In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about experimental (...) evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el acuario como una figuración espacial del imaginario social en tres novelas escritas por autores chilenos en las últimas dos décadas, El nadador de Gonzalo Contreras, La vida privada de los árboles de Alejandro Zambra y Monsieur Pain de Roberto Bolaño. Su finalidad es atisbar en la configuración imaginaria de los espacios de la intimidad y de la intemperie en la posdictadura chilena y, más generalmente, en el entorno global en que se (...) desarrolla la tercera fase del capitalismo multinacional. The aim of this article is to analyze the aquarium as a spatial figure of social imaginary in three novels written by Chilean authors in the past two decades, Gonzalo Contreras's El nadador , Alejandro Zambra's La vida privada de los árboles and Roberto Bolaño's Monsieur Pain . My purpose is to inquire about the imaginary configuration of spaces that refer to intimacy and the shelterless in the context of chilean postdictatorship and, more generally, in the global environment of the third stage of multinational capitalism. (shrink)

Crisis requires society to renew itself, albeit in a disruptive way. The current Covid-19 pandemic is transforming ways of working, living, and relating to each other on a global level, suddenly and dramatically. This paper focuses on the field of education to show how higher education institutions are undergoing radical transformations driven by the need to digitalize education and training processes in record time with academics who lack innate technological capabilities for online teaching. The university system must strive to (...) overcome this situation to be competitive and provide high-quality education in a scenario of digital transformation, disruptive technological innovations, and accelerated change. To achieve these goals, this paper explains some barriers and challenges that universities encounter, as well as technological resources and methodologies they have used in the current scenario to transform higher education to face Covid-19 disruption. The discussion and conclusion synthesize significant insights that can be applied to the digitalization of education in the foreseeable future. (shrink)

This edited volume presents a post-humanist reflection on education, mapping the complex transdisciplinary pedagogy and theoretical research while also addressing questions related to marginalised voices, colonial discourses, and the relationship between theory and practice. Exhibiting a re-imagination of education through themed relationalities that can transverse education, this cutting-edge book highlights the importance of matter in educational environments, enriching pedagogies, teacher-student relationships and curricular innovation. Chapters present contributions that explore education through various international contexts and educational sectors, unravelling educational implications with (...) reference to the climate change crisis, migrant children in education, post-pandemic education, feminist activisism and other emergent issues. The book examines the ongoing iterations of the entanglement of colonization, modernity, and humanity with education to propose a possibility of education capable of upholding heterogeneous worlds. Curated with a global perspective on transversal relationalities and offering a unique outlook on posthuman thoughts and actions related to education, this book will be an important reading for students, researchers and academics in the fields of philosophy of education, sociology of education, post humanism and new materialism, curriculum studies, and educational research. (shrink)

The COVID-19 global health emergency has greatly impacted the educational field. Faced with unprecedented stress situations, professors, students, and families have employed various coping and resilience strategies throughout the confinement period. High and persistent stress levels are associated with other pathologies; hence, their detection and prevention are needed. Consequently, this study aimed to design a predictive model of stress in the educational field based on artificial intelligence that included certain sociodemographic variables, coping strategies, and resilience capacity, and to study (...) the relationship between them. The non-probabilistic snowball sampling method was used, involving 337 people from the university education community in south-eastern Spain. The Perceived Stress Scale, Stress Management Questionnaire, and Brief Resilience Scale were administered. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to design the architecture of artificial neural networks. The results found that stress levels could be predicted by the synaptic weights of coping strategies and timing of the epidemic, with a predictive capacity of over 80% found in the neural network model. Additionally, direct and significant associations were identified between the use of certain coping strategies, stress levels, and resilience. The conclusions of this research are essential for effective stress detection, and therefore, early intervention in the field of educational psychology, by discussing the influence of resilience or lack thereof on the prediction of stress levels. Identifying the variables that maintain a greater predictive power in stress levels is an effective strategy to design more adjusted prevention programs and to anticipate the needs of the community. (shrink)

