Ensayos de Metafísica, Ética y Poética. Los argumentos de Aristóteles contiene una colección de ensayos que pasan revista a cuestiones como la argumentación de los principios, la naturaleza del conocimiento moral y el valor de otras formas de conocimiento o racionalidades alternas.En la primera parte del libro se intenta mostrar que el sentido común es el modus operandi de Aristóteles. Los ensayos recogidos en la segunda parte tratan con la argumentación en una ciencia en particular: la ética. Finalmente, el largo (...) artículo Metáfora, definición y obscuridad en Aristóteles conforma toda la tercera parte. El texto es un escrutinio de la función de la metáfora analógica dentro de la metafísica y ciencia aristotélica, para determinar si es un tipo de conocimiento válido y analizable. (shrink)

Background The consistency of codes governing disclosure of terminal illness to patients and families in Islamic countries has not been studied until now. Objectives To review available codes on disclosure of terminal illness in Islamic countries. Data source and extraction Data were extracted through searches on Google and PubMed. Codes related to disclosure of terminal illness to patients or families were abstracted, and then classified independently by the three authors. Data synthesis Codes for 14 Islamic countries were located. Five codes (...) were silent regarding informing the patient, seven allowed concealment, one mandated disclosure and one prohibited disclosure. Five codes were silent regarding informing the family, four allowed disclosure and five mandated/recommended disclosure. The Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences code was silent on both issues. Conclusion Codes regarding disclosure of terminal illness to patients and families differed markedly among Islamic countries. They were silent in one-third of the codes, and tended to favour a paternalistic/utilitarian, family-centred approach over an autonomous, patient-centred approach. (shrink)

This book identifies the physical, emotional, and psychological adjustments many boys have been forced to navigate alone during their most vulnerable, formative years and provides adjustments that adults must make to assist them in these transitions.

In Spring 2008 I went textbook-free. I linked all and only the readings for my Contemporary Analytic Philosophy course to the class website, along with powerpoints, handouts and external links to online resources.

Kant's philosophy of arithmetic / by Charles Parsons -- Visual geometry / by James Hopkins -- The proof-structure of Kant's transcendental deduction / by Dieter Henrich -- Imagination and perception / by P.F. Strawson -- Kant's categories and their schematism / by Lauchlan Chipman -- Transcendental arguments / by Barry Stroud -- Strawson on transcendental idealism / by H.E. Matthews -- Self-knowledge / by W.H. Walsh -- The age and size of the world / by Jonathan Bennett.

In 'Een handvol filosofen' staan de filosofen centraal die sinds de oprichting van de Vrije Universiteit in 1880 aan deze instelling verbonden zijn geweest. Het gaat hierbij niet alleen om de inhoud van hun werk, maar ook om de personen zelf. Er waren filosofiedocenten die zich met de universiteit identificeerden en zich volledig konden ontplooien. Er waren er echter ook voor wie dit niet gold, die geïsoleerd of in gewetensnood raakten. Veel filosofiestudenten waren actief betrokken bij wat er in hun (...) faculteit gebeurde. Zij namen initiatieven, protesteerden soms tegen de gang van zaken en kozen partij in conflictsituaties. Sinds het eind van de jaren zestig van de twintigste eeuw verloor de Vrije Universiteit geleidelijk haar christelijk karakter. Tegenwoordig werken alle stafleden vanuit hun eigen motivatie mee aan een hoofdzakelijk seculier geworden universiteit, die ruimte biedt voor religieuze en levensbeschouwelijke diversiteit. (shrink)

Preferentism is the doctrine that "in deciding what is good and what is bad for a given individual, the ultimate criterion can only be his own wants and his own preferences." If preferentism is true then it would seem to follow that modifying a person's preferences so that they are satisfied by what is on offer should be as good as improving the circumstances of her life to satisfy her preferences. Our intuitive response to stories of life-adjustment through brainwashing, psychosurgery (...) and the like suggests otherwise. I sketch a broadly preferentist account drawing upon Sen's (non-preferentist) capability approach that resists such putative counterexamples. (shrink)

When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of Enron and corruption in the tobacco industry, to sales of the defective Ford Pinto, the downfall (...) of Bernard Madoff, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the authors investigate the nature of ethical failures in the business world and beyond, and illustrate how we can become more ethical, bridging the gap between who we are and who we want to be. Explaining why traditional approaches to ethics don't work, the book considers how blind spots like ethical fading--the removal of ethics from the decision--making process--have led to tragedies and scandals such as the Challenger space shuttle disaster, steroid use in Major League Baseball, the crash in the financial markets, and the energy crisis. The authors demonstrate how ethical standards shift, how we neglect to notice and act on the unethical behavior of others, and how compliance initiatives can actually promote unethical behavior. They argue that scandals will continue to emerge unless such approaches take into account the psychology of individuals faced with ethical dilemmas. Distinguishing our "should self" from our "want self", the authors point out ethical sinkholes that create questionable actions. Suggesting innovative individual and group tactics for improving human judgment, Blind Spots shows us how to secure a place for ethics in our workplaces, institutions, and daily lives. (shrink)

Ideologues of the American Dream doctrine assume that state intervention aimed at providing social safety nets for citizens and reducing economic inequality, restricts freedom and undermines individual opportunity. This assumption is the result of empirical misinformation and, more fundamentally, a conceptual mistake. Robust empirical data indicate that economic equality, far from stifling initiative or undermining opportunity, is conducive to social mobility.

