thought was that if the sane life is the rational life, we do not have a good conception of rationality yet. For, our best theories of rationality fail to capture what is going wrong in some cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Addressing the criticisms raised by my commentators will allow me to clear up some misunderstandings and sketch avenues for further work. (shrink)

How should civil society deal with radical actors such as populists? Should democrats engage in an open dialogue or avoid confrontation? Should they listen to them, let them speak and try to expose them argumentatively, or should they deny them any kind of public platform? Rather than providing a normative answer to these questions, this article analyzes and systematizes responses that are already circulating in public discourse. In particular, we focus on reactions to the invitations of the AfD politicians Alice (...) Weidel and Marc Jongen to the Oxford Union (2018), the Zurich Theater Gessnerallee as well as the Hannah Arendt Center in New York (both 2017). We will show that the debates gave excessive weight to fundamental questions of democratic theory while marginalizing the specific context factors of the events. Because of this, the populists eventually gained the moral victory. (shrink)

Delusions have traditionally been considered the hallmark of mental illness, and their conception, diagnosis and treatment raise many of the fundamental conceptual and practical questions of psychopathology. One of these fundamental questions is whether delusions are understandable. In this paper, we propose to consider the question of understandability of delusions from a philosophy of language perspective. For this purpose, we frame the question of how delusions can be understood as a question about the meaning of delusional utterances. Accordingly, we ask: (...) “what meaning(s) can delusional utterances possibly have?”. We argue that in the current literature, there is a standard approach to the meaning of delusional utterances, namely the descriptive account which assumes that a delusional utterance “p” means that p is the case. Drawing on Speech Act Theory, we argue that solely relying on the descriptive account disregards essential ways of how linguistic meaning is constituted. Further, we show that Speech Act Theory can prove a helpful addition to the theoretical and clinical “toolbox” used for attempting to understand delusional utterances. This, we believe, may address some of the theoretical and clinical shortcomings of using only the currently predominant descriptive account. (shrink)

Commentary on Pablo Hubacher Haerle’s paper “Is OCD Epistemically Irrational?”. I argue for expanding our assessment of rationality in OCD by considering a wider range of epistemic parameters and how they fit together.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rationality, Irrationality, and Depathologizing OCDBrent Kious, MD, PhD (bio)Pablo Hubacher argues that some persons with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) do not, in virtue of OCD itself, exhibit what he calls “epistemic irrationality,” which is a matter of violating rational norms related to belief and inquiry (Hubacher, 2023). The argument is complex and meticulous, but ultimately not persuasive. I outline the argument, show how it is unsound, and (...) articulate its most troubling consequences. I end by inquiring about the goal of projects like this, which, I believe, is to examine the rationality of mental illnesses in order to show that they are or are not illnesses.Hubacher starts by noting that (some) persons with OCD appear “doxastically irrational”: when they exhibit obsessions, they err in how they form beliefs. Specifically, they seem to “jump to conclusions,” inferring that a feared outcome is probable or certain from scant evidence. However, psychological research shows that persons with OCD are not more likely to jump to conclusions than others. Hubacher also observes that jumping to conclusions involves the inference, “possibly P, therefore definitely P.” This inference is irrational but not specific to people with OCD, because many of us do it, and an account of the irrationality of OCD should identify OCD-specific deviations. Hubacher concludes that persons with OCD are not doxastically irrational. He next considers whether they exhibit “zetetic” irrationality, which involves violating epistemic norms of inquiry. This might identify the irrationality of OCD, since compulsions like repeatedly checking the stove are basically ways of getting evidence. But Hubacher introduces the phenomenon of sexually focused OCD, or S-OCD. Persons with S-OCD worry about whether they have sexual desires they regard as inappropriate—for instance, incestuous desires or homosexual desires. Hubacher does not think people with S-OCD are zetetically irrational, however. Their endless doubts are actually reasonable, since it is possible—even common—for people to have repressed sexual desires when those desires are stigmatized. If a person with S-OCD worries about having incestuous desires, the bare fact that he does not feel those desires in the usual way should not be reassuring to him: those desires could simply be repressed. Hubacher adds that [End Page 151] people with OCD have high intolerance of uncertainty, which he takes to mean that they approach inquiries with high standards for confirmation; they are not satisfied with evidence others would see as compelling. He concludes that people with S-OCD are neither zetetically nor doxastically irrational, and so not epistemically irrational.This is a surprising conclusion, but it results from an unsound argument. An initial problem is his assumption that the only way persons with OCD can be doxastically irrational is by jumping to conclusions. This ignores other possible ways of being doxastically irrational. For instance, it would be irrational to retain beliefs that have been disconfirmed by evidence (Hubacher might call this zetetic irrationality, but surely, my beliefs can be disconfirmed without active inquiry). Irrationally retaining disconfirmed beliefs might even capture what happens in OCD: the person with OCD thinks something awful is likely to be true, even though she gets copious disconfirming evidence.A second problem is in Hubacher’s interpretation of the psychological evidence about whether persons with OCD jump to conclusions. He cites two studies involving a very specific psychological test, the bead task, wherein a subject is asked to determine whether a random sequence of colored beads have been drawn from a jar with a preponderance of one color or another. A “jumping to conclusions bias” is taken to be an inclination to guess the jar after no more than two beads are revealed (Huq & Garety et al., 1988). Although a few studies have shown that persons with OCD do not have this jumping to conclusions bias, we cannot conclude that they do not often jump to conclusions in real life. One might imagine, for instance, that people with OCD are still quite likely to jump to conclusions with respect to their obsessions (i.e., things that are highly anxiety-provoking, where the anxiety affects the conclusions drawn). And most people with OCD are not obsessed about the colors of beads.A third... (shrink)

