ABSTRACT Moral hazards are ubiquitous. Green ones typically involve technological fixes: Environmentalists often see ‘technofixes’ as morally fraught because they absolve actors from taking more difficult steps toward systemic solutions. Carbon removal and especially solar geoengineering are only the latest example of such technologies. We here explore green moral hazards throughout American history. We argue that dismissing (solar) geoengineering on moral hazard grounds is often unproductive. Instead, especially those vehemently opposed to the technology should use it as an opportunity to (...) expand the attention paid to the underlying environmental problem in the first place, actively invoking its opposite: ‘inverse moral hazards’. (shrink)

Este artigo aborda sobre as clássicas concepções do atual modelo de sociedade em meio a um contexto de pandemia viral. Para tanto, a questão que o permeia é a seguinte: O que caracteriza uma “sociedade em rede”, alterada pelo “meio técnico-científico-informacional” e imersa numa “modernidade líquida”? Essa abordagem, sobretudo num latente contexto de crises, revela-se imprescindível para a compreensão do que venha a ser progresso na sociedade contemporânea. Adotando como pano de fundo o contexto da pandemia do novo Coronavírus no (...) Brasil, objetiva-se desvelar os paradoxos desse modelo de sociedade. Caracteriza-se, metodologicamente, como uma revisão de literatura que traz à tona paradoxos de uma “modernidade líquida”. Para tanto, ancora-se em fundamentos filosóficos, históricos, geográficos e socioculturais que envolvem o tema. Como principais resultados, evidencia que o contexto pandêmico, adotado como caso empírico de análise, se faz necessário: pensar os atributos inerentes a uma “modernidade líquida”, os quais, paradoxalmente, estão vinculados à noção daquilo que se idealizou por chamar de progresso e/ou visão de futuro; desvelar a falsa consciência de seres autossuficientes e a importância que possui o sentimento de alteridade em qualquer sociedade; e romper com a ilusão de que o homem é, em si, o único responsável por sua própria existência. Conclui-se defendendo uma complementariedade entre a sentença aristotélica sobre natureza social humana e os postulados hegelianos acerca da ontologia do Ser. (shrink)

Why would businesses advocate for a tax increase? They may take such a position, this article argues, when tax cuts threaten their long-term economic interests. In 2012, Kansas eliminated taxes on many business owners but destabilized the economy and exposed small business to the harshness of market forces. Small businesses rely more on state services than large businesses and are more situated in local communities. The literature suggests two main reasons for small businesses’ “enlightened self-interest” perspective. First, many benefited only (...) marginally from the tax cuts. Second, the savings were offset by fiscal damage to state services that small businesses rely on. They advocated for higher taxes on themselves neither out of altruism nor entirely out of self-interest but recognizing that they had to pay taxes in order to stabilize the economic environment. In that position, small businesses in Kansas may occupy the moderating political role once occupied by a now-fractured corporate elite. (shrink)

1. pte. Introducción al estudio del derecho y ciencias sociales.

Giving Voice To Values (GVV) serves as a framework to teach individuals methods to speak up when they witness actions that are contrary to their professional and personal values. This essay illustrates how GVV serves as a catalyst to advance both research and teaching activities.

Scientific advancement is inextricably linked to cultural advancement, and historically the arts have worked hand in hand with technological change. This essay explores some of the connections that exist between science, technology, and the arts, privileging instances where technological change resulted in new forms of artistic creation. Although the role of the arts in contemporary society has ebbed in comparison to that of technology and science, the essay argues that quality, meaningfulness, and longevity are key components in how the arts (...) can retain cultural value in today’s technocentric world. It explores significant instances from the history of music and visual art as the authors make the case that the methods of science and art are both distinct yet commensurate in their ability to shape the values and ideas of contemporary society. (shrink)

Human rights are a construct of international law. Their legitimacy depends on them being informed by the deep-seated fact of global cultural pluralism and the concern of establishing a system that recognizes this pluralism, transcends a narrow parochial perspective and thus avoids the accusation of cultural or moral colonialism. There are two broad strategies to do this: by invoking an individualist-moral conception of HR designed to promote well-being and by invoking a social-political conception of HR aimed at preserving world peace (...) and stability. Economic rights are rights to commodify—to sell one’s labor, to buy goods and services and so on—under fair terms. That is to say, to take part in economic activities such as production and consumption within a distinctive social form by which they are mediated through exchange. I argue that endorsing rights of commodification is incompatible with a genuine concern with parochialism. Economic rights are neither necessary to protect some natural interest shared by all humans, nor the stability of a peaceful world order. Hence, economic rights should not be considered human rights. (shrink)

