In the city of Elche, every year, on the 14th and 15th of August, a sacred musical play about the death, the Assumption and the Coronation of the Virgin Mary is held. This event, known as the “Misterio de Elche”, is unique in the world. Since the middle of the 15th century it has been performed in the Basilica of Santa Maria and in the streets of the ancient city of Elche, located in the Valencian Community. In this work, classified (...) as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the interior of the temple is transformed into 2 main stages, the scaffold, located in the lower part, and the aerial stage, located in the dome at a height of 27 m. The structure and the traction mechanisms located on the aerial stage allow the aerial devices that take part in the play, “El Araceli”, “La Mangrana” and “La Santísima Trinidad”, to be raised and lowered. It should be noted that between 2 and 5 singing actors are embarked on these devices. This article describes the main characteristics of the aerial stage structure, the 3 apparatus and the mechanical systems used. In addition, the age and modifications of “El Araceli” are analysed, as well as the results of a non-destructive test carried out on this device. (shrink)

The purpose of Baghramian and Coliva’s book is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at identifying a consistent set of commitments shared by all theories that have.

An emerging literature has begun to document the emotional consequences of everyday executive functions on emotional distress. Little is known, however, about whether this relation is mediated by other variables. A multiple mediation model was proposed to integrate core concepts of daily executive dysfunctions with emotional distress in order to increase understanding of their relationship to psychological well-being and emotional regulation. The working hypothesis was that dimensions of well-being and emotional regulation may be a suitable mediator. It was hypothesized that (...) dimensions of well-being and emotional regulation are a possible mediator between the executive dysfunctions and psychological distress. Participants were 122 undergraduate students from university courses in General Education and Social Education at, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, with a mean age of 21.76. Results indicate that several dimensions of psychological well-being and emotional reappraisal strategies mediate the relationships between daily executive dysfunctions and psychological distress. Implications of these data are discussed. (shrink)

El consumo responsable se está convirtiendo en una de esas muletillas que tanto valen para un barrido como para un fregado. La publicidad, como el algodón, no engaña y cuando algo llega a ser argumento de venta, es que ha alcanzado la consagración social, lo que a menudo equivale a la trivialización significativa.

Este trabajo analiza el lenguaje subjetivo empleado por el intelectual y político andalusí Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-Ḫaṭīb (m. 1375) en su obra de exilio Nufāḍat al-ǧirāb. El objetivo es explorar la utilidad de un enfoque lingüístico en la comprensión del lugar que ocupa este texto dentro del proceso de transición cultural del Occidente islámico hacia el paradigma moderno europeo. El estudio se divide en tres partes: en la primera, se hace una breve introducción al autor, a su contexto socio-político y (...) al contenido de la obra; en la segunda, se plantea una metodología cuantitativo-cualitativa a través de la cual se estructura el texto misceláneo digitalizado en función de sus géneros y se especifica un esquema de anotación que permite extraer las instancias de los fenómenos lingüísticos más destacados; y en la tercera, se procede al análisis de los datos obtenidos en torno a la acción, la emoción y la evaluación. El análisis muestra una compleja codificación de la subjetividad en la Nufāḍa donde, a diferencia del Taʿrīf de Ibn Ḫaldūn, las marcas de expresión en primera persona, aunque significativas, son escasas. Sin embargo, se identifica un abundante uso de adjetivos evaluativos a lo largo de la obra, con una riqueza léxica que permite revelar de forma explícita el punto de vista del sujeto autor. Este hallazgo demuestra la utilidad de una metodología híbrida en la aproximación a textos histórico-literarios premodernos, así como la necesidad de incorporar el análisis lingüístico, empírico y comparativo al estudio de la transición epistemológica señalada. (shrink)

O objetivo principal deste artigo será tornar mais claro o papel desempenhado pela noção de “forma de vida” nos escritos de Ludwig Wittgenstein. Como pano de fundo desta discussão, teremos em mente a questão do emprego do termo “forma de vida” no plural ou apenas no singular. Investigaremos criticamente quatro possíveis interpretações oferecidas por diferentes comentaristas da obra de Wittgenstein. Cada uma delas se aterá a diferentes aspectos da noção de “forma de vida”.

