Nowhere is current controversy over biological explanations for human behaviour more striking than in debates over violence. New theories are being formulated, and biological markers are being identified in new ways. The terms of discourse and debate are being changed. Violence may be represented as a pathological biological syndrome, or as natural, especially for men. Why the growing interest now in biological explanations of violence? Is the biology of violence suggestive of a new brand of biological determinism? This latter, broader (...) question poses a challenge to the argument that current biological theories of behaviour are different and better than faulty, often racist and eugenicist, theories which have gone before. New theories do not reduce to linear cause-and-effect explanations, and there are no `genes for crime'. Nevertheless, there is a question of geneticism, `the doctrine of the primacy of the genetic make-up in determining every aspect of the human mind, constitution and social behaviour...' (Medawar, 1984: 255). (shrink)

Las biotecnologías son ciencias destinadas a incidir en manera profunda en la sociedad. El alcance de los cambios que a través de ellas será posible realizar es notable, pero sobre todo se aleja de las ciencias de ingeniería, de las alimentarias, de las médicas. La bioética está decididamente llamada a acoger el reto representado por las biotecnologías. La presente contribución parte precisamente de aquí: captar los aspectos característicos y peculiares de algunas de las posibles aplicaciones biotecnológicas para encuadrar la singularidad (...) de las problemáticas bioéticas que de estas aplicaciones pueden derivar con el fin de leer tales contribuciones a la luz del valor al cual se refieren y por el cual están pensadas: la persona En lo específico, los autores se detienen en tres específicas aplicaciones biotecnológicas que representan sectores cuyas potencialidades preanuncian grandes promesas y, en ciertos aspectos, algunos retos verdaderamente cautivadores; en particular: los OGM, las nanotecnologías y la farmacogenética, temas en diversos modos considerados en la revista en el curso de los años.Biotechnologies, the use of living organisms or their products to modify human environment, are flourishing very rapidly. They cover many fields: from engineering science, to food, to medicine. Bioethics is therefore called to face the challenge given by biotechnologies. The present contribution takes advantage from this: it catches all the scientific peculiarities showed by these technologies and their application to outline the peculiarities of their ethical issues and to read them in the light of their end: the human persono In fact, thanks to them, it will be possible to realize many transformations within the society. In particular, the authors evaluate three main aspects of biotechnologies OGM, Nanotechnologies and pharmacogenetics, topics covered in the journal on several occasions over the years. (shrink)

It is very curious that C.G. Jung has had so little influence upon the anthropology of consciousness. In this paper, the reasons for this oversight are given. The archetypal psychology of Jung is summarized and shown to be more complex and useful than extreme constructivist accounts would acknowledge. Jung's thinking about consciousness fits very well with a modern neuroscience view of the psyche and acts as a corrective to relativist notions of consciousness and its relation to the self.

Narcolepsy type 1 deeply impacts on quality of life, especially during adolescence, with NT1 children and adolescents that frequently report difficulties in integration with peers and decreased participation in after-school activities. Here we describe the case of NT1 teenager girl presenting with severe physical and social withdrawal, fulfilling the proposed diagnostic criteria for hikikomori, together with the classic NT1 symptoms. Social withdrawal is an overlooked phenomenon among NT1 children and adolescents that, if present, require a multidisciplinary approach and personalized interventions, (...) but patients can benefit from NT1 pharmacological treatment. (shrink)

Questo saggio ha come oggetto di riflessione i conflitti ambientali, i nuovi soggetti politici che ne sono protagonisti e le visioni collettive che paiono centrarsi in maniera inedita sulla cattiva gestione delle risorse locali e sui conseguenti rischi per la salute pubblica. Nuovi soggetti politici appunto che operano l'articolazione fra discorsi scientifici e discorsi politici. A partire da alcuni casi di studio l'articolo conduce una breve analisi sulle forme argomentative adottate da questi gruppi, sulle modalitÀ di intendere il rapporto con (...) le istituzioni democratiche e con la scienza, sui processi interni di leadership e sull'idea di ‘rivolta' da condurre. (shrink)

