El presente artículo postula que la Metodología de los Programas de Investigación esclarece la racionalidad del conocimiento científico-social dando cuenta adecuada del carácter plural de las teorías. Cada programa de investigación progresa si desarrolla más contenido teórico y empírico que sus comp..

El artículo analiza el proyecto de una fenomenología de la sociedad y lo coteja con el marco lógico epistemológico de la metodología de los programas de investigación científica (Lakatos). En lo atinente examina el aporte fundacional de Edmund Husserl y explicita el giro neo-praxeológico que Alfred ..

La epistemología de Feyerabend desplaza la atención centrada en la dimensión racional de la ciencia para enfocarla en el contexto histórico y sociocultural. Su trabajo da a veces la impresión de un análisis ejecutado por un etnógrafo que se afana en comprender los elementos simbólicos y, en gene..

El pensador napolitano Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) de reconocida autoridad en el campo de la investigación histórica es considerado, también, el inaugurador de la Filosofía de la Historia en una época en la cual aún no existía una denominación específica para designar ese tipo de estudio. No o..

En este ensayo se revisan algunos de los planteamientos de Imre Lakatos. El examen historiográfico, nos dice Lakatos, ha permitido comprobar que la comunidad científica, ha evaluado como importantes progresos del conocimiento y la investigación a programas que presentaban serias inconsistencias ..

The ideal-type is an empirical generalization of the axiological “must-be”. Its validity rests on an analysis matrix of society which in this article is applied to certain style of action considered as “enterprising”. This article examines the emergence of the “enterprising” type, after grounding th..

In the scope of social sciences (and particularly in the field of sociology) from the Sixties of the last century a series of theories and practices of investigation has arisen with force -these last ones, identified generally like qualitative- that declare to be inspired by the phenomenology (al..

In the last decades, it has been argued extensively about the possibilities and merits of Social Work to apply at the recognition of its disciplinary character, which -in mind of his defenders- it would overcame the technological and ideological arguments. At the same time, it has been in play h..

The Multiple Reality theory represents a key piece to understand the socio-phenomenology. It is sustained by a triangulation of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the vitalism of Henry Bergson and the pragmatism of William James (and it has as a background the praxeology of Ludwig Von Mises and ..

This paper explores the role of moral uncertainty in explaining the morally disruptive character of new technologies. We argue that existing accounts of technomoral change do not fully explain its disruptiveness. This explanatory gap can be bridged by examining the epistemic dimensions of technomoral change, focusing on moral uncertainty and inquiry. To develop this account, we examine three historical cases: the introduction of the early pregnancy test, the contraception pill, and brain death. The resulting account highlights what we call “differential (...) disruption” and provides a resource for fields such as technology assessment, ethics of technology, and responsible innovation. (shrink)

This paper sets out an account of trust in AI as a relationship between clinicians, AI applications, and AI practitioners in which AI is given discretionary authority over medical questions by clinicians. Compared to other accounts in recent literature, this account more adequately explains the normative commitments created by practitioners when inviting clinicians’ trust in AI. To avoid committing to an account of trust in AI applications themselves, I sketch a reductive view on which discretionary authority is exercised by AI (...) practitioners through the vehicle of an AI application. I conclude with four critical questions based on the discretionary account to determine if trust in particular AI applications is sound, and a brief discussion of the possibility that the main roles of the physician could be replaced by AI. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker, moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the harm account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the qualified harm account, there is no (...) harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain. (shrink)

Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenological properties of a perceptual experience supervene on its intentional properties. The paper presents a counter-example to this claim, one that concerns visual grouping phenomenology. I argue that this example is superior to superficially similar examples involving grouping phenomenology offered by Peacocke (Sense and Content, Oxford: Oxford University Press), because the standard intentionalist responses to Peacocke’s examples cannot be extended to mine. If Intentionalism fails, it is impossible to reduce the phenomenology of an experience (...) to its content. (shrink)

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights treaties. Combining philosophical, legal, and political approaches, Nickel addresses questions about what human rights are, what their content should be, and whether and how they can be justified.