La sociología de las organizaciones reconoce a Weber como un referente fundacional del sub-campo disciplinar, centralmente, a partir de su análisis del fenómeno de la dominación burocrática. Si bien ha habido cuestionamientos y distanciamientos en relación a las observaciones seminales de Weber, consideramos que los supuestos básicos de esta herencia no han sido suficientemente problematizados. La sociología de las organizaciones ha tendido a conceptualizar a su objeto de estudio desde las caracterizaciones de la teoría de la burocracia y a asumir (...) las extensas descripciones sostenidas por el pensador alemán. Sin embargo, resulta discutible el hecho de que Weber haya referido la idea de burocracia a una descripción objetiva de una forma organizacional debido a que su interés en el tópico “burocracia” se encuentra ligado al estudio de la dominación, la autoridad y la legitimidad, y no a la descripción de estructuras sociales. En esta dirección, concebimos que sería rastreable una confusión entre la conceptualización de organización y de burocracia que sería casi constitutiva en la respuesta a la pregunta por las condiciones de posibilidad del orden social organizacional. Es el objeto de este artículo problematizar dicha indiferenciación y sentar las bases para nuevas alternativas reflexivas. (shrink)

Se presenta a continuación un estudio comparativo entre Theodor W. Adorno y Guy Debord a través del tratamiento de los puntos nucleares de su pensamiento, abarcando desde sus respectivas críticas al modo de producción capitalista hasta el problema de la organización y la praxis, pasando por otras cuestiones de índole más filosófica como la dialéctica sujeto-objeto o ciertas consideraciones estéticas. El eje articulador de la comparación será, por su parte, la influencia de la obra de Karl Marx en estos autores (...) a la hora de tratar las problemáticas mentadas. (shrink)

En este trabajo me propongo mostrar las dificultades de sostener la argumentación de Raz para fundamentar los derechos colectivos en el caso de sociedades multiculturales. Para ello contrasto la argumentación de este autor con la de J. Griffin. Concluyo que si bien existen bienes comunales, en el caso de las sociedades multiculturales la imposibilidad de que estas actúen como unidad de agencia hace muy difícil un acuerdo sobre ellos y, en el caso de existir este acuerdo, el resultado no puede (...) llamarse «derecho» según la teoría del derecho defendida por Joseph Raz. (shrink)