O paradoxo da análise e a antinomia da relaçáo de nomeaçáo sáo dois argumentos que servem para explicitar um aspecto paradoxal das interpretações filosóficas da identidade. Meu objetivo nesse artigo será o de investigar esses paradoxos e seus papeis como limitadores de uma teoria semântica. Usarei como guia dessa investigaçáo a hipótese de que as dificuldades nas quais todas as teorias semânticas investigadas incorrem náo se devem a tese da relaçáo de nomeaçáo, como diria Carnap, mas ao caráter composicional dessas (...) teorias. Essa investigaçáo se dará em duas etapas. A primeira será uma investigaçáo a cerca das soluções que foram historicamente apresentadas para evitar esses paradoxos. Procuraremos mostrar que cada uma dessas soluções envolve de alguma maneira o problema de lidar com esse aspecto composicional. Em especial, daremos ênfase a uma tentativa fracassada de soluçáo defendida por Quine, Carnap e mesmo Wittgenstein e Russell, num certo período, que ficou conhecida como a tese da extensionalidade. A segunda etapa consistirá em uma avaliaçáo crítica sobre em que medida a verdadeira causadora dos paradoxos náo seria uma preferência filosófica equivocada por uma abordagem composicional da linguagem. Palavras-chave : Antinomia da relaçáo de nomeaçáo, Frege, Identidade, Paradoxo da análise, Tese da extensionalidade. (shrink)

Resumo: o propósito desse artigo é circunscrever e discutir a autocrítica, feita por Wittgenstein no período de 1933-39, a uma das teses mais fundamentais do Tractatus (TLP): ”Há uma e apenas uma análise completa da proposição” (3.25). Chamaremos esse procedimento peculiar de a “Grande análise”. Os argumentos de Wittgenstein contra a sustentabilidade da sua antiga tese podem ser encontrados em algumas passagens do livro Investigações Filosóficas (IF), bem como em passagens do Grande Datiloscrito (BT). Conforme será argumentado nesse artigo, essa (...) autocrítica é uma consequência direta da preocupação de Wittgenstein, no período intermediário, com duas importantes propostas feitas por Frege nos §§18-24 do Os Fundamentos da Aritmética (FA) em relação o seu entendimento da noção de “atribuição numérica”. Nosso objetivo principal será mostrar de que maneira o movimento de autocrítica feito por Wittgenstein em relação a sua antiga concepção de “Grande Análise” teria sido influenciado por suas preocupações, no período intermediário de sua obra, com essas duas propostas feita por Frege no FA a respeito da noção de “atribuição numérica”. A fim de completar tal tarefa, será apresentada inicialmente de modo breve uma versão de como seria a “Grande análise” no TLP. Em seguida, selecionaremos e discutiremos algumas passagens do IF nas quais Wittgenstein recusa a completude e unicidade envolvida em sua prévia concepção tratariana de “análise”. Procuraremos destacar com clareza uma noção que estaria envolvida de um modo essencial na autocrítica de Wittgenstein: a noção de “ver como/ver aspectos”. Como será argumentado, essa noção, assim como a autocrítica feita por Wittgenstein, foram ambas diretamente influenciadas pela noção fregiana de “atribuição numérica”. Para completar essa segunda tarefa, teremos de revisitar e discutir algumas noções pertencentes ao período inicial da filosofia de Wittgenstein -- como a de “propriedades internas e externas” e a distinção entre “dizer e mostrar” -- ambas noções discutidas no TLP. No decorrer de nossa discussão, apresentaremos uma crítica feita por Wittgenstein a Russell, mas também a Frege, sobre a concepção de generalidade, ou mais especificamente, sobre o uso do quantificador existencial, proposta por ambos. Abstract: The purpose of this article is to discuss Wittgenstein 1933-39 self-criticism of one of the most fundamental tractarian theses: There is one and only one complete analysis of the proposition (3.25). Wittgenstein's arguments against his previous thesis can be found in some passages of the Philosophical Investigation (PI) as well as in the Big Typescript (BT). As we shall argue, Wittgenstein's self-critique is directly related to two important ideas proposed by Frege in §§18-24 of The Foundations Arithmetic (FA) with respect to his construal of “number attributions”. Our main goal in this paper will therefore be to show how Wittgenstein's self-criticism of his old conception of the tractarian “analysis” would have been influenced by his concerns in the middle period of his work with these two proposals made by Frege in FA regarding the notion of “numerical attribution”. Our first task will then be to connect Wittgenstein's self-criticisms to his former conception of “analysis” in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP). To accomplish this first goal, we will have to briefly present a version of how such analysis would look like in TLP. Our next task will be to pinpoint some passages of the PI in which Wittgenstein rejects the completeness and uniqueness involved in his previous construal of the analytical process. We will try to circumscribe clearly a crucial notion involved in Wittgenstein's self-critique: the idea of “seeing as/seeing aspects”. Our claim is that this notion, as well as Wittgenstein's self-criticism, were both directly influenced by Frege's construal of the “number attribution” presented in FA. To accomplish this second task, we will have to revisit and discuss some further concepts from an early period of Wittgenstein's philosophy, like “internal and internal properties” and the “saying/showing distinction” in TLP. On our way towards accomplishing this goal, we will present a curious complaint by Wittgenstein regarding Russell's, as well as Frege's conception of generality, or more specifically, on the usage of the existential quantifier suggested by both these authors. (shrink)