This paper explores the role of moral uncertainty in explaining the morally disruptive character of new technologies. We argue that existing accounts of technomoral change do not fully explain its disruptiveness. This explanatory gap can be bridged by examining the epistemic dimensions of technomoral change, focusing on moral uncertainty and inquiry. To develop this account, we examine three historical cases: the introduction of the early pregnancy test, the contraception pill, and brain death. The resulting account highlights what we call “differential (...) disruption” and provides a resource for fields such as technology assessment, ethics of technology, and responsible innovation. (shrink)

Many approaches to the semantics of generic sentences posit an unpronounced quantifier gen. However, while overt quantifiers are conservative, gen does not seem to be. A quantifier Q is conservative iff instances of the following schemas are equivalent: Q As are F and Q As are As that are F. All ravens are black is obviously equivalent to All ravens are ravens that are black, yet ravens are black is not equivalent to ravens are ravens that are black. This may (...) cast doubt on theviability of quantificational analyses of generics. This paper proposes a theory of why such “conservativity” generics are problematic that is compatible with the conservativity of gen and also accounts for perennially troublesome examples such as books are paperbacks and bees are workers. (shrink)

Technology is a practically indispensible means for satisfying one’s basic interests in all central areas of human life including nutrition, habitation, health care, entertainment, transportation, and social interaction. It is impossible for any one person, even a well-trained scientist or engineer, to know enough about how technology works in these different areas to make a calculated choice about whether to rely on the vast majority of the technologies she/he in fact relies upon. Yet, there are substantial risks, uncertainties, and unforeseen (...) practical consequences associated with the use of technological artifacts and systems. The salience of technological failure (both catastrophic and mundane), as well as technology’s sometimes unforeseeable influence on our behavior, makes it relevant to wonder whether we are really justified as individuals in our practical reliance on technology. Of course, even if we are not justified, we might nonetheless continue in our technological reliance, since the alternatives might not be attractive or feasible. In this chapter I argue that a conception of trust in technological artifacts and systems is plausible and helps us understand what is at stake philosophically in our reliance on technology. Such an account also helps us understand the relationship between trust and technological risk and the ethical obligations of those who design, manufacture, and deploy technological artifacts. (shrink)

Bernhard Nickel presents a theory of generic sentences and the kind-directed modes of thought they express. The theory closely integrates compositional semantics with metaphysics to solve the problem that generics pose: what do generics mean? Generic sentences are extremely simple, yet if there are patterns to be discerned in terms of which are true and which are false, these patterns are subtle and complex. Ravens are black, and lions have manes: statistical measures cannot do justice to the facts, but what (...) else is there that has a hope of giving us insight into what we are capturing across so many domains? Nickel argues that generics are the top of a fundamentally explanatory iceberg, and that this explanatory framework is deeply intertwined with the semantics of the language we use to express them. In providing an integrated semantic and metaphysical theory of generics, he aims to solve old puzzles and draw attention to new phenomena. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophical account of moral disruption. According to Robert Baker (2013), moral disruption is a process in which technological innovations undermine established moral norms without clearly leading to a new set of norms. Here I analyze this process in terms of moral uncertainty, formulating a philosophical account with two variants. On the Harm Account, such uncertainty is always harmful because it blocks our knowledge of our own and others’ moral obligations. On the Qualified Harm Account, there is (...) no harm in cases where moral uncertainty is related to innovation that is “for the best” in historical perspective, or where uncertainty is the expression of a deliberative virtue. The two accounts are compared by applying them to Baker’s historical case of the introduction of mechanical ventilation and organ transplantation technologies, as well as the present-day case of mass data practices in the health domain. (shrink)

Moral dependence is taking another person's assertion or "testimony" that C as a reason to believe C (where C is some moral claim), such that whatever justificatory force is associated with the person's testimony endures or remains as one's reason for believing C. People are justified in relying on one another's testimony in non-moral matters. The dissertation takes up the question whether the same is true for moral beliefs. My method is to divide the topic into three somewhat separate questions. (...) First, there is the epistemological question, what if anything gives me reason to believe that another person's moral claim is likely to be true. Second, there is the psychological question, whether moral dependence is, in fact, part of the rational explanation of why people hold the moral beliefs they do. Third, there is the moral question, whether a person can be a good moral agent while being morally dependent. I answer these questions as follows. First, in response to the epistemological question, I argue that there is a justification for moral dependence based on identifying people who are good moral deliberators. I also argue that there is an unreliable justification for moral dependence based on cooperation and trust. This latter, trust-based justification is unreliable because it is possible to trust and cooperate with those who are morally bad. Second, in response to the psychological question, I argue that moral dependence is part of the rational explanation of moral belief. This is true even though there is some reason to hold that a testimonial justification cannot rationally explain moral belief when there is also a non-testimonial justification available for that same belief. I also argue that moral dependence rationally explains moral development, both because it explains how children come to believe the particular things they do, and also because it can explain how children come to employ new forms of moral justification. Third, in response to the moral question, I argue that autonomy limits moral dependence, but that relying on moral testimony can also bring one to be more aware of what is morally important. (shrink)