PurposeAnomic feelings are predicted to play a moderating role in the relationship between organisational justice perceptions and the citizenship use of the organisation's internet access, or cybercivism. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesise that, just as AFs are supported in prior research as able to intensify the negative effects of organisational justice on cyberloafing, they will also intensify the positive effects of OJ on cybercivism.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 270 of the 1,547 respondents at a public university.FindingsExcept in the (...) case of procedural justice, the results support that AF act as a moderator of the OJ‐cybercivism link because, among employees with comparatively less AF, the perceptions of the OJ under study had a stronger impact on cybercivism.Research limitations/implicationsTo generalise from a convenience sample of 17 per cent to the entire University is unfeasible, let alone the “public sector” as a whole for a whole culture/country. Therefore, the paper only aims to be an early exploration of actual phenomenon, and to provide new insights necessary to understand the impact of pervasive new media and information and communication technologies on individual behaviour in virtual work settings.Practical implicationsThe findings contribute to an improved understanding of the influence of OJ on cybercivism. As a moderator, anomia is supported in our sample as one of the key “controllers” of the OJ predictions on cybercivism and sets a new scenario in seeking electronic business effectiveness. By encouraging convincing values and equity in the workplace, organisational management seems be on the right path to create the proper context for cybercivism to occur.Originality/valueEmployee AFs are shown to be a moderator in the relationship between OJ and cybercivism. This is the first empirical test of this interaction. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated an imbalance between the clinical needs of the population and the effective availability of advanced life support (ALS) resources. Triage protocols have thus become necessary. Triage decisions in situations of scarce resources were not extraordinary in the pre-COVID-19 era; these protocols abounded in the context of organ transplantation. However, this prior experience was not considered during the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain. Lacking national guidance or public coordination, each hospital has been forced to put forth independent (...) and autonomous triage protocols, most of which were, nonetheless, based on common ethical principles and clinical criteria. However, controversial, non-clinical criteria have also been defended by Spanish scientific societies and public institutions, including setting an age cut-off value for unilaterally withholding ALS, using ‘social utility’ criteria, prioritising healthcare professionals or using ‘first come, first served’ policies. This paper describes the most common triage criteria used in the Spanish context during the COVID-19 epidemic. We will highlight our missed opportunities by comparing these criteria to those used in organ transplantation protocols. The problems posed by subjective, non-clinical criteria will also be discussed. We hope that this critical review might be of use to countries at earlier stages of the epidemic while we learn from our mistakes. (shrink)

This article provides a survey of the emerging debate on the political representation of nonhuman animals. In Section 1, I identify some of the reasons why the interests of animals are often disregarded in policy-making, and present two arguments why these interests should be considered. In Section 2, I introduce four institutional proposals that have been discussed in the relevant literature. Section 3 attempts to make explicit the underlying logic of each proposal (i.e. which specific problems it wants to tackle). (...) Section 4 discusses some of the main normative pros and cons of each proposal. (shrink)

How should political power and influence be allocated in democratic systems? That is, roughly, the core of the boundary problem in democratic theory. As of late, some authors have begun paying increased attention to the methodological aspects of this dispute. This paper attempts to make a twofold contribution to this ‘methodological turn’. On the one hand, it identifies and analyzes five desiderata of a successful principle of democratic inclusion. Any such principle, I argue, must be grounded in a clearly identifiable (...) set of values, must provide a clear standard of inclusion, must specify the relevant modalities of inclusion, must provide sound bridging principles, and must be extensionally adequate. In the first half of the paper, these desiderata are developed and critically scrutinized. On the other hand, I also extract three lessons from the previous discussion. First, that a unique answer to the boundary problem (i.e. one grounded in one single principle) is unlikely. Second, that a satisfactory answer to the boundary problem need not necessarily appeal, as some have argued, to distinctively democratic values. And third, that intuitions about political exclusion (i.e. those requiring or permitting the exclusion of some individuals) should be treated with special caution. (shrink)

Some authors have suggested that the All Affected Interests Principle, an influential principle of political inclusion, requires that animals have their interests politically represented. In this paper, I provide a systematic formulation, assessment, and defense of this argument, and suggest a middle way between two strategies found in the literature. On the one hand, I argue that applying the All Affected Interests to animals inevitably requires that we make some (potentially controversial) assumptions about the weight and scope of animal interests, (...) and cannot remain morally noncommittal. This is because most formulations of the principle do not apply to all interests, but only to those that satisfy a relevancy test – which requires first-order moral reasoning. On the other hand, I also contend that one can defend some substantive claims about the inclusion of animals via the All Affected Interests Principle without having to endorse a comprehensive account of animal rights, or a theory about the worth of natural entities. For the All Affected Interests Principle to apply to animals, all that we need are instances of normatively relevant interests systematically affected by political decisions. The interest of mammals in avoiding pain and suffering, I contend, provides such an example. (shrink)