In the context of a global pandemic that started in 2020, the Chilean higher education institution Universidad Andrés Bello faced the challenge of giving continuity to its already established blended program for English courses while also starting the implementation of a high-stakes certification assessment for its students using the Test of English for International Communication Bridge. This study sought to evaluate how much of a mediating factor online teaching presence could be in the context of test preparation within a (...) language course in aspects related to autonomous learning and perceived learning outcomes. A mixed-methods approach was used. It included a survey applied to 1,642 eligible students of the English program. These quantitative data were complemented with students’ comments and teacher interviews. After triangulating quantitative and qualitative data, teaching presence was clearly perceived to be a relevant aspect of the online experience in the studied courses. However, both students’ and teachers’ voices evidenced pervasive challenges and tensions that hinder the potentially transformative benefits that online learning is expected to bring about. (shrink)

Nowadays, around half of the global population lives in urban areas. This rate is expected to increase up to two-thirds by the year 2050. Most studies analyze urban dynamics in wide geographic ranges, focusing mainly on cities. According to them, the global population is spatially distributed in two extremes: large urban agglomerations and rural deserts. However, this remark is excessively general and imprecise. For this reason, it remains essential to analyze these dynamics at other spatial scales. A close-up (...) look in thinly populated regions shows how urban dynamics are also noticeable. In this paper, we analyze spatiotemporal patterns of population distribution in a predominantly rural area by applying a local-scale approach. These patterns are represented by using spatial networks with nodes representing the human settlements and links showing hierarchies between nodes. This case study is conducted in a small municipality located in northwestern Spain. It is a predominantly rural area with a very particular spatial pattern of population distribution. (shrink)

Many physicians are involved in relationships that create tension between a physician's duty to work in her patients’ best interest at all times and her financial arrangement with a third party, most often a pharmaceutical manufacturer, whose primary goal is maximizing sales or profit. Despite the prevalence of this threat, in the United States and globally, the most common reaction to conflicts of interest in medicine is timid acceptance. There are few calls for conflicts of interest to be banned, and, (...) to our knowledge, no one calls for conflicted practitioners to be reprimanded. Contrast our attitudes in medicine with public attitudes toward financial conflicts among government employees. When enforcement of rules against conflict of interest slackens in the public sector, news organizations investigate and publish their criticism. Yet even when doctors are quoted in the media promoting specific drugs, their personal financial ties to the drug maker are rarely mentioned. Policies for governmental employees are strict, condemnation is strong, and criminal statutes exist. Yet the evidence that conflict is problematic is, if anything, stronger in medicine than in the public sector. Policies against conflicts of interest in medicine should be at least as strong as those already existing in the public sector. (shrink)

In the context of a new wave of women’s activism for equality, the body is once again at the centre of the discussion today, in the USA and globally. Analysing American discourses about health and illness at the turn of the twenty-first century, Tasha Dubriwny has argued that the current narratives are dominated by neoliberal and postfeminist philosophies that have thrived in a framework of biomedicalisation and self-surveillance. What happens, then, when a successful feminist artist is diagnosed with uterine cancer? (...) How does Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and founder of V-Day, face the fact that her life may have a painful ending? How does a woman so aware of her physical and psychological self come to terms with illness? Is she willing to put her political project aside to become a patient? Through a close reading of Ensler’s uterine cancer memoir In the Body of the World, and focusing particularly on its structure and narrative strategies, this article situates her work within the corpus of female literature about health and illness in the twenty-first century, exploring her meaning-making process in the light of the current tensions between feminism and postfeminism. (shrink)

Se presenta una propuesta de innovación docente desarrollada en la asignatura de Dirección de Marketing del Grado de Marketing e Investigación de Mercados de la Universidad de Cádiz (España). Se evaluó la iniciativa a través de un cuestionario de carácter secuencial ad hoc compuesto por preguntas abiertas y cerradas. Los resultados obtenidos han mostrado un alto grado de satisfacción del alumnado tanto con la iniciativa como con el desarrollo global de la asignatura. Se sugiere implementar actividades de enseñanza-aprendizaje conectadas (...) con el entorno que permitan estimular y desarrollar en el alumnado una mayor capacidad para la resolución de problemas. (shrink)