Con l’arrivo di Nietzsche in Francia, la lunga e tormentata storia delle relazioni culturali con la Germania vive un momento particolarmente significativo. L’articolo intende ricostruire i passaggi che intersecano su diversi piani la ricezione del pensiero nietzscheano in Francia tra il 1890 e il 1914. Dalla discussione sul nichilismo, che fin dagli esordi traccia l’orizzonte interpretativo all’interno del quale viene ripensata la civiltà europea, prende corpo il dibattito sulla identità della cultura francese, già messa in crisi nel ventennio precedente dalla (...) fortuna di Schopenhauer e Wagner. Intrecciandosi in un drammatico crescendo con le vicende della Francia, gli itinerari interpretativi finiscono per riflettere sulla riforma filosofica nietzscheana le ossessioni del paese, dal pangermanesimo all’antisemitismo. (shrink)

In On a raison de se révolter Sartre identifies in idealistic unrealism, in amoralistic realism, and in materialistic and moralistic realism, the three decisive moments in his intellectual development. In the light of these caesuras, which interweave the gnoseological and the moral problem and find a possible key of interpretation in the progressive semantic mutation of the authenticity-unauthenticity dichotomy, the author intends to redesign the path that leads from absolute freedom, through the discovery of history and the theoretical redefinition of (...) the notion "freedom-world-others", to freedom as "total praxis". If man’s ontological difference runs through Sartre’s entire work and guides his critique of dialectical materialism, in the post-war writings that difference begins to be rethought within the historical horizon of the dialectical process of work . In presenting the morality-history relationship as inescapable, this horizon resolves the gnoseological and the moral problem in the revolutionary philosophy of work. With his adherence to historical materialism, to which Sartre lays claim in the Critique de la raison dialectique, and the dialectical connection between historical subject and method, the writings that appeared after May ’68 place within the dialectic of freedom the problem of the "total meaning" of the life of man and indicate in the «reign of freedom», of Marxian memory, the telos of history. (shrink)

A critical review of four recent works that reflect current conflicts and tensions among feminists regarding new reproductive technologies: In Search of Parenthood by Judith Lasker and Susan Borg; Ethics and Human Reproduction by Christine Overall; Made to Order, Patricia Spallone and Deborah Steinberg, eds. and Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine, Michelle Stanworth, ed. Their positions are evaluated against the background of growing feminist dialogue about the future of reproduction and the bearing of reproductive innovations on such related (...) issues as racism, sexuality, motherhood and abortion. (shrink)

In this study, we investigate how economic agents choose gambling partners and how paired risky choices differ from individual ones. To this aim, we develop a simple model and design a laboratory experiment that allows us to compare individual versus paired decisions across two treatments, where pairs are, respectively, exogenously and endogenously formed. In both treatments, paired subjects decide individually and independently how to allocate their wealth over a portfolio of lotteries and fully commit to share any winnings. The main (...) result from our experiment is that whenever agents are allowed to choose a gambling partner they decide to team up with other agents who display the same degree of risk aversion as themselves. Moreover, paired choices consistently involve higher risk taking than individual choices. This finding is more evident when information on subjects’ risk attitudes is made available and when subjects team up in homogeneous pairs, thereby confirming that subjects successfully exploit the benefits of mutual insurance. (shrink)

A critical review of four recent works that reflect current conflicts and tensions among feminists regarding new reproductive technologies: In Search of Parenthood by Judith Lasker and Susan Borg; Ethics and Human Reproduction by Christine Overall; Made to Order, Patricia Spallone and Deborah Steinberg, eds. and Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine, Michelle Stanworth, ed. Their positions are evaluated against the background of growing feminist dialogue about the future of reproduction and the bearing of reproductive innovations on such related (...) issues as racism, sexuality, motherhood and abortion. (shrink)

A critical review of four recent works that reflect current conflicts and tensions among feminists regarding new reproductive technologies: In Search of Parenthood by Judith Lasker and Susan Borg; Ethics and Human Reproduction by Christine Overall; Made to Order, Patricia Spallone and Deborah Steinberg, eds. and Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine, Michelle Stanworth, ed. Their positions are evaluated against the background of growing feminist dialogue about the future of reproduction and the bearing of reproductive innovations on such related (...) issues as racism, sexuality, motherhood and abortion. (shrink)