BackgroundDecisions about appropriate treatment at the end of life are common in modern healthcare. Non-treatment decisions (NTDs), comprising both withdrawal and withholding of (potentially) life-prolonging treatment are in principle accepted in Norway. However, in practice they may give rise to significant moral problems for health professionals, patients and next of kin. Here, patient values must be considered. It is relevant to study the moral views and intuitions of the general population on NTDs and special areas of contention such as the (...) role of next of kin in decision-making.MethodsElectronic survey to members of a nationally representative panel of Norwegian adults. Respondents were presented with vignettes describing patients with disorders of consciousness, dementia, and cancer where patient preferences varied. Respondents answered ten questions about the acceptability of non-treatment decision making and the role of next of kin.ResultsWe received 1035 complete responses (response rate 40.7%). A large majority, 88%, supported the right of competent patients to refuse treatment in general. When an NTD was in line with the patient’s previously expressed preferences, more respondents tended to find NTDs acceptable. More respondents would accept NTDs for themselves than for the vignette patients. In a scenario with an incompetent patient, clear majorities wanted the views of next of kin to be given some but not decisive weight, and more weight if concordant with the patient’s wishes. There were, however, large variations in the respondents’ views.ConclusionThis survey of a representative sample of the Norwegian adult population indicates that attitudes to NTDs are often in line with national laws and guidelines. However, the high variance among the respondents and relatively large weight given to next of kin’s views, indicate a need for appropriate dialogue among all stakeholders to prevent conflicts and extra burdens. Furthermore, the emphasis given to previously expressed opinions indicates that advance care planning may increase the legitimacy of NTDs and prevent challenging decision-making processes. (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

What does it mean to be conservative? What could it mean in the arts? Whoever merely conserves works of art may be a collector but is not an artist. Brahms’s trio op. 40 conserves the hand horn idiom. Yet its aesthetics will not be captured by the opposition of ‘conservative’ versus ‘progressive’. What is superior in terms of technology, Brahms maintained, need not be superior in terms of art.

This paper argues that most of the alleged straight solutions to the sceptical paradox which Kripke ascribed to Wittgenstein can be regarded as the first horn of a dilemma whose second horn is the paradox itself. The dilemma is proved to be a by‐product of a foundationalist assumption on the notion of justification, as applied to linguistic behaviour. It is maintained that the assumption is unnecessary and that the dilemma is therefore spurious. To this end, an alternative conception (...) of the justification of linguistic behaviour is outlined, a conception that vindicates some of the insights behind Kripke's Wittgenstein's sceptical solution of the paradox. This alternative conception is defended against two objections (both familiar from McDowell's works): (1) that it would imply that for the linguistic community there is no authority, no standard to meet and, therefore, no possibility of error and (2) that it would lead to a kind of idealism. (shrink)

True ecotourism requires us to regain an understanding of the inextricable links between the habitats of a region, including its inhabitants, and their habits. With this systemic approach that integrates economic, ecological, and ethical dimensions, we define ecotourism as “an invitation to a journey (‘tour’) to appreciate and share the ‘homes’ (oikos) of diverse human and non-human inhabitants, their singular habits and habitats.” Today, mass nature tourism often denies theselinks and is generating biocultural homogenization, socio-ecological degradation, and marked distributive injustices (...) in iconic places, such as Costa Rica, the Galapagos and Cape Horn. In order to implement genuine ecotourism in Latin America and elsewhere, it is imperative to overcome marketing ambiguities, and pay close attention to local autonomy and biocultural diversity. (shrink)

We exhibit a Horn sentence expressing the statement of the title; the construction generalizes to arbitrary primes in place of five.

