This article presents the development, validation and application of an instrument to measure everyday moral distress in different health care settings. The concept of moral distress has been discussed and developed over 20 years. A few instruments have been developed to measure it, predominantly in nursing. The instrument presented here consists of two factors: level of moral distress, and tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas. It was tested in four medical departments and three pharmacies, where 259 staff members completed a questionnaire. The (...) two factors were found to be reliable. Differences in levels of moral distress were found between pharmacies and clinical departments, and between the youngest and oldest age groups; departmental staff and the youngest group experienced higher levels of moral distress. Departments reported less tolerance/openness towards moral dilemmas than pharmacies. The instrument needs to be tested further, but its strengths are the focus on everyday ethical dilemmas and its usefulness in different health care settings. (shrink)

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have turned to ethics to theorize politics in what seems to be an increasingly depoliticized age. Yet the move toward ethics has obscured the ongoing value of political responsibility and the vibrant life it represents as an effective response to power. Sounding the alarm for those who care about robust forms of civic engagement, this book fights for a new conception of political responsibility that meets the challenges of today's democratic practice. Antonio Y. (...) Vázquez-Arroyo forcefully argues against the notion that modern predicaments of power can only be addressed ethically or philosophically through pristine concepts that operate outside of the political realm. By returning to the political, the individual is reintroduced to the binding principles of participatory democracy and the burdens of acting and thinking as a member of a collective. Vázquez-Arroyo historicizes the ethical turn to better understand its ascendence and reworks Adorno's dialectic of responsibility to reassert the political in contemporary thought and theory. (shrink)

The ‘black box’ in Stoic axiology refers to the mysterious connection between the input of Stoic deliberation (reasons generated by the value of indifferents) and the output (appropriate actions). In this paper, I peer into the black box by drawing an analogy between Stoic and Kantian axiology. The value and disvalue of indifferents is intrinsic, but conditional. An extrinsic condition on the value of a token indifferent is that one's selection of that indifferent is sanctioned by context-relative ethical principles. The (...) value of an indifferent that does not meet this condition is normatively silenced, such that it fails to constitute a reason for action. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo busca presentar una visión fenomenológica de la identidad personal en tanto fenómeno complejo y multidimensional, tomando como punto de partida el pensamiento del filósofo danés Dan Zahavi. Mientras que Zahavi presenta la dimensión experiencial del yo como fundamento y núcleo del yo, y por ende de la identidad, cabe preguntarse si este yo experiencial no puede ser complementado con una noción de yo más fuerte, que yo llamo núcleo personal. En primer lugar, se presentará la visión de (...) identidad personal de acuerdo con el pensamiento de Zahavi. En segundo lugar, se propondrá que tal núcleo personal se da como un hecho fenomenológico, es decir, revelado por la experiencia misma del yo. Finalmente, se sostendrá que dicho núcleo personal, que es el fundamento de las otras dimensiones del yo y de la identidad personal, se puede complementar con las otras dos dimensiones del yo desarrolladas por Zahavi. (shrink)

It has been pointed out that Sensorimotor Enactivism, a theory that claims that perception is enacted and brought about by movement, says very little about the neural mechanisms that enable perception. For the proponents of the predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism, this is a challenge that can be met by introducing predictive processing into the picture. However, the compatibility between these theories is not straightforward. Firstly, because they seem to differ in their stand towards representations: while Sensorimotor Enactivism is said (...) to belong to the non-representational wing of cognitive science, predictive processing has a representational profile. And secondly, because they exhibit different explanatory strategies: while Sensorimotor Enactivism prioritizes the interactions of the embodied agent, predictive processing has internalist commitments. The aim of this paper is to address these concerns and show that a predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism is viable. More specifically, I focus on the Free-Energy approach, a theory that falls within the ballpark of predictive processing. In this paper I argue for the following claims. I argue that both Sensorimotor Enactivism and the Free-Energy approach may be understood for some systems in representational terms. The non-representational reading of Sensorimotor Enactivism is not mandatory and neither is the representational reading of the Free-Energy approach. Sensorimotor Enactivism is, in this respect, compatible with both representational and non-representational interpretations of the FEA. So, the position towards representations of these frameworks should not stand in the way of a predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism. I also show that the Free-Energy approach allows for an account that prioritizes the interaction of the embodied agent with the environment. This is the explanatory strategy followed by Sensorimotor Enactivism. To justify this strategy and following other proponents of Sensorimotor Enactivism, I argue that by referring to the interactions of the embodied agent a better account of the phenomena in question is provided. On this basis, I claim that Sensorimotor Enactivism and the Free-Energy approach are compatible in what concerns their explanatory strategy as well. Thus, making the case for the viability of the predictive approach to Sensorimotor Enactivism. (shrink)