Medo e esperança aparecem na história da filosofia como problemas situados na dimensão temporal da existência. Espinosa acompanha essa tradição, bem como o uso da filosofia como uma medicina animi, porém reserva para si algumas diferenças. Ressaltando o papel da imagem na constituição de medo e esperança, demarca a via pela qual estes dois afetos são necessariamente produzidos pela limitação da imaginação à duração dos corpos. No entanto, quando livre dos impedimentos à sua potência, a mente é capaz de ordenar (...) e concatenar as afecções do corpo, considerando a si mesma sem relação ao corpo, sob uma nova perspectiva. O tratamento do problema do medo, portanto, não se localiza no tempo presente, mas sim na eternidade. (shrink)

This survey explores interactions between syntax and discourse, through a case study of patterns of extraction from coordinate structures. The theoretical breadth of the volume makes it the most complete account of extraction from coordinate structures to date: at first glance, it appears to be a syntactic matter, but the survey raises theoretical and empirical questions not just for syntax, but also across semantics, pragmatics, and discourse structure. Rather than promoting a single analysis, Daniel Altshuler and Robert Truswell outline (...) reasonable hypotheses that allow theoretical conclusions to be deducted from empirical facts. The theoretical conclusions show that coordinate structures have the potential to discriminate between current syntactic theories, and to inform work on the interfaces between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. In many cases, however, the necessary empirical work has not yet been carried out, and too much of the literature revolves around the same handful of primarily English examples. The volume offers a starting point for further research on extraction from coordinate structures, particularly in understudied languages, and provides a guide to how to tease out the theoretical implications of empirical findings. (shrink)

O cenário contemporâneo dos jogos eletrônicos tem dado mostras de que a competência do jogador não está mais limitada a interações psicomotoras com vistas ao fim de sagrar-se vencedor. A permanência do jogador nos espaços virtuais em modo singleplayer, no uso solitário que faz da máquina, como nos casos dos games de ação em mundo aberto que representam cidades reais, leva-nos à constatação de uma fruição do objeto técnico satisfeita no simples “estado de estar” no jogo, permitindo uma espécie de (...) experiência urbana a partir do contato com os conteúdos midiáticos. Disso advêm as análises que demonstramos, tais como as percepções reflexivas da cibervivência da vida urbana através do game Watch_Dogs, ambientado na cidade de Chicago. (shrink)

The publication of Moshe Idel’s book, Kabbalah: New Perspectives marks a turning point in the field of Jewish mysticism. In this volume, Moshe Idel offered phenomenology as an alternative key to appreciating the history and ideas of Jewish mystical traditions. This study returns to this book in order to assess and critique the meaning and function of phenomenology in his early scholarship, as a prelude to the developing and possibly changing methodologies that he has employed in numerous studies published since (...) the appearance of his now classic study. The study considers the connection between phenomenology and experience and its role within the multiple perspectives suggested in the volume. Moshe Idel’s methodology is thus appreciated within the larger context of his work, positioned within the history of scholarship in the field and serves as a measure of the turn to new perspectives. (shrink)

The lineage of philosophical hermeneutics is indelibly marked by the discourse of asceticism and otherworldliness. This influence springs most immediately from Nietzsche but finds itself provocatively manifest in the recent and ongoing return of philosophical hermeneutics to religious patterns of thought. This work will consider the hermeneutic encounter with and appropriation of asceticism in the work of Gianni Vattimo. In one sense, this engagement would appear an unlikely one, as Vattimo (following Nietzsche) is openly suspicious of the voluntary assumption of (...) and salvific role for suffering in the quest for human flourishing. However, upon closer inspection, we see that a reconfigured asceticism, focused on the turning of power against itself and the reconfiguration of our relationship with the world, is alive and well in Vattimo’s “weak thought.” More radically, Vattimo’s thought represents a purification-even a mortification- of asceticism by cleansing it of its untenable and burdensome metaphysical baggage and allowing for a renewed and authentic approach to religiosity. (shrink)

David Atkinson asks whether nonempirical constructions can lead to genuine knowledge in science, and answers in the negative. Thought experiments, in his view, are to be commended only insofar as they eventually lead to real experiments. The claim does not rely on a general study, conceptual or historical, of thought experiments as such: the range of the paper is at once narrower and broader. Atkinson views thought experiments as commonly understood as just one kind of episode in the development of (...) physics in which real experimentation is bypassed, and he believes that such episodes are justified only inasmuch as they are transitory stages on the way to genuine empirical inquiry. Atkinson wants to kill with one arrow what is usually regarded as two different birds: the notion that thought experiments proper can be persuasive in themselves, and the thesis that theories which cannot be brought to the tribunal of experience can nevertheless belong to science. He thus implicitly opposes three views which are commonly, albeit not universally, held: (i) some thought experiments are conclusive; (ii) some theories belong to science despite not being evidently and concretely amenable to empirical corroboration; (iii) the two issues are largely independent. The standpoint from which Atkinson operates is a rather strict form of empiricism, one which relies on a fairly sharp distinction between the conceptual and empirical dimensions of inquiry. My outlook is rather different: the conceptual and empirical seem to me to be intertwined, both conceptually, as suggested by Quine’s critique of logical positivism, and empirically, as revealed by the evidence provided by science itself in its daily and historical reality. Rather than take the high road, I propose to focus first on the critique to which Atkinson subjects Galileo’s thought experiment, and the lessons he draws from his analysis.. (shrink)