Many physicians are involved in relationships that create tension between a physician's duty to work in her patients’ best interest at all times and her financial arrangement with a third party, most often a pharmaceutical manufacturer, whose primary goal is maximizing sales or profit. Despite the prevalence of this threat, in the United States and globally, the most common reaction to conflicts of interest in medicine is timid acceptance. There are few calls for conflicts of interest to be banned, and, (...) to our knowledge, no one calls for conflicted practitioners to be reprimanded. Contrast our attitudes in medicine with public attitudes toward financial conflicts among government employees. When enforcement of rules against conflict of interest slackens in the public sector, news organizations investigate and publish their criticism. Yet even when doctors are quoted in the media promoting specific drugs, their personal financial ties to the drug maker are rarely mentioned. Policies for governmental employees are strict, condemnation is strong, and criminal statutes exist (allowing for corruption charges). Yet the evidence that conflict is problematic is, if anything, stronger in medicine than in the public sector. Policies against conflicts of interest in medicine should be at least as strong as those already existing in the public sector. (shrink)

This article discusses L.-J. Lebret’s methodological and epistemological approach for the elaboration of the concepts of ‘human economy’ and ‘harmonized human development’. Both concepts were very...

RESUMEN Introducción: El mundo enfrenta un acelerado envejecimiento poblacional y tasas de fecundidad por debajo de los niveles de reemplazo, situación a la que no son ajenos la población y el servicio de Salud cubanos. Objetivo: Valorar las implicaciones sociales de los resultados del Servicio Provincial de Reproducción Asistida de Baja Complejidad de Camagüey, durante el bienio 2016-2017, dados en el incremento del número de embarazos logrados por Estimulación Ovárica Controlada e Inseminación Intrauterina. Métodos: En la contribución se emplearon los (...) métodos investigativos pertinentes, así como procedimientos diagnósticos y terapéuticos. Resultados: En el período estudiado, se logró un número significativo de embarazos por técnicas de baja complejidad, así como un número superior de embarazo en mujeres mayores de 36 años con respecto a años anteriores. Discusión: El Estado cubano ha trazado estrategias de trabajo para brindar atención diferenciada a las parejas que presenten alteraciones de la reproducción, en favor de solucionar la problemática mediante alternativas cuyos resultados se correlacionan con los obtenidos a nivel mundial. ABSTRACT Introduction: The world faces an intensive population aging and valuations of fecundity below the levels of substitution, situation which is not foreign to the Cuban population and health service. Objective: To value the social implications of the results of the Provincial Service of Assisted Reproduction of Low Complexity of Camagüey, during the two-year period 2016-2017, given for the increase of the number of pregnancies achieved by Controlled Ovarian Stimulation and Intrauterine Insemination. Methods: In the contribution thepertinent,investigative methods were used as well as diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Results: In the studied period, a significant number of pregnancies was achieved by skills of low complexity, as well as a top number of pregnancy in women older than 36 years old with regard to previous years. Discussion: The Cuban State has planned work strategies to offer attention differentiated to the couples that present alterations of the reproduction, in favor of solving the problems by means of alternatives which results are correlated by the obtained ones on a global scale. (shrink)

Globalization, with its undisputed benefits, also presents complex moral challenges that business leaders cannot ignore. Some of this moral complexity is attributable to the scope and nature of specific issues like climate change, intellectual property rights, economic inequity, and human rights. More difficult aspects of moral complexity are the structure and dynamics of human moral judgment and the amplified universe of global stakeholders with competing value claims and value systems whose interests must be considered and often included in the (...) decision-making process. While managing moral challenges is considered in management literature to be a legitimate and crucial function of business leadership, the complexity of moral challenges in a globalized business culture stretches the managerial capacities of individuals who rely on a personal moral compass and their own wisdom traditions of philosophy or religion for guidance. The Global Moral Compass introduces an expanded epistemic value framework as an aid to understanding and managing moral complexity in a globalized business culture. (shrink)

Since at least the late nineteenth century, a world-level moral culture has developed, providing a space for certain persons to be presented as global moral icons. This global moral space was already pointed to by Kant as an emergent form, and was later theorized by Durkheim. This article shows that an important institutionalization of global moral culture involved the founding of the Nobel Prizes, the subsequent mutations of which were also important in the constitution of that culture. (...) These, and other awards which imitated them, are performative in a profound sense: they simultaneously reflect and help bring into being a planet-spanning culture which demands moral icons which both exemplify and partly constitute it. How the Nobel Prizes and their imitators work to create moral iconicity that is globally relevant is explored. The case of Gandhi is taken as an example of how, despite not being awarded a Nobel Prize, some moral icons are also brought into being through symbolic contact with other such icons, including Nobel Prize winners. The article considers the lingering, powerful, but generally invisible, influence today on world moral culture of the innovations pursued by the early Nobel Prize committees. (shrink)

Michael Blake claims that liberal principles ground egalitarian distribution domestically but not globally. This paper raises some worries about these claims. It challenges the argument for domestic distributive equality based on a concern for autonomy, noting that a broader concern for wellbeing is required. And it suggests that a concern for everyone’s autonomy and wellbeing supports the progressive pursuit of global distributive equality rather than only the pursuit of global sufficiency.