Advocates of the ethical criticism of art claim that works' ethical defects or merits have an impact on their aesthetic value. Against ethical critics, autonomists claim that moral criteria should not be part of the considerations when evaluating works of art as art. Autonomism refers to the view that an artwork's aesthetic value is independent from its ethical value. The purpose of this paper is to examine how autonomism has been defended in the contemporary discussion in analytic aesthetics. I present (...) three versions of autonomism: Richard Posner's radical autonomism, James C. Anderson and Jeffrey T. Dean, and James Harold's moderate autonomism, and Francisca Pérez Carreño's robust autonomism. I argue that robust autonomism offers a stronger argument against the ethical critic. However, I point to some difficulties for Pérez Carreño's account and conclude by suggesting how further work in autonomism might go around them. (shrink)

How should we adjust our beliefs in light of the testimony of those who are in a better epistemic position than ourselves, such as experts and other epistemic superiors? In this paper, I develop and defend a deference model of epistemic authority. The paper attempts to resolve the debate between the preemption view and the total evidence view of epistemic authority by taking an accuracy-first approach to the issue of how we should respond to authoritative and expert testimony. I argue (...) that when we look at the debate through the lens of accuracy, it becomes clear that matters are more complicated than either the preemption view or the total evidence view are able to account for. Consequently, a deference model, outlined within a credence-based framework, does a better job of capturing the relevant phenomena, and explaining how we should update our beliefs in response to epistemically authoritative testimony. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges only from attitudes attributable to (...) actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

En este trabajo se explora la segunda parte de la fórmula foucaulteana para describir a la biopolítica, esto es, el “dejar morir” biopolítico. A través del análisis de los diferentes abordajes de Michel Foucault, realizados en el período comprendido entre 1976 y 1979, se buscará entender cómo esta forma de ejercicio del poder, a pesar de estar centrada en la maximización de la vida, posee un accionar tanático, una vinculación con la muerte en términos poblacionales. Por esto mismo, el objetivo (...) de este escrito será mostrar que la biopolítica para maximizar la vida precisa intervenir y gestionar e incidir sobre la muerte. (shrink)

In his 1994 paper, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet affirmed that he found a way to test the interaction between the mind and the brain. He believed that this procedure would also test the reality of a non-physical mind, emerging from neural activity. In 2000 John Searle objected to Libet’s evident dualism, affirming that the mind is not a hypothesis to test but a datum to be explained. According to Searle, Libet’s problem arose from accepting the Cartesian distinction of ‘mind’ and ‘body’, (...) obsolete categories from an old philosophy. Searle’s solution implied the rejection both of dualism and reductive materialism, suggesting a non-reductive materialism. This first-person ontology, as Searle calls it, aims at preserving, against reductive materialism, the essential features of consciousness, i.e. subjective, qualitative and unified. Searle argued, however, that the nature of consciousness remained biological. Dan Zahavi’s thesis is that a phenomenological approach to the self and consciousness can offer a complementing alternative to the contemporary comprehension of the nature of consciousness. Engaged in an open dialogue with neuroscience and cognitive science in his dealings with consciousness, Zahavi holds, nonetheless, that this notion cannot be completely understood without reference to the notion of the self. Thus, this paper will analyse Zahavi’s ideas about the self and consciousness in Subjectivity and Selfhood as to evaluate whether his phenomenological approach is able to overcome the materialist tones of Searle’s philosophy of mind, opening the possibility of a non-reductive comprehension of human beings. (shrink)

