The aim of this essay is to analyze the ideas about commercial society among Spanish and Spanish American intellectuals from the second half of the eighteenth century to the first decades of the following century. Special attention is paid to some relevant concepts like “amor propio” or “interés”. We are also specially interested in the knowledge of political economy and its moral implications for the idea of commercial society. My proposal is to consider the possibilities of a Catholic enlightenment as (...) the expression of the combination of some intrinsic principles of the enlightened thought with Catholic confessionalism. This is significant not only for the understanding of the enlightenment in the Spanish World but also for a correct interpretation of the first constitutionalism. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendemos dar cuenta de la posición que destacados intelectuales hispanos de mediados/finales del siglo XVIII y de principios del XIX sostuvieron respecto de la denominada “sociedad comercial”, a partir de lo que se entendía como su motor esencial: el “amor propio” o “interés “. Una sociedad comercial y una ciencia que le era propia, la “economía política” que contenía una amplia consideración moral, que nos interesa especialmente. Y, precisamente de resultas de la compatibilización que dichos intelectuales desarrollaron (...) de este principio compartido y esencial de las diversas ilustraciones con la confesionalidad católica propia de la Monarquía hispánica, primero, y de la Nación Católica, después, creemos posible hablar de la existencia en el conjunto del Atlántico hispano de una Ilustración católica que tendría un papel destacado en tanto que Ilustración pero también como presupuesto explicativo del peculiar constitucionalismo hispano. Palabras-clave: Ilustración católica, catolicismo ilustrado, interés, amor propio, religión, sociedad comercial, epistemología sensista. (shrink)

En la antropología cultural contemporánea cada vez son más frecuentes las cuestiones ontológicas. Bajo el lema “tomarse en serio al otro”, ya no se habla de las culturas como representaciones del mismo mundo, sino de mundos ontológicamente distintos. Los antropólogos de este giro ontológico tratan de derribar las asunciones representativas de la antropología cultural, consideradas como metafísica tácita. En este movimiento metodológico, la ontología ha dejado el ámbito filosófico para ser considerada un campo de comparación etnográfica. En este artículo presento (...) la contradicción interna de este movimiento, indicando que el giro ontológico de la antropología contemporánea no es sólo una contribución metodológica, sino un régimen de pensamiento que no abandona el viejo sueño de una metafísica no representativa. (shrink)

Should people be assisted to die or be given euthanasia when they are suffering from terminal medical conditions? Should they be assisted to die when they are suffering but do not have a ‘diagnosable medical illness?’ What about assisted dying for psychiatric conditions? And is there a difference morally between assisted suicide, voluntary active euthanasia and voluntary passive euthanasia?These are deep questions directly addressed or in the background of the productive discussion between Varelius and Young.1 ,2 Their focus is whether (...) doctors should assist people to die who are ‘tired of life’ and experiencing ‘existential suffering’. An example was Edward Brongersma, an 86-year-old man, who was tired of life but with no serious medical condition, who was assisted by Dr Philip Sutorius to commit suicide in 1998. In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that this was wrong because "edical expertise, by its nature, does not extend to questions and complaints that do not have a sick- ness or ailment—mental or physical—as their source.3"Sutorius was convicted, but not punished.Robert Young, considering this case, concurs, concluding, "a physician may justifiably consider that an individual who is ‘tired of life’ should consult a non-medical, professional counsellor, and if that produces no change in outlook, choose suicide. Outside Switzerland, an individual who makes that choice has to then be determined enough to do so unassisted .2"I will argue that there is, within current medical ethics and human rights, a method of assisted suicide which could fall within the limits of the law. But first I will review some recent cases involving requests for dying. I will then discuss an alternative which some may argue addresses these cases, and those of …. (shrink)

We examine the philosophical and ethical issues associated with conjoined twins and their surgical separation. In cases in which there is an extensive sharing of organs, but nevertheless two distinguishable functioning brains, there are a number of philosophical and ethical challenges. This is because such conjoined twins: 1. give rise to puzzles concerning our identity, about whether we are identical to something psychological or biological;2. force us to decide whether what matters from an ethical point of view is the biological (...) life of our organisms or the existence of our consciousness or mind; 3. raise questions concerning when, if ever, it is morally acceptable to sacrifice one of us to save another;4. force us to reflect on the conditions for ownership of organs and the justification of removal of organs for transplantation which causes the death of the donor; 5. raise questions about who should take decisions about life-risking treatments when this cannot be decided by patients themselves.We examine and suggest answers to these questions. (shrink)

