From 1989 through September 2017, Chile’s highly restrictive abortion laws exposed women to victimisation and needlessly threatened their health, freedom and even lives. However, after decades of unsuccessful attempts to decriminalise abortion, legislation regulating pregnancy termination on three grounds was recently enacted. In the aftermath, an aggressive conservative drive designed to turn conscientious objection into a pivotal new obstacle, mounted during the congressional debate, has led to extensive, complex arguments about the validity and legitimacy of conscientious objection. This article offers (...) a critical review of the emergence of conscientious objection and its likely policy and ethical implications. It posits the need to regulate conscientious objection through checks and balances designed to keep it from being turned into an ideological barrier meant to hinder women’s access to critical healthcare. (shrink)

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. Plato: Moral and Political Ideals by Adela Marion Adam, first printed in 1913, deals with the main substance of Plato's philosophy of ethics and politics, set within the context of (...) his intellectual debt to Socrates. (shrink)

Academic debate on the strategic importance of women corporate directors is widely recognized and still open. However, most corporate boards have only one woman director or a small minority of women directors. Therefore they can still be considered as tokens. This article addresses the following question: does an increased number of women corporate boards result in a build up of critical mass that substantially contributes to firm innovation? The aim is to test if ‘at least three women’ could constitute the (...) desired critical mass by identifying different minorities of women directors (one woman, two women and at least three women). Tests are conducted on a sample of 317 Norwegian firms. The results suggest that attaining critical mass – going from one or two women (a few tokens) to at least three women (consistent minority) – makes it possible to enhance the level of firm innovation. Moreover, the results show that the relationship between the critical mass of women directors and the level of firm innovation is mediated by board strategic tasks. Implications for both theory and practice, and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

The nineteen-nineties saw the so-called “deliberative turn in democracy”, which was taken up by a large number of democracy theorists. This paper sets out: 1) to analyse why this turn took place; 2) to classify the different proposals of deliberative democracy into two models (D1 and D2), in view of their epistemological effectiveness (model D1 assumes the pattern of Rawls’ political liberalism, and model D2, Habermas’ Theory of Discourse); 3) to display the superiority of D2 over D1; 4) to point (...) out certain shortcomings in Habermas’ deliberative-discursive politics and to propose a model of democracy which will enable these to be improved on, to be known as “communicative democracy”. (shrink)

En s’appuyant sur les autobiographies de douze élèves « à problèmes », l’auteure interroge deux paradigmes de la psychanalyse contemporaine. Le paradigme archéologique, cherchant à découvrir le latent derrière le manifeste, se situe du côté d’une logique orientée vers le passé. A l’opposé, le paradigme transformatif, dont le but est de développer la « musculature psychique », vise l’ouverture à une pluralité de possibles résidant dans l’avenir. L’auteure montre l’intérêt de dialectiser ces deux approches, tant dans la clinique que dans (...) l’approche des productions culturelles, autobiographie comprise. Les enjeux éthiques découlant de l’intervention de l’analyste/interprète prennent une importante centrale. (shrink)

The Times Literary Supplement of November 8, 1917, contained, under the title of Socrates recognitns, a review of Plato's Biography of Socrates, a lecture delivered by Professor A. E. Taylor to the British Academy in the early part of last year. The opening sentence of the review is as follows: ‘Next to the problem of the Gospels ranks that of the Platonic dialogues amongst those most vital to the history of the human spirit.’ A little further down the reviewer says: (...) ‘It is much to the credit of British scholarship—and especially to that of the University of St. Andrews—that it should have attacked these problems with untiring energy, and propounded solutions which, although they run counter to most of the traditional tendencies of historical and philosophical criticism, have not only challenged attention, but are carrying conviction even to unlikely quarters.’ And again, at the end of the article, we read this passage: ‘It is scarcely to be thought that the ground won by the scholars of St. Andrews will be held without counter-attack; but this is slow to mature, and in the meanwhile such essays as the subject of this notice, with which we may couple the paper recently read to the British Academy by Professor Burnet on the Socratic doctrine of the soul, serve to buttress and consolidate the position.’. (shrink)

On the deepest level, the Book of Revelation provides a story in and through which the people of God discover who they are and what they are to do.