This article is about relations of support and conflict within systems of fundamental legal rights—and the arguments for and against rights that those relations make possible. Justificatory linkage arguments defend controversial rights by claiming that they provide very useful support to the realisation of well-accepted rights. This article analyses such arguments in detail and discusses their structures, uses and pitfalls. It then shows that linkage arguments can be used not just to defend rights, but also to attack them. When rights (...) conflict—whether severely or weakly, logically or practically—negative linkage arguments attacking them can be based on the trouble they make for other rights. Many examples of conflicts of rights are provided. Negative linkage arguments provide reasons for rejecting, repealing or trimming the criticised right. Such arguments are already in regular use, but their c. (shrink)

Engineers are traditionally regarded as trustworthy professionals who meet exacting standards. In this chapter I begin by explicating our trust relationship towards engineers, arguing that it is a linear but indirect relationship in which engineers “stand behind” the artifacts and technological systems that we rely on directly. The chapter goes on to explain how this relationship has become more complex as engineers have taken on two additional aims: the aim of social engineering to create and steer trust between people, and (...) the aim of creating automated systems that take over human tasks and are meant to invite the trust of those who rely on and interact with them. (shrink)

The burden of research ethics review falls not just on researchers, but on those who serve on research ethics committees (RECs). With the advent of automated text analysis and generative artificial intelligence, it has recently become possible to teach models to support human judgment, for example by highlighting relevant parts of a text and suggesting actionable precedents and explanations. It is time to consider how such tools might be used to support ethics review and oversight. This commentary argues that with (...) a suitable strategy of engagement, artificial intelligence can be used in a variety of ways that can genuinely support RECs and manage their workload and improve the quality of review. It would be wiser to take an active role in the development of AI tools for ethics review, rather than to adopt ad hoc tools after the fact. (shrink)

This chapter considers possible moral grounds for recognizing and realizing economic and social rights (ESRs) as human rights. It begins by suggesting that ESRs fall into three families: (1) welfareoriented ESRs, which protect adequate income, education, health, and safe and healthful working conditions; (2) freedom-oriented ESRs, which prohibit slavery, ensure free choice of employment, and protect workers’ freedoms to organize and strike: and (3) fairness-oriented ESRs, which require nondiscrimination and equal opportunity in the workplace along with fair remuneration for one’s (...) work. To accommodate the normative diversity found in these three families, the chapter suggests a pluralistic justicatory framework that appeals to three kinds of moral reasons: human welfare, freedom, and fairness. A final section considers the possibility of subsuming all three of these approaches to justication under the idea of human dignity or the associated idea of equal respect for persons. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 2, Page 337-357, June 2021.

Trust should be able to explain cooperation, and its failure should help explain the emergence of cooperation-enabling institutions. This proposed methodological constraint on theorizing about trust, when satisfied, can then be used to differentiate theories of trust with some being able to explain cooperation more generally and effectively than others. Unrestricted views of trust, which take trust to be no more than the disposition to rely on others, fare well compared to restrictive views, which require the trusting person to have (...) some further attitude in addition to this disposition. The same methodological constraint also favours some restrictive views over others. (shrink)

Some recent accounts of testimonial warrant base it on trust, and claim that doing so helps explain asymmetries between the intended recipient of testimony and other non-intended hearers, e.g. differences in their entitlement to challenge the speaker or to rebuke the speaker for lying. In this explanation ‘dependence-responsiveness’ is invoked as an essential feature of trust: the trustor believes the trustee to be motivationally responsive to the fact that the trustor is relying on the trustee. I argue that dependence-responsiveness is (...) not essential to trust and that the asymmetries, where genuine, can be better explained without reference to trust. (shrink)

Some of the systems used in natural language generation (NLG), a branch of applied computational linguistics, have the capacity to create or assemble somewhat original messages adapted to new contexts. In this paper, taking Bernard Williams’ account of assertion by machines as a starting point, I argue that NLG systems meet the criteria for being speech actants to a substantial degree. They are capable of authoring original messages, and can even simulate illocutionary force and speaker meaning. Background intelligence embedded in (...) their datasets enhances these speech capacities. Although there is an open question about who is ultimately responsible for their speech, if anybody, we can settle this question by using the notion of proxy speech, in which responsibility for artificial speech acts is assigned legally or conventionally to an entity separate from the speech actant. (shrink)