El discernimiento de espíritus ha sido a lo largo de la historia del cristianismo un mecanismo fundamental para el control del acceso al carisma. Su desarrollo ha estado profundamente ligado a los cambios en la estructura social de las iglesias. Por ello buscamos aportar nuevas miradas sobre este dispositivo, analizándolo en el contexto de las periferias cristianas. Específicamente centraremos nuestro análisis en las iglesias evangélicas aborígenes mocoví del suroeste de la provincia del Chaco en Argentina. Nos aproximaremos a estas cuestiones (...) a partir del análisis a la estructura social de estas iglesias, sus concepciones sobre los vínculos con las potencias no-humanas, la gestión de salud y enfermedad y la experiencia del culto. (shrink)

En este trabajo se explora la primera parte de la formula foucaulteana para describir a la biopolítica, esto es, el “hacer vivir” biopolítico. Mediante estos análisis se busca entender el modo en que el poder se vincula con la vida de la población, cuáles son sus estrategias, sus mecanismos y sus efectos. Para ello se detiene, en primer lugar, en comprender el concepto de vida que atañe al biopoder, sirviéndose de los análisis de Foucault respecto a la biología. Luego, en (...) segundo lugar, se busca dar cuenta de las prácticas utilizadas por dicha tecnología para modificar los fenómenos vitales en pos de sus intereses de gobierno. (shrink)

Este artículo se propone analizar la actualidad de los abordajes foucaulteanos sobre el saber médico para explicar los sucesos acontecidos a raíz de la pandemia del covid-19. Para ello nos centraremos en su definición de la medicina como práctica biopolítica, analizando en qué medida esta continúa siendo una técnica política de intervención con efectos de poder sobre la vida y sobre la muerte de la población. Al mismo tiempo, intentaremos pensar el marco de racionalidad política en el que se inscribe (...) la actual crisis sanitaria, esto es: el neoliberalismo y sus consecuentes formas de “hacer vivir y dejar morir”. (shrink)

En 1954, la Cour d’appel de Buenos Aires acquitte Elena Teotina Haedo de Gaitán et la sage-femme Catalina Fuccia du délit d’avortement en invoquant la figure juridique de la « tentative d’avortement impossible », la grossesse étant scientifiquement et médicalement impossible à vérifier. Cet article examine l’application de la législation anti-avortement dans l’Argentine du milieu du xxe siècle, une Argentine considérée par l’historiographie comme pronataliste. L’analyse des processus judiciaires à l’œuvre permet également d’examiner les formes de tutelle sur le corps (...) et la reproduction des femmes. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo plantea una reflexión sobre la historiografía del arte centroamericano y latinoamericano, para establecer algunas tendencias en cómo se han estudiado y qué aportes han realizado estos campos de conocimiento al entendimiento de las artes visuales regionales y la historia cultural centroamericana. Adicionalmente, en contraste con este estado de la cuestión, se plantean las contribuciones que realiza la tesis doctoral “Hacer exportable a Centroamérica: activación de circuitos artísticos internacionales y su impacto en la consolidación de los museos de (...) arte moderno y sus colecciones en Guatemala y Costa Rica, 1950-1996”, al conocimiento de esta historiografía. Se analizan dos aportes puntuales que realiza la tesis: por un lado, la investigación evidencia contundentemente que determinados/as artistas centroamericanos/as participaron con vigor de las redes artísticas internacionales en la segunda mitad del siglo XX; esto se logra reconstruir mediante un mapeo de los eventos en los que participaron. Seguidamente, se abarca otro aporte, en el que la investigación problematiza lo que se ha dicho sobre las características del arte moderno centroamericano mediante un análisis de las colecciones de tres museos regionales. (shrink)

In this commentary, as philosophers of evolutionary biology, we will consider the evolutionary framework used in the Target Article by: (i) emphasising the fruitfulness of the interdisciplinary approach employed; (ii) highlighting some potentially controversial aspects of the proposal; and finally (iii) outlining some ideas for further integration within the UAL framework. The critical analysis will focus on the relationship between learning and consciousness, on the assumed need for a function for consciousness, and on the type of phylogenetic demarcation introduced by (...) UAL. (shrink)