I argue that pregnant women have a duty to refrain from behaviours or to allow certain acts to be done to them for the sake of their foetus if the foetus has a reasonable chance of living and being in a harmed state if the woman does not refrain from those behaviours or allow those things to be done to her. There is a proviso: that her refraining from acting or allowing acts to be performed upon her does not significantly (...) harm her. This duty does not presuppose that the foetus is a person. It is grounded on principles of respect for the interests of sentient beings and prevention of harm to future individuals. I give an argument for a general duty of easy rescue. (shrink)

I contrast Robert Veatch's recent liberal vision of medical decision‐making with a more rationalist liberal model. According to Veatch, physicians are biased in their determination of what is in their patient's overall interests in favour of their medical interests. Because of the extent of this bias, we should abandon the practice of physicians offering what they guess to be the best treatment option. Patients should buddy up with physicians who share the same values —‘deep value pairing’. The goal of choice (...) is maximal promotion of patient values. I argue that if subjectivism about value and valuing is true, this move is plausible. However, if objectivism about value is true — that there really are states which are good for people regardless of whether they desire to be in them — then we should accept a more rationalist liberal alternative. According to this alternative, what is required to decide which course is best is rational dialogue between physicians and patients, both about the patient's circumstances and her values, and not the seeking out of people, physicians or others, who share the same values. Rational discussion requires that physicians be reasonable and empathic. I describe one possible account of a reasonable physician. (shrink)

(2001). The Fiction of 'Undue Inducement': Why Researchers Should Be Allowed to Pay Participants Any Amount of Money for Any Reasonable Research Project. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 1g-3g.

Criminal behaviour is but one behavioural tendency for which a genetic influence has been suggested. Whilst this research certainly raises difficult ethical questions and is subject to scientific criticism, one recent research project suggests that for some families, criminal tendency might be predicted by genetics. In this paper, supposing this research is valid, we consider whether intervening in the criminal tendency of future children is ethically justifiable. We argue that, if avoidance of harm is a paramount consideration, such an intervention (...) is acceptable when genetic selection is employed instead of genetic enhancement. Moreover, other moral problems in avoiding having children with a tendency to criminal behaviour, such as the prospect of social discrimination, can also be overcome. (shrink)

One objection to embryonic stem (ES) cell research is that it ‘cannibalizes’ human beings, that is, kills some human beings to benefit others. I grant for argument’s sake that the embryo is a person. Nonetheless, killing it may be justified. I show this through the Embryonic Stem Cell Lottery. Whether killing a person is justified depends on: (1) whether innocent people at risk of being killed for ES cell research also stand to benefit from the research and (2) whether their (...) overall chances of living are higher in a world in which killing and ES cell research is conducted. I call this kind of killing ‘risk reductive.‘. (shrink)

Over the past 10 years, John Harris has made important contributions to thinking about distributive justice in health care. In his latest work, Harris controversially argues that clinicians should stop prioritising patients according to prognosis. He argues that the good or benefit of health care is providing each individual with an opportunity to live the best and longest life possible for him or her. I call this thesis, opportunism. For the purpose of distribution of resources in health care, Harris rejects (...) welfarism (the thesis that the good of health care is well-being) and argues that utilitarianism in general may lead to de facto discrimination against groups of people needing health care. I argue that well-being is a superior theory of the good of health care to Harris' opportunism. Harris' concerns about utilitarianism can be better addressed by: (i) relating justice more closely to reasons for action; (ii) by conceptualising the relationship between reasons for action and the value of the consequences of those actions as a plateau rather than scalar relationship. Justice can be understood as satisfying as many equally rational claims on resources as possible. The rationality of a person's claim on health resources turns on the strength of that person's reasons to promote certain health-related states of affairs. I argue that the strength of that reason does not track the expected value of that state of affairs in a fully scalar fashion. Rather a person can have most reason to promote some state of affairs, even though he or she could promote other more valuable states of affairs. Thus there can be equal reason for a distributor of public resources to save either of two people, even though one will have a better and more valuable life. This approach, while addressing many of Harris' concerns about utilitarianism, does not imply that doctors should give up prioritising patients according to prognosis altogether, but it does allow that patients with lower but reasonable prognosis should have a share of public resources. (shrink)

