Resumen Tanto el concepto típicamente utilitarista de protección social como el concepto típicamente kantiano de consentimiento ocupan un lugar central en la estrategia que ensaya C. S. Nino para justificar la institución del castigo. Sin embargo, en este trabajo intentaré demostrar que ambos conceptos son irreconciliables. La encrucijada, en cualquier caso, es la siguiente: mientras el primer concepto, interpretado a la luz de la teoría ética del autor, parece tornar innecesaria la apelación al segundo concepto, una interpretación alternativa del primer (...) concepto tampoco nos situaría ante un mejor panorama filosófico.In the present article I aim to show that the meaning of the first concept, as well as the Kantian concept becomes truly intelligible only when we manage to read Nino’s penal theory in the light of his own ethical theory. Thus, on the hypothesis that this is indeed the best possible reading, the strategy tried out by Nino will have to face a difficult crossroads: either adopt a concept of social protection that will definitely displace the notion of consent from the justifying plane where the theory operates; or embrace a broader idea of protection where the notion of consent finds a less uncomfortable place. As will be argued, none of the alternatives is without its problems. (shrink)

En El constructivismo ético, C.S. Nino sostuvo que "la discusión y la decisión intersubjetiva es el procedimiento más confiable de acceso a la verdad moral". Esta tesis epistémica sobre el conocimiento moral posee claramente un costado político: a los fines de atender imparcialmente los intereses de todos los integrantes de una comunidad, "el intercambio de ideas y la necesidad de justificarse frente a los demás" acrecientan las posibilidades de éxito. Por el contrario, bastante menos claro resulta determinar en la obra (...) de Nino las derivaciones de semejante tesis en lo tocante a la dimensión autorreferencial de la moralidad. Intentando llenar este vacío, exploraré en el presente trabajo las relaciones que deberían mediar entre la práctica social del discurso moral y el descubrimiento y la justificación de los ideales de conducta autorreferenciales. In El constructivismo ético, C.S. Nino pointed out that "discussion and inter-subjective decision is the most trustable procedure when trying to arrive to moral truth". This epistemic thesis about moral knowledge clearly embraces a political assessment: in order to succeed at impartially satisfying the interests of everyone in a community, "the interchange of ideas and each person's necessity to justify in the face of the others" play a pivotal role. On the contrary, when the task in question is related to the auto-referential dimension of morality, the derivations of that thesis in Nino's work become certainly unclear. By attempting to overstep this bound, I will explore in the present paper the connection that is supposed to exist between the social practice of moral communication and the discovery and justification of the auto-referential principles of behavior. (shrink)

El trabajo persigue tres objetivos relacionados. El primero, de corte netamente hermenéutico, es rastrear y reconstruir las razones principales que habrían impulsado a C. S. Nino a rechazar la idea de reproche en su obra teórica. El segundo, de cariz más bien crítico, busca evaluar la credibilidad de estas razones, contraponiéndolas a otras que se estiman más acertadas desde el punto de vista filosófico y que, según se argüirá, habrían comenzado a formularse en la propia teoría del autor. El tercero (...) apunta a desvincular la idea de reproche de algunas connotaciones innecesarias que se le han asociado, para que pueda ocupar un lugar más cómodo en el seno de una teoría jurídica compatible con las premisas de un Estado liberal de derecho. (shrink)

The present paper constitutes a critique of David Alm’s article “Punishment, Consent and Value”, in which it is argued that the consensual theory of punishment defended by C. S. Nino is false. Whilst Alm believes that this theory is grounded on an inadequate model of normative relations, here I will defend the hypothesis that such an assessment derives from an insufficient conception of human value and respect.

This paper represents the attempt to define a methodology that can evaluate the degree to which companies'' information systems correspond to needs determined by the objectives of sustainability the firm imposes on itself. The result is the creation of a general model which define the correct approach to evaluating information systems – a model which should be adapted to the specificity of each single company which intends to adopt it. In the chart indicated, we obviously have not considered activities connected (...) to the implementation of the survey system, which are particular to each company''s situation. The first part of the paper consists of an overall introduction to the approach that has been used to assess the (MIS) of Granarolo, one of the Italian companies involved. The case study contains a profile of the company, the analysis of its MIS referred to the three dimensions of sustainability, and an evaluation of the strong points and issues to be developed. This approach to evaluate the gap between desired requirements of an information system for sustainability and current data available in a firm, has proved its consistency and usefulness. It helps to understand where data are, which dimensions, spheres, stakeholders account for and what is the level of integration between different information systems existing in the firm. (shrink)

This paper represents the attempt to define a methodology that can evaluate the degree to which companies' information systems correspond to needs determined by the objectives of sustainability the firm imposes on itself. The result is the creation of a general model which define the correct approach to evaluating information systems - a model which should be adapted to the specificity of each single company which intends to adopt it. In the chart indicated, we obviously have not considered activities connected (...) to the implementation of the survey system, which are particular to each company's situation. The first part of the paper consists of an overall introduction to the approach that has been used to assess the of Granarolo, one of the Italian companies involved. The case study contains a profile of the company, the analysis of its MIS referred to the three dimensions of sustainability, and an evaluation of the strong points and issues to be developed. This approach to evaluate the gap between desired requirements of an information system for sustainability and current data available in a firm, has proved its consistency and usefulness. It helps to understand where data are, which dimensions, spheres, stakeholders account for and what is the level of integration between different information systems existing in the firm. (shrink)

