Critical congenital heart disease screening is rapidly becoming the standard of care in the United States after being added to the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel in 2011. Newborn screens typically do not require affirmative parental consent. In fact, most states allow parents to exempt their baby from receiving the required screen on the basis of religious or personally held beliefs. There are many ethical considerations implicated with allowing parents to exempt their child from newborn screening for CCHD. Considerations include the (...) treatment of religious exemptions in our current legal system, as well as medical and ethical principles in relation to the rights of infants. Although there are significant benefits to screening newborns for CCHD, when a parent refuses for religious or personal beliefs, in the case of CCHD screening, the parental decision should stand. (shrink)

This article analyses 1,073 e-mails that were hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in November 2009. The incident was popularly dubbed 'Climategate', indicating that the e-mails reveal a scientific scandal. Here we analyse them differently. Rather than objecting to the exchanges based on some idea about proper scientific conduct, we see them as a rare glimpse into a situation where scientists collectively prepare for participation in heated controversy, with much focus on methodology. This allows (...) us to study how scientists communicate informally about framing propositions of facts in the best possible way. Through the eyes of science and technology studies, the e-mails provide an opportunity to study communication as part of science in the making across disciplines and laboratories. Analysed as 'written conversation' the e-mails provide information about processes of consensus formation through 'agonistic evaluations' of other scientists' work and persuasion of others to support one's own work. Also, the e-mails contain judgements about other groups and individual scientists. Consensus-forming appeared as a precarious activity. Controversies could be quite resilient in the course of this decade-long exchange, probably reflecting the complexity of the methodological challenges involved. (shrink)

In recent decades, Total Quality Management (TQM) has become an important phenomenon in the world of business, but the implications and scope of quality programs are quite different everywhere. Since different explanations have been given, most authors agree that management commitment and leadership are indispensable elements for a successful TQM implementation. Nevertheless, the study of the literature reflects a terminological confusion on this point. The authors of this paper argue that commitment and leadership are not synonymous terms.While committed managers may (...) lead the process of quality using exclusively their formal authority, those who are leaders generate a kind of influence that goes further than that. This paper suggests a multidimensional perception of leadership and upholds that only by considering the ethical dimension of leadership, together with technical and psycho-emotive ones, it is possible to explain more accurately interpersonal influences beyond the scope of power. As an illustrative example of the importance of considering each dimensions, the authors present two case studies of TQM implementation. (shrink)

This book is a collection of studies on topics related to subjectivity and selfhood in medieval and early modern philosophy. The individual contributions approach the theme from a number of angles varying from cognitive and moral psychology to metaphysics and epistemology. Instead of a complete overview on the historical period, the book provides detailed glimpses into some of the most important figures of the period, such as Augustine, Avicenna, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Hume. The questions addressed include the ethical (...) problems of the location of one's true self and the proper distribution of labour between desire, passion and reason, and the psychological tasks of accounting for subjective experience and self-knowledge and determining different types of self-awareness. (shrink)

Malgré l’avènement de la figure de l’acteur créateur au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles, les procédés de copie, d’imitation et de réactivation constituent une part non négligeable des outils convoqués dans les exercices spécifiques au jeu. Cette persistance, qui trouve son origine dans le _Paradoxe sur le comédien_ de Diderot, se lit et se décline tout au long de l’histoire des théories du jeu, dans le recours fréquent à un modèle, dont le type varie. C’est cette double continuité, celle (...) des procédés de copie et du modèle dans les théories du jeu auxquelles s’adossent des pratiques et dont découlent des modes de fabrication, qui a nourri une expérimentation pédagogique pratique au sein de La Manufacture – Haute École des Arts de la Scène de Lausanne. Les ateliers élaborés pour les étudiant.e.s consistant à mettre en œuvre ces trois opérations, à leur proposer une histoire sensible, c’est-à-dire éprouvée, du jeu de l’... (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper explores the links between the competing scientific, disciplinary, and institutional identifications of social scientists working for international organizations and the nature of the work produced in these establishments. By examining the case of UNESCO's Social Science Department from 1946 to 1955, the paper shows how the initial lack of organizational identification diminished the efficiency and productivity of the Department and slowed down the creation of an international system for research in the social sciences. It then examines how the (...) elaboration of such identification resulted from a period of trial and error during which several national, academic, and scientific models were explored. The paper concludes that only the discourse of “moral sensitivity” kept the Department together at a time when disillusions regarding internationalism, the destabilization of the meaning of nation, and suspicion towards some Western disciplines rendered unacceptable the universalization of a single international social scientific identification. (shrink)