Around a third of men worldwide are circumcised. It is probably the most commonly performed surgical procedure. Circumcision is also one of the oldest forms of attempted human enhancement. It is and has been done for religious, social, aesthetic and health reasons.Circumcision has a variety of benefits and risks, many of which are discussed in this issue. There is some dispute about the magnitude and likelihood of these benefits and risks. Some argue that the risks outweigh the benefits and circumcision (...) should not be performed on children who are not competent to make their own decisions.If the risks of circumcision clearly outweighed the benefits, great harm has been done and is being done globally through this procedure. Around a third of all men would have been harmed. This is an extraordinary public health injury. Presumably, many would be entitled to compensation.The fact that relatively few people think that the situation is as bad as this indicates that most people implicitly believe that circumcision is not generally a significant harm, if a harm at all. One might thus conclude either that: It is not clear from existing evidence whether the risks of properly performed circumcision outweigh the benefits, or vice versa.Or 2. If circumcision is against the interests of an infant or young child, it is only mildly so.In general, people should make their own decisions about body modification and human enhancement when this is possible. Such an approach speaks in favour of waiting until a child becomes an adult to make his or her own decision about circumcision. And procedures which are not clearly in a child's interests should not be performed on that child. However, religious …. (shrink)

Social relationships are essential for humans; neglecting our social needs can reduce wellbeing or even lead to the development of more severe issues such as depression or substance dependency. Although essential, some individuals face major challenges in forming and maintaining social relationships due to the experience of social anxiety. The burden of social anxiety can be reduced through accessible assessment that leads to treatment. However, socially anxious individuals who seek help face many barriers stemming from geography, fear, or disparities in (...) access to systems of care. But recent research suggested digital behavioral markers as a way to deliver cheap and easily accessible digital assessment for social anxiety: As earlier work shows, players with social anxiety show similar behaviors in virtual worlds as in the physical world, including tending to walk farther around other avatars and standing farther away from other avatars. The characteristics of the movement behavior in-game can be harnessed for the development of digital behavioral markers for the assessment of social anxiety. In this paper, we investigate whether implicit as well as explicit digital behavioral markers, proposed by prior work, for social anxiety can be used for predicting the level of social anxiety. We show that both, explicit and implicit digital behavioral markers can be harnessed for the assessment. Our findings provide further insights about how game-based digital behavioral markers can be used for the assessment of social anxiety. (shrink)

Explaining socio-economic phenomena is one important aim of economics. There is very little agreement, however, on what precisely constitutes an adequate economic explanation. Starting from the very influential but defective ‘deductive-nomological model’ of explanation, this article describes and criticizes the major contemporary competitors for such an account (the probabilistic–causal, the mechanistic–causal and the unificationist models) and argues that none of them can by itself capture all aspects of a good explanation. When seeking to explain a socio-economic phenomenon it should therefore (...) be borne in mind that different types of explanation serve different purposes. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that there are psychological and biological constraints on our moral behaviour, rational decision-making and capacities to love. For example, low oxytocin levels can constrain our willingness to cooperate with others, and our capacity to maintain long-term loving relationships. There is also evidence that increasing iodine intake can improve a person’s general intelligence, while drugs such as Modafinil can enhance cognitive performance. Savulescu argues that we have a moral obligation to remove those constraints, and that (...) we ought to accept these methods of improving our moral behaviour, decision-making, and cognitive functioning. (shrink)