La reflexión sobre el tiempo en la fenomenología sartreana ha estado presente desde sus inicios, pero no ha dado lugar a una sola teoría del tiempo, sino que ha pasado por tres momentos diferentes, en los cuales han surgido por cada momento una teoría distinta. Así, en relación al primer momento encontramos una teoría instantaneísta, en relación al segundo, una teoría de la temporalidad, y en relación al tercero, una teoría de la historialidad. Por esta razón, el objetivo principal de (...) este trabajo es explicitar los desarrollos intrínsecos de cada teoría para, de esta forma, mostrar cómo la fenomenología sartreana contribuye al esclarecimiento de uno de los temas más importantes para filosofía, y en especial para la fenomenología, como es el tiempo. (shrink)

In the contemporary debate about the nature of persistence, stage theory is the view that ordinary objects (artefacts, animals, persons, etc.) are instantaneous and persist by being suitably related to other instantaneous objects. In this paper I focus on the issue of what stage theorists should say about the semantics of ordinary proper names, like ‘Socrates’ or ‘London’. I consider the remarks that stage theorists actually make about this issue, present some problems they face, and finally offer what I take (...) to be the best alternative available for them. (shrink)

This paper argues against the common practice of presenting perdurantism, endurantism, and other views about persistence and time as solutions to an alleged puzzle about change. Various recent attempts to generate a puzzle about change are examined and found unsuccessful. This does not mean, however, that the relevant views about persistence and time are not well motivated, but rather that their interest and purpose is independent of their suitability for solving the alleged puzzle.

La deconstrucción es la apertura al porvenir, hacia el otro como porvenir absoluto. Sin embargo, ese otro se encuentra ante nosotros y tras nosotros, es un pasado por venir, un pasado que nunca ha sido presente. De este modo, la obra de Derrida puede ser leída como la preocupación constante por esa memoria del porvenir, por la herencia y el duelo, por la apertura al acontecimiento. En este sentido, la memoria en Derrida no puede comprenderse como «reunión en el pensamiento», (...) como «Versammlung» y, por tanto, supone quizás una distancia radical en la obra de Derrida con respecto al pensamiento heideggeriano. (shrink)

La televisión se constituyó en el dispositivo comunicacional de mayor importancia en los años 1990, al llegar a todos los hogares de clase media y ocupar un rol preponderante en la elaboración de sentidos sociales compartidos. El objetivo de este artículo es indagar distintas dimensiones y sentidos del humor en El palacio de la risa, programa humorístico de gran relevancia conducido por Antonio Gasalla entre 1992 y 1996 y transmitido por ATC y Canal 13, en Argentina. Nos enfocaremos en los (...) números protagonizados por los actores Alejandro Urdapilleta y Humberto Tortonese, quienes, junto a Gasalla, introducen importantes innovaciones en la producción humorística televisiva. En la primera sección, analizaremos qué elementos del teatro underground de los años 1980 son recuperados y puestos en juego en la propuesta televisiva. A continuación, se examinarán tres dimensiones que funcionan como materia prima para la producción humorística del trío: la crítica a las clases dominantes argentinas, la tensión entre sexualidades dominantes y disidentes, y las menciones paródicas realizadas sobre la propia televisión. En cuanto a la metodología, el trabajo fue realizado en base a un análisis de 30 sketches del trío Urdapilleta-Gasalla-Tortonese, registrando temas, aspectos estéticos, gestualidad corporal y usos discursivos. En suma, el trabajo realiza una contribución al conocimiento de la cultura de masas y las posibilidades paródicas y de desestabilización del sentido común de la televisión durante los años 1990 en Argentina. (shrink)