Corruption in higher education has raised concern among governments, citizens, and the education community worldwide. However, few papers have sought to explore the students’ willingness to engage in corrupt practices at the university level. The present study aimed to examine the influence of different corrupt behaviours and perceived corruption among peers on the corrupt intention of university students. 120 undergraduate students participated in a quasi-experimental design divided in 3 treatments to rate their willingness to engage in favouritism and embezzlement behaviours. (...) Results pointed out that students were more prone to committing a non-monetary behaviour favouritism– than a monetary behaviour –embezzlement–. Furthermore, there were not significant differences between the groups of control and high-corruption acceptance; while only the group of low-corruption acceptance showed significant lower rates when compared to the control and the high-corruption acceptance’s group. Practical recommendations need to address students’ perceptions of different corrupt practices, focusing on designing ethical training programmes aimed to raise awareness on the negative consequences of non-monetary activities. Future research directions could generate empirical support to prove if students are able to recognize the underlying mechanisms of subtle corrupt practices. (shrink)

Psychology related to areas such as gender, language, education and violence has provided scientific knowledge that is contributing to reducing coercive social relationships and to expanding freedom in sexual-affective relationships. Nonetheless, today there are new challenges that require additional developments. In the area of consent, professionals from the fields of law, gender, education and others, are in need of evidence about conditions in human communication that produce consent differentiating them from conditions that coerce. Up to now, consent has been focused (...) on verbal language, for example, “no means no” or “anything less than yes is no”. Despite the fact that focusing consent on verbal language is a very important part of the problem, and has meant a huge advance, it does not solve most of the issues currently raised, like the famous case of “La Manada” in Spain. This article presents the most recent results of a new line of research, which places the problem and the solution in communicative acts, and not only in speech acts. Even though there might be a “yes” in a sexual-affective relationship, there might be no consent, and it is indeed a coercive relationship if that “yes” has been pronounced in a relationship determined by institutional power or by interactive power. Institutional power may occur if who made the proposal for the relationship is a person in charge of the process of selecting personnel in a company and one of the candidates is the person who received the proposal. Interactive power may occur if who makes the proposal is situated in an equal or inferior position for instance in the company to the person receiving it, but the former threatens to make sextortion to the latter. The potential social impact of this research has been already shown in the cases analyzed for this study. (shrink)

AimIf we want to understand people’s satisfaction in their relationships, it is essential to have a valid and reliable measure of relational needs satisfaction. The aim of this study was to test the factor structure of the Czech version of the Relational Needs Satisfaction Scale as well as the scale’s measurement invariance and convergent validity.MethodIn total, 419 adults answered a battery of measures, including the RNSS, in an online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the factor structure and (...) the measurement invariance of the RNSS across gender and age. A correlational analysis was conducted to assess the convergent validity.ResultsThe five-factor structure of the RNSS was confirmed. Furthermore, support for a second-order global relationship satisfaction factor was found. The hierarchical model was strictly invariant with respect to gender and age. Furthermore, the RNSS demonstrated an expected pattern of correlations with the reference instruments.ConclusionThe Czech version of the RNSS can be considered a valid and reliable method. (shrink)

The article deals with phenomenology in Lithuania. The main thesis of the article is this: phenomenology is a living tradition in need of both development and interpretation. The minor thesis follows from the main one: the Western phenomenological tradition and Lithuanian philosophy interact and develop in tandem with one another. According to the authors, the contact between poetics and philosophy is the dominant form of phenomenology in Lithuania. The phenomenological tradition is treated as creative and living philosophical thought.

En una serie de trabajos Carol Cleland ha argumentado por los últimos veinte años que la búsqueda de una definición de la vida es no solo inútil sino contraproducente. Una definición en términos de condiciones necesarias y suficientes nos podría cegar para la tarea mucho más importante de desarrollar una teoría universal de la vida. La principal justificación para este alegato es que la vida es una clase natural. Términos para clases naturales no poseen definiciones ideales, porque pretenden hacer referencia (...) a rasgos objetivos del mundo y no hacer explícito el contenido de nuestro pensamiento o lenguaje. Se argumenta aquí que la vida es, en efecto, una clase natural y, luego, la semántica para el término vida no puede darse por una definición ideal con condiciones necesarias y suficientes. Sin embargo, la semántica del término vida no excluye la posibilidad de hallar una ‘definición real’ adecuada de la esencia de la vida, esto es, de qué es la vida. Una definición real no es la enunciación del significado de un término sino de una esencia. (shrink)