La profesión de carpintero de ribera, sus técnicas, las herramientas utilizadas, los productos finales: los barcos, así como los conocimientos necesarios para su fabricación forman parte del patrimonio cultural marítimo universal. La construcción en madera es un oficio milenario que está en peligro de desaparición, y con ella uno de los elementos identitarios más importantes de las regiones costeras europeas. La escasa historiografía académica sobre los carpinteros de ribera como protagonistas es el principal motivo de este trabajo, que se adentra (...) en sus raíces, dando a conocer algunos de los aspectos más relevantes que definen e identifican la importancia del tema, como las principales actividades desarrolladas, su contextualización histórica, las técnicas, herramientas y la lengua franca marinera que compartían. Por ello, el fin último es proporcionar una fuente de referencia a quiénes apuesten, tanto de manera teórica como práctica, por la recuperación y la conservación de esta profesión ancestral sobre la que apenas existe información e investigación. Se concluye que la recuperación y gestión de este patrimonio, con vinculaciones amplias con otras actividades relacionadas, puede abrir perspectivas de consolidación patrimonial y económica en espacios marítimos poco desarrollados, ya que puede servir para sentar las bases de un futuro turismo cultural en el que estas técnicas sean protagonistas y sirvan para potenciar la identidad marítima en las regiones litorales. (shrink)

A popular accusation against moral relativism is that it goes too far in its vindication of tolerance. The idea behind accusations like this can be summarized in the slogan, frequently attributed to relativism, that “anything goes”. The aim of this paper is to defend moral relativism from the accusation that it is an “anything goes” view; from the accusation that it forces us to suspend our judgment in cases in which we do not think we should even be allowed to. (...) In the end, relativism is not an “anything goes” view because it is not a view about what goes, but about the way things go—about what goes on when we say that something is morally right or wrong. There is indeed a view, sometimes called “relativism”, that forces us to suspend our judgment about practices that do not allow for such comfort, but it is not so much moral relativism as moral contextualism. Apparently, though, the most salient alternative to “anything goes” views such as contextualism is not moral relativism. It is moral objectivism, according to which there is a fact of the matter about moral issues. However, I show that moral objectivism too ends up being an “anything goes” view unless the objectivist takes herself to be endowed with “God’s point of view”, which I prove troublesome. (shrink)