I defend the claim that physicalism is not committed to the view that non-phenomenal macrophysical truths are a priori entailed by the conjunction of microphysical truths , basic indexical facts , and a 'that's all' claim . I do so by showing that Chalmers and Jackson's most popular and influential argument in support of the claim that PIT ⊃ M is a priori, where 'M' stands for any ordinary, non-phenomenal, macroscopic truth, falls short of establishing its conclusion. My objection to (...) Chalmers and Jackson's argument takes the form of a nested dilemma. Let 'Conceptual Competence Principle ' stand for the following claim: for any complete microphysical description D of a world w, a subject who is in possession of and competent with a macrophysical concept C is capable of determining a priori the extension of C. Either Jackson and Chalmers accept CCP or not. If the latter, then they cannot demonstrate that the conditional PIT ⊃ M is a priori. If the former, then they have a choice: they can either cite reasons that support the principle or argue that the principle should be taken for granted since it is entailed by the very notion of conceptual competence. But both alternatives are problematic. In regard to the first horn of this latter dilemma, I show not only that there are no good reasons to support the principle, but that there are also reasons to reject it. In regard to the second horn, I show that it cannot be the case that CCP is part of the very notion of conceptual competence. The conceptual capacity expressed by CCP requires that certain bridge principles or conditionals, which link the microphysical level to the macroscopic level, are either implicitly or explicitly given to the subject. But, as I argue, Chalmers and Jackson have no way of accounting for these bridge principles or conditionals in a manner that does not trivialize their position. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarians, equality is not primarily about the distribution of some good but about people relating to one another as equals. However, compared with other theorists in political philosophy – including other egalitarians – relational egalitarians have said relatively little on what role personal responsibility should play in their theories. For example, is equality compatible with responsibility? Should economic distributions be responsibility-sensitive? This article fills this gap. I develop a relational egalitarian framework for personal responsibility and show that (...) relational equality commits us to responsibility. I develop two sets of arguments. First, I draw on relational theories of moral responsibility – particularly Strawsonian views – to show that valuable egalitarian relationships require responsibility. Second, I show why relational equality sometimes requires that economic distributions be sensitive to responsibility and choice. I also defend a seemingly paradoxical result: being committed to responsibility, relational egalitarianism not only justifies some distributive inequalities but some relational inequalities too. Overall, relational egalitarianism gives a nuanced and coherent answer as to why and how responsibility matters from within egalitarianism. That it does should be an important argument in its favour. (shrink)

By synthesizing research from psychology, economics, and philosophy, Propelled criticizes notions of well-being that overly focus on positive emotions and experiences. Against a tradition that has condemned boredom and frustration to be emotional obstacles that hinder human flourishing, Propelled shows that to live a good life we must experience and react appropriately to both. In addition, it argues that we need to anticipate, wait for, and even long for future events. Boredom, frustration, and anticipation are not unpleasant accidents of our (...) lives. Rather, they are vital psychological states that illuminate our desires and expectations, inform us of when we find ourselves stuck in unpleasant and unfulfilling situations, and motivate us to furnish our lives with meaning, interest, and value. (shrink)

ABSTRACTContemporary accounts of knowing one’s own mental states can be instructively supplemented by early modern accounts that understand self-knowledge as an important factor for flourishing human life. This article argues that in the early modern French moralists, one finds diverging conceptions of how knowing one’s own personal qualities could constitute a kind of human excellence: François de la Rochefoucauld argues that the value of knowing one’s own character faults could contribute to an attitude of self-acceptance that liberates one from the (...) effort of deceiving oneself and others. Madeleine de Scudéry argues that knowing one’s own character faults could be an incentive for self-cultivation that leads to the development of character traits that are naturally good. Anne-Thérèse de Lambert concurs with Scudéry’s insight and develops it further. According to Lambert, self-knowledge is crucial for developing character traits that give rise to the natural right of bei... (shrink)

This paper extends scholarship on multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in the context of corporate social responsibility in three ways. First, I outline a framework to analyze the strength of couplings between actors participating in MSIs. Characterizing an MSI as consisting of numerous local networks that are embedded in a wider global network, I argue that tighter couplings (within local networks) and looser couplings (between local networks) coexist. Second, I suggest that this coexistence of couplings enables MSIs to generate policy outcomes which (...) address the conditions of a transnational regulatory context. I argue that MSIs’ way of organizing enables them to cope with three challenges: the stability, flexibility, and legitimacy of governance. Reflecting on these challenges, the article identifies a number of problems related to MSIs’ role in transnational governance. Third, I discuss the UN Global Compact as an illustrative case and examine problems and opportunities related to its stability, flexibility, and legitimacy. (shrink)