El trabajo presenta la conjetura de que los mundos posibles son universales estructurales máximos. En primer lugar, se explican brevemente las diferentes concepciones actualistas existentes sobre los mundos posibles y los problemas sistemáticos que deben enfrentar. Se argumenta que la conjetura presentada muestra cómo todas esas concepciones pueden ser unificadas en una teoría única y simple. En segundo lugar, se explica por qué la mejor alternativa para la constitución del espacio modal son los universales trascendentes. Finalmente, se indican brevemente algunas (...) dificultades para la concepción presentada. Una justificación definitiva de la conjetura deberá consistir principalmente en la solución de esas dificultades. The work presents the conjecture that possible worlds are maximal structural universals. First, the paper explains roughly the different actualist extant conceptions of possible worlds and the systematic problems they have to face. It is argued that the conjecture presented shows how all those different conceptions can be unified in a single simple theory. Second, it is explained why the best alternative for the constitution of the modal space is a domain of transcendent universals. Finally, some difficulties for the conception are briefly indicated. A definitive justification of the conjecture presented should consist mainly in tackling those difficulties. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta las líneas centrales del bidimensionalismo epistémico defendido recientemente por David Chalmers, y considera, en particular, las motivaciones a las que la semántica debería servir en la conexión entre modalidad metafísica y epistémica. Después de esta presentación, se indican tres dificultades: no se ha diferenciado suficientemente de las semánticas bidimensionales contextuales tradicionales; la noción de justificación a priori sobre la que se ha desarrollado requiere urgentemente mayor precisión; y los defensores del esquema han olvidado completamente los casos de (...) "contingencias fuertes". /// This work presents the main Unes of epistemic two-dimensionalism recently defended by David Chalmers, discussing, in particular, the motivations that semantics is supposed to serve in the connection between metaphysical modality and epistemic modality. After presenting the two-dimensional epistemic semantics, three difficulties are leveled against it: it is insufficiently distinguished from the traditional contextual bi-dimensional semantics; the notion of a priori justification on which it is constructed is badly requiring more precisión; and the defenders of the semantics have completely despised the cases of "strong contingencies". (shrink)

este trabajo considera el programa de reducción de universales por clases de tropos semejantes. Diversas cuestiones surgen acerca de la relación de semejanza: (1) ¿Presuponen los “respectos” de semejanza un universal? (2) ¿Induce un regres vicioso el hecho de que la relación de semejanza sea una relación? (3) Si hay diferentes respectos de comparación entre tropos, entonces hay espacio para las dificultades tradicionales contra el nominalismo de semejanza: la “comunidad imperfecta” y la “compañía”. ¿Pueden ser manejados estos problemas con clases (...) de tropos semejantes? (4) La relación de semejanza requerida es una “semejanza perfecta”, esto es, una relación de semejanza transitiva, sin margen para grados y sin variación en los respectos de comparación entre tropos. ¿Hay clases de tropos exactamente semejantes? Después de consideradas estas cuestiones, parece que el defensor de los tropos tiene respuestas para las cuestiones (1), (2) y (3), pero parece no haber respuestas plausibles para la cuestión (4). Las clases de semejanza perfecta que van a reemplazar a los universales deben ser clases de tropos posibles y no hay formas razonables de explicar los hechos modales requeridos para estos tropos. (shrink)

Este trabajo discute qué razones tenemos para pensar que existe un espacio ontológico modal y por qué debemos pensar que este espacio está constituido por una pluralidad de mundos posibles. Después se presentan tres teorías metafísicas sobre la naturaleza de los mundos posibles: la concepción realista extrema de David Lewis, la concepción realista moderada de Alvin Plantinga y la concepción de los mundos posibles como universales estructurales máximos. Un breve examen comparativo tratará de mostrar por qué la tercea opción es (...) la más prometedora o, al menos, parece serlo. El trabajo finalmente considera el panorama que tiene por delante una defensa plenamente desarrollada de la teoría modal basada en universales. (shrink)

