Abstract:During recent years, the principle and practice of employment-at-will have been under attack. While progress has been made in eroding the practice, the principle still governs the philosophical assumptions underlying employment practices in the United States, and, indeed, EAW has been promulgated as one of the ways to address economic ills in other countries. This paper will briefly review the major critiques of EAW. Given the failure of these arguments to erode the underpinnings of EAW, we shall suggest new avenues (...) for approaching employment issues to achieve the desirable goal of employee dignity and respect. (shrink)

This article presents a response to Richard Rorty's paper "Is Philosophy Relevant to Business Ethics?" The author questions Rorty's views on the depreciation of the role of philosophy in applied ethics, and outlines four reasons why philosophy retains its relevance. The author addresses the role of moral reasoning in the development of the moral imagination. The author also concludes that humans have the means necessary to make moral progress and are capable of moral reasoning, and need only to develop a (...) strong moral imagination. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to take quite seriously Heinz Post’s claim that the non-individuality and the indiscernibility of quantum objects should be introduced right at the start, and not made a posteriori by introducing symmetry conditions. Using a different mathematical framework, namely, quasi-set theory, we avoid working within a label-tensor-product-vector-space-formalism, to use Redhead and Teller’s words, and get a more intuitive way of dealing with the formalism of quantum mechanics, although the underlying logic should be modified. We build (...) a vector space with inner product, the Q-space, using the non-classical part of quasi-set theory, to deal with indistinguishable elements. Vectors in Q-space refer only to occupation numbers and permutation operators act as the identity operator on them, reflecting in the formalism the fact of unobservability of permutations. Thus, this paper can be regarded as a tentative to follow and enlarge Heinsenberg’s suggestion that new phenomena require the formation of a new “closed” (that is, axiomatic) theory, coping also with the physical theory’s underlying logic and mathematics. (shrink)

The concept of individuality in quantum mechanics shows radical differences from the concept of individuality in classical physics, as E. Schrödinger pointed out in the early steps of the theory. Regarding this fact, some authors suggested that quantum mechanics does not possess its own language, and therefore, quantum indistinguishability is not incorporated in the theory from the beginning. Nevertheless, it is possible to represent the idea of quantum indistinguishability with a first-order language using quasiset theory (Q). In this work, we (...) show that Q cannot capture one of the most important features of quantum non-individuality, which is the fact that there are quantum systems for which particle number is not well defined. An axiomatic variant of Q, in which quasicardinal is not a primitive concept (for a kind of quasisets called finite quasisets), is also given. This result encourages the searching of theories in which the quasicardinal, being a secondary concept, stands undefined for some quasisets, besides showing explicitly that in a set theory about collections of truly indistinguishable entities, the quasicardinal needs not necessarily be a primitive concept. (shrink)

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

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

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

In this paper we present the syntax and semantics of a temporal action language named Alan, which was designed to model interactive multimedia presentations where the Markov property does not always hold. In general, Alan allows the specification of systems where the future state of the world depends not only on the current state, but also on the past states of the world. To the best of our knowledge, Alan is the first action language which incorporates causality with temporal formulas. (...) In the process of defining the effect of actions we define the closure with respect to a path rather than to a state, and show that the non-Markovian model is an extension of the traditional Markovian model. Finally, we establish relationship between theories of Alan and logic programs. (shrink)

In this paper we enrich the orthomodular structure by adding a modal operator, following a physical motivation. A logical system is developed, obtaining algebraic completeness and completeness with respect to a Kripkestyle semantic founded on Baer*-semigroups as in [22].

Prevenir la violencia contra las mujeres implica, entre otras cosas, favorecer la relación con lo otro diferente a sí, sabiendo que todo ser humano tiene algo nuevo y singular que aportar. Este aprendizaje no es igual para chicas y chicos, ya que en nuestra cultura, lo femenino sigue siendo "lo otro", lo extravagante o lo extraño, mientras que lo masculino suele presentarse como "lo normal".