While contemporary accounts understand esteem and self-esteem as essentially competitive phenomena, early modern natural law theorists developed a conception of justified esteem and self-esteem based on naturally good character traits. This article explores how such a normative conception of esteem and self-esteem is developed in the work of Christian Wolff. Two features make Wolff’s approach distinctive: He uses the analysis of common notions that are expressed in everyday language to provide a foundation for the aspects of natural law on which (...) his conception of natural duties of esteem depends. He develops a non-competitive conception of esteem and self-esteem into a cooperative conception, according to which enhancing the esteem in which others are held is seen as a tool for promoting self-perfection. Wolff’s ideas offer a solution to the well-known problems connected with competitive life-styles, and at the same time assign a central role in moral motivation to the desire of being esteemed and of having high self-esteem. Moreover, due to his emphasis on presenting a philosophical analysis based on common notions, he offers a solution that is meant to be persuasive from the perspective of everyday morality. (shrink)

A common objection to the precautionary principle is that it is irrational. I argue that this objection goes beyond the often-discussed claim that the principle is incoherent. Instead, I argue, exp...

The distinction between bottom-up and top-down control of action has been central in cognitive psychology, and, subsequently, in functional neuroimaging. While the model has proven successful in describing central mechanisms in cognitive experiments, it has serious shortcomings in explaining how top-down control is established. In particular, questions as to what is at the top in top-down control lead us to a controlling homunculus located in a mythical brain region with outputs and no inputs. Based on a discussion of recent brain (...) imaging experiments, we argue for the need to factor the interaction between the experimenter and the experimental participant into a realistic understanding of top-down control. We suggest these interactions involve a ‘sharing of scripts’ for perception and action that may be described as ‘top-top processes.’ We thereby expand the understanding of the homunculus to include elements of social cognition. This conceptual reconfiguration may grant some sort of asylum for a—not very omnipotent—homunculus. (shrink)

This article takes the critique by Sethi and Schepers as a starting point for discussing the United Nations Global Compact. While acknowledging the relevance of some of their arguments, we emphasize that a number of their claims remain arguable and are partly misleading. We start by discussing the limits of their proposed framework to classify voluntary initiatives for corporate sustainability and responsibility. Next, we show how a greater appreciation of the historical and political context of the UN Global Compact puts (...) several of their claims into perspective. Finally, we demonstrate that the alleged promise–performance gap rests on a selected and one-sided reading of the initiative. We close by pointing to some challenges that the initiative needs to address in the future. (shrink)

Cognitive functions like perception, memory, language, or consciousness are based on highly parallel and distributed information processing by the brain. One of the major unresolved questions is how information can be integrated and how coherent representational states can be established in the distributed neuronal systems subserving these functions. It has been suggested that this so-called ''binding problem'' may be solved in the temporal domain. The hypothesis is that synchronization of neuronal discharges can serve for the integration of distributed neurons into (...) cell assemblies and that this process may underlie the selection of perceptually and behaviorally relevant information. As we intend to show here, this temporal binding hypothesis has implications for the search of the neural correlate of consciousness. We review experimental results, mainly obtained in the visual system, which support the notion of temporal binding. In particular, we discuss recent experiments on the neural mechanisms of binocular rivalry which suggest that appropriate synchronization among cortical neurons may be one of the necessary conditions for the buildup of perceptual states and awareness of sensory stimuli. (shrink)

Different people have different perceptions about artificial intelligence (AI). It is extremely important to bring together all the alternative frames of thinking—from the various communities of developers, researchers, business leaders, policymakers, and citizens—to properly start acknowledging AI. This article highlights the ‘fruitful collaboration’ that sociology and AI could develop in both social and technical terms. We discuss how biases and unfairness are among the major challenges to be addressed in such a sociotechnical perspective. First, as intelligent machines reveal their nature (...) of ‘magnifying glasses’ in the automation of existing inequalities, we show how the AI technical community is calling for transparency and explainability, accountability and contestability. Not to be considered as panaceas, they all contribute to ensuring human control in novel practices that include requirement, design and development methodologies for a fairer AI. Second, we elaborate on the mounting attention for technological narratives as technology is recognized as a social practice within a specific institutional context. Not only do narratives reflect organizing visions for society, but they also are a tangible sign of the traditional lines of social, economic, and political inequalities. We conclude with a call for a diverse approach within the AI community and a richer knowledge about narratives as they help in better addressing future technical developments, public debate, and policy. AI practice is interdisciplinary by nature and it will benefit from a socio-technical perspective. (shrink)