Three ethics program components, a code of ethics, ethics training initiatives and ethics-oriented performance appraisal content, were examined for their relationship to ethical intent using a sample of 525 employees from the Spanish financial services industry. As expected, all three components contributed to the prediction of ethical intent. Importantly, clusters of employees who reported experiencing distinct combinations of the program components were identified and compared for their level of ethical intent. Employees who perceived all three components to be strongly implemented (...) reported significantly higher levels of ethical intent relative to those who viewed the components as either all weakly implemented or not present. Combinations including training initiatives plus one other element had a similar impact to the fully implemented approach. Contrary to expectations, ethics-oriented performance appraisal content did not relate more strongly to ethical intent than codes of ethics. (shrink)

This article presents a reconstruction of the so-called classical, formal or Mendelian genetics, which is intended to be more complete and adequate than existing reconstructions. This reconstruction has been carried out with the instruments, duly modified and extended with respect to the case under consideration, of the structuralist conception of theories. The so-called Mendel’s Laws, as well as linkage genetics and gene mapping are formulated in a precise manner while the global structure of genetics is represented as a theory-net. These (...) results are of methodological, philosophical and didactical relevance. (shrink)

When engaging with magic, we are moved by seemingly impossible events that contradict what we believe to be possible in the real world. We are surprised, curious, and baffled when we cannot explain how the magic we are witnessing is possible. We generally understand the events to be illusions. But how is it possible to be moved by something we know to be unreal? This problem is related to the paradox of fiction in aesthetics. Here, we introduce the problem in (...) the domain of theatrical magic, discuss possible solutions, and present a tentative account that allows us to accommodate inconsistent, seemingly incompatible beliefs at different representational levels in the viewers’ mind. (shrink)

Este artigo revisa a idéia de filosofia “medieval” and põe ênfase na variedade de significados daquela palavra. O autor crê que necessitamos de uma nova terminologia para aquele período da história do pensamento e sugere, por razões históricas, as expressões “United Age” e “Formation Age”. Em todo o artigo prevalece uma tentativa de compreender a natureza da atividade filosófica e da história da filosofia.

The modern concept of reason called one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity into question: the universal value of the salvation brought to all humanity by Jesus. From a modern point of view, it is not possible for a historic and contingent event, such as the death of Jesus, to bear universal meaning for men of all times. In this article I aim to show how René Girard’s anthropological hypothesis offers an alternative answer to the seemingly impossible universale concretum.

Imagination in Inquiry investigates the nature, kinds, component elements, functions, scope, and uses of the imagination that are at work in inquiry. It develops a homeostatic model and discusses its applications in various branches of philosophy, from the philosophy of science and the philosophy of technology to ethics and aesthetics.

The following strong form of density of definable types is introduced for theoriesTadmitting a fibered dimension functiond: given a modelMofTand a definable setX⊆Mn, there is a definable typepinX, definable over a code forXand of the samed-dimension asX. Both o-minimal theories and the theory of closed ordered differential fields are shown to have this property. As an application, we derive a new proof of elimination of imaginaries for CODF.

El presente artículo pretende evaluar las consecuencias de la tesis de la cognición extendida para la antropología filosófica. Dicha interrogación se enmarca en lo que denominamos el “giro tecnológico” en las ciencias sociales y humanas, un fenómeno relativamente reciente que produce una reorientación en clave posthumanista de la pregunta antropológica. De acuerdo con este giro, la tecnología adquiere una importancia central para la comprensión de lo humano, tanto en su dimensión ontológica como en su presente condición histórica. A su vez (...) este giro tecnológico tiende a rechazar la idea misma de una naturaleza humana ahistórica e inviolable, y postula en su lugar a la figura del “humano distribuido”, íntimamente constituido por su relación con los artefactos y la cultura material. En este contexto, el principal objetivo de este trabajo es rastrear la evolución de la tesis de la cognición extendida a lo largo de cuatro “olas” que marcan su despliegue con el objeto de ofrecer una cierta reinterpretación de esta tesis en el ámbito de la pregunta antropológica. (shrink)