In this paper we raise the question whether technological artifacts can properly speaking be trusted or said to be trustworthy. First, we set out some prevalent accounts of trust and trustworthiness and explain how they compare with the engineer’s notion of reliability. We distinguish between pure rational-choice accounts of trust, which do not differ in principle from mere judgments of reliability, and what we call “motivation-attributing” accounts of trust, which attribute specific motivations to trustworthy entities. Then we consider some examples (...) of technological entities that are, at first glance, best suited to serve as the objects of trust: intelligent systems that interact with users, and complex socio-technical systems. We conclude that the motivation-attributing concept of trustworthiness cannot be straightforwardly applied to these entities. Any applicable notion of trustworthy technology would have to depart significantly from the full-blown notion of trustworthiness associated with interpersonal trust. (shrink)

Many ethics instructors turn to peculiar examples and cases to highlight ethical concerns about autonomy and collective goods. While these efforts are respectable, they lamentably reinforce the valorization of independence and the opposition of individuality to collectivity that are too prevalent in ethics today. Attending to the event of pregnancy would help overcome these troubles. By concentrating on pregnancy, we can better appreciate the dependence that is integral to the human experience, the discrete value of each individual, the possible noncompetition (...) between individual and society, and the importance of appreciating the sources of our existence. Religious ethicists would do well to think more about pregnancy, a condition which is sui generis and yet also illustrative of the fundamental interdependence of human beings. (shrink)

This paper discusses free-choice like effects in generics. Just as Jane may drink coffee or tea can be used to convey Jane may drink coffee and Jane may drink tea (she is free to choose ), some generics with disjunctive predicates can be used to convey conjunctions of simpler generics: elephants live in Africa or Asia can be used to convey elephants live in Africa and elephants live in Asia. Investigating these logically slightly more complex generics and especially the free-choice (...) like effects throws light on both the semantics of generics and the interaction between world knowledge and the interpretive options generics offer. This paper presents a package of semantic and pragmatic hypotheses to account for the data, including why the effect is absent in the superficially logically similar elephants live in Africa or give birth to live young. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider ethical and philosophical aspects of trust in the practice of medicine. We focus on trust within the patient-physician relationship, trust and professionalism, and trust in Western (allopathic) institutions of medicine and medical research. Philosophical approaches to trust contain important insights into medicine as an ethical and social practice. In what follows we explain several philosophical approaches and discuss their strengths and weaknesses in this context. We also highlight some relevant empirical work in the section on (...) trust in the institutions of medicine. It is hoped that the approaches discussed here can be extended to nursing and other topics in the philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

Modern health data practices come with many practical uncertainties. In this paper, I argue that data subjects’ trust in the institutions and organizations that control their data, and their ability to know their own moral obligations in relation to their data, are undermined by significant uncertainties regarding the what, how, and who of mass data collection and analysis. I conclude by considering how proposals for managing situations of high uncertainty might be applied to this problem. These emphasize increasing organizational flexibility, (...) knowledge, and capacity, and reducing hazard. (shrink)

The existence of shoulder abduction (SA) and finger extension (FE) movement capacity shortly after stroke onset is an important prognostic factor, indicating favorable functional outcome for the hemiparetic upper limb. Here we asked whether variation in lesion topography affects these two movements in a similar or a distinct way, and whether lesion impact is similar or distinct for left and right hemisphere damage. SA and FE movements were examined in 77 chronic post-stroke patients using relevant items of the Fugl-Meyer test. (...) Lesion effects were analyzed separately for left and right hemispheric damage (LHD, RHD) patient groups using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. In the LHD group, SA and FE were affected only by damage to the cortico-spinal tract in its passage through the corona radiata. In contrast, following RHD, these two movements were affected not only by cortico-spinal tract damage but also by damage to white matter association tracts, the putamen and the insular cortex. In both groups, voxel clusters have been found where damage affected SA and also FE, along with voxels where damage affected only one of the two movements. The capacity to execute SA and FE movements following stroke is affected significantly by damage to shared and distinct voxels in the cortico-spinal tract in LHD patients and by damage to shared and distinct voxels in a larger array of cortical and subcortical regions in RHD patients. (shrink)