Empirical studies of life science research and biotechnologies in Asia show how assemblages of life articulate bioethics governance with global moralities and reveal why the global harmonization of bioethical standards is contrived.

In recent decades, concepts of group agency and the morality of groups have increasingly been discussed by philosophers. Notions of collective or joint duties have been invoked especially in the debates on global justice, world poverty and climate change. This paper enquires into the possibility and potential nature of moral duties individuals in unstructured groups may hold together. It distinguishes between group agents and groups of people which – while not constituting a collective agent – are nonetheless capable (...) of performing a joint action. It attempts to defend a notion of joint duties which are neither duties of a group agent nor duties of individual agents, but duties held jointly by individuals in unstructured groups. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate the relation between such joint duties on the one hand and individual duties on the other hand. Rebutting an argument brought forward by Wringe, the paper concludes that it is not plausible to assume that all humans on earth can together hold a duty to mitigate climate change or to combat global poverty given that the members of that group are not capable of joint action. (shrink)

This essay considers whether the model of conscience operative in Christian ethics, what I call the “reflexive conscience,” is adequate to meet the global moral challenges we face today, problems such as gun violence, climate change, and the Zika virus. Drawing primarily on the work of Willis Jenkins, I argue that conscience has not yet caught up to the scale and interconnectedness of our global moral challenges. A truly “engaged conscience” must be focused not primarily on the self (...) but on the other, and must be active. I conclude by turning to Elisabeth Vasko’s criticisms of the victim/perpetrator binary to suggest that conscience must call us to greater responsibility for the systemic injustices in which particular moral challenges are embedded. (shrink)

The global development of human embryonic stem cell science and its therapeutic applications are dependent on the nature of its engagement at national and international levels with key cultural values and beliefs concerning the moral status of the early human embryo. This article argues that the political need to reconcile the promise of new health technologies with the cultural costs of scientific advance, dependent in this case on the use of the human embryo, has been met by the evolution (...) of bioethics as a political community, transnational network, and bureaucratic device. Bioethics has become the political means for the creation of a global moral economy where the trading and exchange of values is normalized and legitimated. As a result of such trading, value compromises are produced capable of legitimizing the regulatory policies necessary for maintaining public trust in the new science. (shrink)

(1996). The emergence of the global culture and the global moral system: The global bio‐social system as the reference system of the human rights. World Futures: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 47-51.

(2001). Ethics, economics and international relations: Towards a global moral community. World Futures: Vol. 56, Values, Ethics and Econmics, Part II, pp. 337-350.

The human community faces today the most serious challenges ever to have confronted the planet in the areas of health, environment, and security. Science and technology are essential for responding to these challenges. More is needed, however, because science is not equipped to deal adequately with the values dimensions and the political issues that accompany the challenges. For an adequate response, there must be cooperative effort by scientists and statespersons, informed for moral leadership by the religious wisdom that is available. (...) The religious communities can provide this spiritual dimension, thereby fulfilling their traditional role, but it will require their coming to terms with the character of the scientific and technological base of contemporary culture. The paper lays the conceptual groundwork for understanding these issues. (shrink)

The world has changed in the last few decades. While the enforcement of international issues may once have been undermined by differences in transnational institutions, the onset of globalisation has led to a greater willingness amongst states to cooperate with each other. It is suggested that this could be a positive development for, amongst other things, gradually tackling climate change, global poverty and the greater realisation of human rights. What is needed is a period of reflection of how far (...) we have come and how we can use this to change for the future. (shrink)