This paper aims to clarify the nature and contents of 'civil ethics' and the source of the binding force of its obligations. This ethics should provide the criteria for evaluating the moral validity of social, legal and morally valid law. The article starts with observing that in morally pluralist Western societies civil ethics already exists, and has gradually started to play the role of guiding the law. It is argued that civil ethics should not be conceived as 'civic morals' which (...) is in fact rather 'state ethics', nor as 'public ethics' which is said to reach its perfection when it becomes law, nor as ethics applicable primarily to the basic structure of a society, but instead as a citizens' ethics. Subsequently the paper attempts to show what the contents of this ethics are, and which ethical theory would be able to ground its obligations. (shrink)

Se intenta una contribución al conocimiento de la enseñanza de la filosofía en el Colegio de San Carlos de Buenos Aires hacia fines del siglo XVIII. Para ello se examinan las propuestas de Juan Baltasar Maziel (1727-1788) para dicho Colegio en materia de Filosofía, Teología y Derecho. Esta información se complementa con la exposición de otras ideas jurídico-políticas de Maziel, en el contexto de su actividad eclesiástica. The subject is the contribution of Juan Baltasar Maziel (1727-1778) to the teaching of (...) Philosophy, Theology and Law in the Colegio de San Carlos of Buenos Aires, in the last third of the XVIIIth Century. In addition, other political ideas of Maziel are considered. (shrink)

This book addresses the mid-rank of the soul theme as it emerges in Plotinus and Augustine in the context of their respective interpretations of universal order. They both use the journey metaphor to describe the soul’s progress through the turbulent “sea” of earthly existence.

Sin duda la revolución 4.0 es ya el mundo en el que vivimos y proporciona instrumentos muy valiosos para construir una sociedad que pueda servir mejor a los seres humanos y al cuidado de la naturaleza desde las nuevas posibilidades. Pero para emprender ese camino es preciso optar por una ética que reconozca que lleva la intersubjetividad entrañada en su seno, porque es consciente de que no somos individuos aislados, sino que devenimos personas desde el reconocimiento recíproco como interlocutores válidos, (...) como seres dotados de dignidad y no un simple precio, como quienes son carne de la misma carne y hueso del mismo hueso. Ésta sería una ética dialógica de la razón cordial. (shrink)

This article brings together the history of the social sciences and the history of social thought in Socialist Romania. It is concerned with the development of ideas about the social beyond collectivism, especially about the relationship between individual and society under socialism, from the early 1960s to the end of the 1970s. The analysis speaks to three major themes in the current historiography of Cold War social science. First, the article investigates the role of disciplinary specialization in the advancement of (...) new ideas about the social in the postwar period. Specifically, it asks how the debate over the relationship between sociology and Marxism-Leninism has challenged ideas about collectivism from Stalinist social science. Second, the article shows how social practice, individual and collective agency, and people's subjectivities became theoretically relevant in the 1960s, and how they were integrated, via empirical sociological research, into the reworked conceptual apparatus of post-Stalinist Marxism-Leninism. This complicates accounts about the role of quantification and theorization in postwar social science by foregrounding the intense reflection on the role of empirical research in sociology under state socialism. Third, the article shows how the relationship between individual and society became a topic of interest across social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s. The Marxist humanist approach to the social, although it never achieved the institutional status of a distinct discipline, adds an important perspective from East Central Europe to the existing historiography of the ‘thinning’ of the social in social sciences and social thought beginning in the 1950s. (shrink)

While the question of whether selected-effects accounts of function or causal-role accounts of function provide the ‘true' functional analysis has given way to a general pluralistic consensus, Philip Kitcher has suggested that different functional accounts allow for unification. I argue that Kitcher's attempt to unify the two functional analyses fails because he adopts the environment-centered perspective on selection as a premise. The premise is undermined by the role niche construction is likely to play in the context of evolution. Moreover, I (...) raise the tentative suggestion that niche construction may threaten the applicability, or at least the relevance, of selected-effects ascriptions. *Received October 2009; revised May 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Institut für Philosophie Fakultät für Philosophie und Bildungswissenschaft, Universität Wien, Universitätsstraße 7 1010 Wien, Austria; e-mail: Adela[email protected]. (shrink)