The “observational categoricals” constitute a very special set of sentences of great importance in the last phase of Quine’s work. According to Quine, the grammatical structure and therefore the role played by these sentences considered by the philosopher as the neutral empirical content of theories would solve several difficulties in semantics and epistemology. Most urgent among them would be: the incommensurability of theories, their empirical verifiability, as well as explaining the language learning process. In consequence of the importance of their (...) task and their rather late appearance, we consider quite relevant to investigate in details the origin of these choice, as well as the structure and function of these sentences, very peculiars to Quine’s semantical approach. (shrink)

Introduction: Nurses who work in an emergency department regularly care for acute patients in a fast-paced environment, being at risk of suffering high levels of burnout. This situation makes them especially vulnerable to be accountable for decisions they did not have time to consider or have been pressured into. Research objective: The objective of this study was to find which factors influence ethical, legal and professional accountability in nursing practice in an emergency department. Research design: Data were analysed, codified and (...) triangulated using qualitative ethnographic content analysis. Participants and research context: This research is set in a large emergency department in the Midlands area of England. Data were collected from 186 nurses using participant observation, 34 semi-structured interviews with nurses and ethical analysis of 54 applicable clinical policies. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval was granted by two research ethics committees and the National Health Service Health Research Authority. Results: The main result was the clinical nursing accountability cycle model, which showed accountability as a subjective concept that flows between the nurse and the healthcare institution. Moreover, the relations among the clinical nursing accountability factors are also analysed to understand which factors affect decision-making. Discussion: The retrospective understanding of the factors that regulate nursing accountability is essential to promote that both the nurse and the healthcare institution take responsibility not only for the direct consequences of their actions but also for the indirect consequences derived from previous decisions. Conclusion: The decision-making process and the accountability linked to it are affected by several factors that represent the holistic nature of both entities, which are organised and interconnected in a complex grid. This pragmatic interpretation of nursing accountability allows the nurse to comprehend how their decisions are affected, while the healthcare institution could act proactively to avoid any problems before they happen. (shrink)

As part of her argument that relativism and contextualism are nothing but notational variants of each other, Stojanovic holds that contextualism is flexible enough to achieve whatever relativism might do if the matter is what truth-value is assigned to each pair of sentence and context. In this paper, I reply to this statement by arguing that contextualism cannot be made as flexible as relativism without in fact turning it into a version of relativism. The key to my response to Stojanovic (...) is that, while relativism relativizes utterance truth, contextualism does not, so parameters that are not fixed at the context of utterance will be accessible for the relativist, but not for the contextualist. Although the relativity of utterance truth follows as soon as propositional truth is relativized to contexts of assessment, as the relativist does, it is easy to lose sight of this fact if we identify the context of assessment with the assessor’s context. Hence, the point of this paper is that the difference between relativism and contextualism is not one as to whose parameters play a role in determining the sentence’s truth-value. If it were, contextualism could indeed be made just as flexible as relativism. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction On Law and Morality Legal Rights and Legal Principles Law and Legal Systems Deontic Logic and Legal Philosophy Philosophical Doctrines in Latin America Conclusion References.

El presente artículo se desarrolla en dos direcciones temporales opuestas. En la primera recurro a la contracultura drag negra y latina de los Estados Unidos para releer la negativa de Rosa Parks a ceder su asiento en el autobús. A continuación, se plantea una genealogía queer de los usos de la teatralidad en las formas contemporáneas del activismo urbano. A partir del encuentro entre ambas líneas temporales defiendo, en diálogo con la obra reciente de Judith Butler, la importancia de la (...) dimensión performativa de las intervenciones individuales en espacios de protesta para entender el alcance movilizador de la acción colectiva. (shrink)