Desde el punto de vista de los derechos humanos, el desplazamiento forzado no signif ica la violación puntual de un derecho, sino la vulneración múltiple, masiva y continua de muchos derechos fundamentales; fenómeno que ataca la titularidad de los derechos de la persona desplazada. Este ataque, en la mayoría de los casos, es provocado por el desplazador, y en algunas ocasiones por el Estado, siendo este, quien tiene la obligación primordial de prestar al desplazado la atención necesaria y de proporcionarle (...) una protección integral que frene la violación tanto de los derechos humanos, como del derecho humanitario, teniendo en cuenta siempre las diferentes aportaciones y elaboraciones que sobre el caso, proporcionan las organizaciones internacionales que trabajan al respecto. (shrink)

Truthmaking without truthmakers (TWT, for short) is the thesis that although every true proposition is made true by reality, there need not be particular entities (like facts, states of affairs, or tropes) that make these propositions true. The first substantial part of this paper (section 2) is devoted to developing a particular version of TWT and at the same time defending TWT in general from arguments against it that have been advanced by orthodox truthmaker theorists. In the second part of (...) the paper (section 3) I argue that talk about truthmakers within the theory can be understood as metaphoric and as conveying valuable information about something other than the supposed truthmakers: about truthmaking. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold. On the one hand, I intend to present the view on truthmaking, a version of TWT, that I find most plausible in the light of the arguments for and against truthmaker theory. On the other hand, I argue that friends of TWT have good reason to adopt a figuralist approach to truthmaker theory, rather than rejecting it outright. (shrink)

Background: Nurses are the largest professional group in healthcare and those who make more decisions. In 2014, the Committee on Bioethics of the Council of Europe launched the “Guide on the decision-making process regarding medical treatment in end-of-life situations” (hereinafter, Guide), aiming at improving decision-making processes and empowering professionals in making end-of-life decisions. The Guide does not mention nurses explicitly. Objectives: To analyze the ethical principles most valued by nurses working in palliative care when making end-of-life decisions and investigate if (...) they are consistent with the framework and recommendations of the Guide; to identify what disputed/controversial issues are more frequent in these nurses’ current end-of-life care practices. Design: Qualitative secondary analysis. Participants/context: Three qualitative datasets including 32 interviews from previous studies with nurses working in palliative care in Portugal. Ethical consideration: Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Research Lab of the Instituto de Bioética (Ethics Research Lab of the Institute of Bioethics) (Ref.04.2015). Ethical procedures are thoroughly described. Findings: All participant nurses referred to autonomy as an ethical principle paramount in end-of-life decision-making. They were commonly involved in end-of-life decision-making. Palliative sedation and communication were the most mentioned disputed/controversial issues. Discussion: Autonomy was highly valued in end-of-life care and decision-making. Nurses expressed major concerns in assessing patients’ preferences, wishes, and promoting advance care planning. Nurses working in palliative care in Portugal were highly involved in end-of-life decision-making. These processes embraced a collective, inclusive approach. Palliative sedation was the most mentioned disputed issue, which is aligned with previous findings. Communication also emerged as a sensitive ethical issue; it is surprising, however, that only three nurses referred to it. Conclusion: While the Guide does not explicitly mention nurses in its content, this study shows that nurses working in palliative care in Portugal are involved in these processes. Further research is needed on nurses’ involvement and practices in end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

The ‘paradoxes of coincidence’ are generally taken as an important factor for deciding between rival views on persistence through time. In particular, the ability to deal with apparent cases of temporary coincidence is usually regarded as a good reason for favouring perdurantism (or ‘four-dimensionalism’) over endurantism (or ‘three-dimensionalism’). However, the recent work of Gilmore ( 2007 ) and McGrath ( 2007 ) challenges this standard view. For different reasons, both Gilmore and McGrath conclude that perdurantism does not really obtain support (...) from the puzzles of temporary coincidence. In this paper, I will evaluate their arguments and defend the opposite view: that the paradoxes of coincidence do give some support to perdurantism. However, the way in which they do so is rather unexpected. As we will see, there are different ways in which coincidence scenarios may be thought to support perdurantism, some of which have not yet been sufficiently explored. Thus, my immediate goal is to explore one of those directions, bringing into focus a new argument from coincidence to perdurantism. And although I motivate my discussion by examining the arguments in the work of Gilmore and McGrath, the merits of this argument can be independently assessed. More generally, my overall purpose is to contribute to our general understanding of how the topics of coincidence and persistence bear on each other. (shrink)