One’s understanding of compassionate care and one’s response to suffering depend on one’s bioethical framework. This paper contrasts the principlist bioethical model with the personalist bioethical model. These emphasize different principles, definitions, and understandings of concepts such as autonomy, compassion, suffering, harm, and help. The principlist model regards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as acts of autonomy and compassion that eradicate suffering. This perspective fails to keep in mind that autonomous patients do not always act for their own good. Conversely, the (...) personalist perspective emphasizes the integral good of the person, not just his or her autonomous choice, which is important but not unlimited. Since support for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide often is motivated by a fear of suffering, being a burden, or depending on others, addressing the underlying factors that drive people to contemplate a hastened death is a more genuinely compassionate response than merely respecting people’s autonomous choice for a hastened death. (shrink)

Encouraging VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking) to hasten a patient’s death is immoral. The practice results in an obvious conflict between the autonomy of the patient and the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence that must guide the physician and other health care workers. Because VSED is an act of passive euthanasia, it harms the patient and thus compromises the integrity of the physician–patient relationship. Health care providers must avoid any involvement in VSED, whether by providing information about the practice (...) or by administering palliative care while a patient is voluntarily starving and dehydrating himself to death. Instead of cooperating in the evil of euthanasia, health care providers need to advocate for the patient by refusing to do any harm and by addressing the reasons why the patient is requesting a hastened death. (shrink)

Philosophical feminism is the only coherent philosophy with universal implications that provides a theoretical alternative to patriarchal thought and sociopolitical structures. I distinguish between a patriarchal logic of power and a feminist logic of pleasure that leads to an enlightened ethical hedonism, a pleasure-centered, feminist ethical framework based on a cooperative rather than authoritarian model of social relations.

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume’s radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume’s perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume‘s (...) radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume’s naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume’s two “definitions” of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation---Norman Kemp Smith’s and Annette Baier’s, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin’s, on the other---that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume. (shrink)

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

The problem of disease definition is related to theproblem of proving that a certain agent is thenecessary cause of a certain disease. Natural kindterms like ‘rheumatoid arthritis’ and ‘AIDS’ refer toessences which are discoverable rather thanpredeterminate. No statement about such diseases isa priori necessarily true. Because theories onnecessary causes involve natural kind semantics,Koch's postulates cannot be used to falsify or verifysuch theories. Instead of proving that agent A is thenecessary cause of disease D, we include A in atheoretical definition of (...) D, take this to representthe real meaning of ‘D’, and discard thepretheoretical definition. This is illustrated byKoch's own attempt to prove he had discovered thenecessary cause of tuberculosis. Methodologicalarguments about disease causation require a clear viewof our use of diagnostic terms. Medical lexicographersshould do more to provide such a view. (shrink)

First of all, I would like to stress that the discussion covers at least three different culturologies. The first is a science with the relatively modest task of studying certain properties of culture that are not studied in other fields of knowledge. The second is an attempt at an enormous mystification, a substitution of concepts in which there is an attempt to smuggle in ordinary sociology under the popular word "culturology." Much of what has been said here under the heading (...) of "culturology" has, in my view, no relation to problems of culture, but is linked with the well-known sociological-political attempt to develop a system of technologies of direct social regulation of the consciousness and behavior of people, which would suit not so much cultural agencies as the Ministry of Internal Affairs . And finally, third, the issue is a certain intellectual tendency that formed in our country, partly as a protest, under conditions of a total ban on any attempts, other than official Marxist ones, to comprehend the world. Here, as always, everything began with a critique of Western theories , in the course of which the critic imperceptibly "crawled over" to the positions of the criticized. By the 1970s, the term "culturology" became more or less legitimate, but the attempt in the 1990s to create a "unified culturology" that would include the philosophy of culture , Anglo-Saxon sociocultural anthropology , French semiotics , and so on, unfortunately , failed. (shrink)

The advancement of science requires the publication of research results so other scientists may examine, confirm, and build upon them, and the publishing ecosystem that mediates this process has undergone dramatic change over recent decades. This article takes a broad view of the biomedical research publishing system from its origins in the 17th century to the present day. It begins with a story from the author’s lab that illustrates a scientist’s complex interactions with the publishing system and then reviews the (...) history, growth, and evolution of scientific publishing, including several recent disruptive developments: the digital transformation, the open access (OA) movement, the creation of “predatory journals,” and the emergence of preprint archives. Each has influenced scientific peer review and editorial decision-making, two processes critical to the conduct of medical and scientific research and culture. After briefly discussing concerns about the impact of politics on editorial decision-making, the article closes with thoughts on the future evolution of this publishing ecosystem, which will impact the biomedical research ecosystem that depends upon it. Beyond accelerated speed and improved access to publications, the community should prioritize research aimed at further enhancing the quality and impact of published research, the core goal of the scientific enterprise. [End Page 358]. (shrink)

abstractBiomedical research in the United States has contributed enormously to science and human health and is conducted in several thousand institutions that vary widely in their histories, missions, operations, size, and cultures. Though these institutional differences have important consequences for the research they conduct, the organizational taxonomy of US biomedical research has received scant systematic attention. Consequently, many observers and even participants are surprisingly unaware of important distinguishing attributes of these diverse institutions. This essay provides a high-level taxonomy of the (...) institutional ecosystem of US biomedical research; illustrates key features of the ecosystem through portraits of eight institutions of varying age, size, culture, and missions, each representing a much larger class exhibiting additional diversity; and suggests topics for future research into the research output of institutional types that will be required to develop novel approaches to improving the function of the ecosystem. (shrink)