Introducción -- La verdad lejana : Lévi-Strauss -- Pensamiento en la trinchera : Wittgenstein -- La fuerza del destino : Nietzsche -- El despliegue del Espíritu : Hegel -- El instante frente al despliegue : Kierkegaard -- La imaginación mineral : Novalis -- Filosofía de la sospecha : Kant -- Esencia y formas de la simpatía : Hume -- El primado de la percepción : Berkeley -- La emoción geométrica : Spinoza -- Genio en continuidad : Leibniz -- Ensayo de (...) una vida : Montaigne -- El hombre tranquilo : Tomás de Aquino -- La vida apasionada : Agustín de Hipona -- Emanaciones : Plotino -- Filosofía del caminante : Aristóteles -- La espalda del mundo : Platón --El chamán y el filósofo : Empédocles y Parménides -- En busca del fuego : Heráclito. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider some problems concerning the structure of legal systems. In order to do this, I basically analyze the promulgation and derogation of legal rules. Frequently, promulgation has been referred to as the introduction of a rule into, and derogation as the removal of a rule from, a normative system. I try to show that there is more to it than that. One of the main ideas of the paper is that the enactment or derogation of a (...) legal rule by an authority na restricts the competence of all lower authorities: Once a rule R has been enacted by an authority na, authorities inferior to na cannot remove R from the normative system; and when R has been derogated by na, lower authorities do not have the competence to introduce R into the system. Further important questions include: What happens with derogated rules? What is the structure of the set of derogated rules? When does a rule belong to a derogated set, and when is it removed from a derogated set? These questions are very important for a theory of legal systems, and I try to give some possible answers. Perhaps the main conclusion of the paper is that promulgation and derogation can be considered very similar processes with respect to legal systems. (shrink)

The casting of maize seeds is a tool used by contemporary daykeepers in the Ayöök area of Oaxaca, Mexico, which along with the prognostications and prescriptions of the 260-day calendar, helps to cure illnesses and afflictions. This divinatory practice was also employed by precolonial tonalpouhque, who were experts of reading the tonalamatl, the pictographic manuscripts with calendrical, ritual and oracular content, such as the now called Borgia Group codices. In this article maize divination will be described and analyzed, arguing that (...) maize divination results in images that can be read in a similar way to these codices. The reading of maize is approached here by employing the concepts of signs and symbols as described by Carl Jung and the notions of chronotope and dialogical narratives by Mijail Bakhtin. The Jungian understanding of divinatory practices as a means of gaining consciousness of oneself is also applied to argue in favor of the therapeutic capacity of reading maize, as it offers relief and triggers action. (shrink)

Este artigo trata do chamado “problema de incompatibilidade de cores”, enfrentado por Wittgenstein no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, em seus Manuscritos inéditos 105 e 106, e em seu único artigo publicado – “Some Remarks on Logical Forms” (SRLF). Nossa tarefa será dupla. Primeiro, pretendemos mostrar como e por que Wittgenstein ficou preso nesse dilema. Nossa segunda tarefa será muito mais específica.Tentaremos elucidar alguns detalhes sobre a impossibilidade de reduzir predicados de cor a unidades mais fundamentais de brilho, croma e intensidade. Nosso objetivo (...) é mostrar como e por que os números tiveram que ser introduzidos na estrutura interna das proposições elementares. Também queremos investigar como Wittgenstein tentou fazer isso através da ideia de um “esquema” e uma operação nãover-funcional. Pretendemos também apresentar algumas vantagens que Wittgenstein obteve ao usar uma notação de barra para sua construção dos “esquemas”.AbstractThis paper deals with the so-called “color incompatibility problem”, faced by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in his unpublished Manuscripts 105 and 106, and in his only published paper – “Some Remarks on Logical Forms” – (SRLF, for now on). Our task will be a twofold one. First, we aspire to show how and why Wittgenstein got stuck into that dilemma. Our second task will be much more specific. We will try to elucidate some details about the impossibility of reducing color predicates to more fundamental units of brightness, chroma, and intensity. We aim to show how and why numbers had to be introduced into the inner structure of elementary propositions. We also want to investigate how he tried to do that through the idea of a “scheme” and a non-truth functional operation. We aim also to present some advantages Wittgenstein gained from using a bar notation for his construal of the “schemes”. (shrink)