While many are born into prosperity, hundreds of millions of people lead lives of almost unimaginable poverty. Our world remains hugely unequal, with our place of birth continuing to exert a major influence on our opportunities. -/- In this accessible book, leading political theorist Chris Armstrong engagingly examines the key moral and political questions raised by this stark global divide. Why, as a citizen of a relatively wealthy country, should you care if others have to make do with less? (...) Do we have a moral duty to try to rectify this state of affairs? What does 'global justice' mean anyway - and why does it matter? Could we make our world a more just one even if we tried? Can you as an individual make a difference? -/- This book powerfully demonstrates that global justice is something we should all be concerned about, and sketches a series of reforms that would make our divided world a fairer one. It will be essential introductory reading for students of global justice, activists and concerned citizens. (shrink)

Ascertaining the optimum global population raises not just substantive moral problems but also philosophical ones, too. In particular, serious problems arise for utilitarianism. For example, should one attempt to bring about the greatest total happiness or the highest level of average happiness? This article argues that neither approach on its own provides a satisfactory answer, and nor do rights-based or Rawlsian approaches, either. Instead, what is required is a multidimensional approach to moral questions—one which recognises the plurality of our (...) values. Such an approach can be formalised by employing multidimensional indifference-curves. Moreover, whereas classical utilitarianism might be thought to enjoin us to bring about a larger global population, a multidimensional approach clearly suggests a significant reduction in human numbers. (shrink)

Moral Issues in Global Perspective seeks to challenge standard approaches to morality and moral issues shaped by Western liberal theory and to extend the inquiry beyond the context of North America. It includes critiques of traditional liberal accounts of rights, justice, and moral values that raise questions about the treatment of disadvantaged groups within liberal societies as well as in other societies and across societies. It covers a broader range of issues and arguments than most textbooks on practical (...) ethics. It incorporates work by race, class, feminist, and disability theorists that provides new perspectives on issues such as reproduction, euthanasia, censorship, and the environment. The collection places moral issues in a global context by providing selections by moral and political theorists from many different parts of the world. (shrink)

Message from the planet -- When prophecy fails -- Energy and empire -- Climate economics -- Ethical emissions -- Dwelling in the light -- Mobility and pilgrimage -- Faithful feasting -- Remembering in time.

The reflection of global justice demands an innovative revision of traditional patterns of argument of political theory. How can moral responsibility be defined in connection with intergovernmental action? Ethical, institutional, and logical implications of a human legal foundation of intergovernmental justice are discussed in three theoretical chapters in this book. Further chapters deal with the structure of intergovernmental responsibility in connection with ethics of peace, humanitarian intervention, the fight against poverty, as well as migration. Moreover, the book analyzes governmental (...) liability and collective political duties towards individuals, who are citizens of other states. (shrink)

Written by well-known professor and author Michael Boylan, Morality and Global Justice is an accessible examination of the moral and normative underpinnings of ...

Moral universalism centrally involves the idea that the moral assessment of persons and their conduct, of social rules and states of affairs, must be based on fundamental principles that do not, explicitly or covertly, discriminate arbitrarily against particular persons or groups. This general idea is explicated in terms of three conditions. It is then applied to the discrepancy between our criteria of national and global economic justice. Most citizens of developed countries are unwilling to require of the global (...) economic order what they assuredly require of any national economic order, for example, that its rules be under democratic control, that it preclude life-threatening poverty as far as is reasonably possible. Without a plausible justification, such a double standard constitutes covert arbitrary discrimination against the global poor. Key Words: contextualism • corruption • discrimination • Rawls • resource exports • world poverty. (shrink)

Given the overwhelming expansion of globalization that has reduced the entire globe to a small village, especially in international business activities, there is a pressing need to design a new paradigm of moral rules for global business, in order to take care of emerging moral exigencies in corporate activities—especially multinational activities, which have grave cross-cultural moral implications. While the international business arena has addressed this new reality by fashioning various moral orders to guideactivities in the international business scene, this (...) paper observes that the developing countries of the world have been at the receiving end of the moral configuration of global business. This is why the responses of most developing countries to the global business moral order is predicated on resolving the apparent conflicts generated by this moral order vis-à-vis the value systems of individual countries. Specifically, the paper examines the issue of a global business moral order with particular focus on how it is faring in developing countries. It notes that in these countries, the moral order is merely a paper tiger due to its weak implementation framework, whenceits inability to make any meaningful impact in developing countries. After a critical survey of the Nigerian business terrain, this paper concludes that the global business moral order barely impacts the Nigerian situation despite the promise of better, honest, fair, and sustainable business practices implied by corporate social responsibility. (shrink)