A long-debated question in the philosophy of health, and contingent disciplines, is the extent to which wise clinical practice (“clinical wisdom”) is, or could be, compatible with empirically validated medicine (“evidence-based medicine”—EBM). Here we respond to Baum-Baicker and Sisti, who not only suggest that these two types of knowledge are divided due to their differing sources, but also that EBM can sometimes even hurt wise clinical practice. We argue that the distinction between EBM and clinical wisdom is poorly defined, unsupported (...) by the methodology employed, and ultimately incorrect; crucial differences exist, we argue, not in the source of a particular piece of clinical knowledge, but in its dependability. In light of this subtle but fundamental revision, we explain how clinical wisdom and EBM are—by necessity—complementary, rather than in conflict. We elaborate on how recognizing this relationship can have far-reaching implications for the domains of clinical practice, medical education, and health policy. (shrink)

This paper is a response to John Harris’ provocative ‘Justice and Equal Opportunities in Health Care’. The aim of this short response is to locate the difference between Harris and me within a broader debate about the nature of reasons for action. I argue that Harris is appealing to a desire‐based conception of normative reasons. I highlight some of the deficiencies of a desire‐based conception of reasons, and contrast it with a value‐based account.

(2001). Justice and Healthcare: The Right to a Decent Minimum, Not Equality of Opportunity. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 1a-3a.

ABSTRACTThis paper examines how decisions to limit treatment to critically ill patients under uncertainty can be made rationally. Expected utility theory offers one way of making rational decisions under uncertainty. One problem with using this approach is that we may not know the value of each option. One rational course open is to treat until further information becomes available. However, treatment can limit the range of options open. With treatment, a patient may recover such that he no longer requires life‐supporting (...) treatment. However, his life may be not worth living. If active euthanasia of %on‐terminal’conditions is prohibited, the option of dying will no longer be available. Taking a rational‘wait and see’course may result in being trapped within an unbearable life. On the other hand, sometimes present practice‘lets nature takes its course'. Critically ill patients are allowed to die because it is believed that their lives will be not worth living. It is likely that some patients are allowed to die when there is some objective chance of worthwhile future life. This paper argues that a policy of treating critically ill patients until the nature of future options can be better evaluated, in company with an offer of subsequent euthanasia where appropriate, allows a more rational and humane approach to treatment limitation decisions under uncertainty. (shrink)

Kids can astonish with the philosophical ideas they spontaneously have, but are they really able to follow through their implications systematically and logically? And isn’t that what philosophy is essentially about, not just having interesting ideas?

The overall nature of a world congress is a combination of the perennial features of its structure and the particular character given by its host. This was the first congress to be heldin Asia in the gathering’s 108 year history, and in the grand auditorium of Seoul National University, it was as though we were being welcomed to South Korea first, and the congress second.

I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough.

It was only after the liberation in 1945 that we started to reflect and revive again our traditional philosophy. But for a long time it was neglected. Many of our universities did not teach oriental philosophy or Korean philosophy at all. We learned Heiddegger, Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant.

One does not need to hold that western philosophy, or some subset of it, is superior to other kinds in order to worry about whether different strands of philosophy can meaningfully engage in dialogue together. Nor do these worries necessarily entail any arrogance. We can always learn form others, but that does not mean we should not prioritise some encounters over others.

My father really looked forward to reading my book and then was terribly disappointed when he found it was unreadable. One of the reader’s reports for the press when it was published said ‘This book is written ordinary English – there are no symbols, little of what could be called technical terminology – but this appearance is entirely misleading’.

Environmental problems imply a dispute not only about what to do to solve them, but also about how these problems are defined or understood. These disputes involve different knowledge and approaches, and at the same time they are crossed by different interests, such as those mobilized by the private or business sectors. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the link between business strategies and knowledge asymmetries and omissions in a particular case: the socio-environmental problems related to bioethanol (...) production in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. For this purpose, an analysis of different written documents (judicial, academic, journalistic) and interviews with different social actors involved in the conflict were carried out. From the analysis, a hierarchization of the knowledge involved was observed, in which different levels of exclusion of knowledge led to certain approaches of Chemical Engineering being central to the judicial decisions taken. Likewise, different corporate strategies were recognized around the production and discussion of evidence in this conflict, highlighting the appeal to the multi-causality related to any polluting event. Finally, the phenomena of knowledge hierarchization and business strategies have worked together to dilute the company's responsibility for the reported damages and to allow the implementation of state measures that made possible the permanence of the factory in coexistence with residential dwellings. (shrink)