The particular behavior exhibited by sentences featuring predicates of personal taste such as “tasty” may drive us to claim that their truth depends on the context of assessment, as MacFarlane does. MacFarlane considers two ways in which the truth of a sentence can depend on the context of assessment. On the one hand, we can say that the sentence expresses a proposition whose truth-value depends on the context of assessment. This is MacFarlane’s position, which he calls “truth relativism” and, following (...) Weatherson, I rebrand as “nonindexical relativism”. On the other hand, we can say that what proposition a sentence expresses depends on the context of assessment. MacFarlane calls this position “content relativism” and rejects it on the grounds that it leads to implausible readings of certain sentences and is unable to account for the speaker’s authority over the content of her assertions. In this paper, I too argue against content relativism, which, again following Weatherson, I rebrand as “indexical relativism”. However, my arguments against the theory are different from MacFarlane’s, which I prove unsound. In particular, I show that any version of indexical relativism will be unable to account for at least one of the phenomena that have been standardly used to motivate nonindexical relativism—faultless disagreement and retraction—in most of the ways in which it has been proposed to understand them. (shrink)

We may succed in the fulfilment of our desires but still fail to properly own our practical life, perhaps because we acted as addicts, driven by desires that are alien to our will, or as “wantons,” satisfying the desires that we simply happen to have (Frankfurt, 1988 ). May we equally fail to own the outcomes of our epistemic life? If so, how may we attain epistemic ownership over it? This paper explores the structural parallellism between practical and epistemic rationality, (...) building on Williamson’s ( 2002 ) suggestion that we should commence with successful performances as the foundation for both domains, be it action or knowledge. By highlighting the limitations of higher-order regulative approaches in epistemology, exemplified by Sosa ( 2007, 2011, 2015, 2021 ), the paper introduces a form of teleological epistemic constitutivism inspired by Velleman ( 2000, 2009 ). The proposal is that epistemic ownership is not attained in the mere pursuit of truth or knowledge, but requires furthermore a struggle to understand what we know. (shrink)

The extent to which we generalize a novel property from a sample of familiar instances to novel instances depends on the sample composition. Previous property induction experiments have only used samples consisting of novel types (unique entities). Because real‐world evidence samples often contain redundant tokens (repetitions of the same entity), we studied the effects on property induction of adding types and tokens to an observed sample. In Experiments 1–3, we presented participants with a sample of birds or flowers known to (...) have a novel property and probed whether this property generalized to novel items varying in similarity to the initial sample. Increasing the number of novel types (e.g., new birds with the target property) in a sample produced tightening, promoting property generalization to highly similar stimuli but decreasing generalization to less similar stimuli. On the other hand, increasing the number of tokens (e.g., repeated presentations of the same bird with the target property) had little effect on generalization. Experiment 4 showed that repeated tokens are encoded and can benefit recognition, but appear to be given little weight when inferring property generalization. We modified an existing Bayesian model of induction (Navarro, Dry, & Lee, 2012) to account for both the information added by new types and the discounting of information conveyed by tokens. (shrink)

Para las tradiciones escolásticas budistas, el universo es inseparable de la vida mental de los seres que lo habitan, siendo las acciones de los seres, con sus estados mentales asociados, las que trazan el mapa y calendario cósmico. Algunos investigadores han visto en estas asociaciones entre mente y universo la «contraparte imaginativa, mítica y poética de los estados meditativos». Este artículo intenta mostrar cómo la propia escolástica mantiene cierta ambigüedad sobre si el cosmos debe entenderse como una metáfora de la (...) mente o debe identificarse literalmente con ella. Algunos pasajes establecen una complementariedad que parece afirmar la existencia independiente de ambos. Sea como fuere, contrastar las descripciones de estados mentales con relatos cosmogónicos nos permitirá comprender mejor la idea del cosmos en el budismo antiguo. (shrink)