Článek má za cíl ukázat podobnosti mezi Humovou a Madisonovou politickou filozofií v oblasti politiky náboženské tolerance. Humův kritický postoj k církvím a k náboženství je dnes v interpretační literatuře velmi známý. Často se však zapomíná na důsledky, které z tohoto postoje plynou pro jeho politickou filozofii. Hume se totiž na mnoha místech svého rozsáhlého filozofického díla (kam je třeba řadit i jeho Dějiny Anglie a mnohé eseje) zamýšlel nad otázkou, jak řídit stát nábožensky roztříštěný do církví a sekt. Podobně (...) se i jeden z nejvýznamnějších otců zakladatelů, James Madison, obával názorově roztříštěné společnosti; přičemž co do důvodů i řešení tohoto problému je patrná podobnost mezi jeho a Humovými myšlenkami. Hume i Madison shodně považovali za zdroj lidské tendence ke stranictví lidskou přirozenost a řešení této stranickosti spatřovali jednak v ustavení státu na co nejširším území, a jednak v co největší míře tolerance rozličných názorů i v náboženských otázkách. Oba argumentovali tím, že se v dějinách prakticky ukázalo jako nejúčinnější právě zavedení co nejširší náboženské tolerance. Kromě toho Madison používá stejné metafory a výrazy ve stejném kontextu jako Hume. Humův vliv na Madisona v otázce náboženské tolerance tak nelze při interpretaci intelektuálních zdrojů Jamese Madisona dále přehlížet. (shrink)

En este trabajo se realiza una propuesta de comunicación transdisciplinar entre las ciencias cognitivas y la educación, tal y como se perfilan en el siglo XXI. En un primer lugar se contextualizan estos procesos de comunicación en el continuum histórico que transita desde los inicios del siglo pasado, con la configuración de la psicología educativa dentro del constructo de las ciencias educativas; pasando por la constitución de las ciencias cognitivas, a mediados del siglo XX que propició la emergencia de la (...) síntesis disciplinar entre las ciencias del cerebro y de la mente, para posibilitar un encuadre arraigado en el presente, y en las propuestas de consiliencia entre neurociencia cognitiva y educación. Desde este presente histórico, se efectúa una propuesta de diálogo entre las distintas epistemes (educativas y cognitivas), en relación con el fenómeno de la educación bilingüe, y en concreto en el contexto intercultural ecuatoriano. La integración de los distintos niveles de análisis que configuran un fenómeno complejo, como lo es todo fenómeno educativo, refleja cómo los intentos transdisciplinares orientados a reconocer la complejidad ontológica de un mismo objeto de estudio, requiere del diálogo entre las distintas epistemologías y metodologías implicadas. La apertura del campo educativo a las dimensiones mentales y cerebrales en su expresión cognitiva, requiere en este s. XXI procesos de apertura recíproca respecto de la influencia que el eje cultura-educación ejerce en el modelamiento de los procesos de cognición y aprendizaje. (shrink)

La Neuroética necesita un marco de ética filosófica desde el que interpretar, integrar y criticar el progreso neurocientífico en el ámbito moral. Este artículo intenta: 1) Mostrar en qué medida este marco es necesario. 2) Abordar la cuestión del método adecuado para construirlo. 3) Compilar los principales tópoi de las neurociencias que el marco debería interpretar e integrar. 4) Mostrar cómo la ética del discurso puede ser un marco adecuado para la neuroética. 5) Señalar algunas insuficiencias de ese marco y (...) sugerir para superarlas una ética de la razón cordial. (shrink)

Durante algún tiempo el problema de la fundamentación de lo moral atrajo la atención de los éticos. Hoy en día, el «giro aplicado » sufrido por la filosofía afecta en primer término a la ética y le pide orientaciones, aunque mediatas como es propio de la filosofía, para organizar la vida en las distintas esferas de la vida social. Este cambio exige ante todo aclarar cuál debe ser el proceder de la ética aplicada , si existen principios comunes a sus (...) distintos ámbitos o constituyen reinos de taifas, cuáles son los principios, hábitos y valores que cada esfera exige para moralizarse, en el sentido de Ortega, qué métodos son adecuados para la toma de decisiones.Estas exigencias están ya en la calle y piden interdisciplinariedad. No intentar responder a ellas es reconocer, frente a la pretensión originaria, que a la filosofía no le importa la vida, no le importa sí los seres humanos viven bien. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss how existentialism was criticized, disseminated, and gradually autochthonized in the main philosophical journals of Socialist Romania. We show that the early critique of existentialism was both a statement against contemporary bourgeois philosophy in general and a condemnation of the local philosophical production of the interwar period. In the 1950s, this kind of critique was attuned to the growing fame of several Romanian authors who had emigrated to the West (e.g., Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade) and targeted (...) both past and contemporary irrationalism. Following a period of critique of existentialism without existentialists (i.e., without reference to individual authors), the 1960s discussions of existentialism were mainly driven by interest in a small number of existentialist authors. In particular, the evolution of Jean-Paul Sartre’s work and politics was analyzed as it straddled existentialism and Marxism. The 1970s saw the integration of selected existentialist concepts and themes, in an attempt to offer a Marxist alternative to existentialism in the form of philosophical anthropology. This led to a period of engagement with existentialists without existentialism across an increasing number of separate disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. In the 1980s, following the failure of Marxist philosophical anthropology and at the height of national communism, existentialism could also be autochthonized through the recovery of selected philosophers from the interwar period whose work had been previously criticized as irrationalist. (shrink)