In recent years, Julien Deonna and Fabrice Teroni have proposed to understand emotions as embodied evaluative attitudes we take towards objects that figure in nonevaluative representational states. Although their account nicely explains some of the key features that emotions are widely taken to have, it runs into a version of what I call the problem of integration. In the case of the attitudinal view, the integration problem takes the form of explaining how, from the point of view of the subject, (...) the bodily responses that make up the attitude part of the emotion and the representational states that provide the particular object of the emotion come to form an intentionally structured unitary experience, that is, one in which the bodily responses are intentionally directed towards the object. I argue that what explains this integration is the way in which the experience of bodily responses and the experience of the representational states interact. This, I propose, produces what I call an experience of convergence. I also suggest that understanding emotional experience in this way not only solves the problem of the integration but also provides a more solid ground for the claim that emotionsquaembodied attitudes are evaluative. (shrink)

Drawing on the spiral of silence theory and heuristic information processing, we contend that individuals use likes as sources for assessing public opinion. We further argue that individuals may even adapt their personal opinions to the tenor reflected in those cues. The assumptions were tested using data from an experiment involving 501 participants, who encountered media items on two issues with or without likes. The findings show that respondents inferred public opinion from the media bias if it was supported by (...) likes, however, only in cases of high levels of fear of social isolation. Respondents further adapted their personal opinion to the media bias if it was supported by likes. (shrink)

As space satellites orbit the earth on a regular basis and scientists find more sophisticated ways to splice genes, we are all faced with the responsiblity of reconciling the lengths to which technology must comply with morality. This book presents a variety of moral controversies of concern in this day and age of technological advancement. The contributors study a wide range of relevant topics such as: current technological development and the ethical inquiries it prompts; risk-cost benefit analysis and other assessment (...) methods; freedom of information and national security, and university-corporate research agreements; national and international technology transfers; and, technology policy-making typologies. The current controversies examined draw from information, gene-splicing, health care, space, energy, and material technologies. (shrink)

Based on the author's experiences of traveling between two unique cultures, and of living under both democratic and totalitarian regimes, this is a fascinating volume of short stories. These tales, all tied together by common threads, travel the literary landscape from grim political reality to joyous flights of fantasy and humor. Join Ignacio Jos‚ Conti, his family, and friends for a deeper understanding of live, love, and human nature.

Resumen Este artículo da cuenta de la forma en que el liberalismo del filósofo chileno Jenaro Abasolo (1833-1884), al conceder un rol activo al Estado en la “habilitación de la masa desheredada”, responde al adjetivo “social”. En Abasolo, el deber de asegurar en lo posible la prosperidad de las personas, se sostiene en el derecho natural y en una teología de la historia pan[en]teísta afín al krausismo. Abasolo piensa que la redención del desheredado en naciones aun juveniles debe apoyarse en (...) una forma de Estado “casi socialista”. Esto implica una acción de centralización y de tutela del pueblo que enfrenta a los autores del artículo a la gran dificultad de determinar cómo el autor chileno realiza la transición de una habilitación consumada a través de un buen grado de despotismo, hacia la libertad. Es decir, resulta controversial establecer la factibilidad de la realización de esta vía cuasi socialista a un liberalismo contrafácticamente orientado por el laissez faire. Abstract This article shows how the liberalism of the Chilean philosopher Jenaro Abasolo (1833-1884), by granting an active role to the State in the “empowerment of the disinherited mass”, responds to the adjective “social”. In Abasolo, the duty to ensure as far as possible the prosperity of the people is based on natural law and on a pan[en]theistic theology of history akin to Krausism. Abasolo thinks that the redemption of the disinherited in even juvenile nations must be supported by an “almost socialist” form of state. This implies an action of centralization and guardianship of the people that confronts the authors of the article with the great difficulty of determining how the Chilean author makes the transition from an empowerment consummated through a good degree of despotism, towards freedom. That is to say, it is controversial to establish the feasibility of the realization of this quasi-socialist path to a liberalism counterfactually oriented by laissez faire. (shrink)