I explore the limits of corporate responsibility standards – for example Social Accountability 8000 (SA 8000), the Global Reporting Initiative, the Fair Labor Association workplace code – by looking at these initiatives through Derrida's aporias of justice as set out in 'Force of Law: The "Mystical Foundation of Authority"'. Based on a discussion of SA 8000, I uncover the unavoidable aporias that are associated with the use of this standard. I contribute to the literature on corporate responsibility standards in general (...) and SA 8000 in particular by showing (a) that attempts to standardise corporate responsibility can only be successful insofar as we recognise that compliance with SA 8000's rules requires a 'fresh judgement' every time they are applied, (b) that SA 8000 should not be pushed down the supply chain as such coercion does not require a truly responsible decision by suppliers and eventually leads to moral mediocrity and (c) that the necessarily time-consuming reflections about the singular contexts within which SA 8000 is applied challenge the urgent need for implementing this standard. I discuss the implications of my analysis of SA 8000 for corporate responsibility standards in general. (shrink)

A curious feature of Belnap’s “useful four-valued logic”, also known as first-degree entailment (FDE), is that the overdetermined value B (both true and false) is treated as a designated value. Although there are good theoretical reasons for this, it seems prima facie more plausible to have only one of the four values designated, namely T (exactly true). This paper follows this route and investigates the resulting logic, which we call Exactly True Logic.

Modal logic has been applied in many different areas, as reasoning about time, knowledge and belief, necessity and possibility, to mention only some examples. In the present paper, an attempt is made to use modal logic to account for the semantics of theoretical sentences in scientific language. Theoretical sentences have been studied extensively since the work of Ramsey and Carnap. The present attempt at a modal analysis is motivated by there being several intended interpretations of the theoretical terms once these (...) terms are introduced through the axioms of a theory. (shrink)

This book aims to lay bare the logical foundations of tractable reasoning. It draws on Marvin Minsky's seminal work on frames, which has been highly influential in computer science and, to a lesser extent, in cognitive science. Only very few people have explored ideas about frames in logic, which is why the investigation in this book breaks new ground. The apparent intractability of dynamic, inferential reasoning is an unsolved problem in both cognitive science and logic-oriented artificial intelligence. By means of (...) a logical investigation of frames and frame concepts, Andreas devises a novel logic of tractable reasoning, called frame logic. Moreover, he devises a novel belief revision scheme, which is tractable for frame logic. These tractability results shed new light on our logical and cognitive means to carry out dynamic, inferential reasoning. Modularity remains central for tractability, and so the author sets forth a logical variant of the massive modularity hypothesis in cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper investigates different modes of organizing for corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on insights from organization theory, we theorize two ways to organize for CSR. “Complete” organization for CSR happens within businesses and depends on the availability of certain organizational elements (e.g., membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctioning). By contrast, “partial” organization for CSR happens when organizers do not have direct access to all these organizational elements. We discuss partial organization for CSR by analyzing how standards and cross-sector partnerships (...) make selective use of organizational elements. We maintain that an important feature of the increasing institutionalization of CSR—not only within businesses but also among non-governmental, governmental, and professional actors—is the rise of partial forms of organization. We discuss the contributions to this Special Issue in the context of our theorization of complete/partial organization for CSR and outline avenues for further research. (shrink)

Two prominent relational egalitarians, Elizabeth Anderson and Niko Kolodny, object to giving people in a democratic community differential voting weights on the grounds that doing so would lead to unequal relations between them. Their claim is that deviating from a “one-person, one-vote” scheme is incompatible with realizing relational egalitarian justice. In this article, I argue that they are wrong. I do so by showing that people can relate as moral, epistemic, social, and empirical equals in a scheme with differential voting (...) weights. I end the article by showing that from the perspective of relational egalitarianism, it is sometimes true that differential voting weights are more just than equal voting weights. (shrink)

Faced with the ongoing tragedy of poverty, ethicists call for effective measures of global justice to set up just institutional structures. Their arguments for a transnational obligation to help however remain contested, one of the main reasons for that being the lack of motivational support for trans-national visions of global justice. This articles suggests that the debate will gain new and helpful insights if it studies the motivational mechanisms at work in the dominant religious and cultural traditions, asking: How do (...) these particular traditions conceive of social justice; how do they motivate their adherents to extend solidarity? And how can the similarities surfacing in their motivational strategies be informative for the quest to devise a motivationally saturated account of global justice? The article demonstrates the potential of such an concrete-universal discourse in an exemplary manner by staging a dialogue between public Christian Social Ethics and African Ubuntu Ethics. (shrink)