This book explores the metaphysical underpinnings of theories of human nature, personhood, and the self. The coverage of the work is broad in scope, moving from the Pre-Socratics to Postmodernism, critically assessing what transpired during the intervening 2500 year period, with a special focus on the contributions of the Aristotelian/Thomistic tradition of inquiry. The work is designed to meet the needs of a wide range of readers, from beginners to more advanced students.

Depois da viragem do século, podemos dizer que a noção de responsabilidade social está muito em voga no mundo empresarial, muito embora, como é evidente, o conceito possui uma história muito mais ampla e profunda. Tendo isso em conta, o presente artigo procura, antes de mais, mostrar a evolução mais recente do conceito de responsabilidade social, ao mesmo tempo que demonstra como um tal conceito não seña mais do que um efeito de cosmética caso não estivesse fundado numa verdadeira ética (...) empresarial Nesse sentido, a autora oferece-nos alguns dos elementos filosóficos subjacentes a uma tal ética, elementos esses que se destinam a permitir uma avaliação de três dos principais modelos de empresa que identifica, a saber: o modelo economicista, o modelo institucional, e, finalmente, o modelo centrado na globalidade dos afectados pela actividade empresarial. O objectivo, naturalmente, é mostrar as razões pelas quais, numa perspectiva filosófica, a opção correcta é aquela que tem em vista o último dos três modelos mencionados. The concept of social responsibility has been much in vogue in the entrepreneurial world after the turn of the century, though the concept has a much larger and profound history. Taking this into account, the paper seeks to present, first of all, the most recent evolution of the concept of social responsibility and, simultaneously, demonstrates how such a concept would be nothing more than a cosmetic effect, if it were not based on a true entreprenewrial ethics. Thus, the author presents some of the philosophical elements underlying such an ethics; these elements intend to allow an evaluation of the three main enterprise models, which she identifies, namely the economicist model, the institutional model, and, finally, the model centred on all those affected by the entrepreneurial activity. Obviously, the aim of the paper is to present the reasons why, in a philosophical perspective, the right choice is the one which opts for the last of the tree mentioned models. (shrink)

This book contends that when late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writers sought to explain the origins of emotions, they often discovered that their feelings may not really have been their own. It explores the paradoxes of representing feelings in philosophy, aesthetic theory, gender ideology, literature, and popular sentimentality, and it argues that this period's obsession with sentimental, wayward emotion was inseparable from the dilemmas resulting from attempts to locate the origins of feelings in experience. The book shows how these epistemological (...) dilemmas became gendered by studying a series of extravagantly affective scenes in works by Hume, Wordsworth, Charlotte Smith, and Jane Austen. Making its argument through a provocative conjunction of texts that range across genres and genders and across the divide between the eighteenth century and Romanticism, Strange Fits of Passion rediscovers the relationship of empiricism to the culture of sentimentality, and the significance of emotion to Romanticism. (shrink)

En el siglo XXI nace la neurociencia de la ética con la pretensión de ser un nuevo saber , capaz de descubrir las bases cerebrales de la conducta moral. Desde ellas algunos neurocientíficos se proponen fundamentar una ética universal. El artículo 1) analiza críticamente ese proceso de fundamentación, 2) recurre para profundizar en él a la paradoja de la cooperación humana, y 3) hace un balance de las aportaciones de la neurociencia a la ética y de sus posibilidades de fundamentar (...) una ética universal. (shrink)