It is argued that instantiation, i.e. the relation between particular objects and properties (conceived as universals or tropes) is indeed an ontologically robust relation. The relation of instantiation is required to explain the difference between a state of affairs of, for example, a being F, and the mereological fusion [ a + F]. If instantiation is a true relation, then Bradley’s Regress ensues. It is argued, nevertheless, that the regress cannot be taken as a reason to reject the existence of (...) instantiation or to reject the existence of properties as entities numerically different from particular objects to which the properties should be related. All the nominalist alternatives suffer from similar regresses. Bradley’s Regress should, therefore, be addressed head-on. After dismissing all the applicable ways in which an infinite regress may be deemed vicious, it is argued that Bradley’s Regress is — in a sense — harmless. (shrink)

The latest philosophy of P. Ricoeur offers the opportunity to articulate an applied ethic responsive to the challenges of our time. This proposal is basically collected in his book The Fair 2, which compilates several works and makes cohesion of core issues of practical philosophy. Published a few years before his death, this work of Paul Ricoeur completes the itinerary of a moral and political philosophy devoted to the theme of justice. Extends and develops the works included in The Fair (...) 1 (Caparrós, Madrid, 1999) and Love and Justice (Caparrós, Madrid, 1993). He starts from an original sense of justice where "the right thing" does not arise as a name or an abstract category, but as a nominalized adjective. This is not an abstract value but a value whose scope, accuracy and sense depends on its realization in the unity of human life. Retrieving the original sense already appeared in the Socratic dialogues of Plato, The Fair describes, defines and fulfils the praxis of justice. This analysis is productive in applied ethics because sets out the "application" in an originative and original way. It is not an activity posterior or outside the foundation, but an exercise of philosophical interpretation and moral creativity. By understanding applied ethics in this way, we findthrough The Fair the central issues of the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur: an anthropology of the capable human being, a hermeneutics of action and imagination, a reconstruction of the history of practical philosophy, and also an ethic of fair distance. This hermeneutics of The Fair as applied ethics is the leitmotif of the three parts of the book: studies, readings and exercises. He continues discussion with the contemporary moral philosophy (Rawls, Taylor, Apel and Habermas), placing it in a new philosophical perspective, for two reasons: First, it broadens the historical horizon retaking the Aristotelian matrix of moral philosophy (prudential wisdom, truth, goodness), and secondly, because Ricoeur opens up unexplored horizons for an personalist and communitarian anthropology in times of globalization (critical solicitude, transculturality, hospitality). We would like to present the creative possibilities offered by this hermeneutical philosophy to think, as Ortega y Gasset says, "at the height of our time". (shrink)

Se ha sostenido tradicionalmente que los predicados atribuidos a Dios y a las criaturas son análogos. Pero, ¿qué es la analogía? Varios filósofos han pensado que la analogía debe ser considerada como una forma de ambigüedad. Argumentamos aquí que los predicados atribuidos a Dios y a las criaturas no son ambiguos o vagos. Siguiendo algunas sugerencias de McDaniel, proponemos una concepción de la analogía donde el fenómeno semántico está asociado con el carácter más o menos natural de la propiedad o (...) propiedades que instancian las entidades que satisfacen el predicado análogo. Un predicado "θ" es análogo si y sólo si, la propiedad Θ, que algo instancia, si y sólo si es θ, es menos natural que cualquier propiedad Ξ tal que todo lo que instancie Ξ, instancia Θ. Además, se requiere que las entidades de las cuales el término análogo es predicado deban ser ontológica o epistémicamente dependientes unas de otras. || It has been traditionally sustained that predicates attributed to God and to the creatures are analogical predicates. But, what is analogy? Several philosophers have thought that analogy should be taken as a form of ambiguity. Here we argue that predicates attributed to God and to creatures are neither ambiguous nor vague. Following some suggestions given by McDaniel, we propose a view of analogy in which the semantic phenomenon is associated with the more or less natural character of the property or properties that the entities that satisfy the analogous predicate instantiate. A predicate "θ" is analogous if and only if the property Θ, which something instantiates, if and only if it is θ, is less natural that any property Ξ so that anything that instantiates Ξ, instantiates Θ. Furthermore, it is required that the entities of which the analogous term is predicated should be either ontologically or epistemically dependent on each other. (shrink)