The Argentinian piqueteros are an unmistakably new type of political movement which has been able to carry out not only new types of disobedience and resistance actions, but also political practices based on direct democracy, self-management and autonomy. They are a political subject which, far for being unitary, has found in the struggle against social atomization and exclusion a tool for the recognition of a multiple, plural and hybrid identity. They have created networks and established spaces of empowerment in which (...) the « new » is able to create truly constituent political and social dynamics. (shrink)

Los trabajos de Pierre Bourdieu han llegado a ocupar en los últimos tiempos un lugar considerable en los ámbitos académicos de las ciencias sociales, al punto de que muchos consideran a Bourdieu uno de los más importantes teóricos de la sociología actual. Los aspectos de su obra que aquí nos interesan son la discusión acerca del concepto de clase social y la crítica al enfoque marxista de las clases, inspirados uno y otro en su teoría de los campos sociales. La (...) pregunta a la que intentaremos dar respuesta es ¿constituyen crítica y propuesta formulaciones realmente originales?Pierre Bourdieu's works have managed to occupy in the last times a considerable place in the academic areas of the social sciences, to the point of which many consider Bourdieu to be one of the most important theoretical of the current sociology. The aspects of his work in that here we are interested are the discussion it brings over from the concept of social class and the critique to the Marxist approach of the classes, inspired one and other one in his theory of the social fields. The question to which we will try to give response is: do they constitute critique and offer really original formulations? (shrink)

The Social Sciences, as any field of the knowledge, renew its concepts and theoretical tools to adapt them to the present. Nevertheless, this type of changes also can answer to ideological interests. This essay investigates the declivity of an essential concept inside the social analysis, which is actually the declivity of the whole approach, the Marxism, without which still today it turns out almost impossible to realize a critical study of the society.

The ways in which knowledge relates to power have been much discussed in radical education theory. New emphasis on the role of gender and the growing debate about subjectivity have deepened the discussion, while making it more complex. In Getting Smart , Patti Lather makes use of her unique integration of feminism and postmodernism into critical education theory to address some of the most vital questions facing education researchers and teachers.

El artículo tiene como finalidad justificar por qué es importante incluir las pedagogías propias de los pueblos originarios en los programas de formación docente de educación básica a nivel nacional, como valores compartidos de su patrimonio cultural tangible e intangible. Este patrimonio cultural es el pilar histórico de México, que por supuesto no se encuentra sólo en los pueblos originarios, sino que responde a un proceso histórico social determinado de la nación y que, a pesar de la conquista europea, siguió (...) prevaleciendo en las pedagogías y valores propios de los pueblos originarios. Proponemos cristalizar estos patrimonios culturales de los pueblos originarios para ser considerados como pedagogías propias en los programas de formación docente y desde este campo de formación compartir los valores culturales a través de sus saberes, sabidurías y prácticas culturales que han prevalecido a lo largo de la historia y que den cuenta en los planes y programas de estudio con igualdad y equidad cultural en el Sistema Educativo Nacional. Asimismo, se exponen los procesos de contradicción que los pueblos originarios han vivido y han asumido a lo largo de las políticas educativas dirigidas a la educación indígena. Finalmente, se plantean algunas consideraciones para estos programas de formación docente. (shrink)

We argue that the notion of individual is controversial not only for indistinguishable particles but also in the case of quantum distinguishable systems. We also argue that not only a picture in which “actual individuals” are taken into account is in contradiction with the quantum formalism, but also the case of “possible individuals” turns inconsistent within the quantum realm.

In this article we discuss the contextual character of quantum mechanics in the framework of modal interpretations. We investigate its historical origin and relate contemporary modal interpretations to those proposed by M. Born and W. Heisenberg. We present then a general characterization of what we consider to be a modal interpretation. Following previous papers in which we have introduced modalities in the Kochen-Specker theorem, we investigate the consequences of these theorems in relation to the modal interpretations of quantum mechanics.