This paper tries to explain why racial profiling involves a serious injustice and to do so in a way that avoids the problems of existing philosophical accounts. An initially plausible view maintains that racial profiling is pro tanto wrong in and of itself by violating a constraint on fair treatment that is generally violated by acts of statistical discrimination based on ascribed characteristics. However, consideration of other cases involving statistical discrimination suggests that violating a constraint of this kind may not (...) be an especially serious wrong in and of itself. To fully capture the significant wrong that occurs when racial profiling is targeted at black Americans or other similarly situated groups, it is argued that we should appeal to the idea that this basic injustice is exacerbated when it forms part of a larger pattern of similar actions that collectively realize a state of cumulative injustice. (shrink)

Whereas scholars often look to De Anima 2.5 to support one or another understanding of the sense in which perception, for Aristotle, qualifies as an alteration and qualitative assimilation to the sense-object, I ask the more basic question of what the chapter is meant to establish or accomplish with respect to the question whether perception is an alteration. I argue that the chapter does not presuppose or legitimate the view that perception is an alteration where it is thought to, and (...) that it is meant rather to challenge that view, most importantly, by putting its argumentative weight behind a different model of perception, leading to a kind of antinomy. What stands in the way of understanding perception as an alteration (and assimilation to the sense-object), in this chapter, is ultimately the lack of an account of perceiving a quality as having that quality. (shrink)

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und Literaturwissenschaften (...) sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

Is international judicial human rights review anti-democratic and therefore illegitimate, and objectionably epistocratic to boot? Or is such review compatible with—and even a recommended component of—an epistemic account of democracy? This article defends the latter position, laying out the case for the legitimacy, possibly democratic legitimacy of such judicial review of democratically enacted legislation and policy-making. The article first offers a brief conceptual sketch of the kind of epistemic democracy and the kind of international human rights courts of concern—in particular (...) the European Court of Human Rights. The article goes on to develop some of the relevant aspects of democratic theory: components of an epistemic justification for democratic majority rule, namely to determine whether proposed policy and legislation bundles are just, and providing assurance thereof. Several critical premises and scope conditions are noted. The article goes on to consider the case for international judicial review, arguing that such review helps secure those premises and scope conditions. The article finally considers the scope such review should have—and some objections to such an account. (shrink)

Dieses Kapitel gibt einen Überblick über philosophische Debatten zum Umgang mit menschlicher Mobilität über nationalstaatliche Grenzen. Dabei wird zum einen auf die Diskussion über ein staatliches Recht auf Ausschluss bzw. ein individuelles Recht auf Einwanderung eingegangen, zum anderen wird die Frage beleuchtet, wer aufgrund einer besonderen Bedrohungslage im Herkunftsland einen Anspruch auf Aufnahme hat und wie Pflichten zur Aufnahme von Geflüchteten unter den Staaten zu verteilen sind.

According to David Lewis, the argument from temporary intrinsics is ‘the principal and decisive objection against endurance’. I focus on eternalist endurantism, discussing three different ways the eternalist endurantist can try to avoid treating temporary intrinsics as relational. Two of them, generally known as ‘adverbialism’ and ‘SOFism’, are familiar and controversial. I scrutinize them and argue that Lewis’ scepticism about them is well founded. Then, I sketch a further, to some extent new, version of eternalist endurantism, where the key idea (...) is that intrinsic monadic properties had simpliciter by objects are eternal, time-transcendent properties in Fine’s sense, i.e., properties had by objects regardless of time. Eternal properties of an object are ipso facto sempiternal. When something is P at one time and not P at another, it is radically indeterminate whether it is Psimpliciter or not. I argue that an account along these lines is better placed to treat intrinsic monadic properties of changing objects than any other known alternatives insofar as it recognizes that something is Psimpliciter ; it is able to account for x’s being P at a time in terms of something’s being P simpliciter; it has an answer to the question ‘is \simpliciter?’ when x is P at one time and not P at another. I conclude that endurantism is no less at ease with intrinsics than perdurantism is. (shrink)