Assigning a positive signification to the concept of ‘ideology,’ the basic hypothesis of this paper is that both what we call social reality and what we understand by the expression social knowledge are the result of an ideological projection. In other words, it is my opinion that ideology accomplishes a double purpose: on the one hand, it actively participates in the construction of social reality; on the other hand, it also plays the role of an instrument of social knowledge. To (...) support this assertion, I advance the idea of ideological conventions that are constituent parts of the social projection of reality and that emerge as ‘landmarks’ of the processof understanding it. I provide arguments that, as long as that they are found at the level of social institutions and thus being reproduced in discourse, including symbolically – as codes, norms, rules, habits, behaviours, etc., both formal and informal –, ideological conventions are an expression of social identity, being useful in explaining and understanding social reality and its possibilities of evolving. Finally, taking into account the premise that while social knowledge is not entirely ideological, the ideological element is unavoidable in the process of configuring this knowledge (contributing in a decisive manner to the changes emerging at the societal level), I propose an integrated, interdisciplinary model of ideological analysis. (shrink)

In the New Kingdom of Granada the revolutionary period is usually analyzed in isolation, as if it was an incongruity barely linked to the past or to its own future. Therefore, explanations about the very occurrence of the political transformation discard intimate causalities, privileging instead the actions of small groups as well as external influences and accidents. Thus the main challenge for future research will be to understand this epoch of great transformations as an unexpected coincidence between a dynamic evolution (...) and an explosive juncture. In short, the task will be to place the independence on the plane of history, no longer considering it as a sphere gravitating in space. (shrink)

Most governments worldwide recognize marriage as the union only of man and woman. Especially in Europe and North America, however, there is growing support for legalization of same-sex marriages. The impending shift in marriage policy posits the supposed insignificance of sexual difference. There is thus a need for comprehensive reflection on the essential substance of sexual differences, and on the legal and social relevance of sexual complementarity. Defendersof traditional marriage must be prepared to offer reasons why society must continue to (...) recognize sexual difference as a fundamental attribute of marriage,argued in terms that carry authority and meaning in today’s post-Christian ethos. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.3 (Autumn 2009): 441–446. (shrink)

The generally agreed upon principle that legality and ethics can come apart is frequently overlooked in our professional ethics education and decision-making procedures. The crux of the issue is that we teach in our philosophy classes that the law can sometimes be unethical, but then clearly state in nursing codes of ethics that students should always follow the law. The law could no doubt give us some reason to choose action A over action B, but in professional contexts we frequently (...) treat the law as a side-constraint that limits the logical space of choices to exclude even consideration of action B. If B is the mandatory action, this in effect forces professionals to do something unethical by preventing them from ever seeing the ethical action as an option. This is a problem. Ultimately we concede that there might be an irresolvable tension in competing normative interests in ethics and the law, though we suggest that a more nuanced approach to ethical code formation could help alleviate the issue somewhat. (shrink)

Bruineberg et al. provide compelling clarity on the roles Markov blankets could (and perhaps should) play in the study of life and mind. However, here we draw attention to a further role blankets might play: as a hypothesis about cognition itself. People and other animals may use blanket-like representations to model the boundary between themselves and their worlds.

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

The Solitary Following and leading are hateful to me. Obey? No! But lead? No way! Who's not himself a terror frightens no one. And only the terror-maker can lead others. To me it's hateful even to lead myself! I love it, like creatures of wood and sea, For a good little while to lose myself, In lovely madness meditatively sit, From the distance homeward entice myself, Me myself to me myself—seducing.1.

In this paper, I contend that a crucial historical precedent for contemporary interest in virtue epistemology is to be found in Leibniz-Wolffian rationalism. For philosophers from Wolff to Lessing, epistemology was thoroughly normative; that is, the task of epistemology was not to describe knowledge, but set rules for the amelioration of knowledge. Such a normative stance was transferred into cognate disciplines, such as aesthetics, as well. I further argue that after Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy in 1781 strands of this (...) normative epistemology lived on in both Schiller’s aesthetics and Maimon’s reworking of transcendental idealism. Finally, I suggest some provisional reasons for considering Kant’s epistemology a break with this tradition. (shrink)

The successful specification of the definition of art has so far proven elusive. Discouraged by repeated failed attempts at the definition of art, numerous anti-essentialist philosophers have suggested alternative accounts. In this paper I defend the project of the definition of art by arguing that the strongest anti-essentialist arguments are unsuccessful in ruling out either the possibility or the value of a definition of art. Based on my observations regarding a blind spot in Wittgenstein’s anti-essentialist “look and see” approach, I (...) conclude by suggesting a new avenue of investigation for essentialism regarding art. (shrink)