[EN] Several conceptions of trope bundles have postulated mutual relations of ontological dependence to explain the unity of the bundle. The idea is that a bundle is a plurality of tropes such that each one of them is dependent on any other. A variant of this idea is that there is a ‘nucleus’ of tropes all of them mutually dependent, and there is also a ‘periphery’ or ‘halo’ of tropes that are dependent on the tropes of the nucleus, but the (...) tropes of the nucleus are not dependent on them. There are several theoretical advantages that trope bundles conceived in this way have. A weakness of the position nevertheless is that it requires an equivalence relation of dependence. But it has been normally supposed that dependence is a strict order, i.e. it is relation irreflexive, asymmetric and transitive. Several recent works have put into question this traditional assumption. Those recent criticisms are discussed and it is argued that they are not convincing. Further arguments are presented for the irreflexivity and transitivity of dependence, from which asymmetry follows. Dependence, then, appears to be in fact a strict order. This implies that most forms of nuclear trope bundles are unintelligible. But not all of them, because nuclear tropes with a unique nuclear trope are coherent. [ES] Varias concepciones de cúmulos de tropos han postulado relaciones de dependencia ontológica mutuas para explicar la unidad del cúmulo. La idea es que un cúmulo es una pluralidad de tropos tal que cada uno de ellos es dependiente de cualquier otro. Una variante de esta idea es que hay un ‘núcleo’ de tropos todos ellos mutuamente dependientes y hay también una ‘periferia’ o ‘halo’ de tropos que son dependientes de los tropos del núcleo, pero los tropos del núcleo no son dependientes de ellos. Hay varias ventajas teóricas que tienen los cúmulos de tropos concebidos de este modo. Una debilidad de esta posición, sin embargo, es que requiere una relación de dependencia que sea una relación de equivalencia. Pero se ha supuesto normalmente que la dependencia es un orden estricto, esto es, una relación irreflexiva, asimétrica y transitiva. Varios trabajos recientes han puesto en cuestión este supuesto tradicional. Estas criticas recientes son aquí discutidas y se argumenta que no son convincentes. Se presentan argumentos adicionales para la irreflexividad y la transitividad de la dependencia, de lo que se sigue la asimetría. Entonces, la dependencia resulta ser un orden estricto. Esto implica que la mayoría de las formas de cúmulos nucleares de tropos son ininteligibles. Pero no todos, porque los cúmulos nucleares con un único tropo nuclear son coherentes. (shrink)

Alonso Briceño, el primer filósofo chileno, sostuvo que, para todo x, el ser de x = la haecceitas de x y –además– que hay una distinción ‘formal’ entre el ser de x y la esencia de x. En general, hay una distinción ‘formal’ entre los ítems z y v si y solo si: (i) z  v, y (ii) z y v son mutuamente inseparables. Se sigue de estas tesis que el ‘ser’ debe tomarse como un componente ontológico específico en (...) los objetos particulares y que es idéntico con la haecceitas del objeto. Esto se denomina aquí “la intuición de Briceño”. En este trabajo se considera la relevancia que la intuición de Briceño podría tener para dos de las teorías más importantes acerca de la naturaleza de los objetos particulares: las teorías en las que los objetos particulares están constituidos por un sustrato y sus propiedades, y las teorías en las que los objetos particulares son cúmulos de tropos. Se argumenta que en ambos casos la intuición de Briceño, esto es, la idea de que hay un tropo específico de ser en el objeto particular, trae consigo ventajas sistemáticas importantes y, lo que es más, permite la unificación teórica de ambas perspectivas, normalmente consideradas como incompatibles entre sí. (shrink)

E. Dussel builds an ethics involved in the liberation of the victims of a world-system increasingly global. In this paper the contributions that this ethics of liberation does to the necessary project of an intercultural dialogue are studied. This dialogue must begin with a critic of modern reason, which is eurocentric and violent, and it has to be based on a «transmodern» rationality, whose starting point is the afirmation and the recognition of the reason of the Other (the excluded human (...) being). (shrink)

EI objetivo de este artículo es analizar ciertas críticas a la aplicación de la nocion de informacíon en biología, teniendo en cuenta tanto la historia del concepto como las diferentes posiciones actuales. Creemos que la motivacíon principal de las críticas es negar que los genes sean un factor causal excepcional en el desarrollo, y favorecer la imagen de la vida como un sistema organizado que requiere diferentes recursos. Aunque compartimos el rechazo deI reduccionismo genetico, argumentamos que éste no es atribuible (...) a la analogía informacional y que, por tanto, no es necesario abandonarla completamente.The goal of this article is to analize certain criticisms to the notion of information in biology, taking into account both the history of the concept and some recent positions. We think that the main motivation behind the criticisms is to deny that genes are an exceptional cause in development, and to favor an image of life as an organized system that requires diffirent resources. While we share the rejection of genetic reductionism, we argue that it is not entirely due to the informational analogy and that, therefore, it is not necessary to abandon this analogy. (shrink)