This paper tries to penetrate Jon Elster’s contribution to ratioanlity in the frame of the problem ofmeans and ends rationality. To treat rationality in Elster, we will study the imperfect rationality and its relation to weakness of will,and the development of precommitment strategies. We will also point out the role of Emotions, false beliefs and cognitive fallacies in the consideration of rationality. We Will show the difference that the author makes between the thin theory and the broad theory of rationality. (...) Taking into account Hamlin’s distinction between means, beliefs, ends and extended rationality, we will explain the relation between his belief rationality and Elster’s broad theory. (shrink)

Background: The prevalence of anxiety and depression in young students is associated with biosocial factors and scholastic stress. However, few studies have evaluated emotional-affective symptoms that are related to the immune system and antioxidant parameters in young individuals without diagnoses of affective disorders.Aim: This study aims to assess the relationship between emotional-affective symptoms and glutathione concentrations and CD4 and CD8 lymphocyte counts in college students.Methods: College students completed standardized psychometric instruments, including the Perceived Stress Scale, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Beck Depression (...) Inventory, Familiar Social and Friends Support Scale, and Rosenberg Scale. Blood samples were biochemically analyzed. Analyses of variance were conducted between four groups according to symptom severity.Results: A considerable prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms was observed and negatively correlated with self-esteem and socio-familiar support. Perceived stress was sexually dimorphic. Although biochemical parameters were within reference ranges, glutathione, CD4, and CD8 tended to be lower in participants with anxiety and depression symptoms, which may be of predictive value.Conclusion: The relationship between antioxidant/immune parameters and socio-affective scores is latent in undiagnosed college students who might develop affective disorders. The findings suggest that during the initial development of affective disorders, stress management strategies should be implemented to help college students cope with the academic load and monitor negative changes in their physiological state. (shrink)

Feasting on a plethora of social media platforms, news aggregators, and online marketplaces, recommender systems (RSs) are spreading pervasively throughout our daily online activities. Over the years, a host of ethical issues have been associated with the diffusion of RSs and the tracking and monitoring of users’ data. Here, we focus on the impact RSs may have on personal autonomy as the most elusive among the often-cited sources of grievance and public outcry. On the grounds of a philosophically nuanced notion (...) of autonomy, we illustrate three specific reasons why RSs may limit or compromise it: the threat of manipulation and deception associated with RSs; the RSs’ power to reshape users’ personal identity; the impact of RSs on knowledge and critical thinking. In our view, however, notwithstanding these legitimate concerns, RSs may effectively help users to navigate an otherwise overwhelming landscape. Our perspective, therefore, is not to be intended as a bulwark to protect the _status quo_ but as an invitation to carefully weigh these aspects in the design of ethically oriented RSs. (shrink)

Advocates of interactionism in the ethical criticism of art argue that ethical value impacts aesthetic value. The debate is concerned with “the intrinsic question”: the question of whether ethical flaws/merits in artworks’ manifested attitudes affect their aesthetic value (Gaut 2007: 9). This paper argues that the assumption that artworks have intrinsic ethical value is problematic at least in regards to a significant subset of works: fictional artworks. I argue that, insofar as their ethical value emerges only from attitudes attributable to (...) actual agents, fictional artworks only have extrinsic ethical value. I show that what is at stake for interactionism is whether ethical judgements concerning artists’ attitudes in a context, rather than manifested attitudes, are ever aesthetically relevant. I conclude that, without buying into extreme actual intentionalism, a still controversial theory of interpretation that ties artworks’ meaning to actual artists, interactionism fails to show that ethical flaws/merits are aesthetic flaws/merits. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to make evident the political impact of popular sovereignty in the search for a new social structure, in virtue of the crisis that the representative system of party hegemony manifested, in order to point out in the first place the need of the Venezuelan people to ..