This new anthology offers a wide selection of readings addressing the contemporary moral issues that arise from the division between the Global North and South—“the problem of the color-line” that W.E.B. Du Bois identified at the beginning of the twentieth century and which, on a scale that Du Bois could not have foreseen, is the problem of the twenty-first. The book is interdisciplinary in scope. In addition to standard topical essays in ethical theory by philosophers such as Anthony Appiah, Martha (...) Nussbaum, and Peter Singer, it contains essays from economists such as Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Thomas DeGregori, as well as current empirical data from the World Bank, IMF, United Nations, and other sources. (shrink)

André Gallois argues that individuals that undergo fission are on some occasions identical, but on others distinct. Occasional identity however, is metaphysically costly. I argue that we can get all the benefits of occasional identity without the metaphysical costs. On the proposed account, the names of ordinary material objects refer indeterminately to stages that belong to reference classes determined by the context of utterance or temporal adverbs. In addition, temporal markers indicating the perspective from which we count objects and assign (...) properties to them determine how many count and what is true of them. So, as Gallois holds, the truth value of claims about what is true at a time may change over time and, where fission or fusion occur, does change. The current account, however, secures this result without commitment to occasional identity: reference, predication and counting are “occasional”; identity is not. (shrink)

Representatives from eight European countries compared the legal, ethical and professional settings within which decision making for neonates takes place. When it comes to limiting treatment there is general agreement across all countries that overly aggressive treatment is to be discouraged. Nevertheless, strong emphasis has been placed on the need for compassionate care even where cure is not possible. Where a child will die irrespective of medical intervention, there is widespread acceptance of the practice of limiting aggressive treatment or alleviating (...) suffering even if death may be hastened as a result. Where the infant could be saved but the future outlook is bleak there is more debate, but only two countries have tested the courts with such cases. When it comes to the active intentional ending of life, the legal position is standard across Europe; it is prohibited. However, recognising those intractable situations where death may be lingering and unpleasant, Dutch paediatricians have reported that they do sometimes assist babies to die with parental consent. Two cases have been tried through the courts and recent official recommendations have set out standards by which such actions may be assessed. (shrink)

St. Thomas is usually thought to have rejected abortion and euthanasia as murder (viz, the statement of The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "On Procured Abortion"). By going back to Aquinas' own words I show that this is mistaken: that he explicitly states abortion prior to a certain point of fetal development to be non-murderous and that his position, when consistently developed, allows for euthanasia under analogous circumstances. These claims are argued by presenting an analytical expose of (...) Aquinas’ metaphysics of man and of human ontogenesis. The implications of this for current bioethical concerns are sketched briefly. (shrink)

This collection of previously unpublished essays addresses a number of issues arising out of philosophical controversies over the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas. Issues addressed include the form of a moral dilemma; the paradoxes a moral dilemma is said to entail; the question of whether a moral dilemma must exhibit inconsistency; the role of intractable circumstances in occasioning moral dilemmas; and the plausibility of supposing that there might be rational ways of addressing moral dilemmas in practice. The contributors, writing from (...) a number of widely differing points of view, include Simon Blackburn, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Alan Donagan, Terrance McConnell, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Mary Mothersill, Norman Dahl, David Brink, Peter Railton, Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Christopher Gowans, and H.E. Mason. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of scientific objectivity for a relativist theory of evidence. It briefly reviews the character and shortcomings of empiricist and wholist treatments of theory acceptance and objectivity and argues that the relativist account of evidence developed by the author in an earlier essay offers a more satisfactory framework within which to approach questions of justification and intertheoretic comparison. The difficulty with relativism is that it seems to eliminate objectivity from scientific method. Reconceiving objectivity as a function (...) of the social character of science, rather than of individually practiced methods, allows us to claim that science is objective even if relativism is true, and provides a more realistic account of scientific objectivity than is possible on either the empiricist or the wholist accounts. (shrink)

This article highlights the systematic impact of experienced and implicit affect on the intensity of mental effort. The key argument is that both consciously experienced affect and implicitly activated affect knowledge can influence responses in the cardiovascular system reflecting effort intensity by informing individuals about task demand—the key variable determining resource mobilization. According to the motivational intensity theory, effort rises with experienced demand as long as success is possible and the necessary effort is justified. Twenty-five years of programmatic research have (...) provided clear evidence that both consciously experienced affect and implicitly activated affect knowledge systematically influence the intensity of effort. Importantly, affect's impact on effort is moderated by task context variables, like objective task difficulty, incentive, and other general boundary conditions. (shrink)

A realistic axiomatic formulation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics for a single microsystem with spin is presented, from which the most important theorems of the theory can be deduced. In comparison with previous formulations, the formal aspect has been improved by the use of certain mathematical theories, such as the theory of equipped spaces, and group theory. The standard formalism is naturally obtained from the latter, starting from a central primitive concept: the Galilei group.

An exposition of some basic principles of a Weltanschauung heavily influenced by the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, together with some enthusiastic reflections on art, education, and contemporary life.--L. H. E.