Resumen En las siguientes páginas adoptaremos la perspectiva que concibe la reforma de las ciencias de Francis Bacon como un método terapéutico del cultivo de las facultades intelectuales. Ampliaremos la perspectiva de esta línea de investigación del pensamiento baconiano con la distinción de tres terapias renacentistas del alma : la terapia de Eros, sostenida por filósofos platónicos del Renacimiento; la terapia del escepticismo, propuesta por Michel de Montaigne, y la terapia del propio Bacon, tal y como se encuentra en su (...) The Advancement of Learning y en el libro I del Novum organum. Describiremos cada una de estas teorías, expondremos sus principales propuestas filosóficas y exploraremos cómo se oponen entre sí. Por último, con la comparación de estas tres terapias renacentistas del alma buscamos lograr una mejor comprensión del nuevo método de Bacon para el conocimiento humano, dentro de sus propios contextos intelectuales.In the following pages we view Francis Bacon's Reform of sciences as a therapeutic method for the improvement of the intellectual faculties. We broaden the scope of this interpretive line of Bacon's thought by distinguishing three competing therapies of the soul during the Renaissance : the Therapy of Eros, maintained by Renaissance platonic philosophers; the Therapy of skepticism, proposed by Michel de Montaigne, and the Therapy of Bacon himself, as stated in his The Advancement of Learning as well as in the Novum organum, Book I. We describe each of these theories, showing their main philosophical tenets and how they oppose to each other. Finally, by comparing these three Renaissance therapies of the soul we aim to achieve a better comprehension of Bacon's new method for human knowledge in its own intellectual contexts. (shrink)

According to assurance views of testimonial justification, in virtue of the act of testifying a speaker provides an assurance of the truth of what she asserts to the addressee. This assurance provides a special justificatory force and a distinctive normative status to the addressee. It is thought to explain certain asymmetries between addressees and other unintended hearers (bystanders and eavesdroppers), such as the phenomenon that the addressee has a right to blame the speaker for conveying a falsehood but unintended hearers (...) do not, and the phenomenon that the addressee may deflect challenges to his testimonial belief to the speaker but unintended hearers may not. Here I argue that we can do a better job explaining the normative statuses associated with testimony by reference to epistemic norms of assertion and privacy norms. Following Sanford Goldberg, I argue that epistemic norms of assertion, according to which sincere assertion is appropriate only when the asserter possesses certain epistemic goods, can be ‘put to work’ to explain the normative statuses associated with testimony. When these norms are violated, they give hearers the right to blame the speaker, and they also explain why the speaker takes responsibility for the justification of the statement asserted. Norms of privacy, on the other hand, directly exclude eavesdroppers and bystanders from an informational exchange, implying that they have no standing to do many of the things, such as issue challenges or questions to the speaker, that would be normal for conversational participants. This explains asymmetries of normative status associated with testimony in a way logically independent of speaker assurance. (shrink)

Trust is a kind of risky reliance on another person. Social scientists have offered two basic accounts of trust: predictive expectation accounts and staking (betting) accounts. Predictive expectation accounts identify trust with a judgment that performance is likely. Staking accounts identify trust with a judgment that reliance on the person’s performance is worthwhile. I argue (1) that these two views of trust are different, (2) that the staking account is preferable to the predictive expectation account on grounds of intuitive adequacy (...) and coherence with plausible explanations of action; and (3) that there are counterexamples to both accounts. I then set forward an additional necessary condition on trust, according to which trust implies a moral expectation. The content of the moral expectation is this: W hen A trusts B to do x, A ascribes an obligation to B to do x, and holds B to this obligation. This moral expectation account throws new light on some of the consequences of misplaced trust. I use the example of physicians’ defensive behavior to illustrate this final point. (shrink)

This revised and extended edition explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and subsequent human rights treaties. Combining philosophical, legal, and political approaches, Nickel addresses questions about what human rights are, what their content should be, and whether and how they can be justified. Chapters: 1. The Contemporary Idea of Human Rights; 2. Human Rights as Rights; 3. Making Sense of Human Rights; 4. Starting Points for Justifying Human Rights; 5. (...) A Framework for Justifying Specific Rights; 6. The List Question; 7. Due Process Rights and Terrorist Emergencies; 8. Economic Liberties as Fundamental Freedoms; 9. Social Rights as Human Rights; 10. Minority Rights; 11. Eight Responses to the Relativist; 12. The Good Sense in Human Rights. (shrink)