The proposed text reflects on the Muslim community and families in Padua including interviews in order to individuate the practices of the transmission of beliefs within the family and the continuity of the group. Mainly from the development of three main points: religious socialization, community representation as umma, according to the mandate of Give to Islam as well of the dichotomy we Muslims / they Christians discourses. Finally, the meanings of identities governed by ethnicity and / or religion and new (...) generations with current debates and struggles identified as new collective identities. That is, the reinterpretation allows the emergence of a new collective identity that makes use of practices that are in tension with the host society emerging like a political force. (shrink)

El Realismo Crítico Auténtico (RCA) sostenido por Uskali Mäki se distingue del Realismo Crítico de Lawson. En el marco del Realismo Mínimo se explicitará qué es el RCA y se presentará el Realismo Posible de los modelos económicos en su versión MISS. Se diferenciará el Realismo Mínimo del Realismo Científico Standard. Se desarrollarán las dificultades en torno al RCA.

La Escuela Austríaca de Economía no se compone de una serie de conceptos estáticos desarrollados en un eterno presente fuera de lo humano. Al contrario, es y ha sido un conjunto de teorías evolutivamente articuladas a lo largo de la vida y obra de sus muchos y diversos autores. Esa es la perspectiva que desarrolla en profundidad este libro.

In a special issue of “Ethics and Information Technology” (September 2012), various philosophers have discussed the notion of online friendship. The preferred framework of analysis was Aristotle’s theory of friendship: it was argued that online friendships face many obstacles that hinder them from ever reaching the highest form of Aristotelian friendship. In this article I aim to offer a different perspective by critically analyzing the arguments these philosophers use against online friendship. I begin by isolating the most common arguments these (...) philosophers use against online friendship and proceed to debunk them one by one by pointing out inconsistencies and fallacies in their arguments and, where needed, offering empirical findings from media and communication studies that offer a more nuanced view on online friendships. I conclude my analysis by questioning the correctness of the application of the Aristotelian theory of friendship by the critics of online friendship: in my view, the critics are applying the Aristotelian theory to online friendships in a rather narrow and limited way. Finally, I conclude my thesis by proposing that in the rapidly changing online landscape, a one-size-fits-all application of the Aristotelian theory on friendship is not sufficient to accurately judge the multitude of relationships that can exist online and that the various positive and valuable elements of online friendships should also be acknowledged and analyzed. (shrink)

El presente artículo se centra en el esclarecimiento de las nociones de percepciones inconscientes («petites perceptions»), percepciones y apercepciones en la teoría de la conciencia en Leibniz con el fin de responder dos preguntas: 1) Ad intra, es decir, intra-sustancialmente: ¿Cómo un evento inconsciente se vuelve consciente dentro de una misma sustancia simple?; 2) Ad extra, es decir, inter-sustancialmente: ¿dónde puede decirse que surge la conciencia en la jerarquía de mónadas? Para responder estas preguntas, seguiré la siguiente metodología. En primer (...) lugar, presentaré la teoría de la conciencia en Leibniz enmarcada en su visión metafísica. Presentaré a su vez los pasajes más conflictivos y el problema que surge al momento de definir la conciencia. En segundo lugar, presentaré las interpretaciones más comentadas que existen actualmente acerca de este problema. Me centraré en las posturas de Rocco J. Gennaro, Larry M. Jorgensen, Christian Barth y Alison Simmons. Finalmente, propondré una interpretación propia de la teoría de la conciencia en Leibniz. (shrink)

Neuroethics, in its modern form, investigates the impact of brain science in four basic dimensions: the self, social policy, practice and discourse. In this study, we analyzed a set of 461 peer-reviewed articles with neuroethics content, published by authors from 32 countries. We analyzed the data for: (1) trends in the development of international neuroethics over time, and (2) how challenges at the intersection of ethics and neuroscience are viewed in countries that are considered developed by International Monetary Fund (IMF) (...) standards, and in those that are developing. Our results demonstrate a steady increase in global participation in neuroethics from 1989 to 2005, characterized by an increase in numbers of articles published specifically on neuroethics, journals publishing these articles, and countries contributing to the literature. The focus from all countries was on the practice of brain science and the amelioration of neurological disease. Indicators of technology creation and diffusion in developing countries were specifically correlated with increases in publications concerning policy implications of brain science. Neuroethics is an international endeavor and, as such, should be sensitive to the impact that context has on acceptance and use of technological innovation. (shrink)