Astrology, its legitimacy, and the limits of its acceptable practice were debated in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Many of the related arguments were mediated by the work of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and the responses to it. Acknowledging the complexities of the relationship between astrological ideas and Christian teachings, this paper focuses on the Catholic debates by specifically considering the decisions about astrology taken by the Spanish Inquisition. The trials of astrologers are examined with the aim of understanding the role (...) of experts in astrology in early modern Spain. This study brings into view the specific nature of the debate on astrology in Spain, the consequences of the actions of the Inquisition and the social control it exerted. The historical events discussed comprise a particular case and also mirror the general debates about astrology taking place in early modern Europe. The experts’ opinions expressed in trials and in reports about the discipline received by the Inquisition reveal two key traits of the debate: the dispute about who had the authority to decide on the legitimacy of astrology and the disagreement about what constituted natural and judicial astrological practices. These led to different opinions about what was to be done with each defendant and about what content in their books ought to be forbidden. (shrink)

Resumen En un mundo irreversiblemente globalizado, la ética del desarrollo señala los principales argumentos, conceptos y principios que pueden orientar las políticas de desarrollo en el interior de los países y también en las relaciones internacionales. Desde que nació en los años 60, la ética del desarrollo ha impulsado en gran medida el tránsito desde un concepto de desarrollo inicialmente muy pobre hasta el actual concepto complejo de desarrollo humano sostenible.In an irreversibly globalized world, Development Ethics points out the main (...) arguments, concepts and principles that can guide development policies within countries and also in international relations. Since it was born in the 1960s, Development Ethics has largely driven the transition from an initially very poor development concept to the present complex concept of sustainable human development. (shrink)

This paper advances new theses about the relationship between luck and risk, using recent work by Duncan Pritchard (2014, 2015, 2016) as its foil. Once Pritchard’s views are introduced in section 1, the rest of the paper completes two different tasks, one critical and one constructive. By focussing on some epistemological cases that Pritchard’s model would fail to identify, section 2 shows that it relies on a difference that is in fact inessential: the one between the occurrence and the non‐occurrence (...) of an event. Section 3 sketches and defends an alternative account of the luck/risk distinction, based on the consideration of situations (instead of events) from different temporal perspectives: luck assessments track a situation’s past, considering it the actual outcome of some previous event, whereas risk assessments look at the situation’s future, regarding it as the initial condition of some unsettled event. (shrink)

Randomized controlled trials test new drugs using various debiasing devices to prevent participants from manipulating the trials. But participants often dislike controls, arguing that they impose a paternalist constraint on their legitimate preferences. The 21st Century Cures Act, passed by US Congress in 2016, encourages the Food and Drug Administration to use alternative testing methods, incorporating participants’ preferences, for regulatory purposes. We discuss, from a historical perspective, the trade-off between trial impartiality and participants’ freedom. We argue that the only way (...) out is considering which methods improve upon the performance of conventional trials in keeping dangerous or inefficacious compounds out of pharmaceutical markets. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend moral relativism from the accusation that it would make it irrational to classify past changes in public opinion as instances of moral progress, for they would constitute an improvement only from our current point of view. The argument is this. For our assessment of a change in public opinion as an instance of moral progress to be rational, we need to take the moral claims made before the change to be false simpliciter (...) while being open to the possibility that we ourselves change our minds at some point. These two things can be made compatible if we construe moral relativism as taking the truth of moral claims to be relative to the context of assessment. Thus understood, moral relativism is in fact the only view that makes room for talk of moral progress, as the rest of candidate positions make it irrational. (shrink)