De acuerdo a la teoría disposicional del valor de M. Smith, algo resulta valioso en la medida en que sea deseado por cualquier agente que delibere racionalmente a partir de un conjunto desiderativo que sea completamente informado, coherente y unificado. A fin de reconocer el valor objetivo de algo, como el valor de promover el cuidado del medioambiente, por ejemplo, la teoría nos compele a adoptar una perspectiva universal y convergente. Sin embargo, ¿qué sucede cuando lidiamos con actos, hechos u (...) objetos cuyo valor parece estar supeditado a nuestros deseos, proyectos o identidades personales? ¿Apreciar el valor de estas cosas acaso también supone la adopción de una perspectiva universal y convergente? El objetivo principal del presente trabajo consiste en determinar qué papel desempeñan en la teoría disposicional del valor los valores personales o agencialmente relativos. Aunque este papel será calificado como ‘incierto’ o ‘ambiguo’, ello no debería ser óbice para pensar que tales valores podrían encontrar en esta teoría un lugar apropiado, junto a los valores impersonales o agencialmente neutrales. Para respaldar esta hipótesis, no obstante, primero será conveniente revisar algunos de los supuestos racionalistas que contendría el enfoque de Smith. (shrink)

Intento criticar en el presente trabajo el enfoque sobre el poder del consentimiento defendido por David Owens. Según este enfoque, la capacidad de consentir responde a un interés normativo característico, el cual consistiría en permitir que ciertas obligaciones personales sean incumplidas, sin importar lo que materialmente se siga de ello, como la transgresión de nuestros intereses no normativos. Aquí sostendré que el enfoque de Owens confundiría dos planos de consideraciones: el plano relativo a la capacidad general de consentir y el (...) plano relativo al ejercicio de dicha capacidad en casos concretos. Para comprender el primer plano, el enfoque puede ser provechoso. No obstante, para comprender el segundo, lo más razonable sería apelar a la idea de razones personales para actuar, una idea que no parece haber recibido suficiente atención en la literatura habitual sobre el consentimiento. (shrink)

Ocherk 1. Voprosy ontologii -- Ocherk 2. Voprosy ėtiki i ėstetiki -- Ocherk 3. Voprosy gnoseologii i aksiologii.

Morality is often defined in opposition to the natural "instincts," or as a tool to keep those instincts in check. New findings in neuroscience, social psychology, animal behaviour, and anthropology have brought us back to the original Darwinian position that moral behaviour is continuous with the social behavior of animals, and most likely evolved to enhance the cooperativeness of society. In this view, morality is part of human nature rather than its opposite. This interdisciplinary volume debates the origin and working (...) of human morality within the context of science as well as religion and philosophy. Experts from widely different backgrounds speculate how morality may have evolved, how it develops in the child, and what science can tell us about its working and origin. They also discuss how to deal with the age-old facts-versus-values debate, also known as the naturalistic fallacy. The implications of this exchange are enormous, as they may transform cherished views on if and why we are the only moral species. (shrink)

Prologue, invitation to thinking about God In the Hebrew Bible? -- Part I, questions about God? -- Why does God in the Bible have a body? -- What do God's body parts in the Bible mean? -- Why is God angry in the Bible? -- Does God in the Bible have gender or sexuality? -- Part II, questions about God in the world? -- What can creation tell us about God? -- Who-or what-is the Satan? -- Why do people suffer (...) according to the Hebrew Bible? -- Epilogue, God in the Bible and beyond. (shrink)

Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and reason have revealed to us, this work studies what science, mathematics, and reason tell us cannot be revealed. In The Outer Limits of Reason, Noson Yanofsky considers what cannot be predicted, described, or known, and what will never be understood. He discusses the limitations of computers, physics, logic, and our own thought processes. Yanofsky describes (...) simple tasks that would take computers trillions of centuries to complete and other problems that computers can never solve; perfectly formed English sentences that make no sense; different levels of infinity; the bizarre world of the quantum; the relevance of relativity theory; the causes of chaos theory; math problems that cannot be solved by normal means; and statements that are true but cannot be proven. He explains the limitations of our intuitions about the world -- our ideas about space, time, and motion, and the complex relationship between the knower and the known. Moving from the concrete to the abstract, from problems of everyday language to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of physics and mathematics, Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes. Exploring the various limitations of our knowledge, he shows that many of these limitations have a similar pattern and that by investigating these patterns, we can better understand the structure and limitations of reason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders of reason to see what, if anything, is out there. (shrink)

This chapter develops a perceptual solution to the epistemological problem of other minds, relying on central ideas from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. The Merleau-Pontian account is contrasted with another attempted perceptual solution to the other minds problem, and it is argued that only the former meets the phenomenologists' desideratum of providing an alternative to inferential solutions. The chapter also provides responses to various objections to the perceptual solution, including a pair of objections recently put forward by Alec Hyslop.

Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

Study of Hans-Georg Gadamer's and Julius Stenzel's interpretations of Plato.

Treatise, with commentaries, on Navya-Nyāya philosophy.