Recently, the idea that our desire for the esteem of others could function as a regulative principle of social life has been criticized because the economy of esteem could reinforce oppressive structures due to expressions of mutual esteem within oppressing groups with deviant group norms. This article discusses this problem from a historical point of view, focusing on the moral and political writings of the eighteenth-century French materialist Paul Thiry d’Holbach. D’Holbach’s thoughts are relevant in two respects: For situations of (...) extreme power and wealth differences within oppressing groups, he shows that the economy of esteem does not work in favour of the members of these groups. This is so because the conditions of esteem and self-esteem of the members with lower hierarchical standing tend to be precarious, while the members with higher standing cannot use the flatteries of their inferiors as credible sources of esteem. D’Holbach concedes that self-esteem could be stabilized by refraining from self-reflection but argues that such a strategy comes at the price of an impaired capacity for protecting one’s natural needs. The upshot of his considerations is that our interest in esteem and self-esteem provides strong pragmatic and moral reasons for opposing oppression. (shrink)

In this article, Andreas Reichelt Lind explores the possibilities of a Deweyan account of education for democracy. To that end, an account emphasizing democratic habit formation, direct experience of democracy as a way of life, and the distinction between being and becoming is explicated and discussed. Lind shows how these elements together point to the issue of designing educational environments and then discusses in a preliminary way the implications of this insight from the perspective of education for democracy. The (...) article's contribution is twofold. First, it explicitly contributes to a reconstruction of Dewey in relation to the issue of educating for democracy. This represents a reframing of his writings. Second, it highlights and discusses some theoretical implications of the possibilities inherent in the Deweyan account of education for democracy. (shrink)

The following is a set of reading notes on, and questions for, the Neuroeconomics enterprise. My reading of neuroscience evidence seems to be at odds with basic conceptions routinely assumed in the Neuroeconomics literature. I also summarize methodological concerns regarding design, implementation, and statistical evaluation of Neuroeconomics experiments.

El estudio de la paralingüística, esto es, los modos de comunicar sin recurrir al lenguaje, ya sea de manera consciente, intencional y voluntaria, o de algún otro modo, es un componente esencial de cualquier intento por reconstruir, comprender e interpretar los sistemas de comunicación cultural, social, institucional, moral e interpersonal en las sociedades modernas y antiguas. Tres aspectos específicos de la paralingüística, tal como son descritos en la oratoria ática, son examinados en este artículo: el rostro y los órganos faciales (...) (como la boca y la nariz), las manos y el modo de andar. La hipótesis es que las referencias a la paralingüística apuntan a ganarse al auditorio en el tribunal o en las asambleas políticas suscitando emociones e incitando una guerra entre los oponentes del orador y la comunidad ateniense, cuyos valores culturales y creencias, según son presentados, los oponentes transgreden. (shrink)

This paper has two parts. First, I argue that three prominent arguments in favour of affirmative action—the mitigating discrimination argument, the equality of opportunity argument and the diversity argument—may be based on a relational egalitarian theory of justice, as opposed to a distributive understanding of justice. Second, I argue that basing these arguments in favour of affirmative action on relational egalitarianism has an interesting implication when it comes to the site(s) of affirmative action. Whereas affirmative action is usually discussed and (...) pursued in university admissions and in hiring for jobs, the relational egalitarian-based arguments entail, all else equal, that we have more reason to pursue affirmative action in the political domain than in the traditional sites. (shrink)

This paper aims to set forth Carnapian structuralism, i.e., a syntactic view of the structuralist approach which is deeply inspired by Carnap’s dual level conception of scientific theories. At its core is the axiomatisation of a metatheoretical concept AE(T) which characterises those extensions of an intended application that are admissible in the sense of being models of the theory-element T and that satisfy all links, constraints and specialisations. The union of axiom systems of AE(T) (where T is an element of (...) the theory-net N) will allow us to present scientific theories in an axiomatic fashion so that deductive reasoning in science can be formalised. Thereupon defeasible and paraconsistent means of reasoning will be introduced. The logical study of scientific reasoning is the key motivation of Carnapian structuralism. A further motivation is to help overcome the syntactic-semantic split in the philosophy of science. (shrink)